₦airaland Forum

1) Why did Allah allow the words of the Old Testament prophets to become corrupt? Speaking to prophets and then not preserving the words seem to render the entire exercise in having prophets a moot point

Nice to know you guys have also had the Davidylan experience. Now you know him.

m_nwankwo:
Hi huxley. I do not believe that the bible is the word of God. In many debates that I have had with you, I have always made this point whenever you asked about. All religion without exception has a history of bigotry or violence commited in the name of God. My position is and will always be that those acts are not from God and the pepatrators of these murders, violence or bigotry acted out of their own free will. Murder is murder in the sight of God wheather pepatrated by a christian, an islamist, an atheist or an agnostic. It is the nature of the activity that determines wheather something is evil or good and not the religion, sex, social status etc of the pepatrator. I hold that the manifestation of the will of God has the intrinsic attributes of LOVE and JUSTICE. That means that where love and justice are lacking, then the activity or event or process is not from God but rather the evil activities of men. Obedience to the will of God will produce human beings who will love other human beings and will not seek to harm them in anyway. Indeed genuine service to God demands that one love even those that hate him or her. Thus for a genuine worshiper of God, bigotry, intolerance, violence, crusades, jihads etc are completely out of the question.  Whenever violence, hatred, animosity, bigotry and enmity against those of different convictions  arise in us, then evil is lurking even when we call ourselves "children, men or prohet  of God" Evil is alien to God and it should and must be alien to those who truely serve God. Stay blessed.

If the bible is the the word of god, then what is it? Does god speak to us? If so, how does he speak to us?

Another occasion where I had opportunity to question the Christian narrative was presented to me about three years ago, still on the Streets of Sheffield. I had just started a new job in Sheffield and this city was unfamiliar to me at the time. I was walking down a thoroughfare that leads to my office when this placate-carrying Christian elderly man stopped me and asked if I believed in God.

To which I retorted with a question of my own. I asked - "Do you drive a petroleum-based car? If so, how long does it take for natural fauna/flora to be converted in natural petroleum based oils?

My question appeared to have knocked him aback and he instantly went on the defensive. He appeared to have realised just how threatening these questions and their correct answers were to his religious narrative. He responded by saying;

"Of course, it was put there by God about 6000 years ago. You don't believe in the claims of these fraudulent scientist and geologist, do you?"

At which point I ended the conversation and walked to work. This guy spend about 9 hours daily (except Sunday) at this corner of the street, peddling his falsehood. I walk past him almost every day, but he has never tried to stop me again since our first encounter.


This is that sort of strategy I mean. Different situations call for different approaches. You should develop and rehearse an arsenal of approach to use for different situations.

bindex:
No need fighting the religious people, they are self desturcting them selves for now. A good friend(very conservative christain) of mine was getting a little sad and asking himself that why is that God does not answer prayers the other day . So no need fighting them, we should just fight for our rights. By the way athiest and irreligious people are now about a billion in the world. we are not a minority as some one suggested we are only a minority in places like africa where most of the people don't even know what they want in life.

See your point, but I am not suggesting confrontation. Far from that. Of course, everyone has got to assess their own local situation and make a decision as to whether it is wise to come out as a non-theist. If you think you well-being would be jeopadise, by all means don't come out.

And DON'T antagonise the religionist unnecessarily. However, supposing a Christian evangelist were to come up to you to minister. How would you handle that situation? The Christian make the first move and now you ought to respond in a manner that is not only honest to yourself but is also capable of educating the Christian. You do not have to tell him/her that you are an atheist.

I am faced with this situation once or twice every month and I have to make difference decision every time. For me, my gold standard is not to respond in a way that is dishonest to myself. When I am in the mood for discussion, I usually stop and have a chat with them. If I can't stop or am not in the mood, I may just say, "Sorry, I can't talk" or "Sorry, I don't believe in god", and walk away.


In fact, last week, I was stopped on the Streets of Sheffield by a Mormon evangelist. We chatted for about 25 minutes and only revealled to him that I was atheist in the last 5 minutes. But before this, I pressed him hard on the main tenets of his religion - issues such as polygamy, the Character of Joseph Smith, the racist nature of Mormonism, etc, etc. In the end, I had taken all the ground he was standing on away from him and he had no option but to capitulate. I wish him happy Xmas, shoke his hand and walked away.

