₦airaland Forum

ojdollars: @Mod... Please Move It To Front Page Please

I agree, this should be on the front page.The people have to hear about this great news.

@OP
Did they say anything about what God looked like? How did he dress? A robe? A suit? Did he wear agbada? Or maybe a t-shirt and skinny jeans like Wizkid? What kind of cologne did he wear? He must have smelt really nice. Did he have a big beard or was he clean shaven? I'll like to know so I can dress and look just like the lord.

He must have been really handsome. Did he make all the guys want to go gay for him? Did the women lust after him?

Did he say anything about the situation in the middle east? What about the Boko Haram crisis, did anyone ask him? Did he say who the Americans should vote for between Obama abd Romney? I'd like to ask him which beer I should drink, Gulder or Harp, I can't choose. They're both so good.

^^^ Both Christianity and Islam are involved in the immoral business of branding babies and small children with religion long before they are old enough to make their own choices. But Islam is worse because they threaten to kill those try to leave when they grow up. You can blow as much grammar as you like but the fact remains that apostasy is punishable by death in most Islamic nations and that the practice is supported by the vast majority of Islamic scholars. You claim that it is political is nonsense. Sharia laws are lifted straight from the Koran and Sunnah. If it wasn't written in your holy books, nobody would do it.

Apostasy that is not violent against Islam does not have violence against it.

That is a barefaced lie and you know it. Apostates are arrested and killed simply for expressing their opinions or admitting that they now belong another faith. I'm not aware of any violent apostates anywhere (except maybe those who converted to Islam and became terrorists). Please post links if you know of any.

Allah gives allowance for people to leave and return to Islam, until the actions are deemed as joking, deceitful. The most liberal and up to date religion is Islam because surah Kafiruun says you have your way and i have mine; agreeing to disagree [live and I live].

People are allowed to leave and return unless their are deemed to be deceitful or joking in which case, they get killed? Truly, Islam is the most liberal religion in the world /sarcasm "You can choose whichever religion you want, but we'll kill you if you don't choose Islam."

It is ignorance that will make someone say leaving Islam will be met by death. In the USA, today, I know a family that a daughter now refuses to pray or cover at 19, while her sister who is 20 is opposite. I also know a family in Nigeria where a daughter living with parents has left Islam while her younger siblings are practicing it. Now choose which you are going to use as your excuse it is not a muslim country to support your wrong view of Islam. I am waiting, nakash.

You've answered your own question. The US is not a muslim country therefore their law enforcement agents don't enforce sharia. Unless you are trying to commend the parents for not murdering their daughter for refusing to pray and cover up, I don't see your point.

miredia: I spent several hours scrolling down pages to pages and made a critical observation of a trend where folks try to use their physical cognition in deciphering things of the spirit. Folks it will never EVER add up to you. These transcends just being academically saavy or being an impeccable philosopher. The things of the spirit are totally different fron the physical. There are laws that govern the spirit and the physical.

OP basically just admitted that Christianity doesn't make any sense which is one of the things we atheists have been trying to point out to them for ages.

Congratulations Miredia, you just took the first step towards enlightenment.

We'll make an atheist out of you yet.

Muslims generally don't deny that other Muslims kill people for leaving their religion since is something that happens so often in.so many countries.


What some people deny is that the Koran actually commands Muslims to kill apostates. The problem is thatch Koran and hadiths contradict themselves on this and many other issues. There are passages that talk about killing captives who refuse to become Muslims, and there is another that says there is no compulsion in Islam.

Muslims tend to solve this problem by accepting the passages they like and ignoring the others. So the more intolerant, fundamentalist types happily shout for blood whenever an apostate is caught. And the more tolerant Muslims get to pretend that their their religion is civilized and that those people killing in the name of Allah aren't "real Muslims".

CrazyMan: God is a spirit...he's existence remains a mistery even to bible scholars.

Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

From this passage, its obvious that his existence cannot be fathomed...if he wanted us to know about his existence, he would have left possible clues in the bible for determined scholars to discover.

Let's try a little thought experiment. Imagine, just for the sake of this debate, that the bible didn't exist. Or that you knew for a fact that it was just a bunch of meaningless stories with no hidden significance.

How would you then know that god was unfathomable. How would you know that hehad any interest in human activities? How would you know he created the world? How would you know that he even existed at all?

The fact is that all your beliefs about god are founded on the assumption that what is written in the bible is actually true. The're is also the assumption that your interpretation of the bible is correct.

The second assumption is probably wrong because based on the sheer number of different versions of Christianity that exist (and have existed in the past) the probability that yours happens to be the correct one is miniscule.

The first assumption is demonstrably wrong because the bible contradicts both itself as well a huge amount of the knowledge we have gained from all the various branches of science. In order to believe the bible is absolutely true, one has to close your mind to logic and the influence of new information like those misguided people in America fighting to stop schoolchildren from learning real biology in class.

