₦airaland Forum

joel lala: Hmmm..11posts and no single NL atheist is giving an answer to folykaze questions.

You mean 'nairaland atheist'? Such is there way. Dont ask anything that will stand against them but they are brutal when slot for bashing you comes in.

Even when they appear, they ignore you challenge to attack you or derail thread. AmanFromMars post on this thread said it all.

Anyway, I will still look forward for their answers.

barack_o_handso: Wow! So you really opened a thread regarding this issue

expressing my mind give me inner peace. The challenge is up to co-atheist to pick.

joel lala: How did these spirit entities get into the physical body?

Most things we African get wrong is that each personify term is seen as a monster or demon. I dont know if we are playing on western script or we are just ignorant.

Spirit is a force. It not a monster. It something more like life force which animate composition of inanimated elements and matters in our body system. Obviously, the elements that embodied soil is the same that embody us. We are just the same thing in different form.

So your question should translate to how does life-force animate us and manifest in physical world? The physical world is illusion from your brain. Nothing added to this.

nnofaith: @folly (sic)
an atheiest embracing " african spirituality". what does that even mean?! you have to decide whether you want to be a babalawo or an atheist and stop this charade and intellectual fraud you are perpetrating.
Atheism is the lack of belief in BS whether foreign or local.

typical example of 'nairaland atheist'. When you are ready to discuss with me, show some respect by correctly spelling my name. Until then, enjoy your nihility

Reyginus: That's the problem with some atheists here. They will tell you that China is an atheist nation, irrespective of their deep religious nature. Lol. Then you begin to wonder if buddhism is a way of life too. Lol. Another thing is, some atheist here do not seek for knowledge. They think they've arrived. The reason you see atheists like logicboy always making unfounded claims.

I dont have problem with anything they attached to their atheism. It personal thing and not anybody's problem.

The problem is when they force their opinion on others....something like turning atheism into a religion. If they can admire buddhism philosophy and kick against it religious aspect. The same measures are expected from Africans who has not willfully submitted himself to oppression by lighting candle into another man's dark room while sleeping in a thick dark room claiming to be intelligent. This is first degree mental slavery. We cant be completely free from oppression if we are not ourselves.....most atheist too oppressed.

Imagine one of them saying his ancestors were dumb? This person went far to praise buddhism and western thought for trashing what belongs to him. This is something I kick against. Tufiakwa

Guy you will be needed on this thread https://www.nairaland.com/1464785/atheist-why-embracing-buddhism-not#18562357

nnofaith: Babalawo please!

I love been call babalawo. It not a disease but a very good thang. And was my post directed to you? Heya sorry.

Lets talk on this thread pls https://www.nairaland.com/1464785/atheist-why-embracing-buddhism-not#18562357

Reyginus: Lol. With this line we can all claim anything.
....
- If buddhism is embraced and admired because it forcefully separated from religion, why cant I embrace Ifa by separating it from religion too?
...
Some of my brothers will tell you that christainity is a way of life and not a religion.

lol. Even though I dont agree with most christian doctrines, I still find sense in some jesus teaching like love, charity and respect for authority. Also the book of proverb is the book I love reading most in bible. It not about belief or looking for flaws in bible, it about seeking knowledge.

Atheist on this forum are bend to admiring buddhism as philosophy, still wandering why they bark at me for admiring Ifa philosophy.

barack_o_handso: Another one of Folykaze's critics.
This is my point exactly @ Folykaze

it not about critics, it about asking this guys if they know what they are saying or whom they are. Knowledge start from self-conscious to self-realisation you know.

nnofaith: @folly
you are just a babalawo.and an intelletual fraud claiming you are embracing african spirituallity to cover up your beliefs. how do you reconcile your beliefs in deities like sango, ogun, obatala etc with atheism. Atheism is lack of belief in gods or deities. what is the diffrence between yoruba creation myth and the jewish one? no diffrence they are both myths. Both myths are full of BS. please tell me that you are not implying that we will only be good atheists when we reject the foreign BS and support your local BS. by the way i am yoruba too.

can we show ourselves some respect? If you want me to handle you, pls correct the spelling of my name pls

lets start from this thread https://www.nairaland.com/1464785/atheist-why-embracing-buddhism-not#18562357 .

aManFromMars: Oh boy, move to Asia... that's the only way most of your questions will be answered.