I submit that this guy now know that the are people out there who have legitimate and rigorous reasons to disbelieve their religious claims.

bindex:
I was born a Muslim became a Christain when I was 14 because my mum decided to convert back to her former religion. I was a very good christain I must say, but left the entire religion when i found out that prayers was a farce(I even try to lay hands on sick people before so that they could get healed but nothing happened ). There was a day back in kano during the religious crisis of 2004, I was together with a group of friends(VERY VERY strong christains) when the crisis got to where we were. The crisis began around 2 pm after the slaves of Allah were giving moral and spiritual invigoration after the friday prayers. We(about 15 of us) were in church when the crisis came to where we where. When the rumours started flying that the moslems had come about we all ran away but had to come back into the church when we realised that the church would be safer for us. I told them that i would go out and keep an eye on the moslems because as a an hausa guy(who speaks the language perfectly) who was also a former moslem and could recite the koran very well I had no problem staying outside. My friends strated praying in ernest to God to come and save them. To cut the story short the slaves of Allah came and went into the church, I lied to them that I was a muslim and begged them to spare my friends but they refused. When they got into the church my freinds were so confident that Jesus will save them, they prayed to God to send his angels to come and blind the eyes of the moslem assailants, they were more than confident that it would happen. There had no fear on their faces and prayed in the front of the moslem killers with full confidence since prayer was the only thing they could do. The killer slaves of Allah waited for them to finish praying some of them(killer slaves of Allah) bursted out laughing because they were amazed at the way my freinds were speaking in tongues and praying even in the face of death while the other killers patiently waited. After about 10 minutes one of the killers cut the chase and started slamming my friends with his spear. They killed all the males among them (9) and raped all the females. Since them my belief in the God of the bible dropped 50%. When I went to sweden my belief droped futher to about 70%. After I opened my eyes to the world, did my personal research on how the bible was written, why it was written and all the fallacies that were inside my belief droped futher to about 90%. Now that I am in Nigeria I am confident to say that the God of the bible is a farce, Allah is a farce and all the Gods that Nigerians worship are are a BIG joke. So poster go ahead and tell your girl she deserves to know the truth, as for friends and family please don't for now until you are completely independent. Nigeria is a place were you could be killed for openly displaying your lack of belief in God.

Interesting account. I think those Christians who were slaughtered and raped by the followers of Allah were not real Christians or they were following the wrong God. That is the only reason I can come up will for the non-intervention of their God. It may even be the case that Allah is the one true God judging by the way he help his followers kill the Christians, who do not believe in him.

Bindex, are you open to you family about you lack of belief in their god(s)?

olabowale:
@SCYLLA: « #25 on: Today at 02:17:57 PM » 
But they can all be wrong. But there is no doubt that if they are not all wrong, and since they can not alll be right, only one must be right. Please, find that one, except that you can proof that they are all wrong! Huxley and company, thats also ajourney that has a destination. Take this journey instead of going about destinationless in a desert, with your mind closed!

Ola, go answer these questions first before you come back here.

Check them out here

Olabowale, can you oblige with some answers, please?

SCYLLA:
Monica its a long story, but after examining everything, I just cannot say for sure if there is a God.

Although I am an atheist, I do not consider this as an end in itself. Atheism by itself is not a badge of honour. What matter most is the journey and not the destination. The journey is the most illuminating process you will have undergone in your life. On this journey, if done properly, you will learn;

1) Critical thinking skills
2) Philosophy and argumentation
3) Science and scientific rationalism
4) Philosophy of religion and mythology
5) Your local family religion and their holy books
6) History

If you are naturally disposed to learning and are of an intellectual bent, you will find this process stimulating, challenging and liberating. In fact, I consider this journey a journey without destination, for while you still have life in you, you will be going over many of these subjects daily.

At some point during this journey, you will be faced with having to decide whether you think the theistic narrative carries more explanatory power than the atheistic worldview. Whichever way you decide to go, you will have become a much better person.

~Lady~:
ROTFLMAO@ HUXLEY AND THIS TOPIC

SO YOU DECIDE TO DO THE VERY THING YOU STAND AGAINST??

