₦airaland Forum

How is it possible for an entity so contradictory even to itself exist? Take a look at this article: http://www.rationalresponders.com/philosophical_proof_that_god_is_a_man_made_concept

Minawalas awlus atima. I have myopiad some of the nkonkrosis being telewired in this abunna and I cannot help but become steve wonder as to weda orientations are still being carried out before initiations. I nyokopiad an entity claiming that the Supreme Keggites club is an offshoot of the Eye confraternity. Gbasked, may your case be the case of Dogonyaro. May your down below be perpetually at alerta, may your okpesis be ascribed to my moja. To infomatua giinwa, Wole Soyinka started the Keggites club right around the time he formed the Pirates confraternity. Need I say more? And for all kariable entities, may your one finger kariability remain kponski, may u wok and neva stumble and may the gods remember you at the times of embibementation. To God I have terribly landed

You dont say!!!

Instead of all the quibblings, would it not be more enlightening or to say the least, much nicer, if those who have been given the "eye" and the "understanding" could simply explain the "contradictory" cum "offensive" passages. It appears to me that most people would greatly benefit from that instead of this childlike back and forths going around. Wont you agree?

And for the Suprimus Komradium, minawulus awala atima, this is Saf de saf. Chief Ajo nmuo the first of Ilya Engine. XZY safesis raised to power 11. May you all walk and neva stumble. Minawulus Awala, I have bookarized the myopic nkonkrosis tapped as to the resemblance of the Supreme Ikpaladun to some Ohunamboyic Ikpulutus. And I am compelled to juwapia their coconuts by the powers invested on me. To set the record straight, at no time has the Supreme Igbaladun been associated even remotely, to cultism of whatever nature or of whatever name so called. I should know, I am a scef. And because the gods are wise, I have tasted and led an Ohunamboyic Ikpulutus as well as the Supreme Igbaladun, so I know the difference between both. I wish to point out that the Kegites klub is a social organisation dedicated to the unification of Africans and the promotion of the African culture and values. Unity in Diversity is our motto.

Having said that, I will let the issue rest. And to you all kariable entities, may you all walk and neva stumble. May your one finger kariability remain kponski, may you embibe till infinity. May your down belows always bring water but most importantly, may your days be long. By the powers invested on me, I declare your one finger kariability eternally gbaski. To God I have terribly landed.

@Olabowale, you are absolutely right. It is exactly the same thing. Now if the god of the christians and that of the moslems is subjecting women to mockery, do you think it fair of him?

Very nice. Where's the evidence supporting the said existence? Would you like to point some out to us?

liar!!!!

This is interesting. Now why would anybody want to reject satan's lies against Jesus Christ? I thought he was all powerful and could very well defend himself? It seems to me that it would be over-kill to try defending Jesus, who in the scriptures has enough powers to do for himself what he sees fit.

Huh? Those ones were not inspired of God as well? I thought all scripture was.

Accounts Multiply Of Muslims Who Have Encountered YAHUSHUA (Jesus Christ) In Unsual Dreams

Is it possible they were hallucinating. You never know with all these drugs flying about this days. Could make people see "things".
Olabowale

@Orikinla: Would you ever stop? These lies are just too blatant. You seem to be obsessed with Islam. Focus on your religion, if it is truly that you are achristian. Even some of the christians, the protestants do not believe that Roman Catholics are christians. Yet, the Roman catholic sect was where the protestant sect broke away from.

Olabowale, that was too direct a hit. I thought what you would have done would be to disprove what the gentleman said with tangible proof. I dont see that he attacked islam per se.

We can understand the condition of the Blacks, who are decendants of former slaves. Afterall, the slavery affected Muslim part of Africa just as well.

Which Africans are decendants of former slaves? African Americans or just Africans? Did you ever do elementary history?

Mazaje

there are soo many flaws and confucion in christianity too why don't u try to correct that?

I agree with you completely. So are there in islam. In fact both of them and any other sort of organised religion is so contradictory as to be laughable.

Babyosisi

Remember I told you earlier no one who has tasted of the saving grace of Christ can marry a Muslim or be one. A nominal church goer can.

What is wrong with a christian marrying a moslem. I thought christian teaches non segregation. Seems to me you are promoting it here.

Orikinla

Let me just inform you that I am looking for those seven female Muslim students who attacked and nearly killed two female Christian students at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) to bring them to justice.

hmm, you be police?

All the atrocities of Muslims in Nigeria will stop and if they don't repent they will pay dearly for their crimes.

What are they repenting of? I thought they already repented and joined islam?

Have you ever been to Northern Nigeria and see how Islam has made the Hausas and Hausa Fulanis to look and live like dogs on the streets?
Little girls are forced into marriage and raped by old men who claim to be their husbands and hundreds of them are suffering and dying from VVF and how many Muslims are medical doctors in Nigeria to treat the millions of Muslims in Nigeria.

I dont see where islam teaches people to live like dogs on the streets, individual communual cultures has nothing to do with the teachings of a particular religion. Islamism is not limited to Hausa moslems in Nigeria and I dont find elsewhere where moslems live like dogs on the streets. About children being forced into marriage and rapped, I dont see where islam teaches that as well. Can we forget sentiments and research our responses carefully before posting irresponsible articles?

Lest I forget all the Muslims who attacked and murdered innocent Christians in Northern Nigeria must be brought to justice. By peace or by force.

And I thought christianity preaches forginess and love for your enemies.

N.B:
I won't be online tomorrow until Sunday I will be away and where I am going to, there is no power or water supply. And no modern toilet.

That is your personal business.

Olabowale

You should know that the fire of Hell is meant to punish. It is incomparable to the fire that we have on this earth.

Una don carry come again o!! What is this hell fire business again?

Very interesting article from http://www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm

"Around the world over the centuries, much has been written about religion, its meaning, its relevance and contribution to humanity. In the West particularly, sizable tomes have been composed speculating upon the nature and historical background of the main character of Western religions, Jesus Christ. Many have tried to dig into the precious few clues as to Jesus's identity and come up with a biographical sketch that either bolsters faith or reveals a more human side of this godman to which we can all relate. Obviously, considering the time and energy spent on them, the subjects of Christianity and its legendary founder are very important to the Western mind and culture.
The Controversy

Despite all of this literature continuously being cranked out and the significance of the issue, in the public at large there is a serious lack of formal and broad education regarding religion and mythology, and most individuals are highly uninformed in this area. Concerning the issue of Christianity, for example, the majority of people are taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is that some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others do not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident in this field today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may seem to the general populace, the most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed.

