₦airaland Forum

Very well, goodguy, let us forget the literal meanings for the moment. Would you be kind enough as to point out the spiritual meanings?

Goodguy, unless there is another concept to the english language and the words written were written in that different context of the english language, I do not see what the devil has got to do with these.

David, at least Abraham had the uncommon advantage of being spoken to directly by God. Now I dont have that advantage. By the way, Abraham knew that it was God who was speaking to him. Why wont he believe? Wouldn't you? At least he had the evidence that he was being spoken to by God. We can hardly say the same. Now, I am supposed to believe an account that doesn't make sense to me? At least it made sense to Abraham that is why he believed. Wont you agree?

Davidylan, your point is well taken. Now that you believe and the bible is no more a mystery to you, Would you be kind enough as to use those insights gained by your believe to explain the contradictions mentioned in the original thread? Maybe I will see the light and begin to believe as much as you. You would actually have saved a soul from eternal damnation.

RhodaRose, beautifully put, but exactly what, is your point? That the Sun mentioned in the account of the creation is not the sun we see today? And that it should be taken metaphorically as the light that shines on God's word? If that is the case, how was this particular sun created? My dearest, I did not say that God created the moon and the sun on the 4th day. The bible says so. Nothing to do with me. You see my point? These are the contradictions I am talking about. Let us Look at Genesis 1:5 again. It says: " God called the light "Day", and the darkness "night" and there was evening and morning, the first day. So if the sun and moon were not created until the 4th day, when was morning and when was night?" Where did the light come from and the darkness at what point did it emerge? If you contend that it is God's word that was the light mentioned, what about the darkness? Let us look at that passage a bit more critically. By the way, isn't speaking the word into existence considered "Creation" or the art of creating? You will notice that God spoke most things into existence. And at what point do you postulate that God started the creating? And what process did he go through to create. I think you miss the point.

El-Baron

@ Nferyn, this is exactly my point and what I have been trying to explain in another thread: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-3284.0.html. Someone actually told me that I see the mentioned descrepancies as contradiction because God has confounded me for my unbelieve. Can you imagine?

David, What fear is 1 john refering to? Are you saying that the bible was purposely written in ambigous terms? With all regards, I beg to differ. The main issue here is an explanation of the seeming descripancies in the numerous accounts contained in the bible. I am yet to see a meaninful analysis of the said discrepancies or their direct interpretations without the added luggage of dogma. One cannot be expected to swallow literature hook, line and sinker especially if there are parts of the said literature that does not make sense to the reader. It will be unfair to expect people to buy it just because it is deemed as coming from God.

I think some explanations are called for from the people who believe and are not confounded. That means they have the technicality required to decifer the words. I would be glad to see someone give me some meaninful explanations without the attribute of "Thou must believe, because it is the word of God'. What if those same words had been tampered with by man so as to obliterate the original meanings that God intended for them?

@ Davidylan. Fair enough, in what context will you apply the scriptures so cited?

RhodaRose, I do not believe the mentioned passage can be explained away in that manner. Let's take for instance, Genesis 1:5. It states specifically that God commanded "Let there be light......and the evening and the morning were the first day" Period. This passage was not describing the words of God. It was describing the creation of everything that is existent on earth. Including night and day.

When you say that God is spirit and can only be seen in spirit, what does it mean? Spirit is defined as The vital principle or animating force within living beings.
(2) Incorporeal consciousness. (3) The soul, considered as departing from the body of a person at death. In what sense of these definitions can God be seen and what proof do we have to support that?

@IAH and Goodguy,  I apologise if the article is too long but given it's very nature, it cannot be summarised. You will notice that it is not writtings of opinion or thoughts. It is actually an enumeration of contradictions existent in the bible. Or would it be better to have posted them in several threads? Might clog up the server. Anyway, I'll do what i can to keep it short next time.

@SEUN, I doubt these texts can be explained away in any manner nor can they be dismissed as irrelevant. Remember the book of 2nd Timothy Chapter 3 Verse 16? It says 'All scripture is inspired of God and is beneficial for teaching.......... Verse 17 says "So that the man of God can be better equiped for the good work". If there are irrelevant parts, wont it make nonsense of the entire concept of the bible? As for the explanations, well, that is why I posted the thread in the first place. See if anyone can make meaning of it.

@Davidylan, I, personally fear death, does it mean I love it? I fear Height, there's no way I am ever going to love looking down on the earth from 34,000 feet above sea level because I am basically afraid of height.

@RhondaRose, The bible says God created the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. Not give light to any word.  @Goodguy. I do not call it insight, I call it misconception.

Icingbaby, I did mention that it is a newspaper article. There is also a link to the article provided. There is something I am dont seem to understand here. When is an article defined as too long? Does it make less sense if it is too long? Is it not better to make it too long and get all the facts straight? Well, if you think it too long, how about you just move on?

Believe me, this "Too long" complaint is begining to sound boring. If you decide to read short articles, do so and quit dissing other people's efforts. This sort of attitude dampens people's spirits. Like my signature says: If you dont like the way I drive, get off the side walk. Aint it that simple?

Is there any special reason for that?

Here is an article I read at the online edition of Vanguard newspaper with the same caption. What do you all think?


We must not allow the nauseating, disappointing, cowardly and criminal escape of DSP Alamieyeseigha from justice in London distract us from a major national crisis that gained more fervour in the last two weeks. DSP Alamieyeseigha who was arrested in London on September 15 by the London Metropolitan Police for alleged money laundering reportedly disguised himself as a woman with lipsticks and all, and escaped to Nigeria on Monday, November 21. That day will remain the day the image of Nigeria received the worst humiliation in the eyes of the world. But I would not let that distract us from the more serious issue of President Obasanjo’s determination to rape the Nigeria constitution in the process of his Third Term project. Nigeria is an ojoro country cornered by ojoro people. When you consider Obasanjo’s Third Term project in details, you would begin to ask yourself, what is the difference between Alamieyeseigha’s behaviour and that of the President? Both enterprises lack honour!

I know many Nigerians will resent that. But we are not great respecters of due process or the rule of the game. Nigerians like ojoro. If there is a prize to be won, Nigerians want to win it by hook or crook, preferably by crook! I follow the controversy over minor issues as who wins the Africa Player of the Year award and all you read are Nigerians whose primary concern is that “our man” must win. You may call that patriotism. But what of the finer question of whether “our man” meets the criteria for winning? This is the “by all means” behaviour that has dogged our elections and has produced irresponsible people in public office. It is this same “by all means” trait that brought the motley crowd that poured into Yenagoa streets on Monday jubilating for Alamieyeseigha’s escape from justice. It is this same “by all means” method that won Obasanjo the election in 1999. It was simply escalated to brazen fraud in 2003. It is the same method that he is using, and will use to secure his Third Term bid, if there is no determined national effort to stop him. It is this “by all means” method, which has made the PDP a national nuisance that will be deployed for the 2007 elections. So why should we allow Alamieyeseigha’s escapade distract us from the making of Abacha out of Obasanjo?

Are Obasanjo, Alamieyeseigha and Dariye not all members of the ruling PDP? Could any thing born of snake afford not to be long? Is this not another “family affair”? And why do people keep showing surprise at the deceptive way the Third Term project is being handled? What is military way of life if not deception? Should it then surprise anybody that Alamieyeseigha was able to deceive the British police and escape? Disguise is after all a form of deception. In 1998, we were berated: how many Presidents do you want to make out of me? And with that, Dr. Alex Ekwueme and the G34 went on building the PDP only for Gen. Obasanjo to emerge as presidential candidate and later proceeded to flush out the founding fathers of the party one after the other, each victim being used first against his colleagues! Now, having used a so-called re-validation of membership registration to flush out perceived opponents of the Third Term project, the coast appears clear for a grand ojoro on a national scale.

The more disturbing aspect of this Abachalisation of Obasanjo, which for now appears rather imperceptible to many people, is that it comes with a constriction of the political space. The disenfranchisement that has occurred in the PDP in the form of de-registration of some members is a form of constriction of the political space. In other words, as this project goes on, more and more Nigerians are going to lose their liberties just as it happened with Abacha’s self perpetuation project. The more Nigerians mobilize to resist it as they did to Abacha, the more desperate the hidden persuaders and their client will become and the more insecure the life of some Nigerians, just as was the case under Abacha. As the Third Term Train gathers momentum, more people will jump into it. After all, it is a very attractive IPO in this season of IPOs; invest now and reap huge dividends by way of appointments and contracts in 2007, when (I’ll rather say if) it succeeds!