LOLOLOLOLOL UH HYPOCRITE MUCH?


LOLOLOLOL@
UH WHERE IS YOUR CENSUS FROM? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL,


EYA PELE, MOVE ON WITH LIFE, THAT IS MUCH MORE AATTAINABLE AND RESPECTABLE. DON'T BECOME A NUISANCE TO SOCIETY OK.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

DUDE YOU ARE ALL TOO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Abi o@ the bold.

Welcome atheist RELIGION!!!!

Thank God I'm not the only who sees that. AMEN!!!!!!!


LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

davidylan:
Thank you very much. At least an athiest with a brain.

I have been singing the tune in bold for so so so long. If you don't wish to be christian simply move on with ur life. Christians on this forum don't relate with you on the basis of what religion you have stamped on ur ID. If you have problems with ur immediate family do not come to take it out on us. It truly isnt our fault your family is very conservative.

I laugh at Huxley's idea of athiest activism as outlined here - My approach is to start by undermining the mainstay of the Christian narrative

this is exactly why i can't but shake my head when someone says the world would be a better place if we were all areligious. The militant "we must destroy them if they don't see our point of view" attitude of the atheist is no different from that of fundamentalist religionists.

At the end of the day Hux, you just sounded the same as the very religionists you love to bash.

All say welcome to the world's latest fundamentalist religion - athiesm.

Long may we still have our heads on our necks if we don't kow-tow to their wishes.

If you are not able to see the difference between what I am calling for and the nature of mainstream Christian proslytisation, then you need to have your head examined.

Firstly, I am calling for atheist, agnostics, skeptics and doubters to readily self-identify within their communities. As is evident from some post here on NL, there are many atheists, agnostics etc, here whose close family are not aware of their non-belief in the family's local deities. Self-identifying within you community liberates you to lead a philosophical consistent and intellectually satisfying life.

Obviously, self-identifying will attract criticisms from the religious members of your community. This is where educating the religious public comes in. To effectively educate them you have got to be able to show that the religious claims are simply falsehoods and you have got to be able to offer a better approach that is more consistent with the nature reality.

In fact, what I am suggesting is akin to the civil rights struggle of homosexuals and African-Americans in the USA. How are we going to break down the marginalisation and bigotry against atheists if we never self-identify.

SCYLLA:
Huxley its not that easy, I am trying not to raise spite, I know all the issues well but its not as easy as asking questions and getting off the hook.

@davidylan
I feel she will be shattered, she senses it though but I think I will only do it when the time is right, I changed while we were in the relationship not before we started.

Hello SCYLLA,

I undertand.  These are delicate things that are capable of have breaking family up and I am not suggestion that you unnecessarily antagonise you family.  But I would really like to know how you think you family would react should you say something like;

Hey, brother (or Dad or Mum), by the way, which commandments are we meant to follow?  Those in Ex20 or those in Ex34?

manmustwac:
If it was me i would just continue to pretend. Because its not easy telling your people {especially in a country like Nigeria} that your am atheist. My parents bros sistas girlfriend etc don't know that am an atheist and i don't intend to tell them. Telling your girlfriend that your an athiest is just like telling her that your gay! So don't tell her. Unless she suspects herself through your behaviour

Well thats just my opinion

Hello manmustwac,

Must be really hard for you out there having to hide a core part of yourself from you family and friends.   Feel for you, man.   But how long have you been hiding this from your close ones?

I for one, could not hide such a fundamental aspect of my personality for any length of time, especially not to family and friends.  Of course, I don't know your family, so I cannot understand what it must be like for you.

You can get out of this predicament by slowing revealing doubts in the religions of your folks.   See my suggestion to the original poster above.

SCYLLA:
I have been a borderline atheist for a while now and even though my family does not have serious issues with it, I feel they see me as someone who is lost and will soon find myself. Today my sister called me and was begging me to make a change for 2009 and I can see my other sisters and parents want me to change.
The problem takes a twist because my girlfriend does not know about it and I really don't know how to tell her, so guys what do I do, I could go on pretending and its not going to make a difference for me.

Abeg make una no curse me oh.