Although this debate may not be evident from publications readily found in popular bookstores¹, when one examines this issue closely, one will find a tremendous volume of literature that demonstrates, logically and intelligently, time and again that Jesus Christ is a mythological character along the same lines as the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian or other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths rather than historical figures². Delving deeply into this large body of work, one uncovers evidence that the Jesus character is based upon much older myths and heroes from around the globe. One discovers that this story is not, therefore, a historical representation of a Jewish rebel carpenter who had physical incarnation in the Levant 2,000 years ago. In other words, it has been demonstrated continually for centuries that this character, Jesus Christ, was invented and did not depict a real person who was either the "son of God" or was "evemeristically" made into a superhuman by enthusiastic followers³.
History and Positions of the Debate

This controversy has existed from the very beginning, and the writings of the "Church Fathers" themselves reveal that they were constantly forced by the pagan intelligentsia to defend what the non-Christians and other Christians ("heretics"⁴ alike saw as a preposterous and fabricated yarn with absolutely no evidence of it ever having taken place in history. As Rev. Robert Taylor says, "And from the apostolic age downwards, in a never interrupted succession, but never so strongly and emphatically as in the most primitive times, was the existence of Christ as a man most strenuously denied."⁵ Emperor Julian, who, coming after the reign of the fanatical and murderous "good Christian" Constantine, returned rights to pagan worshippers, stated, "If anyone should wish to know the truth with respect to you Christians, he will find your impiety to be made up partly of the Jewish audacity, and partly of the indifference and confusion of the Gentiles, and that you have put together not the best, but the worst characteristics of them both."⁶ According to these learned dissenters, the New Testament could rightly be called, "Gospel Fictions."⁷

A century ago, mythicist Albert Churchward said, "The canonical gospels can be shown to be a collection of sayings from the Egyptian Mythos and Eschatology."⁸ In Forgery in Christianity, Joseph Wheless states, "The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their pretended dates."⁹ Those who concocted some of the hundreds of "alternative" gospels and epistles that were being kicked about during the first several centuries C.E. have even admitted that they had forged the documents.¹⁰ Forgery during the first centuries of the Church's existence was admittedly rampant, so common in fact that a new phrase was coined to describe it: "pious fraud."¹¹ Such prevarication is confessed to repeatedly in the Catholic Encyclopedia.¹² Some of the "great" church fathers, such as Eusebius¹³, were determined by their own peers to be unbelievable liars who regularly wrote their own fictions of what "the Lord" said and did during "his" alleged sojourn upon the earth.¹⁴
The Proof

The assertion that Jesus Christ is a myth can be proved not only through the works of dissenters and "pagans" who knew the truth - and who were viciously refuted or murdered for their battle against the Christian priests and "Church Fathers" fooling the masses with their fictions - but also through the very statements of the Christians themselves, who continuously disclose that they knew Jesus Christ was a myth founded upon more ancient deities located throughout the known ancient world. In fact, Pope Leo X, privy to the truth because of his high rank, made this curious declaration, "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us!"¹⁵ (Emphasis added.) As Wheless says, "The proofs of my indictment are marvellously easy."
The Gnostics

From their own admissions, the early Christians were incessantly under criticism by scholars of great repute who were impugned as "heathens" by their Christian adversaries. This group included many Gnostics, who strenuously objected to the carnalization of their deity, as the Christians can be shown to have taken many of the characteristics of their god and godman from the Gnostics, meaning "Ones who know," a loose designation applied to members of a variety of esoteric schools and brotherhoods. The refutations of the Christians against the Gnostics reveal that the Christian godman was an insult to the Gnostics, who held that their god could never take human form."

Footnotes:

(1)
In the '80s this controversy erupted once again when GA Wells published Did Jesus Exist? and later The Historical Evidence for Jesus, both of which sought to prove that Jesus is a nonhistorical character. An attempt to repudiate Wells was made by Ian Wilson in Jesus: The Evidence, an entire book written to establish that Jesus did exist. (There is a chapter titled, "Did Jesus Even Exist?," which in itself immediately places a possibly hitherto unknown doubt in the reader's mind.) It should be noted that no such book would be needed if the existence of Jesus Christ as a historical figure were a proven fact accepted by all.

(2)
As regards the work of Erich von Daniken, Zecharia Sitchin and others, it should be understood that few of the stories of godmen can be taken literally to reveal actual superhuman "masters" or alien presences and influences. Most of these characters are, to learned mythologists, clearly myths. (See below)

(3)
"Evemerism," named after Evemeras, a 4th Century B.C.E. Greek philosopher who developed the idea that, rather than being mythological creatures as was accepted by the reigning intellectuals, the gods of old were in fact historical characters, kings, emperors and heroes whose exploits were then deified. Evemerists have put forth a great deal of literature attempting to prove that Jesus was a great Jewish reformer and revolutionary who threatened the status quo and thus had to be put to death. Unfortunately for historicizers, no historian of his purported time even noticed this "great reformer." In Ancient History of the God Jesus, Dujardin states, "This doctrine [Evemerism] is nowadays discredited except in the case of Jesus. No scholar believes that Osiris or Jupiter or Dionysus was an historical person promoted to the rank of a god, but exception is made only in favour of Jesus. . . .It is impossible to rest the colossal work of Christianity on Jesus, if he was a man." The standard Christian response to the Evemerists has been that no such Jesus, stripped of his miracles and other supernatural attributes, could ever "have been adored as a god or even been saluted as the Messiah of Israel." (Dujardin) This response is quite accurate: No man could have caused such a hullabaloo and hellish fanaticism, the product of which has been the unending spilling of blood. The crazed "inspiration" that has kept the Church afloat merely confirms the mythological origins of this tale. "The general assumption concerning the canonical gospels is that the historic element was the kernel of the whole, and that the fables accreted round it; whereas the mythos, being pre-extant, proves the core of the matter was mythical, and it follows that the history is incremental. . . . It was the human history that accreted round the divinity, and not a human being who became divine." (Massey, The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ, henceforth, "MC" The bottom line is that when one removes all the elements of those preceding deities and myths that contributed to the formation of this Jewish god-man - which is what Evemerists insist on doing - there is nothing historical left to point to. As Massey says, ". . . a composite likeness of twenty different persons merged in one . . . is not anybody." (MC)