Without the bible, you would have no knowledge of the nature of god, or his personality, or if he has a personality. You may believe that god exists, but without the bible, or whatever holy book your religion happens to use, you have absolutely no evidence to support that hypothesis.

And like I said earlier, the bible contradicts science. The bible contradicts reality. The bible even contradicts itself times without number. That means all your religious beliefs have no foundation, which is inevitably why they must all come crashing down.

engrtee: Op, what is d atheist view on religion

There is no atheist view on anything. Atheism is not a religion, we don't have any shared dogmas or sacred texts. We all believe in different things.

The only thing that unifies us is that we don't accept the Gods, Ghouls and Spirits stories that we were spoonfed as children. And we always ask for evidence when.someone makes an extraordinary claim.

Polygamy is not prohibited in the bible. The only thing it says is that you can't become a bishop if you have more than one wife.

The reason why modern Christians are monogamous is that the church as it presently exists was born out of the Roman and Greek cultures where polygamy was taboo. It's not against the bible.

Have said that, I think there are plenty of legal and social reasons why it should not be allowed. Unfortunately, most Nigerians refuse to apply logic and common sense to such matters and rely on dusty old books to tell them how to live. It's really quite sad.

Mr_Anony: He said deism not atheism but I can see your evangelism radar is on.

He's an atheist, read his first post again.

It doesn't matter if you're not absolutely sure if god exists because nobody really is, you can't prove a negative.

All that matters is that you question the religious beliefs you were spoonfed and ask for evidence before you accept them. If you do that then you're an atheist.

I can't prove that Barney the dinosaur isn't real, but I'm sure as hell not going to start believing in him until someone shows me some credible proof that he exists outside that corny TV show.

tobechi74: THE WORD IS SUFFER

Oh.

I was hoping it would be vàgina.

Never mind.

It's disingenuous to call it the catholic church's torture sessions because that suggests that the protestants had no role in it. In actually fact, protestants hadn't yet broken away at the time and there was only one church in western Europe. It is just.as much a protestant inquisition as a catholic one since both churches are decended form the same entity. All modern pentecostals sprang from the western church after the inquisition and are just as much to blame as the present-day Catholics.

The only Christians who share no responsibility for the inquisition are the eastern (Greek and Russian) orthodox churches as well as the non-chalcedonian (Coptic and Ethiopian) Christians because they broke away before the westerners started torturing and murdering religious minorities as a matter of policy.

You might as well claim that Ukrainians were never communists because they no longer belong to the USSR.

@OP. Welcome to atheism friend. Congratulations on achieving. enlightenment.

My advice to you is to do what your mother wants, and follow her to church. You can go through the motions, and say the words but nobody can force you to believe them. Atheism is about what you believe not whether or not you go to church.

Apart from the need to keep peace in your family, you have to remember that Nigeria is a very dangerous place to be an atheist. The fanatics are everywhere and they will harass, discriminate against and possible even kill those whose beliefs they disagree with.

Some day in the near future, someone might deny you a job because you don't believe in their god. So keep your head down and lay low. Whenever you get the chance to educate others or point out the logical inconsistencies in religion, you should. But never put yourself or your future in danger.

I know it sounds cowardly but I feel it is the sensible thing to do.

It's all a crock of bull. Christian claim that all the recent wars and natural disasters prove that the end time is coming soon but that is just nonsense.

The fact is that the last 60 years have been the most peaceful in all of human history. We've made huge strides in diplomacy and international relations. Most of the diseases that have plagued humanity for centuries are under control. Globally, infant and maternal mortality are at an all time low. Life expectancy is as high as its ever been, and the population is rising at a very fast rate.

Wealth is pretty unequally distributed, but even so, prosperity is at an all time high.

The rise of international news networks and the internet have made it look like there are more disasters, but the truth is that natural disasters are no more common and people are much more likely to survive them nowadays. In the old days, we would have never have headed about a tsunami in Asia, or a war in Congo. But thanks to CNN, it seems like there is a war every day.

lilcutie8916: Ok where do i start . If for example u see a statue that is like a hundred years old first thing that come to ur mind is some dude carved this right. When archeologists find a triangular shaped rock with some chipings on it they say man made it as a spear head. Ok look at the brains u use in debunking ur selves and u tell me that it evolved by chance and it wasn't designed.
Our solar system arranged in perfect harmony and that also happened by chance from one big explosion. If a sculpture cant happen by chance but had to be made by someone then why cant ur perfect anatomy be made by a supreme designer.

I literally did a facepalm after reading this. We try so hard to explain the principle of natural selection to you guys, yet you keep circling back to the same senseless arguments.