I understand you dilemma, especially living in a predominantly theistic community but this is not an impassable problem. Whatever you family religion is, why don't you sit back and think or write down 10 reasons why you find that this religion is untrue. Also write down why you think the atheist worldview better represents the true state of reality. This, hopefully, should help you gather and collect your thoughts in a way that you could skillfully present to an audience of your family and friends.

Now, the way to "come out", as it were, is by casting doubts of the traditional religious narratives with some members of the family. Typically, there is one or two members of the family who are really HOT about god and religions. Such members would claim to be good bible scholars or interpreters. Approach these members individually with some of the "difficults" questions. Two great questions are the following:

1) Which Ten Commandments. Why are the Commandments given in Exodus 20 different from those in Exodus 34 when Ex34 were suppose to replace those in Ex20?

2) The trial narrative of Jesus. If you were at the trial of Jesus, would you have convicted him or exonerated him?

I have raised threads on this subject here on NL, if you need further details, just ask and I shall bring them up again. Basically, once they see that you are approaching the bible with a rational and scientific mind, thus intellectually mature mind, they will have little ground to stand on to criticise you. This could be a long and drawn out process, each time throwing new questions to them. The more questions they are incapable to satisfactorily answering, the more intellectual distance you put between you and the rest. That way, when you eventually announce that you no longer believe in their god, it will not come as much of a surprise.

Seth Cohen:
lol@post

Dude, i am an atheist and an atheist that thinks more than he barks. Truthfully, we all know that Atheists are in the extreme minority and it leads to discrimination, xenophobic attitudes, racism, pure hatred from some religious fanatics. But i don't think engaging in a confrontational war with religious people would solve anything. Instead it will promote more hate and discrimination.

I also know that those that are strictly into religion would not buldge for a second to retrace their steps and renounce their beliefs, neither would atheists be ready to shift ground for them. It is both a win win situation for us and them. Rather, we should try and appeal to neutrals who are undecided about a particular religion or belief to add their own constructive debates to choose what ever lifestyle and beliefs they are interested in.

Its not by force to be a christian, muslim or atheist and engaging in an unholy verbal war to discredit their religions won't yield any good.

Yes we talk about biblical contradictions, historical fallacies in the bible, violent and uncivilized parts of the bible and quoran but you should know that these religious apologists have a million and one defences from the sublime to the mundane and if that doesnt work, an all time favourite is to pour vitriol on us. This is an endless cycle that would achieve nothing.

So rather, i believe this should be a year when atheists actually talk about the good things of being an atheist and why atheists can just be as morally upright as religious apologists and what atheists can do to make the world a better and safer place instead of engaging in endless repitious debates that provides more scorn, sarcastic and discriminatory attitudes.

Funny enough, i was a someone who wasnt really sure about my religious beliefs and had been searching for clues to know what really is the truth. Nairaland helped me out because i read your posts for almost a year behind the scenes, trying to analyse which posts were true and which ones were false or mere propaganda to win converts.

So step up your campaigns to win more neutrals like me that are behind the scenes or closet atheists, but try and avoid spats with religious apologists. It breeds more contempt than love. 2008 should have given you enough experience and pointers to whom you should avoid and who you should bring closer!

Good points here and I agree with all of them. I hope my initial post did not come out as calling for unnecessary antagonism towards the theists and their religions. Far from it. If we hope to win hearts and minds we have got to be the paragon of civility and virtue so that our arguments are not undermines by our style.

What I am calling for is more preparedness to self-identify as atheists or skeptics or doubters of tradition theism. For each situation, you will have to decide which strategy to adopt and how to self-identify in a way that does not offend unruly but still puts you in a separate intellectual camp than the theists.

A propos the target audience, I think as you said, we stand the best chances of winning the neutrals. However, we should not be reticent about speaking out for our position if and when the right situation arises. For my part, apart from my online activism, I would never directly confront anyone about their beliefs in person. However, I get stopped on the streets a great deal or visited at home by Christians activist all the time. Only on such occasion do I politely begin to undermine the basis of their beliefs. I agree that such casual contact is unlikely to change minds but it would at least educate the theists (those amenable to educating) about the reasons for our non-belief. To turn the tides, we have got to evince integrity, self-control, wisdom, education and of course good humour.