The more the Third Term contractors work to dismantle the political obstacles in the way of Obasanjo, the more they will de-democratize and render Nigeria politically unstable. And as a result, Nigeria will slip back into a pariah state. I do not see Bush and Blair, who have continued to shun President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe for using arm-twisting method to perpetuate himself in office, doing business with Obasanjo beyond 2007. The only condition that could warrant such double standard would be an uncontrollable explosion of the Middle East in a way that threatens the West’s oil supply line!
What is happening now shows the depth of hopelessness into which Nigeria has sunk — that the man many people considered our best option at the critical period of post-military dictatorship is the man to lead this assault on the sanctity of our constitution! For a man who savours a snoring reverie about his place in history as Obasanjo does, you would think that he knows when to leave the stage — in a hoopla of klieg lights with thundering ovation! But the man now seeking a Third Term “by all means” is a mutant who has been transformed in the image of the Abacha men of yore, who wants to stay glued to the stage till the light fades, the audience gone and we or unkind fate wrestle him to the ground and drag him off the stage neither kicking nor screaming because he has been reduced to a rag doll!

People are still habouring the illusion that because of his so-called international prestige the President would shake himself out of this bad dream and respect the constitution and go in peace in 2007. Such people are either not seeing or naïve. The self-perpetuation train is following the same track as Ibrahim Babangida’s and Abacha’s. Notwithstanding the decrees outlawing the type of activities engaged by the ABN, did the Babangida government not look the other way while Arthur Nzeribe and his co-travelers sabotaged the transition programme? Was such delinquency not explained as “the rights” of the hired guns to express their opinion? While the same people now goading Obasanjo to a third term were earnestly yearning and shouting for Abacha, did we hear a word from the maximum dictator himself? Was Daniel Kanu’s evil enterprise not explained as his “freedom of expression” oddly enough, by a regime that mercilessly trampled on all forms of freedom? Obasanjo said that he has prepared himself to retire to his Ota farm in 2007. To prove that, he raised N6 billion in two hours, for his presidential library. If people still do not believe that he is ready to go in 2007, he has himself to blame. If he is serious, if he has spoken the truth to Nigerians, all he needs to do today is call the apostles of Third Term to order and unequivocally order them to fold their tents and go away.

What is disturbing in all these is that we are discussing a very fundamental issue that affects the future of our country from the perspective of one political party only, the PDP. It is as if we have signed off the nation to the PDP to do as it likes, and it has not done very well with it. Look at the shame they have brought to the country. All the scandals about this country since 1999, all the heating up of the polity and all the embarrassment of the nation emanate from the PDP. And they strut about town shamelessly while pretending to be such great patriots doing such wonderful things for the nation; only we, the emasculated people are the problem! And these bad behaviours are what they want to consolidate! We must ponder what will become of democracy in this country with another eight or twelve years of Obasanjo and his PDP in power. We must ponder what will be left of the economy in another eight or twelve-year consolidation of what it has become in the last six years!

This theory of consolidation is a lie told by greedy politicians. Sustainability of policies is what we should be talking about. If a policy is not sustainable, it is either that it is bad from the beginning or lacked an institutional framework. This point about institution building and empowerment was made to the President as far back as 1999! Obasanjo may talk of Due Process. That is good. If it has an institutional framework, its sustainability needs not depend on an individual. But that is not to say that government transactions can still not be more transparent. There is still too much money budgeted for overheads, which find their way into private pockets of civil servants, while on the other hand, those who have not stolen are made to regret not stealing when they had the opportunity. There is still no incentive for upright public servants. This government has still not devised how to show Nigerians the benefits of serving your country diligently and honourably. He has secured us a great debt relief. This PDP administration has failed in more areas than it has succeeded. When I look at the roads in the East and the mockery Obasanjo has made of the entire East in the last six years, consolidation begins to look like a life sentence turned into death sentence! Is it the failure to redeem his promise to the nation in respect of power generation that he wants to consolidate? Is it the railways or the aviation industry? Or the bad example the PDP has been? So when you begin to examine this consolidation theory more critically it begins to assume the character of a grand, national deceit!
It is possible that common sense may not dissuade the President from this doomed enterprise. The Nigerian people may also not dissuade him. But I have a strong feeling that history will stop him. He should look at the history of overstay or illegal stay in power in Nigeria. They all came to peril.

This article can be found at http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/politics/november05/25112005/p425112005.html

Build a three bedroom house plus open up a new business. hmmm, what will you be selling, Akara and plantain?

The El-Baron

Oracle, if you talk to God, it is called Prayer. Now if God talks back to you, hmm, it is called Schizophrenia.

The El-Baron

Just a quick one reading the heading of this thread. Mormonism is not a religion. It is sect of the Christian RELIGION

In today's world, Sex makes up for 45% of the marriage. If it weren't so, why are women who have relative comfort in marriage cheat on the husbands and vice versa? If the sex is better than good and there is 25% love, 10% understanding and trust + caring etc take up the balance, well... It is a relatively fair balanced marriage in my opinion. And who told you size does not matter? Unless you are very proffessional in giving head.

We've already seen how to define member functions for a class, as follows:

void Player::getTreasure() {
health++; // increments the value of the player's health by one
}

There's another way in C++ to define your member functions. You can define them "inline", inside the class declaration. Here's how you would define getTreasure inline:
class Player {
private:
int health;
int strength;
int agility;

public:
void move();
void attackMonster();
void getTreasure() { health++; } // this is the function definition
};


The braces following getTreasure() contain the entire code for the function. We don't have to define the function later in our code using the Player::getTreasure() syntax -- in fact, the compiler won't allow it, because it's already been defined here inside the class declaration.

Why inline?
As you probably noticed, it's definitely fewer keystrokes to inline a function. However, another good reason to inline is that you can sometimes speed up your program by inlining the right function. Instead of calling the function every time it is invoked, the compiler will replace the function call with a copy of the function body. If it's a small function which gets called a lot, this can sometimes speed things up.

Depending on the function, it can also be easier to read inline. If it's a function like the following:

class Math { // class declaration
public:
int addTwoIntegers(int a, int b); // function declaration
};

int Math::addTwoIntegers(int a, int b) { // function definition
return a + b;
}


it's probably easier to read if it's inlined:
class Math { // class declaration
public:
int addTwoIntegers(int a, int b) {return a + b; } // inlined function
}; // (combined declaration and definition)



Why not inline everything?
Since the compiler will copy the entire function body every time the function is called, if it is a large function (more than three or four lines), inlining can increase the size of your executable program significantly. You may want to try to see what kind of speed gains you can achieve by inlining, and also compare the increase in the size of your executable.

And, just as it is sometimes easier to read functions if they are inlined, it is sometimes harder to read inlined functions. If a function is more than one or two lines, inlining it will more than likely distract a reader who is trying to understand how the class works. In these cases, it's probably better not to inline.

Using a Class (Instantiation)
Just as writing a class declaration was an extension of concepts we've already covered, the same is true of the syntax needed to instantiate an object. Instantiating an object is what allows you to actually use objects in your program. You can write hundreds and hundreds of class declarations, but none of that code will be used until you create an instance of an object. A class declaration is merely a template for what an object should look like. When you instantiate an object, C++ follows the class declaration as if it were a blueprint for how to create an instance of that object.

Instantiating an object
The good news is, you already know how to create an instance of an object! It is exactly the same as using a variable. Let's say you want to have four players in your game, each trying to find their way to the end of a maze faster than the others. You might start by creating four instances of your Player object, like this:

Player blueHat;
Player redHat;
Player greenHat;
Player yellowHat;

It's as easy as that. Although these objects are all Players, they are completely independent of one another. They were created from the same template, but they can have different attributes. For example, "blueHat" might be a slow, strong player, while "greenHat" might be quick and weak, and "yellowHat" might be a well balanced individual, etc. The thing that makes these objects similar is that they all must have values for strength, health, and agility, but nothing else. They can all move, attack monsters, and get treasures, but that is all they can do. So -- they are similar in the kinds of things they can do and the attributes they must have, but they are different in that they can each have their own values for those attributes.

