₦airaland Forum

WatchYourSix:
My brother used to be an athiest……and I can tell you for free that it’s just lack of encounter or some unfortunate incident that made them that way…. No one with an undoubtably encounter doubts Gods existence….. u see all these band wagon Muslims and Christians.. its just a matter of time before they become an atheist

If you want to say the Truth we all understand why and how a person becomes an atheist. And everyone born in the 70s knows that atheism was an unknown senseless thing here in Africa until around 2000s when many Africans started going to America and coming back here.

And they had already sold the tenets of atheism. So, the bad things that happened were just the reasons people used to cover their atheism especially as the atheists were trying to pretend like they are the coolest, goodest and most intelligent people. So typical follow follow, people just followed them the same way they started going to church when Christianity was reigning

And i view most religious people especially those who call themselves Christians simply because they go to church as dormant atheists.

Omoawoke:
Mention any major violence that is attached with Orunmila…

Just mention one…

I can list endless violence associated with your Jewish god..

But that’s not even enough insult, the fact that your god is a colonized version imported and forced upon your ancestors, enslaved and tortured like animals with a violence unprecedented carried upon you and your fore fathers yet you still defend them is the real insult upon injury…

You are really “ kursed “ and you don’t know it…


The two most violent religions the world has ever known remain Islam and Christianity

Are you saying that your Orunmila was not involved in the wars like the Owu War or the Osogbo war or the Ibadan-ijebu wars? Oya lie here.

And did your Orunmila people not colonise other people like the illorins and Binis?

And it is fallacious and ridiculous to say that I chose a clean foreign religion over a dirty local indigenous and naturally repulsive one that involves witchcraft and vodoo which was given to us freely without slavery.

So, stop deflecting, your Orunmila also did violence

WatchYourSix:
Baba …. God nor be like that….
Atheist are just folks that want more before they can believe….. dont be too hard on them…

Guy, it is not me that you tell about atheists. I have fought them since day one i came here and I will be against them till i die

https://www.nairaland.com/7389658/these-know-atheists-obviously-evil

https://www.nairaland.com/7480823/why-atheists-people-world-attack

https://www.nairaland.com/6852403/another-prophecy-fulfilled-atheists-haters

budaatum:
When I die, call it God's judgement too, lol.

We all know judgement when it strikes so...

SpyMaster1:
I think we're reading the same book very differently.
You're saying Solomon deliberately tried to live in a way that would make God reject him, that he wanted to prove God was "useless and dispensable," and that the whole book is his loud confession of defeat after God kicked him out. That sounds like a lot of speculation about Solomon's secret intentions and God's exact thoughts.
The text itself doesn't say any of that. The Preacher doesn't describe himself as actively fighting or mocking God. He mostly observes life "under the sun" and repeatedly concludes that everything wisdom, pleasure, wealth, work, even trying to be righteous feels like vanity (meaningless). Death equalizes everyone. Injustice is common. Nothing seems to last. He doesn't sound like a rebel trying to humiliate God. He sounds more like someone honestly describing how empty and absurd life can feel when you look at it without forcing religious meaning onto it.
The idea that this was all a big plan to "disgrace God" and that God then forced him to announce his defeat at the end feels like reading a dramatic religious story into the book. Especially since the strong "Fear God and keep His commandments, God will judge every deed" only appears right at the very end (Eccl 12:13-14). Many people see that ending as a later addition a pious frame added by editors to turn the raw skepticism into a neat moral lesson about not trying to escape God.

The power of Ecclesiastes is precisely in its honest skepticism. It doesn't read like the confession of a failed rebel who got defeated by God. It reads like someone confronting the meaninglessness of existence head-on, without easy answers. The "God will fix it with judgment" part feels more like human wishful thinking layered on afterwards to make the despair more bearable.
Atheists don't "try to disgrace God" any more than Solomon supposedly did. Many simply look at the world as it is with death, injustice, and no clear divine intervention and conclude that life often feels meaningless. Ecclesiastes captures that feeling better than most religious books.
Trying to turn the Preacher into a cautionary tale about rebelling against God and getting crushed seems to miss the raw, existential honesty that makes the book stand out.