For the 1 millionth time, nobody believes that we evolved by chance. Evolution results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. It is a very straight-forward concept and I can tell from your spelling and grammer that you are not rétarded so stop pretending like you don't understand.

Reyginus: Yes, atheism is a new culture. I dont have to ask everybody, the history books are there. I will help you with the summary. Culture is the totality of a peoples way of life over a period of time. The point is : if their were atheists in the past, they dare not make it known or try to get converts(like the evangelical atheists in N l) else, like you said, they will be stoned. Why: because it was not their trademark. It was yet to become anything closer to culture. That which cannot be felt does not exist. Dont forget that the people abide by whatever their ruler believed in. I cant remember an atheist monarchy. My proof for their non-existence in the past is that their presence was not palpated, because like true cowards, non(thats if their were any) was bold enough to admit it. On the contrary, what do you say?

Let me get this straight. You're saying that in the past, atheists used to lay low to keep from being murdered by religious fanatics, therefore they didn't exist?

That makes perfect sense.

lilcutie8916: No facts how typical i was expecting some form of very super inteligent mentaly independent people as u call urselves.

We don't believe in god(s) because there is no evidence to support his/her/their existence. In your first post, you claimed that there was such evidence and that it was everywhere. We're still waiting for you to point some of it out so we can examine it and either debunk it or turn from our wicked ways and become devout christians/muslims/Orunmila-worshippers.

Your move.

Reyginus: Simply put:
Religion has been demonstrated in the culture of man since time immemorial. Never has their been a time when man operated outside its confines. Atheism on the otherhand is a new culture, a strange one at that,judging from the history of the world. But a time will come(if we keep representing our faith in bad light) when religionists will be treated the same way as atheists are now. Then atheists will do all the stuffs they've accused the religionists of. Not because they hate them, but because it is not the culture of the generation.

I'm sorry, what? Atheism is a new culture? So you're claiming that there were no atheists in the past? And you know this how? Did you go back in time and ask everybody? And if so, how did you convince them that they weren't going to be stoned or burnt by the religious fanatics for admitting to not believing in god?

Its funny how you just make bold, sweeping statements without a shred of evidence to support them. Soon, you'll be claiming that there are no cats in America or something.

Abeg, please!

MacDaddy01: "cun.t" has two meanings. Guess which one you are?

MacDaddy01 Wins.

FATALITY!!!

Bélla3: Meet the gays!

Meet the trolls!

Any charity that fights to keep religious cráp out our laws will have my full backing. I'll be happy to join in and even donate my poverty-stricken mite to fight the cause.

We could call it the secularity movement, SM.

rhymz: yet, we are told by Christian apologists that the bible is an inerrant book that contains the very words of God. Apparently, God is not inerrant afterall, according to the bible, not with these very funny inconsistensies.

I hate to defend the Christians, but they don't often claim the bible is inerrant, most likely because it so clearly isn't.

Its the Muslims that tend to do that with their Koran.

If you read OP's post to the end, you'll see that he's trying to claim that GEJ's agenda is not that different from Obama/Clinton's abd that he is trying to empower the masses. Unfortunately, this cannot be farther from the truth. The fact is that whenever there has been a clash between the interests if the masses and those of the corrupt ruling class, GEJ has sided against the people every single time.

He allowed subsidy cheats to rob the country blind for over 2 years and when the government eventually got broke, he decided to make the masses pay the bill instead of going after the thieves. Even after the January mass protests forced his hand, he's still dragging his feet over prosecuting the these people (all of whom are well known to him).

He's an Ijaw man, yet he has done nothing to rein in the excesses of the oil companies in the Niger Delta. In fact, after the last major oil spill, his oil minister was practically leading Shell's defence and the government completely accepted the company's damage estimate without question to the shock of international environmental groups. When those same environmental groups caught Shell lying about the amount of oil they spilled, GEJ's government did nothing.

Even though the government is barely solvent, he's done next to nothing to reduce the insane allowances government officials get, to trim the number of useless staff or cut the bloated recurrent expenditure budget. Instead, he raised income taxes earlier this year, and instituted a series of clever schemes to milk more money out ordinary people such as the CBN's "cash-free" fines (a thinly disguised tax on individuals and businesses), the pointless new number plates and so on.

From where I'm standing, every accusation the US Democrats have made against the republicans also applies to GEJ, only 10 times worse. The republicans tax the poor and give to the rich, while GEJ gives the rich a licence to pillage all they want.

You tell me which is worse.

Religious discrimination is a big problem in Nigeria. I think atheists get the worst of it because their beliefs are so far away from that of the majority Christians and Muslims.

