₦airaland Forum

Peterken05: This shit scares religious people away, because it contradicts their belief, lets just say 'we didnt evolve from apes, Human and apes have the same ancestry'.

Screw that! I'm not engaging in any semantic games just to spare religious people's feelings. Our ability to apply logic and reason is the main thing that differentiates us from chimpanzees and I will not compromise on it for anybody.

Once we allow ourselves to start pandering to religious people's sensibilities, we'll never be able to stop. That is a slippery slope that leads to a very bad place.

We are all apes and there is no way around it. Religious people may not want to hear that, but they'll just have to pull up their big boy trousers and deal with it.

Efere701: There is no point for Nigerian catholics to pull out of CAN because of its political involvement.The catholic leaders in the world have always been patners with world leaders. Over the years they have developed strong relationships. They have blessed the arms of troops of armies during wartime, They have influenced many government decisions, they have not hidden their support for world leaders.

You're absolutely right.

https://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e372/tlthe5th/nazi-vatican/hitler19.jpg
https://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e372/tlthe5th/nazi-vatican/bonhoeffer_hitler-1.jpg

LordReed: To further my position, this is from John Hawks an associate professor of anthropology:

Humans are hominoids. Hominoidea is a
taxonomic group. Phylogenetic systematics
holds that taxonomic groups should be
monophyletic — meaning that they include all
the descendants of one ancestor, and don’t
leave any descendants out. Humans are closely
related to chimpanzees and bonobos, more
distantly to gorillas, then orangutans, then
gibbons. All these living creatures are crown
hominoids. The Hominoidea includes all these,
together with extinct animals
like Australopithecus , Proconsul , Dryopithecus,
and many others. Chimpanzees are apes.
Gorillas are apes, as are bonobos, orangutans,
and gibbons. We routinely differentiate the
“great apes” from the “lesser apes”, where the
latter are gibbons and siamangs. Humans are
not apes. Humans are hominoids, and all
hominoids are anthropoids. So are Old World
monkeys like baboons and New World monkeys
like marmosets. All of us anthropoids. But
humans aren’t monkeys.

SOURCE

This is exactly the type of mental gymnastics I was talking about. First you admit that phylogenetic groups should include all descendants; then you want to arbitrarily exclude one group of descendants, humans.

And you want to use the argument from authority to support this nonsense? So if an associate professor of mathematics says 1+1=3, you'll expect me to just accept it?

Worst of all is that you didn't even read and understand your own source. Your prof was making the (only slightly less stupìd argument) that ape wasn't a scientific term and therefore not subject to the rules of logic so he can gerrymander its meaning to exclude humans if he wants to. That's like saying a BMW is not a car, its an experience. Its a gaddem car, don't be silly.

LordReed: I pointed out to you that we share 50% genetic similarity with bananas so does that make us bananas? Genetic similarity and classification are two different things. We also share genetic similarities with insects but are we classified as insects?

We share some DNA with almost all organisms on earth, even bacteria. I'm not claiming that sharing genes means we're the same, I'm talking about what it means to be an ape. Any group that includes chimpanzees and gorillas will have to also include humans unless we want to start cherry picking the characteristics we use to define an ape.

No ape has bipedal motion like man's so the walk on two legs is very distinct between man and ape. And yes it is a defining characteristic because the skeletal framework is also very distinct.

The other apes' bipedality is very, very similar to ours. Its not exactly the same, but if you look at apes as a group, you see clear commonalities (and more importantly, clear differences that distinguish us as a group from other primates and mammals). The main differences between human bipedality and that of say chimps is that our backs are a bit more vertical, we use our arms less (but we still swing them) and our legs are better developed. But those differences are nothing compared to the huge changes that allowed all apes to be bipedal in the first place (the vertical spine, the very different pelvis, he use of the hands for grasping and manipulating the environment. From a taxonomic point of view, the similarities between apes are far more significant than the differences.

Plus even if you insist on removing humans from the ape family, you'll first have to remove gibbons, then orangutans, then gorillas before you can justify pulling out humans. We'll be stuck with the chimps and bonobos till the very end because they're more similar to us than any other animal.