It seems like you never heard and read about Solomon before you read ecclesiastes or you are pretending for you will not understand ecclesiastes without you first reading about Solomon to understand why he said the things he says in Ecclesiastes. And so it is no speculation.

The bible showed us his intentions and the acts he did to fulfil those intentions and from God's rejection and cast out of him, we can see that he therefore did those things with the same bad intention we all know.

So, as i said, you just want to look at ecclesiastes from the narrow view as you do not want to see the whole Truth you first saw when you declared that Ecclesiastes is written in sorrowful despair.

So now you are running from the effects of the whole of it to try to bring focus on the subjects like justice, death etc he raised in your denial. Forgetting that those subjects are also even taken care of and complimented by other writings in the bible.

So, those subjects were not your original pursuit but you yourself observed that Ecclesiastes was written depressively.

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable" - James A. Garfield

Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie." — Khaled Hosseini

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt- Mark Twain

WatchYourSix:
Baba Dey try calm down…
How piss u concern God …??

Ha egbon, some people are too ivu that there is no way that I won't be watching to see when God answers them.

I no dey like miss that kain thing. God must answer

ariesbull:
Peeing every two hours isn't good ...please check your sugar and prostate

budaatum:
It's due to spinal damage and not sugar or prostrate.

See, the Judgement of God visited him for his blasphemies.

All atheists live cusd lives

I am happy to see that God has levied judgment in budatum aka badatom aka devilatom

descartes400:
Truthspeaker that can not read properly, that one na truthspeaker?

Liar, who cannot read properly. Even you quoted that he said

"Soyinka explained that he finds traditional Orisa worship more appealing than Christianity and Islam, citing its artistic, creative, and mysterious qualities. According to him, the traditional belief system is also more open and less associated with violence compared to the other two religions."

So come lie to us and tell us whether truly Orisa worshipping people were so good that they never went to war against anybody

SpyMaster1:
But when you look at the text itself, it doesn't read like a story of someone actively fighting or trying to "break out of God's system." The Preacher mostly describes life as it appears when observed honestly "under the sun": everything wisdom, pleasure, wealth, work, even righteousness feels like vanity (meaningless vapor). Death makes no distinction between the righteous and the wicked. Injustice often wins. Cycles repeat with no real progress or lasting reward.

He doesn't sound like a man rebelliously shaking his fist at God. He sounds more like someone quietly observing a world where God (if present) seems distant and uninvolved in making things fair or meaningful. Even his recommendations are modest: just enjoy simple things like food, drink, and work while you can, because that's the best this short life offers.
The part where it suddenly concludes "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. God will judge every deed" (Eccl 12:13-14) does feel like the resolution you're describing. But many readers notice how different that ending sounds in tone and message from the long, frustrated monologue that comes before it. It comes across almost like a later pious editor or frame narrator stepping in to give the book a more orthodox, comforting close turning the raw skepticism into a lesson about not trying to escape God.
Without those final verses, the book ends exactly as it began: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." No triumphant confession that "you can't defeat God." Just honest acknowledgment that life often feels absurd and empty when faced squarely.

That's the real power of Ecclesiastes it shows how meaningless much of existence can appear when we stop forcing religious answers onto it. The idea that Solomon was secretly rebelling and then surrendered makes for a nice moral story, but the skeptical heart of the book feels more like someone simply describing reality as he saw it, without easy escapes or divine victories.

Clearly because you don't want to see the full picture for you forget that we too like God, can read his mind and see his intentions.

And his intention was to live away from God's control hence he did only the things that would naturally make God hate him and remove His Hand from him.

And we all know why he is doing that and what/where he is heading to.

For funny, why did he now not do the goodestess things that would make God over love him?

