₦airaland Forum

I'm not satisfied with your answers to mkmyers45's questions. A president doesn't have the power to prevent his people from committing crimes, god does. He could easily have made a world where people wouldn't want or need to sin and he didn't. Also, saying the earth is many centuries old sounds like a cowardly dodge. Is it billions of years old like science says or 6000 years old like the Christian creationists say?

Let me expand mkmyers45's first question further: If god is omnipotent and omniscient, why did he put Adam and Eve within reach of the tree of knowledge knowing fully well that his boy Satan would convince them to eat from it. If he made man what he is, and he knew how the devil would end up from the beginning, and put the two of them in the garden with the tree, then sat back and watched man fall; is he not responsible for all the misery that has followed?

Mr_Anony: THE QUESTION: Assuming you came to find out that God exists and you found it to true beyond every reasonable doubt such that it is common knowledge amongst everyone, will you submit to God's rule?

Please answer honestly.

ANSWER: IT depends. The reason I don't believe in God is that based on the best available evidence, he is very unlikely to exist.

If it we could prove his existence, or even show that it was somewhat likely, what I would do would depend on what type of god he turned out to be.

If god was shown to be a benevolent deity, or one that leaves mankind to their own devises, I'd be more than happy to serve/worship him/her/it.

If on the other hand he turns out to be either the Christian or Muslim version, then no way. The god of the bible (and of the Koran) is a mass murdering psychopath. There is no way in hell I'm bowing down to someone who so casually orders genocide, the massacre and ràpe of women and children, and has even tried to wipe us out in the past.

At worst, I'd pretend to worship while secretly working for the resistance and searching for a way to bring him/her/it down.

How are these accounts any less fraudulent than TB Joshua himself or his church?

The fake accounts falsely claim to represent the so-called man of god, while the official one falsely claims to represent god.

Same difference.

danwo: Like you, the school of thought is the daughter did not die

It's funny to see Christians deceiving themselves about something that is obvious. You all believe that your religion is more civilized than others. So when confronted with a clear biblical reference to human sacrifice, you tell yourselves that "the girl didn't die". This is what the oyinmbos call cognitive dissonance.

Of course the girl died, her father offered her as a burnt offering! A human sacrifice! A virgin sacrifice! To the god of Isreal!

And the god of Israel did nothing to stop this travesty. In fact he was happy enough to have it included in the "divinely inspired" Book of Judges (with no don't roast your daughters disclaimer afterwards) as an example to parents for all time.

Clearly, your god is not that different from those of the Amalekites, and the Assyrians, and the Jebusites, and the Mayans.

Great idea. Get all the atheists in one building so the fundamentalists can blow it up.

But seriously, this is an extremely bad idea. For one, atheists aren't the type to group together like the religious folk do. We are non-conformists by our very nature. Getting us to do anything together will be like herding cats.

Plus it won't serve any useful purpose and will only rouse up the fundies abd lead to more persecution.

I bet the politicians are looking for another opportunity to rouse the mob and distract Nigerians from their real problems. Since the gay marriage thing didn't work out, a plot by atheists would be the perfect opportunity.

Omo Alata: I started 'Search the Scriptures' this year. It's a 3-year bible study course by Alan M Stibbs (to complete the entire Bible). It's absolutely fantastic. It takes me about 20mins a day with the questions after you read the passage. I think it will take me less than 3 years to complete it as sometimes I get carried away with a certain subject and read 2 or 3 days worth in a day. The questions afterwards makes the passage really sink in

I have seen 'Read the Bible in a year' books but those ones are just to read entire chapters etc

You Christians are so funny. You talk about how your faith is so important to you, yet most of you can't even be bothered to sit down and read your scriptures. And those of you that have act as if it's some great achievement or you've done something impossible.

I'm an atheist and I've read through the bible twice and put a major dent in the third read through before I got bored. And I didn't use any lame audiobooks or "bible in a year" guides to do it. This was something I was doing basically to pass the time, not that I felt it had any special significance other than the funny stories.

If you really thought your eternity depended on it, one would think you would quit your jobs and spend every waking moment studying it looking for ways to increase your chances of making heaven.

Your casual attitude to reading the bible says a lot about what you really believe.

ritchboy: 3.60 keys out!

Grab your copy now!!!!

The keys may be leaked but it will still take a while for the scene to make new CFW and transition all the homebrew apps to it.

But at least, we should be able to patch and play the 65 or so games that came out between 3.56 and 3.60. And if we're lucky, they'll find a better exploit that will make keys unnecessary in the future.