Nairalife is right, the presidency has the right to send anybody on an errand. After all, election is coming soon, we need guns for Jesus!

CAN is one of the reasons why I came out of the closet as an atheist. I will not have those charlatans purporting to speak on my behalf. I'll rather be persecuted.

LordReed: Australopithecines was better adapted to bipedal motion than an ape so which characteristics are you talking about?

Bipedal motion is not considered to be a defining characteristic of the ape family for many good reasons (e.g too many monkeys do it so it doesn't really distinguish apes from other primates).

Apes are large, tailless, non-arboreal primates with highly mobile shoulder joints and specially shaped molar teeth. There are other characteristics that are common but not universal to all apes. For instance, they all live in large groups with complex social interactions (except orangutans), they're all expert tree climbers and at least occasionally move by swinging from branches (except gorillas and humans), and they all occasionally fling poo (except me).

In order to separate humans from the other African apes, you need to resort to all sorts of mental gymnastics. Even with that, the DNA evidence will always expose the lies you are telling yourself. If we are to apply the same standards we use to classify every other mammal to humans, then we can't excape the fact that we are apes. End of story.

LordReed: It was meant to be silly.

Our shared ancestor could not have been a banana same way it could not have been an ape.

I say our ancestors are apes because all their descendants, including humans are apes. All the characteristics we use to define an ape are present both in australopithecines and in humans. That we don't refer to ourselves as apes is just down to ego and semantics. We are hominid apes of the African ape variety.

Many researchers even consider chimpanzees and bonobos to be in the same genus as us (i.e. Homo troglodytes and Homo paniscus). We all need to get off our high horse and accept the truth.

Our ancestors were not just ape-like, they were apes. In fact, every human being on this planet is an ape. Chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas. And we, with the chimps and gorillas form a natural group (the African apes) that is genetically distinct from orangutans and the lesser apes (gibbons).

Humanity are just one branch on the great tree of life. You can trace our ancestry back through monkey-like primates, to rodent-like mammals, to reptilians, to fish-like creatures, and all the way back to the unicellular organisms that are the grandparents of all life on earth.

How you feel about this doesn't matter. Its the truth and you'll just have to deal with it.

NativeBoy: This is why there is no point in arguing. It doesn't lead anywhere. There is no twisting going on here. It's a matter of fact that what set Galileo against the church AND other scientists of the day was his theory's opposition to the Aristotelian model. They disagreed over the science not about whether God was inhibiting the science.

I'm getting older and have no desire for pages worth of back and forth arguments. The only point I will keep making to you as I've always done is the error you make when trying to contrast God with science. That is a failed argument.

Yes, Galileo stood against the church and other scientists. The problem is that the church and their scientists were wrong and Galileo was right and he had the evidence to prove it. Had the church not been involved, he would have debated with the scientists, shown them his evidence and sensible people would have eventually sided with him. Instead, the argument went more like this:
Church: The earth is the centre of the universe!
Galileo: No its not, and I have clear evidence from my new telescope device.
Church: This evidence doesn't agree with the bible. Recant it or we'll fúckin burn you alive!!!
Galileo: Ha! Oga, abeg na lie o! I must have been confused when I was looking in the telescope. Please sir, don't burn me.
Church: Good, we've managed to dialogue with another heretic. And we didn't even have to torture him this time. Now BURN ALL HIS BOOKS!!! Lock him up FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE!!! Let's show these scientists what happens to anyone who contradicts the fairy tales that we use to make money!

First of all, the story about the professional sperm donor was fake. It originated on a parody news site and Nigerian bloggers just copied and pasted it because they're rétarded. Don't believe everything you read.

Second, there is nothing like sin. Sin is just a fake disease religious people created so they could sell us the fake cure. As far as ethics and morality, the best rule to live by is the silver rule: Don't harm others and don't do to others what you don't want done to you. Outside of that, you can do whatever you like without having to ask anyone for permission.

In this case, sperm donation helps infertile couples (and women who can't find partners) to have children. Its hard to argue that it harms anybody. If you feel guilty about collecting money, you can always give it away for free. There's no crime in helping others.