My questions are for African Atheist especially those in Nigeria who kick against African spirituality.

Dont bring this evasion of question to cunny attacking me....deal with the quest man

Most especially, atheist on this forum like to say that Buddhism is not a religion, it's a philosophy because it doesn't rely on belief in deity etc. Logicboy tagged Japan as atheistic nation....here refering to buddhists as atheists. He is right considering that buddhists do not believe in supernatural God.
However, in my humble opinion, Buddhism meets the definition of what a religion is... What most funny is the things people value in different cultures.

Remember that plenty of religions want to differentiate themselves from the pool of religions in the world... I've seen Christians claiming things like, "Christianity isn't a religion. Religions are mans attempt to reach God...Christianity is Gods effort to reach man." It's just that people want to be "special" and not have to categorize themselves or judge themselves by the standards of others.


Is Buddhism a Religion?

It depends on whom you ask. A lot of Westerners calling themselves Buddhists will say "No." But if you have ever spent any time around genuine Buddhists from Asian countries you'd know the answer is "Yes". The mistake is whether the Buddha intended to establish a new religion or just a new manner of thought out of Hinduism and it thousands of Gods. Some streams of Buddhism could legitimately be called atheistic, while others could be called pantheistic, and still others theistic such as Pure Land Buddhism. Eastern religions can also appear to be so different from Western religions that some people become confused. It's really all just splitting hairs. Sects such as Pure Land Buddhism are especially religious in their belief.

• Buddhism is not about either believing or not believing in God or gods. Rather, the historical Buddha taught that believing in gods was not useful for those seeking to realize enlightenment. In other words, God is unnecessary in Buddhism. For this reason, Buddhism is more accurately called nontheistic than atheistic.

• The Buddha also plainly said that he was not a god, but "awakened." Yet throughout Asia it is common to find people praying to the Buddha or to the many clearly mythical figures that populate Buddhist iconography. Temples are for religious purpose and not atheistic purpose.

• Pilgrims flock to stupas that are said to hold relics of the Buddha. Philosophical teachings will not have pilgirimage centers. The Religions only have pilgirimage centers.

• Some schools of Buddhism are deeply devotional. Even in the non-devotional schools, such as Theravada or Zen, there are rituals that involve bowing and offering food, flowers and incense to a Buddha figure on an altar.

• The many mythological creatures and beings that populate Mahayana Buddhism art and literature are often called "gods" or "deities." But, you can either believe the deity is actual, or you can take the deity as a metaphor for your own qualities.

• The Tripitaka (Tipitaka in Pali) is the earliest collection of Buddhist teachings and the only text recognized as canonical by Theravada Buddhists. Mahayana Buddhism reveres the Tripitaka as a sacred text, but adds to it the Sutras, which reflect distinctively Mahayana concepts.

• A number of countries recognize Buddhism as their official religion: Bhutan, Cambodia, Kalmykia, Japan, Thailand, Tibet Government in Exile and also Srilanka.

• Ironically, the eastern concept of Nirvana is similar to the western concept of Hell, whereas reincarnation is thought of as a positive thing, a way to extend life in the west while in the east it's considered a prolonging of suffering.


Some in the West dismiss these devotional and worshipful aspects of Buddhism as corruptions of the original teachings of the Buddha. For example, Sam Harris, a self-identified atheist who has expressed admiration for Buddhism just like every average atheist in Nigeria. We tend to cleansed of the "naive, petitionary, and superstitious" attachment to make it completely free from religion and look more philosophical.

At this junction, Ifa to me is viewed in the same sense we view buddhism. The 'barking at' by atheist with regard to embracing Ifa makes me ask alot of questions like...