Using an object's member functions
Now that we can create objects, we need to know how to use them. That is, we need to be able to use their member functions. Calling an object's member functions is similar to calling a regular function, with a slight twist.

Suppose someone is playing your adventure game, and they are controlling the player with the green hat. When the person hits the key to attack a monster, you need to make sure that the correct code gets executed so that the right player attacks the monster. The code would look like this:

greenHat.attackMonster();

It's very similar to the way that a regular function is called, preceeded by the name of the object on which the function should be called (greenHat), and a period. So, instead of calling the function attackMonster(), we are telling greenHat to call the function attackMonster. This is the power of C++. You can very easily "delegate responsibility" to the objects you've written, so that what seems like an impossible task, writing a video game, becomes much more manageable.

Now let's suppose that greenHat picks up a treasure. Somewhere in your program, the following will get executed:

greenHat.getTreasure();

This will cause the function getTreasure to be executed for the player with the green hat only. The other players in the game will not execute this function. Perhaps you write getTreasure to look like this:
void Player::getTreasure() {
health++; // increments the value of the player's health by one
}


Suppose that before greenHat picked up the treasure, the following were the players' values for their healths:
blueHat: 14
redHat: 11
yellowHat: 8
greenHat: 11

After greenHat picked up the treasure, the values would be:
blueHat: 14
redHat: 11
yellowHat: 8
greenHat: 12

Notice that only greenHat's health increased when the function Player::getTreasure was called; that's because the member function was called on greenHat only.

Akolawole, what is there for Seun to act on. We are all adults expressing our opinion and views. We are discussing an issue that has been the core of man's confusion since the begining of time. I think it is quite educative and should not be stiffled. Have a nice day

(1) "And God said, Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3) and "...And the evening and the morning were the first day" (Gen. 1:5), versus "And God said, 'Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night.... ' "And God made two lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.... And the evening and morning were the fourth day" (Gen. 1:14-19).
(a) God created light on the first day; yet there were no moon, sun or stars until the fourth day;
(b) how could it be known when the first three days ended if there was no sun until the fourth day?; and
(c) How could morning be distinguished from evening, if the sun and the moon were yet to be created?

(2) "And God said,'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yeilding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind.... And the evening and the morning were the third day" (Gen. 1:11-13), versus "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also" (Gen. 1:16), and "the evening and the morning were the fourth day" (Gen. 1:19). Vegetation was created on the third day; yet there was no sun for the photosynthesis until the fourth day.

(3) " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. 1:1), and"... the evening and the morning were the first day" (Gen.1:5), versus "And God made two great lights; and the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also" (Gen. 1:16) and the evening and the morning were the fourth day" (Gen. 1:19).
(a) According to biblical "science", the earth was created 3 days before the sun, the moon and the stars; (b) Scientists say there are many stars whose light takes millions of years to reach the earth. How, then, could they be 6,000 to 8,000 years old as many Christians allege?

(4) "And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind...' And the evening and the morning were the third day" (Gen. 1:11-13), versus "And God said, 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life... And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly.... And the evening and the morning were the fifth day" (Gen.1:20-23). Genesis says that life existed first on the land as plants and later the seas teemed with living creatures. Geological science says that the sea teemed with animals and vegetable life long before life appeared on land.

(5) " So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds,and every winged bird according to its kind.... And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day" (Gen. 1:21-23 RSV). Geological science says fishes appeared long before the birds. They were not created during the same day or period.

(6) "And God created...every winged fowl after his kind...." (Gen. 1-21) and "And the evening and the morning were the fifth day" (Gen. 1:23), versus "And God made ther beast of the earth... and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind...." (Gen. 1-25), and "... the evening and the morning were the sixth day" (Gen. 1:31). Science says creeping reptiles appeared on the earth before the fowl, not afterwards.

(7) "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, the beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made...every thing that creepth upon the earth after his kind...." (Gen. 1:24-25). Science contends that reptiles were created long before mammals, not simultaneously. While reptiles existed in the Carboniferous Age, mammals did not appear until the close of the Reptilian Age.

( "And God said, 'Let the water bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven" (Gen. 1:20). Birds did not emerge from water.

(9) "So God created man in his own image,...male and female created he them" (Gen. 1:27), and "the evening and the morning were the sixth day" (Gen. 1:31). If Adam was created on the 6th day, approximately 6,000 years ago (Bishop Usher's calculations), then nobody lived before 4,000 B.C. Prehistoric men would be fictitious. By tracing the genealogy of Jesus back 77 generations to Adam, the third chapter of Luke also supports belief in a very young earth. If each man had lived approximately 100 years, then the world would be no more than 9,705 (7,700 + 2005) years old. If each of Jesus' ancestors had lived to be 1,000 years old (an age not even reached by Methuselah), the earth would still be only 79,005 (77,000 + 2005) years old, according to creationists.

(10) "And to every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so" (Gen. 1:30). Carnivorous beasts and fowl do not eat green herbs.

(11) "And God saw everything that he had made...." (Gen. 1:31) and "on the seventh day God ended his work" (Gen. 2:2). Scientifically speaking, unless God had male organs or attributes, it is difficult to see how God could be masculine.

(12) "And out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof" (Gen. 2:19). Environmentally speaking, how could every living creature be brought to any spot in the Middle East or elsewhere without many animals dying because of climatic changes and other factors?

(13) "And Lord God said unto the serpent, 'Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt eat all the days of thy life'..." (Gen. 3:14). If the serpent was a snake, snake-like, or reptilian in character and condemned to crawl upon its belly, how did it move before? And does science know of any serpent that eats dust?

(a) "... and the sons of Zerubbabel; Meshullam, and Hananiah, Jusha-bhesed, five." (1 Chron. 3:19-20). How can there be five sons of Zerubbabel when 7 males and one female are listed?
(b) "And it had for its inheritance Beer-sheba, Sheba, Moladah, Hazar-shual, Balah, Ezem, Eltolad, Bethul, Hormah, Ziklag, Beth-marcaboth, Hazarsuah, Beth-lebaoth, and Sharuhen- thirteen cities with their villages" (Josh. 19:2-6 RSV). Fourteen cities are listed, not 13.
(c) "The cities belonging to the tribe of the people of Judah in the extreme South, toward the boundary of Edom, were Kabzeel, Eder, Jagur, Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah, Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan, Ziph, Telem, Bealoth, Hazor-hadattah, Kerioth-hezron (that is Hazor). Amam,Shema, Moladah, Hazar-gaddah, Heshmon, Bethpelet, Hazar-shual, Beer-sheba, Biziothiah, Baalah, Iim, Ezem, Eltolad, Chesil, Hormah, Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah, Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon; in all twenty-nine(29) cities, with their villages" (Josh. 15:21-32 RSV). Thirty-six cities are listed, not 29.
(d)"...and the sons of Shemaiah; Hattush, and Igeal and Barial, and Neariah, and Shaphat, six" (1Chron. 3:22). Five names don't total six.
(e) "...the sons od Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun,..." (1 Chron. 25:3). Again, five names do not total six.
(f) "And in the lowland, Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah, Zanoah, En-gannim, Tappuah, Enam, Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah, Sha-araim, Adithaim, Gederah, Gederothaim: fourteen cities with their villages" (Josh. 15:33-36 RSV). Fifteen cities are listed, not 14. Bibical authors not only counted inaccurately but often added with comparable precision.
(g) "The whole congregation together (those who returned from the Captivity) was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore (42,360)" (Ezra 2:64). The number of people in each tribe that returned from the Captivity are listed from Ezra 2:3 to Ezra 2:60. One need only total the figures to see that 29,818 returned, not 42,360- an error of 12,542.

(h) A similar problem is encourntered in Neh. 7:66, which says, "the whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and three-score (42,360)." One need only add the figures between Neh. 7:8 and Neh. 7:62 to see that the total for all the tribe should have been 31,089, not 42,360-- an error of 11,271. Besides adding inaccurately, Ezra and Nehemiah can't agree on what the total should be. The former supports 29,818 while the latter asserts 31,089.
(i) "And this is the number of them: Thirty (30) charges of gold, a thousand (1,000) charges of silver, nine and twenty (29) knives, Thirty (30) basins of gold, silver basins of a second sort four hundred and ten (410), and vessels a thousand (1,000). All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred (5,400)" (Ezra 1:9-11). Even if all these items were composed of silver and gold, they would not total 5,400 (30+ 1,000+ 29 + 30 + 410 + 1,000=2,499 not 5,400).