LagosShia: please can you show me where it is written in the Quran because i have never come across it in the Quran i read.you must be reading another Quran!

@OP

please refer to this thread:

https://www.nairaland.com/846958/tell-me-why-mohammed-married

Abeg, stop being disingenuous. You know fully well that it's in the hadiths. And don't try and use that "weak hadith" excuse to dismiss it. The hadiths that state Ayesha's name ars no less credible than all the others. You don't get to cherry-pick which scriptures you like and dismiss the rest.

The fact is that Ayesha's was one of the greatest sources of knowledge of Mohammed and his behaviour. I realize that you're a Shia and are probably not a fan of her or her father, but the vast majority of Muslims accept her testimony that she was 6 when she married.

In fact, Ayatollah Khomeini, a Shia like you, used her as a pretextto lower the age limit for marriage in Iran to 9. Are you going to claim that you know better than him?

When he was in his fifties, he married a 6 year old girl. The scriptures say be waited until she was 9 years old before he started sleeping with her.

Make of it what you will, but that is what the Koran and the hadiths say and most, if not all Islamic authorities accept that it is true.

There aren't any prophets now and there were never any in the past. All we have are a bunch of charlatans and lunatics who have been legitimized by popular acclamation and the passage of time.

1400 years ago, Mohammed would have looked every bit as fraudulent as Oyedepo and TB Joshua do today. And in a few hundred years from now, people may be bowing down and praying to pastor Chris (assuming he doesn't get caught fíngering little boys before then).

Time makes the most ridiculous things look legitimate. Preachers, religions, buildings and even pröstitutes all become respectable if they live long enough. It's a fact of life.

poj: All i will say is that god will forgive you.

How come you're not trying to defend your faith? What's your explanation for Mohammed's behaviour? Is it that the scriptures are wrong and he didn't really do any of those things? Or is it that he isn't held to the same standard as other followers of allah?

Could a Muslim please comment on this?

No insults please.

So far, nobody has been able to defend this assertion tha juju is real. Wissezy has described what scientists call hypnopompic hallucinations aka spirits pressing you down in the night. This is a common phenomenon that is definitely not caused by witches or demons or whatever. It seems that he's been suckered by the pastors who spread this false belief in order to scare people and bring them to church.

Dellafruita, on the other hand is just telling vague stories. He has no proof, yet he refuses to GTFO. This is somewhat annoying.

Delafruita: perhaps GTFO is a normal phrase to use to you but to sensible,sane,intelligent folks,its a phrase used by degenerate,asinine,egoistic,loun-mouthed buffoons

I'll take that to mean that you have no proof and you concede the point.

Delafruita: no matter how hard you try,these ones cant be debunked

Tell us what you saw and how you know it was real. Don't expect people to just take your word for it that juju is real.

Proof or GTFO.

Delafruita: i never accept anything as true unless i have verifiable evidence.thats why i dont accept the jesus or muhammad story.but i have followed traditional religion for a while and there is verifiable proof for many of their beliefs even though lots of their beliefs are also just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.my interest in traditional religion began by accident.an organization i once worked with secured a contract from the NTDC to explore all the potential tourism sites in the southwest and i was the project manager on that project.i toured the entire southwest and i can say with certainty that yoruba gods exist.some call it juju,others call it black magic but the reality is it exists.i have been to almost every festival in the southwest and almost every shrine and i can say that those things exist

You say that there's verifiable proof of their beliefs and that Yoruba gods exist. Would you be so kind as to share some of this proof with us?

I feel like debunking some myths tonight.

Delafruita: no proof.but i have witnessed confessions of a witch who admitted such and many other stuff

And it never occurred to you that this "witch" might have been making up stories? Or mentally ill? If someone told you that he was kidnapped by space aliens and analprobed, would you also believe them?

Why some people so willing to accept such ridiculous notions like witchcraft without questions is beyond me.

Ki-Katanga:
Why has God bestowed the wealth, health and power on people who do not follow his religion or any religion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_per_capita

Why has god made Norway, Sweden, Denmark Japan and the UK so rich when they do not value His word?
Why are Nigeria, Niger and Bangladesh forsaken when they know His word to be true?

Another way of putting it is why don't religious people gain any material benefit from their faith? Why do religious people consistently have higher rates of poverty, less education and worse health indices? Why do the statistics always suggest that being religious is bad for you in almost every way?