- If buddhism is embraced and admired because it forcefully separated from religion, why cant I embrace Ifa by separating it from religion too?

- Since we embrace buddhism because westerners rebrand it, should we agree atheism is a robust and fashioned western belief? Why must we follow western path?

- Why are we moved toward foreign thought, philosophy and belief while trashing that of Africa....ethnic? Why cant we be ourselves?

- why do African atheist turn atheism into organise religion....'Dawkin or Harris said it so we follow'?

- Is it fundamental motion of pushing African belief, spirituality and thought into dark room over western belief? Isn't this colonization and mental slavery?

- Why cant we light the candle instead of cursing the dark? We did this to buddhism, why not African thought, philosophy and spirituality?

macof: foly am not a babalawo or in any awo cult so I honestly don't know a lot about Ifa. But wat I do know is dat Ifa is a way of helping humans to achieve their destiny. U can't go wrong wit Ifa
And these Babalawos have gone through a lot of training, their ability to memorize that much odu verses is simply awesome.

The supernatural aspect of Ifa
1. The fact that the powers behind it are not visible and it makes u wonder how Ifa has been able solve problems and give priceless advise to people of different situations over the last few thousands of years.

2. The omnisense of Ifa

3. Ifa is the true word of Olodumare as interpreted by Orunmila

4. Ifa is about spiritual awareness, it prescribes Spiritual solutions, and narrates spiritual experiences

I appreciate the fact that you dont know much about Ifa. I dont know much too. Nobody knows everything about ifa. It a continuous education that can take life time and might not been acquired till death. I agree the Babalawo have more knowledge about it than we do....i just want you to understand that the 16 corpus of Ifa and those Odu we learnt are just peripherial aspect.

PERMIT ME CORRECT TO SOME MISTAKES YOU MAKE ON SUPERNATURAL IN IFA

1. There is nothing invisible to Ifa. Maybe supernatural to you is something you dont understand. I think when you know the procedure of practising Ifa, it become more like practise and skill to you. Here are my thoughts on yoruba spirituality....

Eledumare = El' (body or owner) + Odu (intelligence) + mare (infinity) which mean the body of infinity intelligence/consciousness. So Eledumare is totality of forces, energies and all that therein in the universe. No skydaddy attached to this. Eledumare is universe itself.

Orisa = Ori (consciousness) + sa (selected) which mean selected consciousness among the infinity consciousness....ELEDUMARE. It not necessary for you to select them. Remember 'ori eni lo ye ka bo, aba fi orisa sile'? Meaning our consciousness is more essential than those selected ones. There is nothing like demons, monsters or supernatural attached to this.

Irunmole are Spiral energies.

Orun is sky/space not heaven where sky daddy live.

Orunmila is the convex of awakeness, intelligence, knowledge and insight. This is a special form of energy within us....well I agree allegory were attached to it and it was personify but I think our ancestors did that to simplify and understand this energy among themselves. No monster attached to it.

Ifa then is a special and esoteric body of knowledge which aids spiritual connection with Eledumare and interact with Irunmoles. Ifa is the knowledge and understanding of spirituality of Orisha practice with spiritual calculations that bring and interpret message, warning, solutions, advise from spirits..... Nothing like supernatural attached. When you are initiated, divination will be more like skills.

2. It more like google..... There is a saying that Ifa dont lie or say deceit. It is the corpus song the babalawo sing to it that it reveal. Just like google search engine, when you search for 'kimbet', you will have result for that....what you search for is what you got.... Same apply to Ifa. There is no supernatural thang here.

3. True.... Despite, Eledumare is not supernatural. Orunmila is not supernatural. Same thing with Ifa.

4. True.

There is nothing bad accepting that you know something happen but do not know how, why, what or reason why such thing happened. I encourage open minded into everything and questioning everything. If by saying Ifa is supernatural to mean....'it really amazing, whao but I dont know whats behind it', i tend to agree with you but I dont seem to embrace attachment of Monster and demon to our ignorance. The more we seek and walk through, the more we know. So I think walking and seeking should be essential.