(j) "And these were the sons of Levi by their names; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari" (Num. 3:17) and "Those that were numbered of them (the Gershonites-)...were seven thousand and five hundred (7,500)" (Num. 3:22) and "...these are the families of the Kohathites...eight thousand and six hundred (8,600)" (Num. 3:27-28) and "...these are the families of the Merari. And those that were numbered of them,...were six thousand and two hundred (6,200)" (Num.3:33-34), versus "All that were numbered of the Levites,...were twenty and two thousand (22,000)" (Num. 3:39). The author of Numbers added inaccurately, since 7,500 + 8,600 + 6,200 equals 22,300, not 22,000.

(a) David took seven hundred (2 Sam. 8:4), seven thousand (1 Chron. 18:4) horsemen from Hadadezer;
(b) Ahaziah was 22 (2 Kings 8:26), 42 (2 Chron. 22:2) years old when he began to reign;
(c) Jehoiachin was 18 (2 Kings 24:, 8 (2 Chron. 36:9) years old when he began to reign and he reigned 3 months (2 Kings 24:, 3 months and10 days (2 Chron. 36:9);
(d) There were in Israel 8000,000 (2 Sam. 24:9); 1,1000,000 (1 Chron. 21:5) men that drew the sword and there were 500,000 (2 Sam. 24:9), 470,000 (1 Chron. 21:5) men that drew the sword in Judah;
(e) There were 550 (1 Kings 9:23), 250 (2 Chron. 8:10) chiefs of the officers that bare the rule over the people;
(f) Saul's daughter, Michal, had no sons (2 Sam. 6:23), had 5 sons (2 Sam. 21:6) during her lifetime;
(g) Lot was Abraham's nephew (Gen. 14:12), brother (Gen. 14:14);
(h) Joseph was sold into Egypt by Midianites (Gen. 37:36), by Ishmaelites (Gen. 39:1);
(i) Saul was killed by his own hands (1 Sam. 31:4), by a young Amalekite (2 Sam. 1:10), by the Philistines (2 Sam. 21:12);
(j) Solomon made of a molten sea which contained 2,000 (1 Kings 7:26), 3,000 (2 Chron. 4:5) baths;
(k) The workers on the Temple had 3,300 (1 Kings 5:16), 3,600 (2 Chron. 2:18) overseers;
(l) The earth does (Eccle. 1:4), does not (2 Peter 3:10) abideth forever;
(m) If Jesus bears witness of himself his witness is true (John 8:14), is not true (John 5:31);
(n) Josiah died at Megiddo (2 Kings 23:29-30), at Jerusalem (2 Chron. 35:24);
(o) Jesus led Peter, James, and John up a high mountain after six (Matt. 17:1, Mark 9:2), eight (Luke 9:28) days;
(p) Nebuzaradan came unto Jerusalem on the seventh (2 Kings 25:, tenth (Jer. 52:12) day of the fifth month.

What was the sign on Jesus' cross?
This is Jesus
The King of the Jews.
(Mt 27:37)

The King
of the Jews.
(Mk 15:26)

This is the
King of the Jews.
(Lk 23:38)

Jesus the Nazarene
The King of the Jews. (Jn 19:19)

1. How many Gods are there?
(GEN 1:26) God said "LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE ACCORDING TO OUR LIKENESS",
(GEN 3:22) God said "MAN HAS BECOME LIKE ONE OF US."
(DEUT 6:4) God is one God

2. When was God first called Jehovah?
(Genesis 4:26) long before Moses, men began to call on the name of the Lord, "Jehovah",
(Genesis 22:14) Abraham named a place Jehovah-jireh. "The Lord will provide."
(Exodus 6:2-3) God informed Moses that previously His name (Jehovah) had been unknown even to the patriarchs such as Abraham Isaac and Jacob

3. When did the Nephilim live?
(Genesis 6:4) The Nephilim (giants) lived on earth prior to the Flood
(Genesis 7:23) Only Noah and his family, and the animals on the Ark, survived the Flood.
(Numbers 13:33) Long after the Flood, the Nephilim (Giants) still lived.

4. Does God repent?
(Genesis 6:6) God does repent.
(Numbers 23:19) God does not repent
(I Samuel 15:11,35) God does repent.

5. Who has ascended to heaven?
(Genesis 5:24) Enoch was taken bodily into Heaven.
(II Kings 2:11) Elijah ascended to heaven in a whirlwind.
(John 3:13) Jesus said that no man but himself has ever ascended to heaven.
(Hebrews 11:5) Enoch was taken bodily into Heaven.

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.

7. Math quiz: How long was the flood?
(GEN 7:17, 8:6) The flood was on the Earth 40 days and nights
(GEN 7:24, 8:3) The flood was on the Earth 150 days CONTRADICTS
(GEN 7:11) the flood began during the 600th year, 2nd month, 17th day of Noah's life and finally dried up
(GEN 8:13) during the 601st year, 1st month, 1st day of Noah's life (1 solar year from the date given in Gen7:11).

8. When did the world develop many different languages?
(Genesis 11:1,6-9) In the days of Babel, generations after the Flood, the world had one common language. God "confused the tongues" to create many.
(Genesis 10:5) Prior to Babel, the Bible speaks of many "nations", each with its own language

9. Does God cause confusion?
(GEN11:9) God confused the language of all the Earth at Babel
(EX15:24) God troubled ("CONFUSED" BY SOME TRANSLATIONS) the army of Egypt.
(1SAM7:10) God thundered upon the philistines so as to confuse them
(1COR14:33) God is not the author of confusion

10. Math quiz: How long did Terah live?
(Genesis 11:26,32) Terah lived 135 years after begetting Abraham (he begat Abram at age 70 and lived 205 years total).
(Genesis 12:4) Abraham was 75 years old when he departed Haran.
(Acts 7:4) Abraham departed Haran when his father (Terah) was dead.

11. Who has seen God?
(Gen 18:1) The Lord appeared to Abraham.
(GEN 32:24-30) Jacob saw and wrestled with God
(EX 24:9-11) Moses & 73 elders gazed upon God.
(Exodus 33:11) God spoke to Moses face-to-face.
(Exodus 33:22-23) God allowed Moses to see his "back parts".
(Deut 34:10) God spoke to Moses face-to-face.
(IS 6:1-13) Isaiah stood before God and saw him
(Ezekiel 1:27-28) Ezekiel saw God in a vision and described Him in some detail.
(Amos 7:7) Amos saw God.
(John 1:18, 6:46) No one has ever seen God.
(1 TIM6:16) God is un-seeable
(I John 4:12) No one has ever seen God.

12. Is God a fair and righteous judge?
(GEN 18:25) God claims to judge right
(GEN 22:1-2) God commands Abraham to sacrifice his own son.
(EX 20:5) God admits jealousy
(DEUT 32:4) God is perfect, just, true, righteous, upright,
(PSALM 92:15) God is not unrighteous
(IS 45:7) God claims to do good AND evil; all things
(JER 18:11) God threatens disaster to make a people be good
(EZEK 18:25) God claims to be fair
(AMOS 3:6) God admits he makes calamity
(ROM 2:11) God is impartial
(JAMES 1:13) God is not tempted by evil and tempts no one with evil

13. Who was Keturah?
(GEN 25:1) Keturah was Abraham's wife
(1 CHRON 1:32) Keturah was Abraham's concubine.

14. Who sold Joseph into slavery?
(Genesis 37:36) The Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, the courtier of Pharaoh
(Genesis 39:1) The Ishmaelites brought Joseph to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar, the courtier of Pharaoh.

15. Where was Jacob buried?
(Genesis 50:13) Jacob was buried in Canaan. in a cave which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite.
(Acts 7:15-16) Jacob was buried in Sychem. in a sepulchre which Abraham had purchased from Emmor.