NoProphecy: Hanuman is in my heart. I know that He is in yours too... Why do you hate Hanuman?

[img]http://4.bp..com/-RM2xBPUKnbA/UYyi8qXSqjI/AAAAAAAAAEI/xK-DZKghHsY/s1600/hanuman-ji.jpg[/img]

Half monkey, half Michael Jackson

Ochek: Go try that to a pix of Prophet Mohammad and come gemme a feedback.

You're absolutely right. The fact that muslims are being stupìd means that Christians have to be stupìd as well.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" - The first amendment of the US constitution.

urheme: How is keeping a biometric data base for nigerians a bad govt policy, pls think outside religion for once,
If your hands are clean and you are not a thief or fraudster, then apart from your private part what else will you be hiding from the public?

You forget that the government's hands are not always clean. The more power we give them, the more likely they are to abuse it. We've already allowed them to track and tap our phones at will and now you want us to give them our fingerprints and banking info? So that when I become an APC chieftain, they can blackmail me with the pórno website I used to subscribe to 20 year earlier?

Many of us here were already adults at the time when the federal government was routinely sending assassins to kill political opponents. Yet you're smiling while our nominal democracy is turned into a dictatorship.

There's a reason why national ID card schemes have failed in every liberal democracy. There's a reason why in sensible countries people protest whenever they try and mass fingerprint non-criminals. I advise you to read Orwell's 1984 to find ourt what that reason is.

Also I'm an atheist so I'm always thinking outside religion. Check my signature.

People who believe in magic are stupìd. Instead of allowing this stupìdìty to spread into our laws, wouldn't it be better to have more inquests and more autopsies to find put the real causes of the unexplained deaths people ignorantly attribute to juju?

Also, last month Saudi Arabia executed at least one person for sorcery. So if you really want to see juju practitioners punished, you should consider moving there.

^^^^ MSF is a fantastic charity. Unlike others, they spend the vast majority of their donations on their missions instead of bureaucracy. They've been taking care of Ebola patients since the very first outbreak in 1976 and they also come to Nigeria whenever there's a meningitis outbreak in the north. And they don't tie any bullshìt religious strings to it. Even those who are religious keep it strictly to themselves because they're here solely to help. Fantastic people!

I'm definitely going to donate some of my peanuts to them when this is over.

lovinhubby2wife: they should not be paid. They play for God and not the church

So why should pastors be paid? Are they not also preaching for god?

The fact is that most churches are raking in huge profits and have no excuse for mooching off volunteers. The only reason they do it is to maximise the money going to the greedy scumfucks at the top. That's why pastors can be living lavishly while the struggling musicians that make that possible not only get nothing, but are taxed out of the little money they have.

I'm involved in the Ebola outbreak response and I'm an atheist. Also, most of the WHO and MSF (doctors without borders) staff helping to run the treatment centre don't profess any religion. I've only seen one who admitted to being a Christian, but never mentioned it again. And these are people who left their safe, comfortable first world lives to come and treat Ebola patients.

Nigerian churches haven't done jackshìt to help or donated anything useful. A member of one big church brought a box of their propaganda materials (covered with their pastors ugly face of course), dumped it at the entrance and ran away. That's the totality of church's contribution to the Ebola fight and thanks to me, most of it has ended up in the dustbin.

I was wandering when the Christians' brains would finally boot and they'd realize that this ID card stuff was similar to the 666 stuff in Revelations.

Of course I don't believe in any of that nonsense, but the card is an egregious attempt to violate people's privacy and I don't mind taking advantage of people's superstitious beliefs to fight bad government policy.

Ride on Christians. Finally you guys are making yourselves useful.

I can't wait for that statue of Baphomet donated by the Satanic Temple to be erected. The Christians are going to shìt bricks.

We'll see how much they like it when it's someone else's religion being promoted on tax-funded government property.

temigracie: Thanks for the comment, sir...You have enlighten us about some things...But i dont think abortion should be legalised in Nigeria...People will mis-use it

Most parent dont even give their kids proper sex education anylonger...Even bF the legalisation of abortion, our teenagers use postinor 1 and 2 already..and other dubious ways to terminate their unwanted pregenancy...