I am really glad to hear that my posts were instrumental in getting you to examine the fraudulent claims of religions and have put you on the part to intellectual freedom and maturity. Welcome to freedom.

I would like to wish everyone a happy new year and many happy returns.

And to those of a rationalist and atheistic disposition, please allow me to take this opportunity to make some suggestions to make 2009 CE the start of a new cultural climate in your community. If you live in a predominantly theistic society, you will be aware of the extent to which non-theists and rationalists are despised, marginalised and discriminated against. Ironically, the non-theists and rationalists tend to those of more than average educational attainment, skilled professional scientists, engineers, philosophers, educators.  For fear of social ostracisation, many atheist play the game of polite reticence about the true nature of the position with respect to religions and Abrahamic theism in particular.  The fear and marginalisation of atheist has been defined as atheophobia.

I think the atheist have been silence for far to long and our unwillingness to speak out is indirectly hurting our standing in out communities.  In some cases, our friends and families who are religions don't even know that they have atheists in their midst, with the atheist playing along with the majority theistic mellieu they inhabit.  I think this polite reticence is hurtful in many ways, not least the psychological pressure it creates in the efforts to hide ones true self from ones' friends and family. Further, it creates the environment in which bigotry against atheists goes unexamined and unchallenged.

I submit that we can begin to reverse this bigotry by being more open about atheism and being more willing to challenge accepted religious dogmas in our communities.  In short, we must be prepared to educate the members of our communities about atheism, science, critical thinking and philosophy, etc.  This calls for each and every one of us to develop a strategy for discussing religion/theism/atheism with family, friends and adhoc members of the public.

My approach is to start by undermining the mainstay of the Christian narrative, the bible, given that I inhabit a predominantly Judeo-Christian environment.  I have formulated a series of question which invariable gets the Christians stumped for answers, planting doubts in their minds.  I have already discussed many of such questions here, but here are a few:

1)  If you had been at Jesus trial would you have called for his conviction or his exoneration?
2)  The Genealogy of Jesus - Was Jesus from the bloodline of David through his mother or father?
3)  The Virgin birth prophecy - Isaiah 14: 7 does is not a prophecy of Jesus, is it?
4)  The birth narrative - Was Jesus born before 4BC or around 6CE?
5)  When did Jesus claim he was going to return?
6)  Jesus had sectarian tendencies, advising his followers not to go to the towns of non-Jews
7)  The violence and barbarism of the bible, human sacrifice, ethnic cleansing, rape, pillage ordered by God
8-)   The series of contradiction and scientific absurdities
9)   Failed prophecies
10) How the bible narrative contradicts with scientific realism such as with the bizarre biblical cosmology, the absurd creation story, the flood story etc, etc.

These are just a few and they are apt to expose the weakness of the bible as the basis of a modern worldview.

So my suggestion is that we undertake to educate our respective communities  about atheism, scientific rationalism by being actively involved in promoting a rationalistic worldview.


Please, join me in making 2009 the year of Atheist Activism to raise awareness of atheism and fight back atheophobia


Thank and all the best

Powerful. Just watch

This is pretty bad. Just watch here

duduspace:
@Huxley

You are very right, infact this led to a UK politician (forgotten his name) having to claim agnosticsm when the pressure on him became so much and his political future was threatened by his atheist beliefs.

This is not totally true Lady, not all atheists support all those things you stand against; in fact some christians support these things.

I also don't beleive most people (athests and christians) who are pro-choice are foetus murderers like most of you religious folks make them out to be, there was a case in Ireland some years back that didn't make much sense where a foetus was diagnosed with a medical condition (didn't have a head) and the doctors couldn't abort the foetus because the "Catholic" laws of the country prohibited it. The poor girl wanted to go abort the foetus in the UK and her passport was siezed.

I think that was Nick Clegg, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Want to have a laugh?  Then watch.