16. Does God condone or condemn lying?
(EX 2:18-20) God deals well with midwives for lying to the King of Egypt.
(EX 20:16) Lying forbidden
(JOSH 2:4-6) Rahab hides two men from the King of Jericho and lies to him and is dealt well with by God
(PROV 12:22) Lying is an abomination to God
(JAMES 2:25) James preaches that Rahab was justified for hiding two men and lying,
(REV 21: all liars will burn in the lake of fire

17. How about stealing?
(Exodus 3:21-22) plundering commanded.
(Exodus 20:15) Stealing forbidden

18. Does God afflict people with illnesses?
(Exodus 4:11) God admitted He is the cause of blindness, deafness, dumbness.
(Lamentations 3:33) God does not willingly cause grief or affliction.

19. Did God kill off the Pharoah's livestock, or didn't he?
(Exodus 9:3-6) God killed all the cattle (field animals) of the Egyptians with a grievous murrain including the horses, asses, camels, oxen and sheep. None survived the plague
(Exodus 9:19-21,25) Later, at least some of the Egyptian field animals were mysteriously alive again, to suffer a plague of hail.
(EX 14:9) Pharaoh later chases Israel with all his horses and chariots.

20. Is God peaceful?
(EX 15:3) He is a God of war.
(1 COR 14:33) He is not a God of confusion but of peace

21. How does God feel about the making of images?
(Exodus 20:4) Image-making forbidden
(Exodus 25:18) God commands the making of two cherubim.

22. Who pays for sins?
(Exodus 20:5) God blames children for the iniquities of the father. even for four generations.
(Deuteronomy 5:9) His curse or punishment may extend far beyond the third or fourth generation.
(Deuteronomy 24:16) The son should not be punished for the father's sin. Every man bears guilt only for his own transgressions.
(II Chronicles 25:4) The son should not be punished for the father's sin. Every man bears guilt only for his own transgressions.
(EZEK 18:19-20) Each is responsible for his own actions, a son does not bear guilt for his father's sins
(Romans 5:12,14.19, 6:23) All men are considered sinners because of Adam's sin. Death, the punishment for sin, is inflicted even on those who did not sin, because Adam sinned.

23. How does God feel about selling one's daughter?
(EX 21:7) conditions are set up for selling one's daughters.
(Lev 19:29) It is forbidden to sell a daughter

24. Who inscribed the commandments on stone?
(Exodus 34:27-28) God dictated the second set of 10 commandments to Moses while Moses inscribed them.
(Deuteronomy 10:1-2,4) God inscribed the second set of 10 commandments on stones which Moses made

25. So, did God say it, or not?
(Leviticus chapters 1-7) After delivering the Jews from Egypt, God went into minute detail regarding sacrifices and burnt offerings.
(Jeremiah 7:22) God denied that he ever said anything about sacrifices or burnt offerings.

26. Where do the rules on what types of food to eat come from?
(Leviticus 3:17, 11:1-47) God gave many rules about what may be eaten or handled
(Colossians 2:20-23) Such rules come from man, not God.

27. Should we judge others?
(Leviticus 19:15) You must judge your neighbor in righteousness
(Matthew 7:1) Judge not or you will be judged.

28. Can I wear long hair and still be "clean?"
(Numbers 6:2-6) Describes the process for being clean in order to consecrate an offering; involves not allowing a razor to come upon his head and letting the locks of his hair grow
(I Corinthians 11:14) Paul preaches that it is a shame for any man to have long hair.

29. Does God keep his word?
(NUM 23:19) God does not change, Makes good his promises
(I SAM 2:30-31) God admits not keeping his promise
(II KINGS 20:1-6) God says one thing, then changes his mind and says another
(JONAH 3:10) God doesn't keep his promise to destroy

30. Has God ever lied?
(Numbers 23:19) God cannot lie
(I Kings 22:20-30) God deliberately sent a "lying spirit" into the mouth of Ahab's prophets
(II Chronicles 18:19-22) God deliberately sent a "lying spirit" into the mouth of Ahab's prophets
(II Thessalonians 2:11-12) God sends delusions on people to make them believe false things and be damned
(Titus 1:2) God cannot lie
(HEB 6:18) It is impossible for God to lie

31. Is God loving, merciful, kind, etc.?
(NUM 25:4) God commands Moses to hang the leaders in the sun to calm God's anger
(DEUT 4:24) God is a consuming fire, a jealous God
(I SAM 6:19) God strikes 50,070 dead for a sin with no compassion
(I SAM 15:2,3) God commands utter destruction of a nation of people for one man's sin,
(II SAM 21:1) God causes a three year famine because of the doings of one man's house.
(I CHRON 16:34) God is good and merciful
(Psalm 25: God is good and upright
(Psalm 145:8-9) God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, merciful, and good to all
(JER 13:14) God will not pity, not spare, not show mercy, but destroy them
(JER 17:4) God will be angry at Judah forever
(EZEK 18:32) God finds no pleasure in death
(JAMES 5:11) God is very compassionate and merciful
(1 JOHN 4:16) God is love

32. Did the Midianites survive or not?
(Numbers 31:7.9,15-18) The Israelites slew all the Midianites except the female virgins
(Judges 6:1-5) Later, the Midianites invaded the Israelites.

33. Can we love AND fear God?
(Deuteronomy 6:5) We must love God
(Deuteronomy 6:13) We must fear God
(Matthew 22:37) We must love God
(I Peter 2:17) We must fear God
(I John 4:18) Perfect love cannot be mingled with fear.

34.Did Ai burn, or not?
(Joshua 8:28) Joshua burnt the city of Ai, making it an ash heap forever
(Nehemiah 7:32) Ai is counted among the existing cities of Jerusalem approx. 1000 years later.

Watch out for part two. By the way, I understand that the ways of God are different from the ways of man. This text does not explain the above discrepancies. We are better off looking at them objectively without the addition of dogma.

AbduRahman,

There is sense in some of your writtings but I do not agree with most of your thoughts. You see my only problem is an acceptance of either the bible or the Qu' ran as a source of authority and the other issue would be that of interpretation. I have a tendency to interprete the bible in a different light from you. I think this is an issue we should explore.

On the other issues, I will quote the Qu 'ran and rest my case on that until such a time as we have fully exploited the different avenues of interpretation of the holy texts. Sura 108 says and I quote "1. Say (O Muhammad to these Mushrikun and Kafirun): "O Al-Kafirun (disbelievers in Allah, in His Oneness, in His Angels, in His Books, in His Messengers, in the Day of Resurrection, and in Al-Qadar, etc.)!

2. I worship not that which you worship,

3. Nor will you worship that which I worship.

4. And I shall not worship that which you are worshipping.

5. Nor will you worship that which I worship.

6. "To you be your religion, and to me be mine"

While I wait for your response, have a lovely day.

The El-Baron

Beautiful, Ajisafe, I would be delighted to see these passages. Any help from you would be appreciated. By the way, I read my bible very well

Thanks for your response. Of course a lot of evil has been commited in the name of God. This evils should be exposed when found. I think christiandom is filled with all sorts of rubbish which should be cleaned out as soon as possible, if it is not already too late. I am sure we can discuss this things. As for the catholic, I think they are a cultist movement and I have evidence to support that. Which is why I am kind of particular about that. Still working on the article. It should be finished sometime today. Thanks for reading.

The El-Baron

Emmanuel, thanks a lot for the pointer. I am not a proffessional teacher so I will goof from time to time regarding my teaching methods. I thank you all for your corrections and suggestions. Seun, thanks too for your initial advise. Ajisafe, I am debugging a game of chess I wrote in Java, should be posted in the gaming section soon (if seun allows me..... ). On the issue of classes and structures, here is the explanation:

The support that C++ provides for OOP (Object Oriented Programming) is concentrated in the class notion. The class is the unit of data abstraction in C++. On the surface the class can be viewed like a C struct or a Pascal Record definition. The class provides the programmer with a method to encapsulate, i.e. hide, the state of the abstract data type (ADT) and specify the external interface for use of the ADT.
Here is a simple class definition for a complex number data type. Features of the definition are describedbelow.

 
  class Complex
  {
  private:
      double re;
      double im;
 
  public:
      Complex(float r,float i) {re = r; im = i;}
      Complex(float r) {re = r;im =0;}
      ~Complex() {};
 
      double Magnitude();                  // calculate magnitude
     
      double Real() {return re;}           // return real part
      inline double Imag();                // return imaginary part
 
