₦airaland Forum

^^^ lol you and your anger sometimes .. of course God is the most foolish as well as the most smartest.. Does the saying the alpha and omega mean anything to you?..simply put THERE IS NOTHING THAT GOD IS NOT..she is all things. He is both the smallest and biggest as well as everything else in between.. he is the darkness and the light .. the "devil" and the angel . Love/hate.. I could go on and on but you get the drift..

The problem and confusion is that most people erroneously due to their limited awareness perceive and only attribute the positive end of the duality(good/bad) to God and not both.. And the "negative" end thus denoted as the "Devil".. But the truth is both are different extremes of the same thing - God

P/s let me add that the negative end or dark side is an illusion.. we "created" it for a reason..e.g there can be no smartest without its equally direct opposite the dumbest or most foolish..such a concept will not hold.. we created relativity from the beginning of time for a reason. TO EXPERIENCE.

plaetton: I absolutely agree with you.
I would be lying if I tell you that I have not learnt so much from the bible, much in the same way that I have learnt so much from Shakespear, and from our beloved and late Chinua Achebe's works.

that's good to know. i could tell from your write-ups that you were open minded..

plaetton: Sorry, I didn't mean it that way.
What I meant to convey was that my person approach to looking at issues does not involve referencing scripture because I neither respect the authorship nor the authority of scripture.

I didn't mean any disrespect to your post.

i understand god brother no offence taken. it was actually funny to me.

btw i thought you were open minded.. understand that common sense is commonsense and truth is truth regardless of the source- even if purportedly coming from the devil( though there is no such thing or being as the DEVIL).. yes the bible is one of the least purveyor of truth in many things concerning God but it nevertheless has some valuable truths in it..it is your job to discern the truths from the false..

The message is always more important than the messenger. not the other way around.

plaetton: Yeah.Corect.
Thats the bible.
But I love to approach issues from a scientific/common sense point of view.

lol and you don't think what I wrote and jesus's statement were both based on common sense?..

plaetton: I feel inclined to assist my pro-Trinitarian friends to prove that Jesus and God are one and the same.

I just want Notable NL anti-trinitarians to dare me.

Of course jesus and God are one and the same.. But so is also you and God.. he was God made man. But so also is you. he is the son of God. But so also are you the son of God..

He didn't lie when he declared " I and the father are one ". Neither did he lie when he said if you have seen me then you have seen the father.. like jesus I @ greatgenius is one and the same with the father.. I AM GOD IN FLESH.. and so are you.. jesus only declared a universal truth..he was not the first and certainly not the last..

plaetton: @greatgenius
Why don't you open a separate thread so we can continue with this particular line line of discussion.

On this thread, I want focus on my theme of proving that faith is actually extreme doubt

well that is a non issue really expect for those who do not understand..if faith/certainty is the opposite of doubt then of course they are one and the same..they are both extremes of the same thing.. just as saying black and white, light/darkness , love/hate are one and the same thing.. it is a dichotomy but true at the same time..

The Is and the Isnot. I spoke on this on a thread some time back and no one seemed to understand .For instance, God is both the everything and the nothing.. He is everywhere and nowhere in particular...

Once you step out of the illusion and begin to see the core or unity in all things then everything suddenly makes sense..
I purposefully make it a habit to not engage in the Is, Isnot arguments because it leads nowhere..

The prove to me that God exists/exists not arguments are futile and leads no where..
Because one thing is for sure you cannot prove or disprove a TRUTH. It simply IS..

what is needed is understanding. Understanding of any problem solves the problem..

P/s will try to open a thread about our discussion later on so we can continue. You are also more than welcome to open one..

plaetton: ^^^
The problems with a conscious and purposeful god is that many questions inevitable arise as to who, when, and why regarding his mind and his purpose.
Inevitably, as human history attests, every one and every group becomes a self appointed interpreter for god's will and purpose. The rest becomes history.

So once we go on that path, it's deja vu all over again.

Now, on the other hand, when we study the workings of the universe , we see the ceaseless impersonal, purposeless pulsations of energy. Nothing else.
Everything else is the just creations of our minds.
Reality is quite different from our interpretations of it.

As an example, the universe has virtually remained more or less the same over the past 10,000yrs. Yet, see how our perceptions of the universe have undergone so many changes over that period.
So our perceptions of reality are always changing, not the realities themselves.