A Deeper Life member is likely to discriminate more against a catholic than an MFM member because MFM's beliefs are much closer to his. At the same time, he'd probably prefer his daughter to marry a catholic, rather than a Muslim because at least Catholics worship the same god. In the same way, Muslims are preferable to traditionalists because they believe in only one god so it is easy to tell yourself that it is the same as the one you worship. Even a devil worshipper is preferable to an atheist because he at least believes in the supernatural.

This is simply a manifestation of the us versus them tribal mentality that is a basic part of human nature. I doubt it's going to change until Nigerians start becoming less religious.

There is variation in belief because the bible is often extremely vague and most pastors end up freestyling and making stuff up when they preach.

Also, a lot of pastors have basic issues reading and understanding the English language which is where the the "women must not wear trousers" thing comes from. You'll notice that the more ajebo preachers who grew up speaking English tend not to preach that. Neither do British or American pastors who speak English natively.

Great, now the Christians are trying to claim the copyright on being a decent human being? As if Confucius didn't beat Jesus to it by 500 years.

You now want to claim that you invented altruism abi? You guys are behaving like Apple when they tried to patent rectangular phones, or Disney trying to copyright Snow White an the Seven Dwarves.

You want to steal what is in the public domain and turn it into your own private property, then revise history to justify the theft.

And you would begotten away with it if not for those pesky atheists.

tpia@:
what exactly is irrational about a star moving in the sky?

somebody help me out here.

Stars can't move about in the sky because they are billions and billions of miles away. Even if one was actually moving, it would be impossible to tell due to the great distances involved. Similarly, a moving "star" such as a comet or meteorite can't come to rest over a house. Even objects. closely orbiting the earth ( e.g. the moon and the International Space Station) don't show any visible parallax when you move along the ground.

If a flying object settled above a house, then it must have been moving at a very low altitude well within the earth's atmosphere. Therefore, what you are referring to is a UFO.

How do UFOs fit into the bible story?

You Muslims should stop harassing OP abeg. The guy asked a perfectly valid question and he didn't insult anybody while doing so. He's right, you're just channelling your frustration from previous bashings.

@OP Your mistake was in assuming that religious beliefs have to make sense. In actual fact, while many of them may have been sensible when they were first proposed, religious beliefs are fixed and unchanging and therefore become ridiculous and impractical as time passes and knowledge increases.

And BTW, what's so bad about a few exposed balls? I'm sure we've all seen them before. People should stop being so uptight about nüdity.

^^^ Whats really funny is the religious people who don't seem to have realized that OP is making fun of them.

Religion makes people stüpid and irrational. These people are just taking advantage of this to manipulate their sheep into supporting their agenda. They want to support one side (the political right) and they'll say anything to convince you.

The funny thing is the pro-Israel lobby in America has done more to.harm Isreal long term than any other political group. They've repeatedly thwarted all attempts by successive American governments to rein in Israel's excesses and allowed them to become the land grabbing apartheid state they are today.

If you trully love your kid, you'll punish him when he misbehaves. If instead you keep buying him toys and candy, he'll turn into an uncontrollable spoilt brat. Just like Israel.

*Edited for clarity and to fix typos.*

Wow, I'm really impressed with the replies here. The level of rétardation on Nairaland has really dropped dramatically in the last year or so. Good job guys.

I just want to add that anatomically modern humans have only been around for the past 200,000 years or thereabouts; not 6 billion. OP should please take note.

I don't consider it to be a waste of time to debate with religious people, even the fanatics. The fact is that even if the person you're arguing with refuses to bow to superior logic, there are plenty others who read my posts and gain some insight through them.

More often than not, the fanatics help to strengthen my arguments through their irrational statements and circular reasoning.
To me, debating on Nairaland is a humanitarian gesture. I'm trying to reduce the level of ignorance in our society. It is a noble thing to do.

Edit: Sorry, the autocorrect on my phone turned my post to gibberish. I think I've fixedall the errors now.

Guy, you are seriously misinformed.

First of all, all humans are decended from apes including white people. Intact, all humans are decended from Africans because this is where the human race evolved.

Second, there is nothing inherently racist about the science of human evolution. Scientists are just reporting their findings honestly. It's the racists that are twisting things to suit their own purposes.

If anything, the latest science actually suggests that we Africans are "superior" to other races. Thats because DNA tests show that the vast majority of Europeans and Asians have some Neanderthal and dinosovian genes respectively.Thats because their ancestors interbred with more primitive hominids after leaving Africa while we black people remained pure-blooded.

Of course, this is all nonsense. The reasons why the oyimbos are ahead of us arr well known and they have nothing to do with genes. Maybe one of these days when I'm jobless, I'll start a thread about it.

Everybody should please note that this is not a cure. Like other HIV drugs, it just keeps the virus at bay and you need to keep taking it for life to prevent you from getting sick.

Keep using those condoms.