₦airaland Forum

fellow:
Ah hA Ah hA. You got me laughing here. I wouldn't want to start with you brova. I just feel if you have so much disdain for God, why not just let Him be?

Like i said earlier, regard the whole bible as a folktale and ignore it. I guess thats my best advice to you!!!

You have the moral right to lash out at God yet your best song of 2007 was a gospel song, Olori Oko by Infinity?

I really see no issue to take up with you dude. Good Night!!!

And so what? another of your hasty religious assumptions I guess, I appreciate the music for what it is (good music infused with a lot of traditional african percussion and local wood/wind instruments). You might possibly not expect me to listen to it but I do keep an open mind about things and I listen to all types of music that catches my fancy.

I appreciate it just the same way Angelique Kidjo's "Voodoo Child" is one of my favorite songs for the past decade and does that make me a voodoo worshipper? besides, who says that I'm lashing out at God? I'm only saying that the God/Gods of the various religions in the world are creations of men and not the real God (if he exists at all).

I also see no issue to take up with you at all except if you choose to create one.

It is good to love one's country and I dare to say that a lot of people who have relocated out in the present love their country but don't find the environment conducive at present.

It is also narrow minded to assume that the only reason why someone would relocate from his country to a foreign country must be economic. There was an interesting case of an American student couple fighting deportation from Ireland last year.

Having the experience of living outside your country only makes you better as a person helping you to understand the inherent complexities of various cultures and the challenges individuals will face in the future as globalization continues and various regional integrations take place.

It is a pity our economic situation in Nigeria makes it almost impossible for our youths to engage in GAP year related adventures like youths of other countries. Most of my Irish friends in their late 20s and early 30s have spent 1 or 2 years of their lives in one foreign country or another.

India also has a better economy and could be considered a more advanced country than Nigeria is but I am bold to say that there are more Indians in the diaspora than there are Nigerians (I can say this of Europe where I stay but anyone who stays in North America should feel free to correct me).

It is rather dumb to lump all those who have relocated outside the country together into a single group or to do the same to those who chose to stay behind.

Unlike felifeli pointed out, not all Nigerians who have travelled out of the country have found focus, some of their lives have become much worse while the reverse is the case for quite a sizable number of others.

The choice to relocate abroad should be left to the individual and what their goals are for the future, it is only unfortunate that not everyone is reasonable and rational in their analysis of issues and in making life determining decisions but at the end of the day, everyman will carry his/own cross.

fellow:
@poster

I do not know your religious beliefs and if you actually do believe in God or not but if you are a christian well i must say i am ashamed of you. Why should God come down to prove His Being? If you really are a true christian then you would realize what you just asked him to do is outrightly stupid, if you are not then i understand your plight,

Why are yu lashing out at Monicaa? what is wrong in wishing for something? even in your bible tales, didn't Elijah ask God to prove himself to the prophets of Baal? It is fanatics like you who make religion much worse than it already is, ready to pillage and plunder without any backing for their actions except for some funny beliefs passed down through hearsay and political manipulations and which have never been proven or verified by anybody.

fellow:
@ y'all atheists

I have read your various comments on this issue and i would like to point out some simple observations. If you people do not believe in God, why then do you talk about his inconsistencies and ignore the consistencies? Why do you bother about the story of creation/the tower/Noah and the Ark tales if you believe that their is no God? why do you even read about him in the first instance? Why not just regard the whole bible as a folktale (not just a part of it) and ignore its content?

Why not take up the issue with God Himself? Oh i get it He doesn't exist so that means your facts/opinions/ideas about Him should not even come up at all, The hell most of you people write God as God and not god, Why?

You are being quite myopic and not making much sense here, possibly the only book you read and comment about in your life is your bible? no wonder why you beleive so much in it,  (brainwashing you see). I would suggest you pick up other books and expand your understanding of what goes on around you.
By the way, I've written God as god now so you know I'm not scared of the sky falling on my head though I'm sure yu'll come up with some balderdash.

fellow:
The reason this thread has gone on for too long (32pages ) is because some christians are taking the pains to defend their religion. If they had ignored y'all and your comments maybe it would have been a forgotten thread and you would have looked elsewhere for the very answers that plague your souls,

Why didn't you take your own advice and not contribute at all? better my soul be plagued by a search for a true answer rather than selling myself short beleiving in bogus tales.

@poster

Because you made them demagogues and now you have to bow to the demagogues you created.
Have you asked yourself the question why you need to see a pastor in the first instance?