Lord_Reed: @Mr. Brain
Going a bit technical the Turing test is not sufficient for an intelligence proof:



Google-d.

Nobody is talking about measuring intelligence. You asked me to prove that I have a mind. The Turing test is the most recognized way of doing so, and I have passed it. If you don't understand then you need to do more googling.

Now explain why antibiotics and treatments developed by "evolutionists" and unbelievers work better than prayers? How come prayer never worked against TB, leprosy and AIDS until scientists discovered drugs for them? Why does study after double-blinded study consistently show that prayer has no statistically significant effect on treatment outcome or patient survival?

In other words, if god exists, why can't we see any sign of him doing anything?

You religious people need to get this into your heads: You have no right to ban movies or limit any form of artistic expression. You have no right to dictate what movies I watch just as I can't dictate the same to you. You have no right to decide which religious beliefs are valid and which aren't. Gay people have just as much right to their own version of christianity as everyone else. Nobody owns the copyright on Jesus.

If you don't like a film, then don't watch it and don't let your minor children watch it. Thats about as far as your power reaches.

You guys are such hypocrites. I bet the next time some muslim fundies try to do the exact same thing, you guys will start crying freedom of religion and human rights. You don't deserve to live in civilized society. I wish we could quarantine all of you on your own continent and let you oppress and kill each other to your heart's content without disturbing the rest of us.

Nonsense!

PS. The film never even existed any way so I don't see what you're bunching up your panties for.

Double post.

Lord_Reed: So the proof of God must be detection? Really? So Mr. Brain prove to me you have a mind and that you think thoughts if you will.

I was able to read and understand OP's post and produce a coherent response that conveyed information and expressed abstract ideas. That is more than enough to pass the Turing test (google it).

And as per detecting God, Look at it this way: Even if it was impossible to see God himself, we should at least be able to see evidence of his activities. You should see unexplainable healings in church/mosque/temple. Not just the fake pastor Chris type, but undisputable things like limbs regrowing and midgets becoming taller.

Religious people should be better off in tangible, measurable ways compared to the general population. People who tithe and give large offerings should be wealthier than those who don't. And we should see the occasional old testament style miracle.

Instead, what we see is charlatans like TB Joshua making money off the devout,who incidentally are mostly made up of the poorest in society. Everywhere you look, religion is strongly correlated with poverty. And in every field of endeavour; science, medicine, economics, sports, the most successful people never those who put religion first. Instead, people have to keep their religion separate from their work if they want to compete with others.

Like I said in my last post. The world now operates under the assumption that there is no god. And humanity is far better off than it was during the dark ages when religion ruled supreme.

Delafruita: with a reasoning like this,its no wonder pastors rides SUVs,give out aston martins and fly in jets all over the world.
perhaps jesus went up with a hot-air balloon.did the "windows of heaven" open for him to enter?

You need to go and service your sarcasm detector.

buzugee: atilla the hun and genghis khan were not ruling world empires. WORLD EMPIRES not LOCAL CHAMPIONS

the book of john predicted america, which will be the last gentile empire on earth and is an offshoot of the roman empire.

Bullcrap! Genghis Khan's empire was far larger and contained far more people than the roman empire, twice as big to be exact. The Romans aren't even in the top three, both Alexander the Great's and the Muslim caliphate were much bigger and neither of them were predicted by revelations.

In fact, it's a real stretch to claim that even the Roman empire was predicted my revelations. It doesn't really say much aside from "a big empire will arise, will misbehave and then fall." For all we know, it could have been talking about Erastus Akingbola's business empire.

Christians have had to twist world history almost to breaking point to make it align with the rantings of the mushroom chewing stoner who wrote revelations. But when you look closely, it all falls apart.

Rossikk: I've been thinking about this story of Jesus ascending up 'into heaven' before onlookers?

Think about that carefully. It's the most crazy idea isn't it?

For starters, the implication is that heaven is an actual physical location 'up there', like on some distant planet. But everything we know about the afterlife or spirit world indicates that it's a different spiritual dimension, as opposed to a different physical location. Thus one can only go to heaven by shedding one's physical body via death, and assuming the spiritual or ethereal one that allows one to dwell in heaven. One cannot enter heaven with a physical body. Surely! Thus the idea of 'Jesus' ascending up into heaven before onlookers is most absurd, even by the crazy standards of the Jewish book of fairytales called the bible, isn't it?