The truth is, he simply wanted to prove that God could be dispensed with especially against his father who feared God i am sure in his mind he said "too much".

So, we can all see that he planned on proving that God is useless and dispensable and that is why we see God quickly kick him out and rejected him and reffered every righteous king to his father, completely skipping him.

So, all the things you are describing was Solomon's attempt to mock, disgrace and humiliate God, exactly as atheists all tried to do. But in the end it is only failures and sorrows and mournings that they shall get.

So, it is not out of piety that it ended that way but out of a loud resounding defeat which God made him announce since Solomon planned to openly disgrace and humiliate Him.

You obviously forget that God Sees all the things we have in mind.

Errrrrrrooorrrrrrrrrr

Error rrrrrrrrfgfgoop.

Error Error Error Error

SpyMaster1:
The Preacher (Qoheleth) spends 12 chapters showing how meaningless life is "under the sun" righteous or wicked, we all die the same way, injustice thrives, and there's no clear evidence that God is actively rewarding the good or punishing the bad in this life.

If you are focusing on injustice and judgement, even we know that God truly answers the ivu, which is why we all said "the ivu people do lives long after them which later changed when people saw that God truly answered the ivu, and made us change it to "the ivu people do lives with them".

So, we all understand that Solomon is saying what we have also seen which is that at first it looks like the ivu people are getting away with their Wike ness. But we all lived to see their judgement come.

SpyMaster1:
He even questions the afterlife directly: man and beast have the same fate, same breath, same end. "Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward or the spirit of the beast goes down?" (Eccl 3:19-21).
That's not language of confident hope in rewards or resurrection.

This is not him questioning after life, rather it was him trying to shine his torch into after life to see what is in it

SpyMaster1:
Then, suddenly in the final verses, it shifts to "Fear God and keep His commandments... for God will bring every deed into judgment." Many readers notice this feels like a completely different voice — almost like a later editor added it to wrap up the bleakness with a traditional religious conclusion. Without those lines, the book ends on pure "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.".

This is why we are taught that we must come to an opinion or judgement of the summation of a matter. So, the end shows us what judgement of the whole matter Solomon came to, which is "Fear God for there is no escaping Him"!

SpyMaster1:
... The book shows a man who experiences life as if God is distant or not actively bringing justice and meaning in the everyday world "under the sun."
He tries everything wisdom, pleasure, massive wealth, women, building projects, power and still concludes over and over: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Death makes everyone equal (wise and fool, man and beast). Injustice thrives. Nothing seems to last or satisfy permanently. Even his search for meaning feels like "chasing after the wind."
It's not exactly "trying to beat God." It's more like a brutally honest experiment: "What if I live as if the things the world offers can give real, lasting fulfillment?" And he finds out they can't. The frustration and exasperation you mentioned is very clear in the text.
Where many people (including skeptics) see the "atheistic" feel is in the main body of the book the long first-person reflections. Then the very end (Eccl 12:9-14) suddenly shifts to a third-person voice that says: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. God will judge every deed."
To a lot of readers and even some biblical scholars, that ending feels like a later pious addition or frame almost like an editor saying "Okay, but let's make sure people don't walk away too discouraged." Without those last verses, the book ends exactly as it began: "All is vanity."

Your observation is well on point save one or two things I see you do not get.

On the first view, everything you have said is 100% correct. However, if you go through it Deeply, you would see that Solomon was obviously trying to remove God from his mind and life like Isreal did and he sought to live as if there was no God. Hence we see him doing everything to shake and remove God from himself hence as you rightly observed, he was trying to live as if God did not exist or was distant.

Hence, what you call "experiments" is him seeking and trying out different ways in which he thought that he may use to break out of the System and Hand of God.

And that is why you see in response God rejected him as God had done to Saul.