Pepeye:
I guess still basking in their various awards

Bad idea, they should be in the studio coming up with a follow-up to that. One or two more hits like that and I would rate them the best gospel group ever from Nigeria.
You just pointed out a major problem with most Nigerian groups, consistency we usually have only one hit wonders like KUSH et al.

Don't mind them, another reminder of the stupid superstitious relics of our society we need to get rid of.
This is a rehash of this same old story which initially made the rounds when Tinubu tried enforcing such a directive in Lagos.

That is a funny one redsun, religious hypocrisy at work again isn't it? but men, if you try that stuff in any of this fundamental muslim countries; heads will roll and I mean literarily.

What happened to those guys who did "Olori Oko"? my best Nigerian song of 2007 hands down.

bindex:
Busybein come and be my wife now that Mazaje is out of the secene, I also have a magic stick.

Haba, Bindex are yu that desperate? let her grieve for the exit of her dear Mazaje for a while first.
Your friend wey leave him wife with you don enter wahala han han!!!

@wumiabo

I'm sure you know who it is responding to your post

You have made good points which people should consider before relocating out of the country but as someone rightly pointed out, it will depend on the individual and his/her dreams, visions and goals.
I draw a comparison from Ireland where I live, it is widely known that there are more Irish people living outside of the state than inside it and this is because they experienced something similar to what we are going thru in Nigeria in the past but they have since recovered and there was a time some of the Irish in the diaspora came back home when the economy of Ireland improved.
Leaving Nigeria does not in anyway guarantee improvement in someone's life both in the now as well as in the future, like any decision taken by any person, it has its advantages and disadvantages and my problem with your post is the fact that you have pointed out only the disadvantages. It is up to each individual to weigh the two sides of the coin and make a decision which is all too often one they will have to live with for the rest of their lives.
I cannot write everything I want to put down in this post but maybe we can start up a thread on what the advantages and disadvantages are for relocating to a different country.
As to the heading of your post, this is the advice I have to give to anyone considering relocating abroad.

1. Have your immigration/residency path well laid out, you might want to familliarise yourself with various visa types and work restrictions attached to the various visa types.

2. Determine why and for how long you are relocating, is it for a while or is it a semi-permanent move?

3. Get to know more about where you are relocating to, particularly with regards to recent trends/changes in immigration policies in the country. Also find out the various routes people are taking towards residency. The primary routes I know of are:

a. Through various talent/skill needs (Medical Doctors, Psychiatrits, Nurses, IT professionals e.t.c.),

b.  Education (most countries have some sort of routes to retain those who have schooled and trained to high levels within their educational system such as Green Card in Ireland, Tier 1 in the UK e.t.c.);

c. Marriage to a national is another very popular route (you might want to be a bit careful with this as it is often murky). This is recently coming under a lot of scrutiny in most countries as the rate of abuse is causin a lot of concern in most countries.

4. Realise that you've got to be very flexible and smart, the path to your goal might not be as straight as it would have been back home and foreign countries are definitely no paradise. I have known people who started out as carers when they came to Ireland (carrying people's shit in hospitals) but are today in specialist trainings as Medical Consultants (who are assured of 6 figure salaries on completion of their training).

5. Be aware that there is a possibility of glass ceilings existing in your profession i.e. some posts are protected in favour of nationals of your country of residence and I do wonder why some people find this shocking when they relocate as I'm sure it is much worse back home where there are companies where there is a limit to what level of promotion an Hausa, Ibo or yoruba person can reasonably expect to not go beyond. What most people do, when they reach these limits is to further expand their horizons (e.g. Nigerian psychiatrists in Ireland are variously moving to Canada, Australia and New Zealand when it became apparent that the few specialist posts in psychiatry were being protected for Irish and European nationals)

6. Don't ever close the door on coming back to your country and try as much as possible to align your development in your new country of residence to your peer's development back home in Nigeria it helps whether you stay there or you decide to go back home. Also look at opportunities for starting something back home in Nigeria with your family or trusted friends back home but beware and be very careful cos we are all aware of what our people are capable of.

At the end of the day, the choice is with the individual; what we all pray for is to make the right decision at the right time.

Till we meet hopefully in March to continue our discussion further, it is me duduspace.

Infoseye:
Well to be honest MS-DOS was the best because it can not get infected by viruses or get hacked by Naughty Boys etc But cause of laziness of dos command codes Microsoft made things easier and came out with Xp to me WIndows XP Service Park 2 is the best. Vista is just for beauty and has lots of bugs to be solved.


XP is the Best!!!