I mean look how many religious gods now fill the graveyards of history.
There are still few left, and presently grasping for air.
In time to come, they too will succumb to changing perceptions of reality.

OK this is what i didn't want happening. going all over the place..i can asnwer your contentions quote by quote but it will only lead to arguments which is not my purpose for engaging you.. i want us to discuss with an open mind..

your problem is what i call living in The illusion of separation.. you think god and all things are separate from you.(sort of like cells in your feet "thinking" they are separate from you whole being or feet).so what i would like is to start from the beginning- the god concept and see if we can agree on something.. actually we do agree on something-( all things in existence =God/energy). you have denoted it as energy, and i have as God..

now you have a problem with seeing God as conscious. so my next question was do you think this energy(which i have called God) which is in all things conscious. Do you also agree that you are an amalgamation of this packets of energy?


p/s. speaking of everything is just creations of our minds, actually everything is creation of mind. including the universe. the universe is a mental universe. we are all projections of consciousness..everything is mental. form is an illusion..matter is an illusion..but like i said i dont want us to run in circles so we will get to that part later..

Mr Troll: She is the creator, He exists, is also a spirit. Lemme hazard a guess, god is a hermaphroditic spirit

read my post again..God is spirit/energy and is the creator of all things in existence.. he/she/it is therefore all things.. she is limitless, boundless and can take on any form..in fact he is all forms.. get it..to say God is a he and not a she implies that there is something that God is not.

plaetton: Yes, but with a big difference.
Once you refer energy as a being, then your are giving conscious and purposeful attributes to it.

wow.. what are you made of. are you not an energy being..and speaking of being. what is a being? deos energy have consciousness?

So, you idea and mine might sound similar, but are millions of miles apart.

no we are not. it is understanding you lack but we will get to that.. lets proceed slowly

Like I said before, the problem with the idea of god is that it is supposed to be conscious and purposeful, and that is what contradicts everything about god and creates a lot of philosophical, religious and moral contradictions and conundrums.

care to explain how God being a conscious being contradicts everything about him? what are the everything about God that it contradicts..

plaetton: Everything is the manifestation of one: Energy.

ok so we agree on that . Only difference is you have denoted as energy and I have as GOD..

Like I said, god has too many problems as a conscious purposeful being.

what problems are we talking here because I don't see any.. care to throw some light on this?

Energy is simple. Simple to understand, simple to appreciate, simple to manipulate. In my view, if everything is just the sum of self-existent energy , then the idea of a creator, with all its problems and contradictions fly out the window.

actually is really simple to understand.. God/energy/universal force/consciousness or what you choose to denote it is self-evident.. you/people/ humans lack of understanding of her does not change anything

With god thrown out the window, then we , as units of energy, then focus on creating our own reality, our own universe

I don't know if this is news to you but as a creature created in the image and likeness of God with freewill ,you have always created YOUR OWN REALITY even from the beginning of time..

To a small extent, this is what has been happening over the past 250 yrs or so with the gradual but steady emasculation of religion.

no this is what has been happening since the beginning .. you have always created your reality.."God" is the observer ready to assist if you ask but you have always created your "world".

Before I reply your above post let me state my position simply numerically
1. God is the Source
2. There is only one God and nothing else exist but God..
3. She is the creator of all things in existence or the totality of all things in existence.
4. Thus He exist in all things in existence both "seen" and " unseen", The everything and the no-thing ..
5. We are all individuated aspect or manifestation of this BEING- God..

6. God is spirit ( what you and scientist have termed energy )..
7. Etc

As you can see I have said the same thing in different ways.. so again simply put
God is the source and we are all manifestations of this infinite being..

BTW @ Plaeton I'm out and as such using my phone so bare with me if it takes a while for my responses for now..

plaetton: I am definitely a pantheist atheist. That is, I believe that energy is the only self-existent thing. Infact, the only thing that exists.
Everything is the manifestation of energy. If you want to say energy = god, be my guest.
The problem with the word god is that it carries too much contentious baggages.

Energy , on the other hand, is self evident. It certainly does not need a priesthood or an enormous edifice to prop and promote it.