(4)
"Those who denied the humanity of Christ were the first class of professing Christians, and not only first in order of time, but in dignity of character, in intelligence, and in moral influence." (Taylor) While those who held onto the millennia-old gnostic Mythos of Christ preceded the carnalizers, or sarkolaters (those who made Christ into flesh), having long-established rituals and doctrines, it was they who were accused of being heretics by their younger, ignorant, carnalizing cousins, who were in reality the true heretics. Taylor: "The deniers of the humanity of Christ, or, in a word, professing Christians, who denied that any such man as Jesus Christ ever existed at all, but who took the name Jesus Christ to signify only an abstraction, or prosopopæia, the principle of Reason personified; and who understood the whole gospel story to be a sublime allegory . . . these were the first, and (it is not dishonour to Christianity to pronounce them) the best and most rational Christians."

(5)
Rev. Robert Taylor, The Diegesis. Rev. Taylor was an English clergyman widely known for his "heretical" sermons, which he began to deliver after discovering, through a superior classical education, that Christ was a mythological character. He was twice imprisoned in England in the 1820's for "blasphemy." Taylor was one of the early "freethinkers," although he maintained he was a "Deist," and, therefore, not an atheist. Taylor suffered tremendous persecution for his stance, yet from his prison cell, he composed The Diegesis, a remarkable and scholarly dissertation of the highest quality.

(6)
Ibid.

(7)
With acknowledgment to Randel Helms, author of Gospel Fictions.

(
The Origin and Evolution of Religion by Albert Churchward.

(9)
Forgery in Christianity by Joseph Wheless: "As said by the great critic, Salomon Reinach, 'With the exception of Papias, who speaks of a narrative by Mark, and a collection of sayings of Jesus, no Christian writer of the first half of the second century (i.e., up to 150 A.D.) quotes the Gospels or their reputed authors.'" In The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read, John Remsburg states: "The Four Gospels were unknown to the early Christian Fathers. Justin Martyr, the most eminent of the early Fathers, wrote about the middle of the second century. His writings in proof of the divinity of Christ demanded the use of these Gospels had they existed in his time. He makes more than 300 quotations from the books of the Old Testament, and nearly one hundred from the Apocryphal books of the New Testament; but none from the four Gospels. Rev. Giles says: 'The very names of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are never mentioned by him (Justin) - do not occur once in all his writings.'" In A Short History of the Bible, Keeler says, "The books [canonical gospels] are not heard of till 150 A.D., that is, till Jesus had been dead nearly a hundred and twenty years. No writer before 150 A.D. makes the slightest mention of them."

(10)
Wheless quotes the Catholic Encyclopedia: "Enterprising spirits responded to this natural craving by pretended gospels full of romantic fables, and fantastic and striking details; their fabrications were eagerly read and accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity. Both Catholics and Gnostics were concerned in writing these fictions. The former had no motive other than that of a PIOUS FRAUD." (NB: "C.E." denotes "Common Era" and is equivalent to "A.D.," whereas "B.C.E." denotes "Before the Common Era" and is equivalent to "B.C." )

(11)
Wheless, op cit. Mangasarian states: "The church historian, Mosheim, writes that, 'The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to employ deception and fraud.' [Ecclesiastical Hist., Vol. I, p. 347.] Again, he says: 'The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all of them infected with this leprosy.' Will not some believer tell us why forgery and fraud were necessary to prove the historicity of Jesus. . . . Another historian, Milman, writes that, 'Pious fraud was admitted and avowed by the early missionaries of Jesus.' 'It was an age of literary frauds,' writes Bishop Ellicott, speaking of the times immediately following the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. Dr. Giles declares that, 'There can be no doubt that great numbers of books were written with no other purpose than to deceive.' And it is the opinion of Dr. Robertson Smith that, 'There was an enormous floating mass of spurious literature created to suit party views.'"

(12)
Wheless: "The clerical confessions of lies and frauds in the ponderous volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia alone suffice . . . to wreck the Church and to destroy utterly the Christian religion. . . . The Church exists mostly for wealth and self-aggrandizement; to quit paying money to the priests would kill the whole scheme in a couple of years. This is the sovereign remedy."

(13)
In one of his works, Eusebius provides this handy chapter entitled: "How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived." (Wheless) Wheless also calls Justin Martyr, Eusebius and Tertullian "three luminous liars." Keeler: "The early Christian fathers were extremely ignorant and superstitious; and they were singularly incompetent to deal with the supernatural."

(14)
Wheless. "If the pious Christians, confessedly, committed so many and so extensive forgeries and frauds to adapt these popular Jewish fairy-tales of their God and holy Worthies to the new Christian Jesus and his Apostles, we need feel no surprise when we discover these same Christians forging outright new wonder-tales of their Christ under the fiction of the most noted Christian names and in the guise of inspired Gospels, Epistles, Acts and Apocalypses. . . . Half a hundred of false and forged Apostolic 'Gospels of Jesus Christ,' together with more numerous other 'Scripture' forgeries, was the output, so far as known now, of the lying pens of the pious Christians of the first two centuries of the Christian 'Age of Apocryphal Literature' . . . 'Almost every one of the Apostles had a Gospel fathered upon him by one early sect or another.' . . .If the Gospel tales were true, why should God need pious lies to give them credit? Lies and forgeries are only needed to bolster up falsehood. . . But Jesus Christ must needs be propagated by lies upon lies; and what better proof of his actuality than to exhibit letters written by him in his own handwriting? The 'Little Liars of the Lord' were equal to the forgery of the signature of their God - false letters in his name, as above cited from that exhaustless mine of clerical falsities, the Catholic Encyclopedia [C.E.] . . . The forged New Testament booklets and the foolish writings of the Fathers, are the sole 'evidence' we have for the alleged facts and doctrines of our most holy Faith, as is admitted by C.E."