This is totally wrong, I distinctly remember the Michelangelo virus (amongst a host of others) wreaking a lot of havoc on MS-DOS 4.0 when I was in secondary school and MS-DOS had no security at all because it wasn't a Network OS but when you installed Windows for Workgroups 3.1 on it, it is as porous if not even more porous than Windows 95. It didn't even have Role based access control on it.

@fyneguy

To hell with you and your pastor as well as your imaginary god, see how the innocent baby's head was banged against the floor just because that stupid demi-god of Ikotun wanted to show off on TV. I'm not convinced that baby will be totally alright. I mean WTF.

WesleyanA:
big bang theory seem comical to me for some reason. even the name makes me laugh everytime

Yeah, but ignorance is bliss right? let us all just beleive that one big man up there suddenly decided to start speaking and when it starts sounding silly, let us try to merge it as much as possible with scientific discovery and always place the imaginary big man at the limit of human knowledge. What simpletons.

FILEBE:
the best thing for those who don't believe in God is to go and die and see if BABA God wont deal with their soul. i can't still believe that some people in AFRICA are still making the european culture their way of life,if jonnny decpp doesnt believe in GOD that doesnt mean u too shouldnt believe! their culture is their culture mr man. because it is only FOOLS that does that

Why are yu saying dis? why should my life just end like that when my fellow scientists are working on the possibility of attaining immortality? You are the ones making noise about the ethical implications of cloning e.t.c but if one of your organs should fail you please don't go for stem cell treatment.

Are you not the ones who look forward to an afterlife in a place where there are streets of Gold, houses of many mansions and sugar candy rains e.t.c. If I beleived that shit then I would have gone to face any almajiri, I would have confronted Abacha without any fear and I would be the greatest daredevil you could ever think of.

It only shows you guy don't really beleive in what you're mouthing off about.

Suga4ya:
Lmao @ dudu, I'm good, It is what it is, and it's OVER, so thanks anyway.

No probs, he'll get his somewhere along the way I'm sure and you might just get an explanation/apology letter sometime in the future.

Send a second goodbye mail and number it two and if he doesn't respond send yet another one and number it three and so on and so forth.
He should have responded to ask what you are counting down to before you get to the tenth message.
If he has not responded by then and you still haven't lost interest in the whole thing, then I will recommend you go for some counselling with a shrink.

[/quote][quote author=*osisi* link=topic=214635.msg3305831#msg3305831 date=1231167292]However the exodus from Islam is not reserved to the intellectuals but also the average Muslims are finding that Islam is not the way to God but to ignorance, poverty and wars. They are leaving Islam to embrace other religions especially the Christianity.

Perhaps it is best to listen to the truth coming from the mouth of the horse. The Internet site aljazeera.net published an interview with Ahmad Al Qataani أحمد القطعاني An important Islamic cleric who said: “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity

http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina31103.htm

One sided view as usual, Olabowale wey your own statistics? if the data osisi supplied is to be beleived your Allah is living on borrowed time and will become history in about 500 years from now.
A pity, none of us will be around to witness it (except if Science somehow discovers immortality because I'm sure neither of both religions will as they are too busy battling for gullible minds and fighting each other to a standstill)

netotse:
i think i'll jst chill till people with faster internet connex download it and give us gist

Got the iso from a torrent last week, yet to install and try it out though don't have a spare computer I can gamble with at present.

@netotse

I got my Acer Aspire one for 400 euro back in October, (the 120GB HDD version) but the EEPC is much cheaper and goes for about 200 euro. I'm sure the AAOne price would have dropped by now.
I expect them to be much cheaper in Naija, particularly when the chinese guys get in on the action.

@Monicaa

Anything to offer like what? Nairaland don become selling place? okay, what have you to offer me? I might be tempted to buy but I aint doin no sellin yet. I'm also open to your advice on what you think I can sell.

Any Jihad for us to carry out in the name of Sussicorn?  All hail the ever living , part of everything Sussicorn.

I was told Sussicorn appeared in a vision to 4 guys yesterday and told them that at least 10 Nigerians will die this year. Please everyone, sussicate that no Nigerian dies this year.
He also said that NL will have more members this year, that some old members will leave and some new members will join.
He also said that some pastors will die and some new pastors will be consecrated.
That there will be more religious crisis on NL and that the atheists will wax strong but some of them will be converted to Sussicornity while the heart of some Sussicornists will wax cold e.t.c.

Somebody please  pass around an offering suitcase, no coins please and no paper denomination less than 100 bucks, Sussicorn rejoices at 1000 naira notes and accepts 100 but hates anything less than 100.

@Seth Cohen

The issue for me has never been whether the Quran, Bible, Book of Satanists or whatever spiritual book you can think of are bad(though some of them are) or that they don't have good uses e.t.c.