And that is why you see that the whole of ecclesiastics is him confessing his deep and great attempts to evade God and the failures of it, leading him to confess that in the end God, is God and that no man can defeat Him. And that his father was right, Fear God for everything man plans to do without God is vain.

So, the bottomline of ecclesiastes is that there is no escaping God's Hand and system no matter how hard you try

Is he saying that the orisa worshipping people did not do violence and go to war? Mtchew

geoworldedu:


So when your likes speak about Allah the Muslim god and call him names, that's normal. But when we speak about your own god, pig Jehovah and call him his names then it's madness

Pls just take 5 mins and sit down, think deep. Think, think, think

All over the world everyone has heard about both God and allah and yet they speak against allah because allah is ivu.

And just like bandits are spoken against everyday, it takes ma....ess to abuse Someone who has not done anything wrong. And that is why it is clear you are ma...
And ma... people end under tyres, fires and bushes.

Woman don take man moniker to yarn her rubbish.

Woman, it is always women's fallt. You people are too too even three bad that any man who has sense or wants to have sense should never think of dating any of you not to talk of making the mistake of marrying you people.

Trying to get the woman is the mistake

Ikennaford:
So what are you trying to say,,, let me tell you something, you ain't making sense,, don't call God a liar, he created djick and psssy for a reason and these 2 are meant to be together forever,, is just individual different differences that made this shits don't last,, stil with my kenyan American since i enter jand, she's loyal and supportive, Infact I'm among the 0.5 male that got the right woman,, pray you got the right, and this epistle you copied and paste is not for nigeria women, they ain't wise yet, they are stil broke and not independent enough to control men

Because you dey hooked to one wey dey make your priiq stand you tink say all is well? No worry, your eye go clear

jamesversion:
Will she pay my groom price??

Dem dey pay am dese days yet na you go still cry

DuttyChuks:
She go kpai you for house if she ever spend such an amount to marry you. No peace for this kind of adventure..

Hin kukuma no like hin life

Another stupi thread to make men soft to pity women.

She should be 93 still won't have any pity to waste

geoworldedu:
Your god himself knows and fears me. I am in the world to torment him

Clear proof God has fired His first shot of making you ma... . Might soon end like this guy

https://www.nairaland.com/4272263/man-sleeping-under-trailer-crushed#63928528

budaatum:
I so want to agree with the above because even Jesus said it was as hard as a camel entering through the eye of a needle, but note he did not say it's impossible. He even went on to teach how, by seeking and asking and knocking with all one's heart and soul and mind and being, but I guess this is too hard for most.

However, the below is a huge barrier that needs to be addressed first, because it makes humans not understand they may have a soul and heart and mind, and therefore not bother seeking and asking and knocking.



First, Adam did not "stand in a garden that has no language for “good” or “bad”" , because there was obviously language to even describe a tree that produced fruits of knowledge of good and bad as we know it, which Adam was far too ignorant to learn about because he believed he would die if he cured himself of ignorance.

Second, that fruit of knowledge of good and evil, was actually food for some who were "given every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food", and that included that of good and evil, which Adam was told not to eat but to tend in the garden for some others to eat.

I therefore put it to you that Adam was not "just living", but was a naked ignorant slave working in a Garden that belonged to those who enslaved and owned him and ensured he remained enslaved to them by keeping him ignorant so his eyes may not open so he may know and free himself from slavery.

Thankfully, the helper was not as ignorant as he was, and used her own senses to ask and knock and seek, and therefore be in a position to free herself and him from slavery from whence they became self employed and populated the earth and lived a very long time indeed, and here we are today.

If a satan can meddle in a Garden, it sure would have meddled in the writing of the book, and in human understanding too.

See, satan don come again. Dust shall be your food and paralysis

Kobojunkie:
The book instead read more like an ode to major depression. I hope you are not under some notion that those who are don't believe in a god --- not the religious atheists out there who seem instead certain of existence of no god in their delusion --- all struggle with major depression? 🥱🥱

Like you. Don't forget yours is even more than depression