(15)
The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara Walker, p. 471. Rev. Taylor, in The Diegesis, reports a slightly different version of Leo X's admission: "It was well known how profitable this fable of Christ has been to us." (footnote, p. 35.)

This is a very interesting article that I found on the www.infidels.org website, with the exact same title. I only thought it proper to share it with you. Please read and comment.

"When I was an active Christian minister and missionary, I noticed that women were generally more zealous church workers than men. As I learned more and more about the Bible, I began to wonder why. In my younger days, I had often heard preachers cite the elevated status of women as one of the wonderful achievements of the Judeo-Christian religions, but this was not what I was seeing in my own private Bible studies. I was finding instead a shockingly disdainful attitude toward women in a book that had been presumably written by divinely inspired men.

Time would fail me if I tried to cite every biblical example of contemptuous attitudes toward women, so I will have to limit myself to just a few. King David's affair with Bathsheba while her husband Uriah was away on military duty produced an embarrassing pregnancy. David first tried to conceal his indiscretion by bringing Uriah home on furlough apparently so that he would sleep with Bathsheba and later think that the child was his. When Uriah's loyalty to his unit proved so strong that he refused to indulge in the pleasures of a conjugal visit, David sent him back to the front with a letter ordering the commander of his unit to put Uriah in "the forefront of the hottest battle" and then withdraw so that he would be killed. The order was executed, and when word of Uriah's death reached David, he took Bathsheba and added her to his harem ( 2 Sam. 11).

If there is such a thing as contemptuous conduct, then David's actions in this matter certainly qualify. One would think that if this deed called for divine wrath, David would have been the rightful target of it. But the Bible tells us that God chose to punish David only by inflicting pain and death on the members of his family, beginning with his wives. Nathan the prophet, sent to reprimand David for his sin, delivered this message from God: "I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he will lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun" 2 Sam. 12:11). One could imagine that this would not have been a pleasant thing for David to witness and would have in that sense constituted "punishment," but we must look past that to the fact of what God was threatening to do. David had sinned grievously, but God was going to punish him by having some unnamed "neighbor" rape his wives "before all Israel and before the sun" ( v12). According to the story, David repented and so his wives were spared the indignity of public rape, but that is beside the point. The fact that David's god would even threaten such a thing raises serious doubts about the Bible's claim to be the verbally inspired word of an omnibeneficent deity. Certainly, this story in no way reflects the "elevated status" that preachers say the Bible has brought to women. If it does, I have to admit that I can't see it.

Women today often complain that our society has relegated them to second-class citizenship. I agree and would even say that perhaps third-class citizenship would more accurately describe the condition of women in modern America. Why then do they, as a group, have such high respect for the Bible? Modern news coverage has made us aware of the shocking treatment accorded women in the Mideastern Islamic societies that now occupy what was once the ancient biblical lands, but this attitude toward women was frequently reflected in the Bible and is merely a social custom that has survived biblical times. Women in western societies fare somewhat better, but they do so despite the influence of the Bible on our culture, not because of it, for if our laws were based on strict adherence to biblical precepts to the degree that Moslem nations base their laws on Koranic precepts, women in our society would fare no better than their Islamic sisters.

Just consider these examples of biblical attitudes toward women. A woman was considered impure for seven days during her menstrual period, and anything she touched was also considered unclean ( Lev. 15:19-24). After a woman had given birth, she was considered impure for 40 days if her child was male, and 80 days if her child was female ( Lev. 12:1-5). The fact that her period of uncleanness was twice as long for giving birth to a female hardly suggests an "elevated" opinion of women in the biblical society of "God's chosen people." If a woman was taken captive in battle, any Israelite male who found her appealing was entitled to take her to be his "wife" ( Dt. 21:10-14), but nothing was said in this passage about securing the woman's consent. If a jealous husband suspected his wife of adultery, he had the right to make her submit to a trial by ordeal to prove her innocence. The ceremony was too elaborate to summarize here, but part of it required her to drink a concoction called the "water of bitterness" that was derived by mixing holy water with dirt swept up from the tabernacle (temple) floor. If her body did not swell and her thighs rot after the water of bitterness had entered the woman's bowels, she was declared innocent. In this event, however, the accusing husband was declared "free from iniquity." This trial by ordeal is described in Numbers 5:11-31 and should be read by all who believe that the Bible has accorded women an elevated status. One wonders how many wrongly accused wives among "God's chosen people" suffered great pain and even death from having had to submit to this trial by ordeal. I must also note before leaving this point that the Bible required no comparable trial for husbands suspected of adultery.

The attitude toward women reflected in this trial by ordeal pervaded Israelite culture. The prophet Zechariah, looking for a symbol of wickedness in one of his prophecies, selected a woman to be that symbol ( Zech. 5:5-. In the book of Ecclesiastes, the celebrated wisdom of Solomon expressed this exalted opinion of women: "This is what I have found, reasoning things out one by one, after searching long without success: I have found one man in a thousand worthy to be called upright, but I have not found one woman among them all" ( 7:27-28). We could hardly expect a better opinion than this from a man who had no more respect for women than to take 1,000 of them to be his wives and concubines ( 1 Kings 11:3), but one would expect an omniscient, omnibeneficent God to have this man indicate a slightly better attitude toward women at least while he was being divinely inspired to record God's eternal truth. Since he didn't, are we to assume that God's eternal truth is that women are to be considered evil?

The New Testament era brought no improvement in "divine" opinion of women. Needing a symbol of apostate evil, the Holy Spirit presumably inspired the writer of Revelation to make that symbol a "LovePeddler" ( 17:1-5). The Apostle Paul, perhaps the most chauvinistic of all New Testament writers, ordered women to "keep silence in the churches" and to "ask their own husbands at home" if they wanted to know anything, "for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church" ( 1 Cor. 14:34-35). He said to the young preacher Timothy, "I permit not a woman to teach, but to be in quietness" ( 1 Tim. 2:12). He ordered wives to be in strict subjection to their husbands ( Eph. 5:22 ; Col. 3:18 ; Titus 2:5), as did also the Apostle Peter ( 1 Pet. 3:1). One must assume that this injunction would apply even to a woman of high intelligence who may have made the mistake of marrying a fool. After all, who are we to dispute God's eternal truth?