As for spiritual, I have asked many times for a definition of spiritual and I get are people speaking in tongues.
I intend to open another thread soon on "Spiritual".
For now, what we normally refer to as spiritual are simply concepts and phenomena that are yet to be fully scientifically understood.
Most of us are not up to date with new scientific ideas and new trends in scientific enquiry. If we do, then we soon recognize slow but inevitable convergence of scientifically knonw facts with things and ideas that hitherto had been long relegated to the realms of the "spiritual".

Past spiritual concepts are today's physics.
Today's spiritual concepts are tomorrow's Higher Physics such as in Quantum physics, Scalar Physics, Torsion Field Physics, etc.

If you study these concepts, then you immediately recognized that you are now delving into the realms of what has , up till now, been considered the "spiritual".

ok now I sort of know your position on those three questions..
Now that we have established a foundation I ask that we take one topic at a time and expatiate on it before we move to the next.

Let's start with God.. what exactly do you mean by pantheist atheism ? Are saying you believe everything is a manifestation of God yet believes this God does not exist? .. I want a clarification before I make a comment on your is god = energy statement and then also give my position

plaetton: God is a concept, perhaps worthy of investigation, but nevertheless, a concept.

If god is self evident, only scientific enquiry, not religion, not philosophy, not subjective spiritual mumbo jumbo can proven it in a universally accepted way.

lol at only scientific enquiry. Ok lets try it this way.. First are you an atheist or agnostic? second what is God. or what is the meaning of God, or since we are speaking of concept, what is the concept of God. third what is the spiritual mean to you..
let me know your position on these and then lets discuss

plaetton: @greatgenius
One cannot be an atheist without recognizing the sheer absurdity of religious beliefs .
They say it is faith. My position here is that faith is simply the extreme form of doubt.

In other words, the faithful are simply swimming in a sea of fearful doubts.

True it is absurd for any reasonable mind to hold the belief that an unconditional loving God- which she is - punishes etc but it is equally absurd to to aver that God does not exist because of another erroneously holding such a belief - a God that punishes..

And yes I agree that it is not faith but stupidity and the laziness to reason for themselves .. faith is not blindly following - that's stupidity..faith is knowledge ..it is common sense. Faith is reason..it is surety. It is believing with reason and common sense/intelligence.. religion practices faith based on foolishness..

BTW faith is not the extreme form of doubt but of belief ..it is like love and hate. Light/ darkness..

plaetton: Exactly my point. A self-evident god doesn't need worship and supplication.

Even a giant ball of colorless, tasteless gas can still be self evident in its reactions to other substance.
Only a none existent concept, a mental contraption, would need a gargantuan edifice of myths, doctrines, priesthoods, and threats to perpetuate itself.

ok so we getting somewhere .. we both agree that religion is fallacious .. now is that your evidence against the existence of God?

Mr Troll: he's talking about it in the christian context.

I figured but he should have made it clear what his contentions was against before making such an assertion... Is his argument against God or religion?

I have come to the conclusion that most of you pseudo atheist actually have a problem with religion - and rightly so - but it should in no way be the reason for their proposition against theism. Unfortunately that is the case among many "atheists"... The funny thing is most of these pseudo atheist think atheism equals " belief in no god "..

plaetton: @ Italo.

I reckon that you are smart fellow, unless Logicboy or Mr Troll wants to object to that, lol.

Now, tell me why layers of myths piled on top of each other, priesthoods, an enormous edifice of power, intrigues and secrecy have been built over several thousand years all just to defend the very very simple idea of what is supposed to be a real and self-evident god of the universe.
Does that make any sense at all?

Again I ask you, where is the priesthood, the enormous edifice of power, intrigue and secrecy that promotes the real and self-evident things like, say, gravity?
When was the last time a priest of gravity came to knock on your door to preach the good news?

I put it to you Italo, Reginus eta al, that the many many layers of myths, the bible, and other sacred texts of the monotheistic religions, the priesthoods, the enormous edifice of power, intrigues and secrecy were purposefully founded, built, and exists for sole purpose of checkmating, discouraging, confronting and perpetually battling the very obvious, the very very tiny and very very simple and common aspect of human reasoning commonly referred to as Doubt.

So, even though religion is about faith, it is arises from the lack of faith, not the presence of faith as we have been conditioned to believe.

Religious faith is a perpetual battle against doubt. The entire edifice of the Abrahamic religions, their myths, their doctrines, their threats: all are targeted at Doubt.