      Complex operator+(Complex b)
  {return Complex(re + b.re,im + b.im);}
 
      Complex operator=(Complex b)
          {re = b.re;im = b.im; return *this;}
  }
 
  inline double Complex::Imag()
  {
      return im;
  }
 
  double Complex::Magnitude()
  {
      return sqrt(re*re + Imag()*Imag());
  }
 
 
Class and Structure Members

Elements of a class or structure can not only be variables storing the state of the object, such as re and im in Complex, but also functions that perform operations on objects of that type. The functions can have parameters specified, such as with Complex in Complex which is a special class member called a constructor. Note here the C++ support for polymorphism by allowing function names to be overloaded with different parameters. The compiler will determine the correct function to use based on the data type of the parameters in the function call. Complex has two Complex constructors defined with different parameter lists. Code that is part of a member function of a class, such as the code in Complex::Magnitude(), has access to all members of the class directly. Within Copmlex. Magnitude references to re or im will access the data members of that object. Note that defining a class member function is exactly the same as a regular function except that the function name is prefaced with class-name::. A class function member can also be directly accessed inside of a class function which was done to get the imaginary part of the complex number in Complex::Magnitude(). Class member functions that are very short can be declared as inline functions. If code for the member function is defined within the class definition, such as Complex::Real() it is assumed to be an inline function. Otherwise, the function must be explicitely defined as inline and code provided outside of the class definition, such as Complex::Imag().

Public, private, protected members
When defining a class the programmer can specify the level of access to members of the class from outside of the class. The keywords private, public and protected define the levels of access. Any members defined below a public label are accessible directly by any other data type. Members below a private label are accessible only from within member functions of the class. If some private members, either data or function members, must be available to other classes these can be specified using the friend designation. As with the scope of variables in your program, good practice dictates limiting access to the data members of a class. If program code outside of the class definition must modify data members provide a class function to do this. Similarly, if code must access the data members of the class, define them as private and provide public class functions to access the data. If no access designators are provided, all class members default to being private. The orignal C struct has been enhanced in that it can now define member functions as well as data. struct can be viewed as a class in which all members are public. The protected keyword is used to allow derived classes to have access to some class members that are not available as public.

Derived Class
A derived class is a new class that inherits all of the properties of the class from which it is derived and may add new features specific to this new class. An example of this from a drawing program is that the programmer has defined a base class called Object. From this base class other objects are derived such as Rectangle and Circle. The are some aspects of the Object class that are shared by all objects. Each of the new objects may add other features such as a specific technique for drawing itself or calculating its area. If functions in this derived class need access to some of the base class's non-public members then those members can be declared protected. Alternatively, you could use the friend keyword to explicitely specify which other classes get access to the private members. A more detailed discussion of inheritance and derived classes will be discussed later.

Public access to class
Access to the public members of a class is through the structure access operators provided in standard C. If a has been declared as an object of Complex type then access to the magnitude of this complex number in an expression is gotten using a.Magnitude(). If b is declared as a pointer to an object of Complex type then access to the magnitude of this complex number in an expression is gotten using a->Magnitude(). If there are public data members in the class they can be accessed using similar syntax.

I hope this clears the air. If there are any further confusions, please let me know.

The El-Baron

Sisi, if she bites the bullet and leaves Mr. Randy, what do you suppose she would have achieved? They have obviously been married for sometime, suffered together, etc. And if she does leave him, chances are that she will meet another man and chances are that he will do the same, and taking your advice, she will leave again. For how long will that continue?

Would it not be better if she finds out why the husband is cheating on her and find a solution to the problem? As for the man being randy, my people have a parable "All dogs eat feaces (shit) but the one that is labeled a feaces eater is the one in whose mouth it is found". I dont think respect is an issue here. Respect is a mutual thing. Like the Americans say "What goes around comes around, the more you give, the more you get". If you want respect, you give it. By the way, did it occur to you that if she leaves "Miss Olojukokoro" would be the winner? What would she have achieved? Let's rethink our advices and apply them to ourselves, see where it leads us.

Have a nice day

Nferyn, thanks for your response. What I hope to accomplish by this article and many more to follow is to expose the Catholic church for the cult it is. My essays will be supported by hard facts as well as catholic dogma, Papal pronouncements and edicts.

As for my sources, you will find more enlightenment from the Vatican itself. Infact, my major source is the Vatican itself. Please see: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/

See also: http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/trent.htm for the declaration of trent. See also: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ctbull.html. Most importantly, I want you to see the following link for a complete text of the vatican council: http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/v1.html.

By the way, I plan on writting another article on the conspiracy that led to the murder of Pope John Paul 1 (Albino Luciani) by certain elements in the vatican. Murder in the name of God. If you need more sources to prove my essay on the Vatican Ecumenical Councils shout and I will come running. Have a nice day.

The El-Baron

PrettyH. Is this an outburst or something close to it? I am well aware that there are at least 5 way in which you could have made the same statement or given the same pointer without sounding so crude and rude. It is an opinion supported with facts, so you could call it an essay, in that sense. However the fact that it could give people migrain is immaterial. I am very sure that if you attended a university, your "project" was at least 10 pages long and you sure did read it word for word without getting a migrain.

As for you not reading the article, it is your loss. I believe people are here to air their views and you are entitled to do same just as I am. If I have chosen to write a long essay in order to express myself satisfactorily as well as incorporate ingrained facts, that is my business and if you choose not to read it, that too, my dearest, is your business.

This is supposed to be an online meeting place of people with various character and mind sets as well as divergent values, cuturally and otherwise. There is no limit to the number of characters one can write. If there was supposed to be limitations as to the length of articles, the moderators of this site would have imposed those limitations. However, since I haven't noticed any, I am very sure I will continue to express myself in as many pages as I deem neccessary. By the way, there is no law saying you must read it. Have a nice day.

Once you have designed your objects, writing the C++ code is simple. The hard part is designing objects that will interact well with each other, that will do everything you need them to be able to do, but nothing more. There is almost no new syntax you need to learn to write objects in C++. It involves using the syntax for variables and functions, so make sure you understand this syntax before continuing.

Let's continue to flesh out our text-based adventure game. First, we'll write the code for our Player object. In Chapter 6.1, we decided that players would have the following attributes, or member data: health, strength, agility, type of weapon, and type of armor. To simplify this example, we'll just use the first three attributes. We also wanted the Player to have the following actions, or member functions: move, attack monster, and get treasure.

To write the code for our object, all we need to do is declare the member data and member functions, and wrap them up inside an object declaration. Here's how it's done:

class Player {
  int health;
  int strength;
  int agility;

  void move();
  void attackMonster();
  void getTreasure();
};

This is a completely valid, working class declaration for the Player object. All we did was declared our member data (variables for our object) and member functions (functions that our object can use), and enclosed them inside a class declaration block. The class declaration block consists of the keyword class, followed by the name of the object, in this case Player, a pair of braces, and a semi-colon.

Of course, this object won't be able to do anything, because we haven't defined its member functions. Inside the class declaration, we said that the Player object would be able to do things like move, attack monsters, and get treasures; but we did not say how a Player would execute these functions. We need to write a function body for each function, so that a Player instance knows how to attack a monster, for example.

Here's the syntax for writing a function definition for a member function:

void Player::move() {
  //function body goes here
}


In other words, it's almost identical to writing a function definition for a plain-old, stand-alone function. The only difference is that we precede the name of the function, in this case move(), with the name of the object, Player, and two colons. This tells the compiler that this function is part of the Player class.

What is a pointer

So what is a pointer? A pointer is a way to get at another object. Essentially it is a way to grab an instance of an object and then either pass that instance a message or retreive some data from that object. A pointer is actually just an address of where an instance is held in memory.

Some piece of your program can either possess an instance of an object, or know where an instance of an object is. An instance of an object is a chunk of memory that is big enough to store all the member data of that object. A pointer is an address that explains how to get to where the instance is actually held in memory. Here's a quick example:

Our Player object has three pieces of data that it owns: strength, agility, and health. These are a part of the player object. That makes sense in real world terms. The player knows about two other pieces of data: the weapon and the armor that the player possesses.

So that is how to conceptually think of pointers. Now what's really going on? Memory in a computer is a complicated thing, but let's reduce it to it's simplest form: one large string of slots with addresses that data can be put in.