A friend and associate of mine at the college from which I recently retired once told me that she had quit attending church. When I asked why, she said that she had been upset by some things the minister of her church had said in a recent sermon. After she had explained what the minister had said about the woman's place in the family and church, I obtained a Bible and showed her that the man had said nothing except what the Bible teaches. Her reaction was first surprise and then a frank assertion that she didn't care what the Bible said; she still didn't like it. I have to wonder how many women there are like her who attend church faithfully and work zealously on its behalf without ever realizing that their faith is based on a book that is very uncomplimentary to women."

Mamaput, those are very interesting questions you have posed. What is Religion and what is paganism? Beautiful. Very beautiful. Shall we start with the first part? What is religion. To answer, I am going to quote extensively from Austin Cine at the website atheism.com. (dont worry, I will provide a link in the end). Here is what his opinion as to the definition of religion is:

"Some argue that religion doesn’t really exist — there is only culture. Jonathan Z. Smith writes in Imagining Religion:

“, while there is a staggering amount of data, phenomena, of human experiences and expressions that might be characterized in one culture or another, by one criterion or another, as religion — there is no data for religion. Religion is solely the creation of the scholar’s study. It is created for the scholar’s analytic purposes by his imaginative acts of comparison and generalization. Religion has no existence apart from the academy.”

It is true that many societies do not draw a clear line between their culture and what scholars would call “religion.” This does not mean that religion doesn’t exist, but it is worth keeping in mind that even when we think we have a handle on what religion is, we might be fooling ourselves.

Definitions of religion tend to suffer from one of two problems: they are either too narrow and exclude many belief systems which most agree are religious, or they are too vague and ambiguous, suggesting that just about any and everything is a religion.

A good example of a narrow definition is the common attempt to define “religion” as “belief in God,” effectively excluding polytheistic religions and atheistic religions while including theists who have no religious belief system. A good example of a vague definition is the tendency to define religion as “worldview” — but how can every worldview qualify as a religion?

Some have argued that religion isn’t hard to define and the plethora of conflicting definitions is evidence of how easy it really is. The problem lies in finding a definition that is empirically useful and empirically testable. So far, the best definition of religion I have seen is in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It lists traits of religions rather than declaring religion to be one thing or another, arguing that the more markers present in a belief system, the more”religious like” it is:

* Belief in supernatural beings (gods).
* A distinction between sacred and profane objects.
* Ritual acts focused on sacred objects.
* A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the gods.
* Characteristically religious feelings (awe, sense of mystery, sense of guilt, adoration), which tend to be aroused in the presence of sacred objects and during the practice of ritual, and which are connected in idea with the gods.
* Prayer and other forms of communication with gods.
* A world view, or a general picture of the world as a whole and the place of the individual therein. This picture contains some specification of an over-all purpose or point of the world and an indication of how the individual fits into it.
* A more or less total organization of one’s life based on the world view.
* A social group bound together by the above.

This definition captures much of what religion is across diverse cultures. It includes sociological, psychological, and historical factors and allows for broader gray areas in the concept of religion. It’s not without flaws, though. The first marker, for example, is about “supernatural beings” and gives “gods” as an example, but thereafter only gods are mentioned. Even the concept of “supernatural beings” is a bit too specific; Mircea Eliade defined religion in reference to a focus on “the sacred” and that is a good replacement for “supernatural beings” because not every religion revolves around the supernatural.



A better definition is:

* Belief in something sacred (for example, gods or other supernatural beings).
* A distinction between sacred and profane objects.
* Ritual acts focused on sacred objects.
* A moral code believed to have a sacred or supernatural basis.
* Characteristically religious feelings (awe, sense of mystery, sense of guilt, adoration), which tend to be aroused in the presence of sacred objects and during the practice of ritual.
* Prayer and other forms of communication with the supernatural.
* A world view, or a general picture of the world as a whole and the place of the individual therein. This picture contains some specification of an over-all purpose or point of the world and an indication of how the individual fits into it.
* A more or less total organization of one’s life based on the world view.
* A social group bound together by the above.

This is the definition of religion used here. It describes religious systems but not non-religious systems. It encompasses the features common in belief systems generally acknowledged as religions without focusing on specific characteristics unique to just a few."

This is one part, and here is the link: http://atheism.about.com/od/religiondefinition/a/definition.htm. Here is another version: Religion—sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system—is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices and institutions associated with such belief. In its broadest sense some have defined it as the sum total of answers given to explain humankind's relationship with the universe. In the course of the development of religion, it has taken a huge number of forms in various cultures and individuals. ,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion and yet another: # a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices pertaining to supernatural power.
oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html

# generally a belief in a deity and practice of worship, action, and/or thought related to that deity. Loosely, any specific system of code of ethics, values, and belief.
www.carm.net/atheism/terms.htm

# Has many definitions - most of them involve the idea of supernatural agency.
www.csa.com/hottopics/religion/gloss.php

# Religious affiliation, practices, and views.
www.albany.edu/sourcebook/app6.html

# Oxford dictionary definition (theistic): "1 the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship. 2 the expression of this in worship. 3 a particular system of faith and worship." Non-Theistic definition: "The word religion has many definitions, all of which can embrace sacred lore and wisdom and knowledge of God or gods, souls and spirits. Religion deals with the spirit in relation to itself, the universe and other life. ,
www.ecotao.com/holism/glosoz.htm

From the foregoing would it be dumb to assume that religion simply put is the believe in the supernatural? I would think not. Religion is basically the believe in, fear of, love of and / or worship a deity one considers to be spritually above oneself and / or the mankind and by extension, the universe.