Let me ask, have you ever seen babalawo divining and have you really been amazed at the way they touch issues and problems? Can you share it here?

macof: u can't mock my gods, they mock u for ur self imposed mental slavery and lack of wisdom

lol....this warrant 1000 likes.

I love fela....kolo mentality.

Oppression with willingness. Some Africans are disgrace to Africa. Chai

macof: I really don't understand how some Africans can be so dumb and stupid and still be happy with such low life state

that is such example of 'nairaland atheist'. Einstein call them 'professional atheist'.

Dont be suprise bro

Ask them do they know Ogun....they say yes, it mythical god.

Ask them do they believe Ogun give them life? They answer No....Ogun doesn't exist.

Ask them do they know Iron.....they say yes, it scientific element.

Ask them do Iron contribute to life.... They say Yes, it scientifically proven.

Do you see how silly some atheist are? Almost all of them do not know that Ogun literally is Iron.

I know it get emotional if those you expect to reason faster and capture metaphoric stuff easily plays dumb. It even get worse when you try to explain but they turn back to your fact.

A typical example was that dumb western slave accusing Ogun forgetting it literally Iron....and also dodging your logical questions.

Let them be...they should wallow in stupidity and wander around in ignorance. I exposed one of them yesterday who said his ancestors are dumb.... Pls continue with your path and embrace what belongs to you.

Cheers bro

macof: I really admire ur way of atheism. I am religious but despite that I support atheism to some degree.
Ifa asks us to seek knowledge any how we can. Atheism is actually suppose to be freedom and self independence. Away from all sorts of mental corruption and seeking natural/logical explanation bringing about knowledge

I call this mental slavery. Atheist in Nigeria are just closed minded folks who hate anything about religion. Some hatred came through liberation from youthful feeded religion dogma and some just want to appear intelligent so dont want to be attach to any religion.

It part of Atheist on nairaland to hate bible but never check bible to pick up some senses out of it.

Some just trash quran because it full of terror.

This shouldn't be so....i have friends that love horror film but that doesn't make them horror.....same goes to my friends that smoke....i dont smoke but that doesn't make me hate them. I have heard there are some sense in nonsense. I have embraced bible considering book of proverb and some jesus teaching like love, charity and respect for authories. Same applies to zakat in quran. I dont deny it contains some dogma but we shouldn't trash it all because it contain dogma (this is what some atheist do).....not ready to find sense in religion.

This stem down to spirituality. Like I told you on your thread, some atheist think Yemoja is a half fish and half human with golden crown around her head. Some even think Ifa is about charm and worshipping of deity. Some think practising of Orisa is bowing to Idol or carving one in your shrine. Those who you should expect to reason or question ask silly and rhetoric questions...even the one that ask question ignorantly will ignore your answer no matter how it is or if their view on it to asking another foolish questions....one of them was asking me about magic and charm in Ifa....i answered him for him to ignore the response to cheap strawmanning.....You will ask them questions for them to ask you questions back or completely ignore your questions. You will open a thread for them to ignore topic into ad-homien and strawmanning....more like looking for flaws to shoot attack at........this is just close minded fanatism they have been accusing theist about.

It doesn't end there, some atheist on this forum build on atheism. The last time I check, atheism is just disbelief in God (I opened a thread to clarify on which concept of God). Some atheist has turn this into personalities and attached ideology to it...... Support - science, Negate - Spirituality. They troll around and are bend into attacking others if their ideology or views are not supported. I think nobody has the right to control other people's opinion.....they tend to force you into their idealism or bring you down when their force is not working.

That is an excerpt of 'nairaland atheist'. They are whole bug of brainwashed puppets who have no mind of theirs.

barack_o_handso: For the record, I'm an atheist.
You know when you start to learn Buddhism, it's looked as as a religion. I'm open minded, that's what fascinated me about an atheist being an Ifa follower.

Haha...but you were asking me reason yhwh Im admiring Ifa as atheist. Why?