Sharrap you bloody edeot. You solar systemists have started again with your lies. Do you really expect any sensible person to believe that the earth is a kind of ball rolling round a giant sun? So which ground is the ball rolling on? Why doesn't it fall down like your so called "law of gravity" says?

Nonsense! All this your scientific theories don't even make sense.

My bible says that JESUS ascended into heaven. That clearly shows that heaven must be up. Therefore, hell must be down. Do you think you know more than bible?

The solar system doesn't exist, evolution is a lie of the devil, and global warming is a myth. You people had better repent before you find hour self going down (to hellfire).

Mobinga: And the Monkeys we supposedly evolved from never got diseases? I reckon Natural Selection would have removed the vulnerabilities?
Natural Selection would have generally boosted life span extensively, but we Africans still stand on 50-60? Like the Bible says 120 tops.

Likely counter that Natural Selection would have improved the vector capabilities?

You've answered your own question. Germs are also living things, and they also evolve. If humans develop a way consistently wipe out the germ that causes the disease, then that germ will be under evolutionary pressure to find a way around it. This is the reason why hospitals are full of antibiotic resistant "superbugs".

Another thing a consider is a germs don't actually benefit from killing their hosts. If the host dies, then all the germs inside it die too. Very virulent diseases like ebola tend not to do well in the long run because they kill their victims too fast. So ebola descends on a village, kills everyone inside and peters out once it runs out of victims. On the other hand, intestinal roundworms are one of the most successful and widespread human parasites because spread quietly, they don't kill their victims and they hardly cause any disadvantages to their hosts.

That means that germs tend to evolve to become less virulent over time as the pathogens adapt to the hosts and vice versa. In nature, the rule is adapt or die. The virus that caused the great flu pandemic of 1918 failed to adapt and became extinct the day its last victim died. Meanwhile the germ that causes syphilis evolved from a "you have 3 months left to live" disease 600 years ago to a chronic illness only kills you after decades of spreading to all your girlfriends.

Evolution is simply natural selection happening over a long time. Natural selection simply means that inheritable traits that give a living thing a survival advantage tend to become more common in the population over time. This a such a basic and obvious thing that its hard to imagine why any sensible person will deny that its happening.

Think of it this way: If a deadly new zombie apocalypse disease emerged and you and your kids were the only ones immune to it. Billions will die but most of your descendants will grow to adulthood and have kids of their own. Within a few centuries, the world will be full of little mobingas, the majority of whom will be immune to the zombie virus. And because the original Mobinga had black skin, a big nose and a tiny JohnThomas, so will a large percentage of the world's population.

Evolution is little incremental changes occurring over time. It's hard to appreciate it in the short span of a human lifespan because it occurs so slowly in larger organisms with long life-cycles. But life has existed on earth for hundreds of millions of years. Try and wrap your mind around how long a million years is, then you'll understand how it is impossible for living things not to change dramatically within that scale of time.

tobechi20: I am wondering if these atheist are alone in their family.have any of u been able to convince ur family member from joining any religion? Have u delivered any of ur family from RELIGIOUS SLAVERY.Since charity begins at home, haw many have u logicaly convertd in ur family ? I have not seen a family of atheist only

I'm actually quite lucky. All my siblings are atheists, my popsi thinks all pastors are badly disguised con-men and, except for weddings and burials, hasn't been to church in over a decade. And though my mom is a christian, she's been defrauded so many times by so many pastors that even she has recently started expressing serious doubts about the whole christianity business.

Funnily enough, every single member of my family has reached the same atheistic conclusion independently of the others. It's not as if one of us tried to convert the others. We actually all kept our opinions to ourselves and more or less discovered by accident that we were all atheists.

All except my mom of course, but give her time, she's getting there.

OP here.

All you guys claiming that this proves atheism is a religion are completely missing the point.

The thing is that while there is a lot of fraud, deceit and incitement against others going on in the churches, they are some good things happening there as well.

Church (as well as mosques, temple etc) is great place for people to socialize and meet people of like minds. Members of a church form a community and tend to rally together and help each other during hard times. None of this has anything to do with religion of course, its just that humans are social animals and we tend to form herds.

Now atheists being a minority group don't usually get to physically gather and socialize with other atheists due to the oppression and discrimination by religious people. We tend to stay in the closet and therefore before the internet we hardly got to talk to other atheists, share our stories and give/get moral support.

The internet has become our church in the sense that it allows us to meet (anonymously or otherwise) and be a community. There is no bowing down, worshipping or praying going on here. Just people being helping to make each other's lives a little better.