Paganism: Hmmm, let us also attempt a definition of this in consultation with the various schools of thought:
# any of various religions other than Christianity or Judaism or Islamism
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

# Within a European Christian context, paganism is a catch-all term which has come to connote a broad set of not necessarily compatible religious beliefs and practices (see Cult (religion)) of a natural religion (as opposed to a revealed religion of a text), which are usually, but not necessarily, characterized by polytheism and, less commonly, animism. There is little organized "-ism" in paganism.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

# Belief in religions other than Christianity, especially ancient Greek polytheism, which was a non-revealed religion.
www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/litsas_dictionary_orthodox_terminology.htm

By the foregoing, paganism would be considered as any other set of beliefs outside of the revealed ones (who revealed them is still subject to debate)

Brings us to another aspect, what is or which are considered the revealed religion or by definition, what is revealed religion:
* A religion based on a deity communicating with the adherents of the religion in one form or anther. In some religions, the gods speak through priests or poets. In others it is through dreams or oracles.
campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Glossary/Glossary.index.html

* a religion founded primarily on the revelations of God to humankind
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

According to campus.northpark.edu, it would be considered a religion based on a deity communicating with it's adherents. For instance, the christian god giving visions to pastors, holy mothers, etc. Or my grand father recieving instructions from the village shrine as to how many goats should be slaughtered to appease it. In this context, the worshippers of my village god would be considered members of that religion.

Let us now bring all this home a bit, what is the pagan religion? * any of various religions other than Christianity or Judaism or Islamism
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

It would seem to me that there is a religion called the "pagan religion afterall. It would seem to me that paganism is a religion all by itself. So what is the point here? That catholicsm is not a pagan religion? Or that paganism is not a religion? And now that we have found out what religion mean and what pagan means, mamaput, shall we then unemotionally discuss the issue as to whether catholicsm is a form of pagan worship or otherwise? I thing that is what this thread is about.

Cant believe it. He actually answered the phone? Lol. Must be a dumb a*s

Below is a complete transcript of a conversation I had with a Nairaland member on yahoo messenger. Why wont people quit?

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dokita002: hello elbaron, this is busymantle from Nairaland.com
Elbaron: hello
dokita002: how r u\\\\\\/
Elbaron: I am fine
Elbaron: you?
dokita002: am cool
Elbaron: good
Elbaron: what would u like to talk about?
dokita002: help
Elbaron: in what way?
dokita002: l need to do business but have no money to pursue it
dokita002: what can l do
Elbaron: what business and how much?
dokita002: it involves large sum of money
Elbaron: ok
Elbaron: how much?
dokita002: 100k or 450 k and l have about 40k
Elbaron: naira or dollar?
dokita002: naura
dokita002: naira
Elbaron: what sort of business are u talking about?
dokita002: oil biz or trading
Elbaron: how do u mean or trading?
Elbaron: is it oil or trading?
dokita002: 100k for trading that could fetch little profit and 450k is deposited in an oil company and u receive 40k every month
Elbaron: which oil company?
dokita002: is in nigeria here
Elbaron: does it have a name?
dokita002: yes
Elbaron: and the name is?
dokita002: where r u pls
Elbaron: Europe
dokita002: which country
Elbaron: Netherlands, I live in Ghana but I am here for two weeks
Elbaron: should be back in Ghana next thursday
dokita002: ok
dokita002: ok
dokita002: can u help me
Elbaron: if u give me details, yes
Elbaron: convince me
dokita002: l have introduced peple to it and they r doing well
Elbaron: so how come they are not helping u?
dokita002: an ingrate
Elbaron: I see
Elbaron: how will u pay me back and when?
dokita002: over 14 months
dokita002: 30k every months
Elbaron: what is the name of the oil company?
dokita002: or 35k as u r pleased
Elbaron: what is name of the oil company u are investing in?
dokita002: am afraid
Elbaron: u are afraid?
dokita002: u may go on my back to invest
Elbaron: and u dont think I am afraid to give u my 450 k?
Elbaron: and what do u care if I go behind u and invest? So long as I give u the 450 k u are looking for?
dokita002: l have considered both
Elbaron: and?
Elbaron: what conclusions have u come to?
dokita002: ok
dokita002: l will tell u
Elbaron: I am listening
dokita002: nospetco oil and gas ltd
Elbaron: are they a savings and loans company?
dokita002: no
Elbaron: are u bying shares from them?
dokita002: oil servicing company
Elbaron: buying
Elbaron: are buying their shares?
dokita002: they do biz with it and give u return \
Elbaron: really?
dokita002: yes
Elbaron: how much returns?
dokita002: 40k
Elbaron: a month? on 450k?
Elbaron: how do i send the money to u?
dokita002: westen union money transfer
dokita002: if u r willing
Elbaron: in whose name and whose address?
dokita002: to UBA,ojo-adedeji adeboye
Elbaron: your first name is UBA or your last name?
dokita002: united bank for africa
dokita002: ojo-adedeji is my surname and adeboye my first name
Elbaron: but western union can be picked from any location
Elbaron: I see
Elbaron: any address?
dokita002: yes
Elbaron: which is?
dokita002: no address
Elbaron: no address?
dokita002: u will send some info that would guide me to receive it
Elbaron: what info?
dokita002: when u get to bank u will get to know
dokita002: l can give u my contact
Elbaron: my dear
Elbaron: western union here is not a bank
Elbaron: lol
Elbaron: western union is a service of it's own
Elbaron: and if I dont have all these pieces of information they wont send the money
dokita002: ok
dokita002: UBA,idi-araba branch,lagos
Elbaron: I see
Elbaron: so what is my guarantee that u will pay me back?
dokita002: l promise u in the name of the lord
Elbaron: in the name of the lord?
dokita002: am a honest person
Elbaron: did u ever read my posts on nairaland?
dokita002: what should l do to make u belive me
Elbaron: if u did u will not mention the name of the lord to me
dokita002: ok
dokita002: l cannot let u down
Elbaron: why not?
dokita002: am not an internet scammer
Elbaron: u dont even know me
dokita002: am here to work on my assignment
dokita002: lok
dokita002: ok
Elbaron: which assignment?
dokita002: am a medical student that struggle thru school
Elbaron: u got a passport?
dokita002: international passport
Elbaron: can u send me a copy?
dokita002: which passport
dokita002: passport photograph or international passport
Elbaron: ur international passport or driver's license
Elbaron: any form of id
dokita002: how will l send it
Elbaron: scan, attach and send
dokita002: where will l send it
Elbaron: my email address same one u are chatting with me on
dokita002: pls give me full address,pls
Elbaron: u have my email address
Elbaron: it shows on the messenger
dokita002: l will send three i.d to u
dokita002: no
Elbaron: how did u get my messenger id?
dokita002: is it aik_abani@yahoo.com?
Elbaron: good
Elbaron: now u are begining to prove that you just might have a bit of sense
dokita002: thru who's online nairaland
Elbaron: did u read my profile?
dokita002: where pls
Elbaron: on nairaland
Elbaron: yep
dokita002: l couldn't see ur name on it again
BUZZ!!!
dokita002: r u there
Elbaron: I am here
Elbaron: how much is 450k in dollars?
dokita002: how will l see ur profile
Elbaron: on nairaland?
Elbaron: u dont know?
Elbaron: read the help section
dokita002: 3462 dollars
Elbaron: you seem to have it all worked out
dokita002: that is pretty much
dokita002: l just calculated it now
Elbaron: ok, I will send u the money but what happens if u run away without sending me the 40k a month?
dokita002: l will graduate from school in 2008
dokita002: and l will even tell it to school and u may use school authority to guide me
Elbaron: how does ur graudation secure my 40k a month?
dokita002: l cannot leave school because of money
Elbaron: interesting
dokita002: l will surely pay u ur money
Elbaron: where do u come from?
Elbaron: have u got a phone number I can call u on?
dokita002: l will send my school i.d,national i.d and passport
Elbaron: interesting
Elbaron: anyway, here's what we will do
dokita002: l hailed from oyo state but l was born and brought up in lagos
Elbaron: I have a friend who works for the Nigerian Poilce Force. His office is at Panti. I will call him and ask him to give u the money, u can go to his office 2morrow and collect it, is that ok?
dokita002: where is it?yaba or ikoyi
Elbaron: u dont know where Panti police station is at? and u were born and bred in lagos?
Elbaron: ask, someone will show u
dokita002: l was never involved with police
dokita002: that is the reason why l do not know,sir
Elbaron: I see
Elbaron: ok
Elbaron: give me ur number and I will give it to my friend, he will call u 2morrow to collect the money if u dont mind
dokita002: +2348028628561
dokita002: how about the passport
Elbaron: email it to me
dokita002: ok
Elbaron: my friend will call u tomorrow and give u the money in his office
Elbaron: ok?
dokita002: what is ur friend 's name sir
Elbaron: CP Abdul Karim Abubakar
Elbaron: CP is commissioner of police
dokita002: ok
Elbaron: and what is ur own name?
dokita002: ojo-adedeji adeboye
Elbaron: and what is ur home address?
dokita002: l stay in school most of the time
Elbaron: but u have a home, dont u?
dokita002: am in a medical school
Elbaron: u didnt grow up in medical school
Elbaron: u have a home
dokita002: l have a home
Elbaron: what is the address of ur home?
dokita002: because my dad could not raise money to rent a house in lagos he had moved to
Elbaron: ok, so where do u live when u are out of school?
dokita002: his uncompleted house in a new site in sango-ota,ogun state
Elbaron: does it have an address?
dokita002: the place is called Esuyago area
Elbaron: very good
dokita002: when u take a bike from sango,it will take u there
Elbaron: only ur father's property does not have a specific address?
Elbaron: I see
dokita002: it is a new site
dokita002: if u have anybody around l will take them there
dokita002: l don't tell lies
Elbaron: which medical school are u in?
dokita002: l go to churches to beg for money in order to remain in school
Elbaron: which school?
dokita002: college of medicine,university of lagos,LUTH,idi-araba,surulere,lagos
Elbaron: and ur hostel is?