Dont you think if this is legalised...rate of abortions will increase..the level of pre-marital sex and pregnancy ll increase

Postinor doesn't cause abortions. Its an emergency contraceptive which prevents implantation if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. Once the embryo is implanted, no amount of Postinor will remove it.

Also, I've already explained how legalizing abortions prevents abortions. The untrained backyard abortionists that do most procedures in places like Nigeria know nothing about family planning and wouldn't offer it even if the knew because they are motivated by profit and they want the return business. On the other hand, in almost all places where abortions are legal, the doctors who provide them are required to counsel the women about safe sex and offer them contraceptives. Most women who have abortions there are started on contraceptives at the same time so that they don't get pregnant again until they're ready and they don't come back for another abortion.

That's why countries where its legal tend to have lower abortion rates than countries where its banned or heavily restricted. Its legal in the Netherlands, yet their abortion rate (6.5/1000 women) is far less than Nigeria's (25/1000 women, almost certainly a gross underestimation). On top of that, almost 40,000 Nigerian women die every year as a result of unsafe abortions. That number is shameful!

If we really want to reduce the number of abortions taking place, the only way to do it is to provide comprehensive sex education and ensure availability of contraceptives so that our women and girls know how to avoid unwanted pregnancies and have the means to do so. Safe abortion services and proper post-abortion counselling is a must for those who fall through the cracks, otherwise they'll get pregnant again and have more abortions.

The christian way of opposing sex education for children, shaming people who buy condoms and pills, driving abortions underground to be done by unqualified criminals and then stigmatizing unwed mothers is recipe for disaster. It causes more women to have unwanted pregnancies, then pushes them into the hands of backyard abortionist to be mutilated and killed because they are afraid of being judged by society. Its almost like religious people are trying to cause as much suffering and misery as possible. 40,000 Nigerian women dying every year compared to zero in the UK is a shameful statistic! And the holier than thou religious people are responsible for it.

Joagbaje: All four people had false positive result? What about the symptoms ? It's people like you that claim Lazarus was only in a coma . And that the Red Sea was only akle deep for isreal to cross it?

No. One person (the superstitious clown in OP's article) had a false positive result. The other patients had Ebola and recovered thanks to the doctors, nurses, attendants, hygienists and other volunteers running the isolation centre. There was absolutely nothing supernatural about it.

Religious people's habit of claiming credit for things they had nothing to do with is very irritating. When the government was begging for volunteers, you guys were busy praying (i.e. doing absolutely nothing to help). But now that we're seeing some good results, you want to jump in and claim it's because of your Jesus.

But Jesus had nothing to do with it. And neither did you. Stop telling lies.

Off topic: the story of Lazarus' resurrection appears only in the Gospel according to John, which was the last to be written (at least 65 years after Pontius Pilate was removed as governor of Judea, the last possible date of the Crucifixion) and by far the least credible. I'm not the kind of person that'll blindly swallow an impossible claim made by a single, highly questionable, non eyewitness source. Also, the exodus never happened so your Red Sea story is bull. Even the Israeli ancient history and archaeology communities have admitted that its just a myth despite the political implications on Jewish claims of Palestinian land.

pro2010: Mr SABI PASS If you read this article, you would not be asking for the source as it is clearly written at the end of the article.

Imoh "Son of David" is an Nigerian atheist. An author, publisher and business man and he writes from South Africa. Follow him on Twitter @ImohDavid.

You should link to the original article to drive traffic to the author's site. Unlike me, most people can't be bothered to search for the source on twitter so they'll just read it here and move on to the next thing. Sites like Nairaland are actually using copyrighted content created by others to make money without permission. The least we can do is link back so the author can also benefit.

It seems like a small thing, but it makes a big difference to someone writing a small blog with very few readers. Plus its the right thing to do.

Busybody2: This rarely hardly happens contrary to how it is parroted ad nauseum...