And im not Ifa follower.....im studying Ifa because it my right. I need to know it not necessarily believing in it.

Why did you say buddhism is religion in your previous post?

I got another topic tomorrow. Lol

@ OP

Pls what is supernatural in Ifa divination?

macof: as it seems Christianity and Islam isn't the only medium to self hate

Some atheist are self-hating folks.

Logicboy had been posting his support for buddhism.....calling it atheistic, philosophical and no religion attached but barks at me when I embrace Ifa. More and more of his like on this forum.

barack_o_handso: Yeah pretty much.
Learning it from another angle

Remember I told you buddhism is more philosophical than religion.

Bro lets learn from your religion angle.

macof: buddhist don't care about God or gods. They live for themselves, and strive to acquire one thing : reinvention in opposed to reincarnation in order to escape suffering. They believe the sins of the former life brings suffering to the new life which the reincarnated soul lives. Their rituals are basically, meditating to harnessing ones inner consciousness(wat I like to call Ori) in order to change the course of their lives.

Hope u get what Buddhism is about now

Thanks for the token bro.

I think he is right at some point but considering that most atheist on this forum embrace buddhism and support it philosophy over it religion aspect.

Those most atheist on this forum trashed philosophy, culture, spirituality and tradition which belong to their race as Africa and tribe as either yoruba, igbo or hausa.

Have been hearing that Africans are the greatest enemy of Africa. I see Africans embracing anything foreign but trashing what on their land.

This is kolo mentality

macof: wat do u know about Buddhism?

can you imagine the guy calling buddhism religion. Lol

barack_o_handso: Seems to me Folykaze got a lot of critics

'Professional atheism' is a hard core natural sickness.

They hate you when you dont reason like them. Lol

Agagu betrayed Ikale people.

Let him rot in hell.

Viewing this topic: aManFromMars

lol

barack_o_handso: Lol

Different strokes for different folks
Whatever rocks your boat bro

Im sorry if I sound harsh. I love knowledge and those who are ready to learn. I believe we cant know all but must be open to knowing from any source and reasoning alongside with it.

Donroxy asked me questions and I explained my view of things to him. You can do that also instead of saying things you have low knowledge about as full understanding.

Cheers bro

aManFromMars:

Descent? I guess you meant descendant. Make the correction and shoot again.




Last reply to your foolishness.

I made a mistake....thanks for correcting me.

Go and start thread about your history. I challenge on that or we should agree you ignorant and just dumb person who is looking for people to draw down to his level. I cant reject my history, culture and tradition for anybody or anything.

I DONT CURSE THE DARK, I LIGHT THE CANDLE IN IT. Go do that for your people.

aManFromMars: That he still has milk teeth.

Stop derailing....foolish lost jew.

Look at the beauty in Yoruba spirituality. Even Ooman embrace this. Go and gather your Igbo history, tradition and culture. I wonder when wandering as lost tribe will stop. You lost respect from me since you said your ancestors are dumb. Only a stupid fellow will stamp on his history, trash it and curse it for another thought. Such a stupid descent of dumb ancestors

aManFromMars: Unfollowed. Let the pig have his fun. The gutter's always cool.

Lol....lost jew,,, the descendant of dumb ancestors. You said it not me. Keep wandering in the wilderness of ignorance. Cheers

macof: break it down to our age how do u mean?

you know some people are just silly.....some might think Olokun is a half human, half fish and have gold crown on her head. You need to make them understand olokun. I just did that in my previous post. Read it pls

aManFromMars: Sad thing a Christian has more sense than you. Lost pigs end up in gutters. Cure your loneliness, Bro. Venting against Yahweh, Allah and now Igbos... Only u...

Ode...

I post on that thread and he accused me of something I didn't do. Why not beat him back? Im not dolly.

Go and study your history, tradition, spirituality and culture. That makes you a man. Lost generational slave

aManFromMars: Yawn. Confused mumu.

what more can we expect from a lost jew.....modernized slave