And that is when he ran away.

Which views? I havent offered any. And what you need to get into your head is that not everybody is as stupid as you are and some of us can condone constructive critisism. If you have problems with that, go back to the closet. You are acting like an slowpoke. Rest assured that I am expecting your response full of insults, for your information for every one of yours I will give back twelve. Have a nice day

@diddy4, which one is bullshit? The fact that you are not interested in history or the fact that your points of view are so myopic that you cant take out a minute to analyse the "Factial Crap" from an unbiased point of view? You are a catholic and you claim you are not interested in history and the history of roman catholicism. hmm. If your attitude is the prevailing attitude of Christianity and christians then I shudder to think what your religion has done to mankind.

Drag_on. It'd be nice to hear what you have to say about this

9ijaman, You sound a lot more sensible than all the rest of the crew. I will look into your suggestions and publish my findings. i doubt very much that they will differ from what I believe at the moment, but if they do, I will be the very first to admit it. Thanks for your contribution.

Teju Osho, is this supposed to be an explanation or a counter to the post?

Your very attitude shows that the idea of god is dangerous. Does evil and suffering not contradict the benevolence of God? Answer that and we will talk

so that I don't wear you out with the additional task of ferreting contradictions in every verse in the Qur'an, every verse in the Book of Mormon, every verse in the Veda, and every verse in the _____.

So you would agree there are discrepancies in other religious books as well? Are you not making my point for me? That if indeed there was a god so many accounts of him wouldn't be this contradictory?

I just want to know something: elbaron, are you seriously seeking truth and reason, or you're hell-bent on amusing yourself with a personal campaign against Christianity?

I have nothing against christians or christianity. What I am saying is that the premise under which god is held is wrong because no god can exist and be so inherently contradictory. I am saying that the concept of god is an illusion. There is no proof, no singular evidence, no iota of reasonable arguement that has been put forward in proof of the existence of god. Be it the christian god or the god of the mormons or the god of islam or any god whatsoever. You see? You take me out of context the same way you took the bible passages you quoted out of context in a blind attempt to justify the unjustifiable and take a personal swing at me.