Religious faith is an exercise in Doubt, against Doubt.
It is extreme doubt. An extreme form of atheism
Doubt that conjures up layers of myths and layers of doctrines around itself in an attempt to annihilate itself.

A mind suffused with faith is a mind at war with itself.

It is no wonder that religious faith has often been likened to mild forms of mental illnesses.

Ask yourself, why does a real self-evident creator of the universe need to be perpetually promoted and defended by an astonishing battalion of myths, priesthoods, doctrines, the enormous edifice of organized religion, and , of course, threats of eternal punishment for failure to relinquish inner doubt?
Why?
Why can't god be simply self-evident?.

A self-evident god would require no myths, no religion and certainly no priesthood.

Religion and faith would be redundant and superfluous for a real, self-evident god.

This is a good case against religion albeit with its distortions but certainly not against GOD.. This piece in anyway does not disprove that GOD exist or is self evident.. It only picks the holes in the fallacies of religion... God needs no religion and requires no priests nor any form of worship..

plaetton: Anyways. Back to topic.
@Italo
Prayer is evidence of doubt. Special prayer is more evidence of doubt, and prayer intercession, is that some type of delegated faith? Faith by proxy?

Isn't that the mother of all doubts about faith?

ok I understand why you probably made this statement but In order to properly respond I ask that you explain what you really meant @ bolded.. I don't think you understand fully what prayer really is..

We are all always PRAYING. religious and non religious alike.. Prayer is simply an intent..intention is prayer..prayer is really a fervent statement of what is so..

So therefore you could say there is evidence of doubt in the form of prayer most Christian's engages in - supplication-, but that should in no way equate to your postulation that prayer is evidence of doubt..

plaetton: ^^^
Thanks for the insight.
But frankly speaking , my burning anger against religion is not about myself. Living as we are in Nigeria, it is not possible to ignore religion, no matter how much I wish. One cannot sit quietly in a mud pool waring silky white robes.
Religion is causing far too much problems and doing permanent lobetter damages to the African mind.
Therefore, one feels a compelling need to loudly repudiate and shame the basic uunderpinnings of religious beliefs.

the blind cannot lead the blind.. you are not going to make any progress if your idea of saving religious folks from their slumber of fallacious dogmas is to shame those beliefs.. there is a lot of things you still don't understand. but your on the right path. keep searching and going. you shall get there.. i suggest you read the book that @richfella recommended maybe for a start.

wiegraf: To add on what's already been stated, it's a bit like asking is that baby republican or democrat? Abi na PDP?

Baby isn't old enough to make those kinds of decisions I believe. Parents can now go about indoctrinating...

Edit: And yes, due to ignorance, it's a bit more accurate to describe them as agnostic/atheist.

lol on the surface you made a somewhat good point/analogy till you messed it up with @bolded.. using your analogy can one say due to ignorance it will be more accurate to describe babies as democrats...agnostic/atheism and even theism are beliefs taking a position on something -God( these of which babies do not have a position on).

would you describe your non-conscious (as far as we're concerned) dog as a theist?

im glad you said "as far as we're concerned" because all "beings" have consciousness.. And No i would not because that is on the same level of absurdity as the statement " all babies are born atheist".. theism/atheism are all human belief systems and unfortunately i am not in a position yet to tell you the kind of "beliefs" or "thinking" that goes on in a dogs consciouness

Logicboy03: If religion is man made, what was man before he made religion?

spiritual...btw you didnt answer my question so i will state it again.. how did atheism existed before religion?

Logicboy03: Guy, your last paragraph is totally wrong! Atheism existed before religion....who was born religious in the first place? No one.

how did atheism existed before religion..explain..btw i am not saying any one was born religious.. no one is..i am saying that it is religion that turn people into agnostics

Uyi Iredia: Same with scientists or philosophers. In any case, someone must have started the whole religion stuff. Who did ? And was that person atheist before then or were there atheists then ?

@bolded. thats why i told him i think the topic is over his head...denouncing the obvious fallacies of religion should not out-rightly make/turn one an atheist..that is preposterous and i hope that is not the position for many of the "atheist" brothers on this forum..

now back to your point religion actually preceded agnoticism/atheism..it is religion that actually turn people into agnostics.. the day religion ends will be the day agnosticism and atheism ends.