In the aftermath of the US Aurora theatre shooting, CNN's Belief blog has noted how the internet has become the de-facto church for atheists and doubters of god.

As unbelievers often have no physical place to gather, they have turned to the web as a place to share their beliefs, experiences and offer each other support. The internet's anonymity also helps those still in the closet who don't want to have to deal with family and friends who'll likely disagree with them.

The article also includes some really nice quotes from reddit's r/atheism page (one of my favourite places on the internet) from atheists talking about their lives.

(CNN) – The Internet has become the de facto global church for atheists, agnostics and other doubters of God, who of course don’t have bricks-and-mortar churches in which to congregate.

We see this phenomenon in motion every day on the CNN Belief Blog, where atheists/agnostics/humanists are among the most zealous commenters.

Recent string of posts around the question of “Where was God in Aurora?” drew especially large waves of comments that show atheists are using the Internet to commune with one another and to confront religious believers in ways that they don’t usually do in church.

Atheists and other secularists have offline organizations that stage in-person meetings – the Secular Student Alliance has seen its number of campus chapters quadruple in the last five years, to 368 – but the Internet has probably played a bigger role in the rise of the so-called New Atheism. The movement’s adherents evangelize their godlessness, just as many religious folks evangelize their God, often taking to the Belief Blog to do so.

“A lot of millennials who are coming of age have found that the Internet is a fantastic place to talk about their doubt,” says Jesse Galef, communications director for the Secular Student Alliance. “Before the Internet, there was no place for young people to do that. The only place to go was really church, and that wasn’t always a welcoming place.

“But they can go online and discuss these ideas without being judged by friends and families,” Galef says.

For closeted atheists, the Internet’s anonymity is a big draw. A coalition of national atheist groups recently launched a program to transition doubting clergy to lives of open atheism by first having ministers come out anonymously in a closed online community.

Plenty of other atheists, though, are using the Internet to connect with real, named people through Facebook and other online social networks.

“It’s the ability to access a larger community, particularly for people growing up in religiously conservative areas,” Galef says. “There is nobody they can point to to discuss their atheism or their doubts about the Bible or their morality, and the Internet provides that.”

This explains why atheists are so active in the religion section. Follow the link for more.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/01/where-was-god-in-aurora-comments-show-internet-as-church-for-atheists/

What's controversial about the 3 verses? They all look pretty clear-cut to me.

Women shouldn't never be senior to men and should STFU in church. Slaves should keep their heads down no matter how cruel their masters are. And the Samarians have misbehaved so God is going to have them killed violently; their babies will be bludgeoned and their pregnant women gutted.

Which part don't you understand?

miteolu: THIS REPORT IS NOT TRUE.

I WANT EVERYONE TO GET THE FACT THAT SOME GROUP OF AGENCIES USE THIS KIND OF STATISTICS TO RAKE MONEY FROM GOVERNMENT.

LET US REASON AS EDUCATIONISTS THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE

Guy, you have no idea what you're talking about. Why isn't it possible? You think all Nigerias are city-dwelling ajebotas like you?

I'm a doctor and I've witnessed first hand the way women and children die like flies in rural areas in this country. You people have no idea how bad things are for some people especially in the north.

Most Nigerians live in rural areas, and the majority of rural areas have little or no access to formal healthcare. In addition, people are dirt poor and usually can't afford life-saving procedures like caesarean sections. So they just die.

People always wonder why I hate the government and the PDP so much. If you've ever been the only doctor in a rural local government, you'll understand.

You people should stop being so defeatist. It's may not be easy to get kick out an incumbent through the ballot box, but it's certainly not impossible.

And GEJ is so incompetent and so unpopular that we'll never get a better opportunity to do it than 2015. If people go out and vote and defend their votes, it's impossible to win through rigging without it being blatantly obvious. Cameraphones and the internet have changed the rigging game for good.

The fact is that tribalism or no, the vast majority of Nigerians will not vote for Jonathan again, so the only way he can win is by crude Mugabe-style rigging. If he tries that, at best, he'll become an international pariah and at worse, he'll spark a Libya style uprising.

Unless Jonathan hits his head on a stone and somehow transforms into a sensible, honest and intelligent leader, he going to be gone in 3 years.

teevibez: Wonders shall neva end. Hmmm

Are you being sarcastic or do you really believe that this is the door to hell?

Since you can't hear the tone of voice, its hard to tell who's just joking and who is genuinely rėtarded on the internet