Part 1


Part 2
Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

m_nwankwo:
I am reading of this word "atheophobia" for the first time. A true believer in God has no fear or phobia and neither does such a person express bigotry to anyone including those who share convictions different from his. [/b]However one must remember that what you openly or surrepticiously wish for your fellowmen comes back to you in multiples. You sow wind and you reap a whirlwind. Thus if you look down on others whose convictions are different from yours, you will certainly be looked down on, if you trample or mock the convictions of others, then the same will happen to your convictions etc. [b]Our compalints about others are in all cases a reflection of what we do to other people, that is, you can accurately predict your character or that of you neighbour by the very things that drives you or them crazy . People who critisize others justifable or unjustifiably go into frenzy when critisized. Love is the fundamental basis of any genuine worship of God,and he who has this love of God loves all human beings irrespective of their beliefs, status, sex etc.

I beg to differ. I suppose you are a Christian and believe the bible is the written word of God. If so, can you demonstrate using the bible that those true believers in God do not bear ill thoughts or hatred towards non-believers

On the contrary, there are dozens of places in the bible where the non-believers in the Jewish God are victimized and killed specifically because the worship other gods.

On a more recent note, the history of the spread of Christianity is littered with hatred, bijotry, violence and war in the name of the Christian god. Now you could argue that those who persecuted these violent campaigns were not true Christians. If so, in what way are they different for the belligerent god-inspired warriors of the Old Testament, the likes of David, Joshua, Moses, Ezekiel, etc, etc?

In what ways were Constantine's , Charlemagne's or the Crusaders' campaigns to spread Christianity different from those of David, Moses, Joshua? Were these people not true believers?

davidylan:
lol its one of the reasons i mostly avoid posts from the likes of KAG and Huxley, plenty of high-fallutin words they don't understand.

you hear words like abiogenesis and the deluded crowd here starts clapping for them. Break down the word in simple terms and its clear KAG herself has no clue what she touts.

Could it be because many of my questions and threads are beyond your shallow wit?

The fallacies of Pastor Enoch Adeboye (3) E-mail
Written by Douglas Anele
Sunday, 28 December 2008

I THOUGHT that the main reason religious organizations all over the world are exempted from tax is that they are classified as charity organizations.

Since a charity organization is a non-profit making body created to provide humanitarian services to the community, it is reasonable not to tax them, because of the important roles they play especially in those areas where government is regularly found wanting. For instance, before the explosion in Pentecostalism, the orthodox traditional churches like the Catholic, Methodist, Anglican and Baptist churches had parishes in the cities and villages. T

hese churches provided educational, healthcare and other humanitarian services to the people, especially in the rural areas, either at no charge or at highly subsidized rates. Consequently, it was reasonable that the churches were exempted from paying taxes. But, what do we have now? To be candid, the new Pentecostal churches have become safe havens for "retired"people of questionable character who exploit the ignorance and poverty (both material and intellectual) prevalent in Nigeria to swindle gullible Nigerians.

Most of these churches have their headquarters and few branches in the urban centres, and do not, by any stretch of the imagination,provide humanitarian services to anyone. They cannot even be described as charity organizations. Adeboye seems to acknowledge this, when he talked about crooks in the churches as analogous to Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. However, his analogy deliberately downplays the level of spiritual decay and moral crises within Pentecostal Christendom today. Instead of one Judas, we have many Judases betraying the fundamental rationale of religion, viz, spiritual enlightenment and growth.

The showy and materialistic lifestyles of Church leaders, particularly the pastors of Pentecostal churches, is a good reason for taxing their churches, because it is evident that the main focus here is to make enough money to "live big". Yet, I am not totally convinced that taxing the churches would help Nigerians in any significant way, because our government cannot be trusted to manage the money well – there are just too many kleptomaniacs in government. Pastor Adeboye made a category mistake when he argued that taxing the churches is equivalent to double-taxing the members.

If his argument is valid, then there is no reason to tax any firm or business organization, because those that transact business with them have already paid tax also. Pastor Adeboye conflated the taxable income of Church members with the income that accrues to the Church. Both are separate, and it is logically absurd to treat them as identical. No one likes a reduction in his or her income. Pastor Adeboye knows that if churches are required to pay tax, his income as the general overseer of RCCG will likely go down, a situation that might necessitate inconvenient belt-tightening measures by his family, and more ingenious ways of getting more money from RCCG members.