Whatever your own interpretation or ideas of "truth" and "reason", they are of little import to me at this point. At least, at the basic level, if something is not true, then it is a lie; and if something is unreasonable, then it lacks reason. It applies both ways - to you and me.  Now, if you're are saying that the Bible is not true because of the Genesis verses and others you quoted, wait until you go through the other books and chapters - altogether 1,189 verses

Again, you take me out of context. I said the passages are contradictory. Now a book which was inspired by an omnipotent and omnipresnt god ought not to have contradictions and ambiguities in it, wont you say? You took the case of Noah and the animals he took in the ark, what about the issue of elijah and his having been taking into heaven while jesus stated categorically that no man has been to heaven apart from him who came from heaven which is the son of man (John 3:13)? This does not sound contradictory to you? Maybe the dictionary should be re-written. Either that or you don't understand the meaning of contradiction.

I don't believe the Genesis quotes are contradictory in themselves, and it's funny that you lifted those questions from a skeptic website. Nothing wrong in that, except that it doesn't seem at all that you checked the facts for yourself in the Bible to see how unreasonable those fellows could be. You have nothing to show personally that your views are founded on verifiable convictions that you have tested in your own experience. If you have carefully thought out your misconceptions and checked your quotes from the Bible itself, perhaps you would have taken a different view and not have attempted this beggarly amusement of the chaps at the skeptic website where you plagiarised their weak 'interpretations' of the Bible

You don't believe the verses I quoted in genesis are contradictory? I shall wait for you to "this-contradict" them (Excuse my poor english). You cannot wake up and say you don't believe they are contradictory without giving them a clear meaning that will make them devoid of contradictions. What you believe here is immaterial, what is material is that you attempt an explanation of the contradictions. And given that they are not contradictory to you, you ought to have the explanations at the tip of your fingers. Did you say I should read the bible? Very funny, what you don't seem to get is that I was an undying born again christian, blinded by dogma and wallowing in fear of ethernal damnation. You did not take this into consideration. You did not consider that at some point the said bible began to make less sense to me and nobody was and is able to give me satisfactory answers to questions about god. Oh, I prayed and fasted for god to show himself to me all to no avail. You did not take into consideration that I took time to study this issues and make my own deductions. Should you have read my responses to most of the posts here, you would have come to realise that my beliefs are deeply held, but your zeal to defend the undefendable will not let you notice any of these. Did you mention plegiarism? I will ignore it and treat it as a cowardly retreat to ignorance (quoting Nferyn) on your part. In the alternative, I will assume you do not read your own bible, which you are so zelously defending because if you did read it, you would have noticed the passages I mentioned and i am sure you would have raised your own question. But then, I could be wrong, you may not posses the mental abilities to do so. Or you may posses the said abilities but are too cowardly in your fear of hell fire to raise questions prefering rather to wallow in your ignorance and your pitiable attempt at religion.

I'll give you an example:
   ________________________________________
   6. Math quiz: How many animals went on the Ark?
   (GEN 6:19-20) God told Noah to take with him on the ark two of every kind of animal to include birds, animals and creeping things.
   (GEN 7:2-3) God told Noah to take with him on the ark seven of every clean animal and bird and two of every unclean animal.
   ____________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________

So, the question is whether the number is two or seven? Look closely: in GEN 6:19-20, "two of every kind of animal" clearly points to the male and the female (that is, a pair) - and this two "male and female" includes every kind of animal - whether clean or unclean. Infact, read the Bible yourself to see that Gen.6:19 says the "two" refers to the male and female of every animal.
In GEN 7:2-3, while the clean animals are to be seven in number, that does not contradict the fact that this seven should include the "two" (male and female) of GEN.6:19-20. The same thing could be said of the two of every unclean animal. So, instead of having taken just "two" camels (that is, a pair - the male and female), the total number of camels that Noah would have brought into the ark would be four. Why is this? For the simple reason that a camel was regarded as an unclean animal in Lev.11:4.

So read this back and listen to yourself. God told Noah to take two animals of each kind (in one chapter) and in the very next chapter he told Noah to take 7 and did you read your explanation? The fact that he asked him to take 7 is not contradictory. You obviously do not understand english because if you did, you would have noticed that the question is "how many animals did god ask Noah to take", 2 or 7? Did it not occur to you that for your explanation to apply God would have said "take 7 animals of a kind and ensure that there is a male and a female". Who's fooling who here? The man said take two of a kind and turned around and said take seven which number finally entered the ark? Was it the two of a kind or seven of a kind? That, my friend, is the question. Do you care to attempt another explanation?

I could almost write a Bible encyclopedia to show that the verses giving you sleepless nights are not contradictory but require careful study to see their contexts. Once you've made up your mind to be adverse to something, the rest is history - because it will be difficult to make sense at all in any thing you seek to attack if that is your underlying thought.

Could you now? So why don't you do just that instead of taking personal swings at me? Now you think for me as well? And you know what I am thinking? You have concluded that I have made up my mind to attack the bible? You do not see fit to understand that these are genuine concerns I have about the bible and the god it portrays? What bigotry, what arrogant and laughable display of ignorance?

However, if your purpose is simply to attack and ridicule a faith that you have no inkling about, don't waste your time: you're attempting something greater than your small frame.

You are a coward and a bastardly one at that. Were you a reasonable man capable of logical thinking, what you would have done was to attempt an explanation at the verses quoted. What you would have done was show me the errors of my ways using logical reasoning and valid pieces of evidence, but you have proven yourself incapable of such great tasks.

Please note that you can take another swing at me and i assure you that I will give back as good as I get. However, when you are ready to discuss the issues raised in a reasonable and sensible manner, the lines of communication are open, I will be willing to listen to you.

4get_me, did Nferyn's response answer you? If it did, then I am glad otherwise, we can further explore the issue.

Luridguy, tell me something, do you have any authority aside that the bible that supports the existence of god?

TayoD, you are a very smart man, you are so smart that you tend to avoid the issue at stake and ramble on about inconsequential tid bits. Did you see the title of this thread? It is "Positive case for creationism". I have stated my point of view, you don't like it, counter it with yours. If you don't have any, go do some research and come back. I could give you a few pointers but I don't have the time. let me know when you have something to say.

El-baron

Softee, which god is he going to pray to? Do you have any proof that there exists a god? Read the thread, get your facts and let's talk