Not true. There are plenty of ways in which pregnancy can endanger the life of the mother and its a fairly common problem. Bleeding, pre-eclampsia and sepsis are all common problems. Plus virtually any chronic illness coinciding with pregnancy significantly increases the risk of the mother dying. Just being a pregnant woman in Nigeria on its own carries a risk of death (1 in 13) that is unacceptable in any other context. Almost 40,000 Nigerian women die due to pregnancy every year. And don't forget that even if she doesn't die, there are plenty of other bad things that can happen to her. Some things are worse than death, other things aren't quite as bad but are still pretty terrible.

If the mother wants to risk her life, her health or her mental stability for her baby, that is fine. But it is a horribly wicked thing to force anyone to do so. And that is what "pro-life" are really doing.

Abortion done legally is a major operation that requires the woman's blood pressure and heartrate to be monitored and stabilised at least an hour after the deed has been done to avert potential resulting fatal consequences...

The last thing a real Doctor wants is to perform such intrusive operation as abortion on a woman at the brink of life and death, AND that is why any Doctor worth his salt's first and only priority and preference would be keeping baby and Mum stable until baby can be birthed close to full-term and/or naturally...

I'm a doctor and I can tell you categorically that this is definitely not true. Legal abortion done properly is an extremely safe procedure. Even in first world countries with very low maternal mortality rates, having an abortion is several times less dangerous that having a baby. Most legal abortions take place in the first trimester or early in the second and almost all women go home the same day with no complications. In 2012, there were over 185,000 abortions in England and Wales, 278 complications (1 in 700) and zero (0!) deaths.

The reason why abortions are so dangerous in many places is that they are illegal so women tend to have them late in the pregnancy, or to patronize unqualified illegal abortionists, or to attempt them themselves. That problem goes away as soon as you legalize it. In places where it is legal, its exceedingly rare for a woman to die after an abortion.

Also legalizing abortion means that women can get proper sex education and be offered family planning immediately after the procedure (its a requirement in most countries where abortion is legal). Legalizing abortions actually prevents abortions by stopping women from coming back with another unwanted pregnancy. If you consider all the facts, any reasonable person can see that legalization is the only rational option. Its only religious people that refuse to face reality that insist on laws that actually make the problem worse.

And before you start accusing me: No I don't perform abortions. Never have and don't plan to. But I still think it should be legal.

Sauce please!

I realize that is the kalakuta republic of Nairaland, but it's unethical to copy and paste a full article without at least linking to the source. The original author deserves to make some money from ad impressions too. No be only Seun suppose chop.

olajide21: THIS ASPECT OF BOKO IS REALLY HARAAAAAAAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All of the major religions try to keep their followers as ignorant as s possible to make them easier to control. The Boko Haram guys are just being honest about it while fundamentalist Christians lie and pretend that they're pro-education when what they really are is pro-indoctrination.

There is nothing good about telling lies to children. And that Adam and Eve story is a lie, plain and simple.

What kid of useless thread is this? The guy had a false positive result, what's miraculous about that?

You people insist promoting this superstitious nonsense even though its endangering everybody's lives. You'll keep on spreading this "Jesus magic can cure Ebola" lie until somebody with the virus comes to your church and turns the outbreak into a full-blown epidemic.

The real disease plaguing humanity is not Ebola, its stupíd religious people. You guys won't be happy until you've killed everybody.

8. John Paul II

https://www.genopro.com/articles/john-paul-ii/pope-john-paul-II.jpg

Known as the patron saint of child molesters. He did his utmost to cover up the widespread räpe of children by members of the priesthood. Under his watch, known child abusers where shuffled around to new parishes whenever parents caught wind of their actions and victims were bullied and blamed whenever they came forward. He even shielded priests who had räped other priests. He was canonized a saint for his efforts in April this year.

Bluetooth2: I'm sure they all bow to their knees for the re-instatement.

The fear of privatizaation of the health sector is the beginning of obedience to government directives.

Don't fool yourselves. The only reason the doctors have to come back is to finish the residency programs that they've invested years of their lives in. Nigeria has a severe shortage of doctors, how many unemployed doctors have you ever seen? There is no shortage of private sector jobs and these people stand to make far more money if they set up their own small hospitals.