In Nigeria today, it is very difficult to see a Pentecostal pastor who lives a modest lifestyle different from the sordid "bread and butter" Christianity prevalent in the country nowadays. Whenever the issue of vain glorious materialism among the clergy and Christian elite rears up, Pentecostal pastors flip-flop, and misinterpret some verses of the Bible to justify their greed and acquisitiveness. Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of Christianity, at every opportunity, scathingly criticized the quest for material things. Pastors usually rail against materialism from pulpits. Nevertheless, their actions are the opposite of what they preach. Nowadays, "men and women of God" insist that the love of money is the root of all evil; but they are always willing to pal around and accept tithes, gifts and offerings from shady characters, including looters of public treasury. For example, sometime ago, a lowly paid worker in a Lagos Hotel was alleged to have given gifts amounting to N39million to his church, for which he received a letter of commendation from his pastor.

Therefore, Pastor Adeboye misses the point when he says that the churches of today "are doing better than the original one". If he means that the new churches are making more money and have more vociferous members than the older ones such as the Catholic and Anglican churches, he may be right. But that is if one neglects the most important criterion for evaluating religion: The level of spiritual enlightenment it inculcates in adherents which provides proper orientation for a life inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

On this criterion, contemporary Christianity is big failure. The overall tenor of Pastor Adeboye's response to the issues raised by Sunday Vanguard's reporter resonates with unreasoning acceptance of Christian dogmas as preached by the swanky pastors. The rising popularity of the new Pentecostalism, which Adeboye celebrates, should, instead, be a source of spiritual disquiet for sincere Christians who are genuinely concerned with spiritual, not material, prosperity. In practically all its mode of worship, contemporary Christianity has deviated substantially from the teachings of Jesus. Although one may explain such deviations as the consequence of adapting Christian religious worship to the demands of the time, I believe that the deviations indicate fundamental changes in the spirit or motivation of Christianity.

Pastor Adeboye's church and all Christian denominations pray in a manner contrary to how Jesus prayed and admonished his disciples to pray as well. Alfred Reynolds has provided an interesting perspective on this issue. In his work, Jesus Versus Christianity, he quoted copiously from the New Testament which proved that the noisy, showy and ostentatious mode of prayer, which presently dominates Christianity, is spiritual unsatisfactory. Jesus says: "And when thou prayest rest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the street, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say to you, they have had their reward. But when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut the door, pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee"(Matt, 6:5-6)". Indeed, there is a consistent pattern of behaviour which shows that Jesus considered prayer as a personal affair between a man and his God. It is hard to find in the Gospels any record where Jesus actually prayed in public. We usually read that "he left them," "he departed", "he went a little further", "withdrew himself," to pray.

The Synoptic Gospels consistently recorded that Jesus considered prayer, fasting and alms-giving as matters between God and man which, in their most spiritually rewarding form, should be performed without witness. However, contemporary Pentecostal pastors think otherwise. Prayer, fasting and alms-giving must receive the widest publicity. Even, they issue commands to God, like military dictators, and consider it an act of piety to pray noisily and aggressively both at home and in the Church. Pastor Adeboye missed a good opportunity to call on his colleagues to turn away from "bread and butter" Christianity, and strive for spiritual excellence. He merely reminded us that there is a Judas in every twelve, and deliberately glossed over the mercantilist attitude of pastors to Christianity.

Those who call themselves Christians these days believe that God's grace, not good works and love of fellow human beings, is the most essential factor for spiritual growth. Self- styled " Bible – believing" Church members, encouraged by their general overseers, are convinced that material prosperity is a sure sign of genuine Christianity. All these are contrary to what Jesus taught, and how he lived. Where as Jesus taught that "by their fruits we shall know them, " pastors of Pentecostal churches teach that "by their tithes and gifts to the pastor we shall know them." Jesus was clear and unequivocal on his condemnation of riches and wealth.

The new churches preach prosperity and financial breakthroughs. These churches have enormous properties and revenues. The pastors and general overseers are involved in all sorts of financial transactions and extractions which have rendered them spiritually blind and impotent. Should it surprise any one, then, that, in spite of the increasing number of churches, corruption, hatred, armed robbery – indeed all symptoms of spiritual retadation – are increasing in Nigeria ? I suggest that Pastor Enoch Adeboye and his colleagues should embark on an honest soul-searching exercise to ascertain whether they are really helping people to grow spiritually or whether they are out to make " a quick buck ", as the Americans would say. But, surely, by their fruits, we already know them!

simmy:
i was too worn out from reading the posters crap to properly edit my reply,  if u don't understand it go get a life too

MY dear, don't trouble yourself any further, if a few hundred words are so taxing as to exhaust you.  I see this emotional response many times the christian dream bubble is pierced.