If we were to access the spot in memory with address 3, we would get the value 45. If we were to access the spot in memory with address 2 we would get the value "Dave". The previous diagram over simplifies two important concepts, however. First, each spot that has an address is the same size as every other spot. Second, what's held in memory is simply data. That is, the information there is just a string of binary data, 1's and 0's. The way that the data is viewed gives it meaning.
With these new ideas in mind let's Take a look at our previous diagram about the player and see what's really going on. Here is the pseudo code for the Player in a little more detail than we have seen:

class Player {
  // attributes
  int     health;
  int     strength;
  int     agility;

  // pointers to weapons and armor
  Pointer weapon;
  Pointer armor;

  // actions that a player knows how to perform
  void    move();
  void    attackMonster();
  void    getTreasure();
};

What follows could be a view of memory. This will seem fairly complex and is not imperative to understanding the c++ language. If it does not make sense right away, come back to it.

I have translated the actual binary values to their corresponding values in the context of our program. In this view an instance of a Player is stored at memory address 4098. The first attribute (instance variable) is there: health is 12. The second attribute is strength, 14. Then agility 16. The next attribute, stored at address 4104 is a pointer to an instance of a weapon object. If we follow that to the bottom of the diagram, there is the name of the weapon, "club" stored as ASCII values at address 6144 through address 6148 (the 0 ends the string). The next attribute for a weapon after name is rating, in this case 2, which means "poor" because I have decided that the rating system should be:

1 = very poor
2 = poor
3 = average
4 = good
5 = very good

Notice that all the memory contains is binary data. It is how that data is viewed that actually gives it meaning.

Quite an intersting scenario. I am not going to talk about whether he is lucky to be alive or not. First, I do not believe he was going to Abuja in the first place. According to the story, she was eaves dropping and heard snipets of a conversation, she didn't wait to hear it all. As soon as she heard Abuja, she barged in. For all we know, he was probably telling Moni that his excuse for being away from the house would be that he is going to Abuja. I will let that be for the moment.

As for the wife, fighting it to your last blood does not even come close to being a solution to the problem. Once a man or woman for that matter has made up his . her mind to have an affair, that's it. But before then, something will lead him or her to it. Nobody who has a happy home goes having extra marrital affairs especially if he has been caught in it. There is something wrong with the marriage.

Something is missing somewhere. People have affairs when there is something lacking in their present relationships. Do they have meaningful communication? Are they only having sex on the bed only in the missionary position? Is the wife averse to giving and recieving MouthAction? Does she listen when he talks? Does she make him feel like a man? Is she a perpetual nag? These and several other questions could be what makes Moni indispensable at the moment.

I suggest they both look for the root cause of their problems and deal with it from there. Once they have done this, believe me, Moni is out of the question. Good luck to you and to us all. By the way, I heard some people suggest that the woman is too good for Lanre. Like they say, an apology for the devil, God has written all the books. We have only heard her side of the story, but there's always two sides to a coin. It might probably be Lanre who's been too Good to her. Whatever it is, divorce is not a solution.

AbduRahman,

I find your response to my post very offensive. I think it is the height of disrespect for you to rubbish the Image of Jesus as just a man of many words. I do not us to reduce this to name calling and an outlet for religious bickering. I do not know why you signed on to this forum but I came here to learn and to contribute my own 2 cents where called for.

However, to answer your question, I will ask you another. Does it mean that the Holy Prophet Mohamed derives pleasure from seeing people suffer? Does it mean that the Holy prophet does not know what tolerance means? According to his teachings in the Holy Koran (9: 73) and I quote: "O Prophet! Make war against the unbelievers [all non-Muslims] and the hypocrites and be merciless against them. Their home is hell, an evil refuge indeed." Do you suppose that God himself will tolerate this? If he will, how come he did not obliterate Satan completely?

Consider this writting also "I am with you. Give firmness to the believers. I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: you smite them above their necks and smite all their fingertips off of them." (Koran, 8:12). Does these not show that the Holy prophet derived pleasure from seeing people who differ from him ideaologically, suffer?

Which is better? A man of big words or one who sows the seeds of turture? Do these not show you sadistic tendecies in the teacher? Have a good day while you ponder these.

Up until this point, every line of code I've shown you has done a simple task, such as performing an arithmetic operation, or checking a boolean condition, or assigning to a variable. Functions allow you to do a whole lot in one line of code. Instead of performing a simple task, a single line of code can display a menu of choices, or compute complicated three-dimensional transformations, or even play Tetris!

How is this possible? Functions allow you to group a series of steps under one name. Remember when we were baking chocolate chip cookies? We had to perform the following steps:

place two eggs in a bowl
add 1.5 c. butter to the eggs
...
bake cookies for 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees or until brown

In C++, and in most programming languages, you can give a name to a series of steps. Let's say we want to call this procedure "bake cookies". Then, our algorithm for baking cookies becomes:
bake cookies

We've just created a function to do the work for us. Don't get too excited - you still need to know how to bake the cookies. You still need to know that the first step is placing two eggs in a bowl, and that the second step is adding butter to the eggs. In this example, what you would do is write a function called bakeCookies (C++ won't let you put spaces in the names of functions or variables) that performs the series of steps above, and then whenever you wanted to bake cookies, you would call the function bakeCookies, which would execute the lines of code necessary to carry out the procedure.

Note: When we say you are calling the function bakeCookies, we do not mean that you are giving it the name bakeCookies - you've already done that by writing the function. We mean you are executing the code in the function bakeCookies. "Calling a function" really means "telling a function to execute".

What are functions good for?
At this point, we've seen one reason why functions are useful. Functions let us create logical groupings of code. If someone is reading your code, and she sees that you call a function bakeCookies, she knows immediately that you are baking cookies. If, on the other hand, she sees that your code places eggs in a bowl, then adds butter, etc., it will not be clear right away that you are trying to bake cookies. Lots of recipes start out with putting eggs in a bowl, and lots of recipes add butter to the eggs. By the time she reads the last line, she might realize that you are baking cookies, but only if she is familiar with the recipe. It's possible that she won't realize that you are baking cookies at all! The point is, functions make your code much easier to read.

There is an even better reason to use functions: they can make your code shorter. Fewer lines of code is not always desirable, but every time you write a line of code, there's the possibility that you are introducing a bug. Functions start to reduce the number of lines of code when you call them repeatedly.

Suppose that you want to mail out invitations to eight of your friends for a cocktail party. Let's assume that you need to do the following procedure in order to invite your friend Hank.

write Hank's name on the invitation
write Hank's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

It takes five lines of pseudo-code to invite one friend, so it takes 40 lines of pseudo-code to invite eight friends. It would look like this:
write Hank's name on the invitation
write Hank's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

write Ann's name on the invitation
write Ann's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

write Alicia's name on the invitation
write Alicia's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

write Whitney's name on the invitation
write Whitney's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

write Greg's name on the invitation
write Greg's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

write Mi Young's name on the invitation
write Mi Young's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

write Flavio's name on the invitation
write Flavio's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation on the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

write Brian's name on the invitation
write Brian's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

That's a lot of repeated code, and any time you repeat code like this, you are more likely to add a bug to your program. For example, look at what we're doing with Flavio's invitation - we are placing it on, not in, the envelope! We sealed his envelope and dropped it in the mail, but there was no invitation inside. Flavio will receive an empty envelope and he'll be mighty confused. That's a mistake that resulted from having to type the same lines of code over and over again.

Functions can substantially reduce the amount of pseudo-code you need to write to invite your eight friends to the party. It seems unlikely that you'd be able to reduce this at all - each of your friends has got to have their own personally addressed invitation, and all of the envelopes have to be sealed and stamped and placed in the mail. How are we going to reduce the number of lines of code? Let's create a function called inviteToParty which does the following procedure:

write Hank's name on the invitation
write Hank's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

Now that we have this function, we can call it eight times to invite our eight friends:
inviteToParty
inviteToParty
inviteToParty
inviteToParty
inviteToParty
inviteToParty
inviteToParty
inviteToParty

You probably noticed a problem with doing it this way. We're inviting Hank eight times, and none of our other friends are going to receive invitations! Hank will get invited eight times because the function invites Hank to the party, and the function is being called eight times. The solution is to modify the function so that it invites friend to the party, where friend can be any of your friends. We'll change our function so that it looks like this:
write friend's name on the invitation
write friend's name and address on the envelope
place the invitation in the envelope
seal and stamp the envelope
drop the envelope in the mail

and then we'll change the way in which we call the function:
inviteToParty (friend = Hank)
inviteToParty (friend = Ann)
inviteToParty (friend = Alicia)
inviteToParty (friend = Whitney)
inviteToParty (friend = Greg)
inviteToParty (friend = Mi Young)
inviteToParty (friend = Flavio)
inviteToParty (friend = Brian)

Now, each time we call the function, friend is a different person, and each of our eight friends will be invited. We've just reduced the number of lines of pseudo-code from 40 to 13 by using a function, and our code became much easier to read. (We also got rid of that bug whereby Flavio received an empty envelope.)