The truth is that mankind will be so much better for it when "most" people firstly realise that they are not true, in my discussion with some of my friends here we have come to the conclusion that "critical thinking" is mostly lacking in Nigeria (and some of the other developing countries where all these religious strife holds sway) and that we are being left behind once again in the societal evolution race.

The fact that they are not true does not imply in anyway that some of their teachings and concepts are not useful, every matured individual knows aesop's fables and the tortoise yoruba stories are not true but they do serve a purpose in character building for children and even for adults because they stress respect for others, discourage greed and other vices. Most of the religion's books make for very good moral and philosophical introspection, remember that they are also historical relics of how our societies came to be and contibute largely to the development of our legal laws as well as our understanding of right and wrong.

The problem with religion starts with the idea of an imaginary God whose decisions must not be questioned whether they are rational or not, this idea possibly started out with good intentions as societies evolved (to keep people in line) but it is no longer useful at the developmental stage we are in the present. It is subject to all sorts of abuses which do not bode well for the continued existence of our species.

I personally don't mind anyone believing in the creation of the earth by God (since science has not come up with the answer yet and nature does seem to abhor a vacumm) but I would feel so much better if each individual comes to a personal definition of who/what that God is and what role God should play in the personal life of the individual as well in his interaction with society at large rather than this follow-follow behaviour that is akin to mass hypnotism which pervades our society.

Even most of the religions claim that there is liberation in Knowledge, why then can't they face up to the truth that what they have is mostly a farce? of course, I know the answer to that (it has become so tightly woven into the fabric of society and cannot be suddenly terminated), but I do know that there is an awakening to reality albeit gradual and I can assure you that some of the children of those arguing on this forum will one day question their parents why they could have been so gullible to beleive such things (that is if the religious terrorists don't destroy mankind first) just as some of them have questioned  and mocked those who have gone before them who worshipped Ogun, Sango e.t.c.

This is not to infer in any way that the developed countries who have mostly done away with religion in their body polity are perfect societies but they have succeeded largely in empowering the individual to be responsible for his own actions and decisions rather than this mob mentality we have in Nigeria.

Yes I agree that fear kills and limits people just like the multitudes who have accepted all these false religions because of the fear of what will happen to them after they die.
Fear is really a bad thing and at the root of most of the evil in the world.

If your intention is to carry out a census of beleivers vs Atheists, I can assure you before you start that the beleivers will win by a large majority.
That is one of the main reasons why Nigeria is in such a poor state.

@Lady and Oyinda

To answer your questions jointly, did you read this part of my post? or you are going down davidylan's path of selective reading?
I beg of you, e jooo, biko,  please don't because you might lose even your treasured beliefs and become deceptive along that path.

duduspace:
I know there are christians who are scientists but the sincere ones among them have their serious doubts and are either quiet about it or see it as filling a psychological need for some people and also helping in character development for kids and immatured adults(just like aesop fables or the stories of the tortoise in yoruba folklore).

Hypocrites like our dear friend ended up creating scientology as a religion only leading to even more confusion.

Please, let us keep science and religion apart since we have so far failed in keeping government/politics apart from religion hence leading to all the katakata world over. If you want to add science join am, wetin go remain?

@Lady
You are getting emotional again, mind you I said "Most women" and not "All women" and you are very right there is nothing wrong in being emotional to the extent that it does not cloud logical reasoning. But you would agree with me that being logical is not typical women's forte(though I'm not so sure if this is inherent nature or if it is due to social conditioning).

Besides I just find it difficult handling emotional people whether it is the crying, shouting, fighting or even writing type (except I'm inducing outburst of such emotions for my own selfish purposes).

As to proving wether God dey or not, me I no know but I know that

1. Nobody can prove that he exists and if you want me to beleive in something, I beleive the burden of proof lies with you and not the other way round or to put it another way, I'm askin you not to believe in somethin no one can completely prove while you are asking me to beleive in something that no one can completely disprove.

2. Even if he exists, he is not any of these Gods that people have made in their own images to serve their purposes which are mostly political or economic.

3. Even if he exists, I don't think he wants me to worship him (just as PC manufacturers don't expect their products to worship them apart from the vain types).

4. If he exists, and is a good God (within my concept of what is good and evil) he will want the best for his creation and what we have now is definitely not the best whereas it is being attributed to God meaning that God is not Good and if he is not Good I see no reason to worship him because between you and I, I'm not even sure he will always favour those who worship him (Just read the story of Job to see what I mean, making a man go through that hell just to prove a point to another of his creations!!!).

Enough of my ramblings, I hope you catch my drift.