The fact is that the government needs the residents more than the residents need the government. Its not likely that we'll ever know how many of them will refuse to come back. But I guarantee you that over the next few years, we'll see a dramatic spike in doctors leaving Nigeria for good.

Nigeria is going to pay a steep price for what the government did.

Sincere9gerian: Good news. Public hospitals can now begin to function normally. However, govt should provide healthcare workers with sufficient PPE

They should first guarantee running water and soap before we start talking about PPEs. They should address all the safety issues that doctors have been shouting about for
decades first.

Nigerians should not think this fight is over. If you think doctors were pissed off before they were sacked, imagine how angry they must be now. The real consequences of this act are only going to be seen in 5 years or so when we see a dramatic rise on the numbers of doctors and new medical school graduates abandoning the country for places where their lives and hard work has some value.

The Nigerian people who sided with politicians (who travel abroad every time they have a headache) against the doctors taking care of them are going to learn a harsh lesson.

This is a dumb thread. If you want to criticize doctors that fine, but you should at least get your facts straight.

The reason the doctors went on strike is because they feel they have been continually undermined by the Federal Government. This has been going on for years but the final straw that lead to the strike was the deal they signed with JOHESU (an umbrella group of paramedical staff) which raised their salaries, allowed gave certain cadres double promotions (by allowing them to skip salary steps) and worst of all, allowing them to masquerade as the equals of specialist doctors by handing them the title of consultant. It is important to note that the title of consultant has a special meaning in within a hospital that is very different from what it means outside. The government made it possible for a nurse or even a hospital admin staff to get a PhD from somewhere and start telling patients that "I'm doctor so and so, I'm your consultant". The government essentially legalized quackery by allowing unqualified people to become "senior doctors" by the back door and by doing so is introducing confusion and endangering patients.

The doctors are just asking that the government reverse the more senseless concessions they gave JOHESU and restore the relativity ratio between doctors and less qualified staff by giving doctors the same salary increases JOHESU got. It makes no sense to raise increase junior people's pay without increasing that of the seniors. To do so would be to devalue the work of doctors and make the up to 8 years of post-graduate training they've had (not including the minimum 7 years to become a fully licensed doctor) worthless.

Its very strange that everybody is condemning doctors for going on strike when nobody said anything about the long series of JOHESU strikes that twisted the government's arm into giving in to such ridiculous demands. If doctors feel that it's no longer worth their while to go through all the stress of going to medical school and undergoing specialist training, then its still Nigerians who will suffer.

Jonathan and co won't be affected, they'll just travel abroad.

Sincere9gerian: Good news.

Meanwhile, I read somewhere that survivors of ebola virus disease can still transmit the virus for up to 7 weeks post recovery. I hope this was taken into consideration in the discharge of the patients.

The virus continues to be shed in small quantities in tears and sémen for up to six weeks post recovery. Male patients are usually counselled to use condoms or abstain from sex for 3 months after discharge. But even at that, the risk of transmission via this route is small.

Also, people are not giving enough credit to the volunteer health workers (doctors, nurses and attendants) as well as the WHO and MSF staff who took the risk to treat these patients. Any success we've had is due to their hard work. I wish Nigerians could stop thanking gods and spirits and instead give credit to the people who deserve it.

Another issue is the way the federal government keeps promoting charlatans and quacks. First they appointed Maurice Iwu, a well documented fake scientist and certificate forger to a committee meant to find a cure (because that's how the oyimbos found cures to so many diseases, by forming committees!).

And now we're hearing about the Minister of health planning to test some mystery chemical called Nano Silver on the victims. As a doctor, it shocks me that a health minister and a fellow doctor can say something so outrageously stupid at a press conference. The next time someone says that Nigerian doctors are all useless, I'll have no way to argue with them.

And worse than the government actually wasting our money to buy this nonsense from whichever scam artist is selling it is that they actually want to use the surviving victims as guinea pigs. Remember that many of them are also doctors and are hopefully less ignorant than the minister. Imagine how they will feel when they see this news.

Nigeria makes me so sad. No wonder so many doctors are leaving.