All of the examples on this page were written in pseudo-code, but the next page describes how to write functions in C++.

Summary
Think of a function as a black box.







A "black box" is a convenient analogy for something that happens by magic. How does the black box work? It takes some inputs, and swirls them around inside the box, and produces some kind of output. Each function can swirl around the inputs in a different way, however that function so chooses. How a function will use the inputs to come up with the outputs is the essence of the function.

We just said that functions are like black boxes because we throw in some inputs, and something happens by magic, and some output comes flying out. The black box metaphor is really only appropriate when you are using other people's functions. When you write the function yourself, you have to know exactly how the function swirls up the inputs. It's not magical for you, because you decided how the function works. However, if you give your function to someone else for them to use, you can tell them it's a black box.

Thank you brethren for your various posts. Are we then, to assume that the Koran should be taken as the only point of reference as refers to authenticity in exclusion to the bible? Please let me know. It sure a very interesting topic. With all my regards

A variable is a place to store a piece of information. Just as you might store a friend's phone number in your own memory, you can store this information in a computer's memory. Variables are your way of accessing your computer's memory.

Of course, your memory changes over time. Your friend moves across country and has a new phone number, and your friend's new phone number will replace the old one in your memory. Over time, as you acquire new friends, your memory will keep changing to store different pieces of information. Likewise, a computer's memory can change over time, if you tell it to. Since variables are your access point to your computer's memory, it makes sense that you'd be able to change the information in a computer's memory; otherwise, they wouldn't be called variables (they'd be called statics).

Why should you care about variables? Variables are the essence of any computer program! Without variables, computers would be useless. Imagine a program which asks the user for two numbers and adds them together, and prints the result.

# AddTwoNumbers
Enter the first number: 2
Enter the second number: 5
The sum of 2 and 5 is 7.
#

Sounds simple, right? But let's do a little role-playing to see what the computer has to do to execute this program. Instead of this interaction between a person and a computer, let's imagine the same kind of conversation between two people, Sol and Frank.
Sol: Hey Frank, I just learned how to add two numbers together.
Frank: Cool!
Sol: Give me the first number.
Frank: 2.
Sol: Ok, and give me the second number.
Frank: 5.
Sol: Ok, here's the answer: 2 + 5 = 7.
Frank: Sheesh! This guy is unbelievable!

After Frank says "2", Sol has to store that number in his memory somewhere. It may be stored in short-term memory, but he has to store it somewhere before Frank gives him the second number. Even if Frank were to give him two numbers in the same sentence, Sol would have to store the numbers somewhere in his memory to add them together.

In the sample program described above, the computer would most likely store "2" in a variable, then store "5" in a variable, and then calculate the sum by calculating the sum of the numbers store in the two variables.

Although there are similarities between a person's memory and a computer's memory, there are some pretty big differences. In C++, you need to grab a little piece of the computer's memory before you can use it. In other words, you have to tell the computer that you're planning to store a number in a variable before you can actually do it. This is called declaring a variable. To declare a variable, you need to know what kind of information it will store (i.e., will it store a number, or a text-string, or something else) and how you plan to refer to the variable (i.e., the variable's name). C++ imposes fairly strict rules on how you can name your variables:

variable names must begin with a letter
variable names are "case-sensitive" (i.e., the variable "myNumber" is different from the variable "MYNUMBER" which is different from the variable "mYnUmBeR"
variable names can't have spaces
variable names can't have special characters (typographic symbols)
What can you name your variables? In general, variable names can be composed of letters, numbers, and underscores (_). However, C++ reserves certain keywords which have special meaning to the language, and you are not allowed to use any of these keywords as variables names. Some examples of C++ keywords are int, for, else, and class. You can, however, use keywords in the middle of a variable name, such as "foreign" or "classical".

The flow of control
When a programmer is crafting a program, it is good practice to break the program down into pieces that can be thought of independently. Once the program has been completed, we can think of its execution as being a series of these pieces that work together in a certain sequence. These pieces then pass the control of the program between each other. While one piece has the control, the other pieces are inactive. This is known as the flow of control in a program. If our program had three parts, called Start, Middle, and End, the flow of control could look like:




control statements
Control Statements, then, are ways for a programmer to control what pieces of the program are to be executed at certain times. The syntax of Control statements are very similar to regular english, and are very similar to choices that we make every day. There are two basic types of control statements: branching statements and loops.

branching statements
We will first look at branching statements. Let's say Julien is shopping at a mall and he finds a CD that he wants to buy. Julien then checks his pocket to see if he has enough money to pay for the CD. When he pulls his money out of his pocket Julian may be thinking: "if I have more money than the price of the CD then I will buy the CD." In pseudocode that thought could be translated into:
if (my_money > cost_of_CD) then
buy_CD
else
get_a_job
end if;

Note that the pseudocode statement end if means "end the previous if statement." This is to make it clear what statements are inside the if statement and what statements are outside of the if statement.

Depending on a certain condition a certain series of events will be executed. Another type of branching statement is called a switch statement. A switch statement is just a shorter way of writing a lot of if statements. Switch statements will be explained in more detail in the next subsection.


nesting control statements
In the preceding situation, if Julien doesn't have enough money, before going out to get a job, he could look for a friend to borrow the money from. Now the pseudocode for this could be:
if (my_money > cost_of_CD) then
buy_CD
else
if (see_a_friend) then
borrow_money
else
get_a_job
end if;
end if;

Now there is one control statement that is inside of another control statement. This is known as nesting.

loops
Let's pretend now that Julien was buying a house instead of a CD. If Julien wanted to buy the house without taking a loan from the bank, he would have to wait until he had enough money to buy the house. The pseudocode for this could be:
if (my_money > cost_of_house) then
buy_house
end if;

But this means that Julien would only check once if he had enough money to buy the house. What we want to describe is the fact that Julien needs to keep waiting until he has enough money to buy the house.
while (my_money < cost_of_house)
work_more
end while;
buy_house;

This is a loop statement. Another loop statement is the for command. Let's say Julien wanted to add up how much money he would make over the next year. Let's say Julien is paid $500 twice each month. The pseudocode to figure this out could be:
int total=0;
for x = 1 to 24
total = total + 500
next x;
output total;

A for statement execute a specified number of times. In this instance it executes 24 times (12 months * 2 pay periods per month). In this example, it would actually be easier to write this code as:
total = 24 * 500;
output total;

But, what if Julien earns interest on any money that he saves? Now a for statement will be a handy tool. Let's decide that Julien spends $400 a month on rent, $75 a month on food, and $100 a month on other expenses. Let's also assume that Julien earns 2% per month on any money that he saves. Now our pseudocode could look like:
int monthly_expenses= 400 + 75 + 100;
int monthly_income = 1000;
float interest_rate = .02

// compute the amount Julien will have saved after one year
int total = 0;
int interest_earned =0;
for x = 1 to 12
interest_earned = total * interest_rate;
total = total + interest_earned + monthly_income - monthly_expenses
next x;

// display the value
output  total;

Control statements allow a programmer to craft a program so that certain parts of code execute multiple times, or not at all based on the current state of the program. Control statements are the most basic form of logical control within a program.

Hello c0dec, thanks for pointing out the correction. I should have included .h as the file extension. I am sorry about that. Typo error. About saving the file as *.cpp in linux, this would be too tidious and cumberson. Linux does have it's own compiler and that does not recognise .cpp file extensions. It is better to save the file at whatever.C. This explains to the linux box that its a C++ program and it will execute it as such. However, when you are writting in binaries (That is: 0s and 1s, you can save as *.cpp. But that is too advanced for the audience at the moment.). Thanks for the checks and balances. I hope somebody learns something from here