@Poster

And where is Roberts Liardon who wrote "I Saw Heaven" all those years ago?

Shagging his fellow man isn't he after a trip to heaven as a small boy, I'm sure you don't beleive his story anymore because he is now gay abi.

These guys might have been trippin on ecstasy, LSD, angel dust, crack or any of the common hallucinogens around when they came up with this vision.

Have you ever wondered all these visions of heaven out there are never in alignment?

I am also sure there will also be some muslims who will claim to have seen the 72 virgins waiting for them in Aljanah.

If there is anything the bible is right about, People do perish due to their lack of vision (they look but don't see, see but don't ponder, ponder but don't apply).

The chap is just rambling. A lot of these things are almost guaranteed to happen and if they do not, the idiot is just going to come out saying that they did not happen because people prayed.

flyuche:
windows 8

Make that Windows 7, have you tried the new Beta version out? it is getting really cool reviews.

Praise the lord/Allah/Krishna/Sango/ogun e.t.c. una don finish una wankfest stupid peeps come dey teach people how to speak in tongues for here.

@Mazaje
may that your 9 inches sledgehammer never go down even after plowing through Jungle, desert, savannah, mangrove and all the other fallow and depleted regions it encounters.

@Busybein
may those 2 big bulbs wey dey ya chest de do double pointer from now till kingdom come and may that your down below never lose its elasticity even after a thousand and one Mazajes don reach the 7th heaven and beyond while trying to fathom its hidden treasures.

And the people said,

Yep I would, though they can serve different purposes. You can't beat the mobility the netbook offers you but it is crap for multimedia usage.

I presently use an Acer Aspire One(I'm typin this with it while lying in bed) and I enjoy it like hell (especially when people go wow on seeing it).

Not for the elderly or vision challenged folks though, my Latvian flatmate always wonders aloud as to how I'm able to read on the small screen.

The best windows ever is always the most recent one, after service pack 2 or 3.

What a way to start the new year

25C3: Naughty Boys completely break SSL using 200 PS3s
posted Dec 30th 2008 9:40am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: cons, security hacks



A team of security researchers and academics has broken a core piece of internet technology. They made their work public at the 25th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin today. The team was able to create a rogue certificate authority and use it to issue valid SSL certificates for any site they want. The user would have no indication that their HTTPS connection was being monitored/modified.


This attack is possible because of a flaw in MD5. MD5 is a hashing algorithm; each unique file has a unique hash. In 2004, a team of Chinese researchers demonstrated creating two different files that had the same MD5 hash. In 2007, another team showed theoretical attacks that took advantage of these collisions. The team focused on SSL certificates signed with MD5 for their exploit.

The first step was doing some broad scans to see what certificate authorities (CA) were issuing MD5 signed certs. They collected 30K certs from Firefox trusted CAs. 9K of them were MD5 signed. 97% of those came from RapidSSL.

Having selected their target, the team needed to generate their rogue certificate to transfer the signature to. They employed the processing power of 200 Playstation 3s to get the job done. For this task, it’s the equivalent of 8000 standard CPU cores or $20K of Amazon EC2 time. The task takes ~1-2 days to calculate. The tricky part was knowing the content of the certificate that would be issued by RapidSSL. They needed to predict two variables: the serial number and the timestamp. RapidSSL’s serial numbers were all sequential. From testing, they knew that RapidSSL would always sign six seconds after the order was acknowledged. Knowing these two facts they were able to generate a certificate in advance and then purchase the exact certificate they wanted. They’d purchase certificates to advance the serial number and then buy on the exact time they calculated.

The cert was issued to their particular domain, but since they controlled the content, they changed the flags to make themselves an intermediate certificate authority. That gave them authority to issue any certificate they wanted. All of these ‘valid’ certs were signed using SHA-1.

If you set your clock back to before August 2004, you can try out their live demo site. This time is just a security measure for the example and this would work identically with a certificate that hasn’t expired. There’s a project site and a much more detailed writeup than this.

To fix this vulnerability, all CAs are now using SHA-1 for signing and Microsoft and Firefox will be blacklisting the team’s rogue CA in their browser products.

Don't know how these guys did it, but if this gets out, any savvy techie or group could claim the identity of any e-business outfit they wanted to without raising a flag.
This is one sorry mess and I do recall my lecturer pointing this out in my Internetwork security module during my Master's program last year.
The funny thing is, SHA1 is also subject to the same vulnerability of the "Birthday Paradox" but with a larger keyspace, I can guess the next step for these guys would be beefing up their hardware to tackle SHA1.
The internet get more and more murky with each passing day.