Bastage:
LOL. Now you've given it in context I understand.

But I think you're missing the picture here. This isn't a question to theists. Theists are able to use logical science and adapt it to their beliefs without contradicting what the rational would call "scientific fact" . You're addressing religious theists. They tend to be constrained by dogmatic ideals that there's no workaround for.

For example, I'm a Big Bouncer. I believe that the Big Bang is just a long line of eternal bangs and crunches. It explains the question of how something is created from nothing. Maybe taking the easy way out but at least it has a basis in rational science.

Interesting! Are you a non-religious theist? What does this mean?

Written by Douglas Anele   
Sunday, 14 December 2008

Taken from Vanguard

RECENTLY, in an interview with Sunday Vanguard’s Sam Eyoboka, the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye, made some assertions which have generated debate in the media.

Adeboye responded to issues ranging from the perennial traffic logjam along Lagos-Ibadan expressway whenever his church is having a programme at the Redemption Camp, the problem of immorality and corruption in Nigeria, to the question of deregulation of churches in the country.

My overriding purpose in this essay is to draw attention to some weaknesses in the responses of Pastor Adeboye to the issues raised by Mr. Eyoboka. At the outset, I completely agree with Adeboye on the ultimate futility of amassing wealth one does not really need by stealing from the public.

In my view, it shows that those who do this are intellectually, morally and spiritually very immature. But Adeboye is wrong when he says that “the only way we could eradicate corruption is to bring everybody to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the fear of God will dwell in them…”

I also disagree with his view that “there’s no way you could trace the money to them (corrupt public officers) except the Almighty God exposes them”. Nigerians have good reasons to believe that top government functionaries nationwide stole billions of naira between 1970 and 2007.

These corrupt big men and thick madams are either in Nigeria or abroad enjoying their loot. In well organized countries, such criminals are imprisoned and their properties, including cash, confiscated by government. Moreover, it does not require superhuman intervention for a serious-minded government and relevant law enforcement agencies to track the bulk of the stolen funds and assets.

In Europe, Asia and North America, for example, intelligence agencies and the police regularly succeed in tracking down monies illicitly acquired both by public office holders and private individuals, sometimes many years after the crimes had been committed. The United States and her allies in the war on terrorism have, to a large extent, blocked the financial arteries of some well-known terrorist groups.

Therefore, although the sophisticated methods used by corrupt public officials to steal money make it difficult to identify the looters and their loot, as Adeboye correctly proclaims, it is grossly misleading to suggest, as he does, that only divine intervention would expose looters or that only the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ can eradicate corruption in Nigeria. The notion of “saving knowledge of Jesus Christ” is very ambiguous theoretically, and it is difficult to see how such a vague notion can be effectively applied practically.

Corruption can never be completely eradicated in any human society because it is based on some ineradicable existential conditions of human existence here on earth, especially greed and desire to benefit maximally from available opportunities. What countries serious about reducing corruption to a level where it does not impede development have done is to create traditions, institutions and laws which make it extremely difficult for people to steal public funds and get away with it, no matter how highly placed such criminals might be.

At any rate, the over emphasis on financial breakthroughs, sowing of seeds and tithes by the new Pentecostal churches encourages corruption, because it indirectly compels church members to struggle to impress the general overseers and win admiration, respect and special praises from everyone due to the size of their “gifts” to the church.

For the “bible believing” churches, the most important thing in the life of a Christian is not spiritual enlightenment and growth, but willingness to pay tithe and give donations - the bigger the better - to the church. In fact, since clergymen and clergywomen started amassing wealth, the level of corruption, even in the various churches, escalated to the extent that the churches themselves are now run like family ventures.

The high level of greed and materialism exhibited by church leaders is a complete departure from the main thrust of the teachings of Jesus contained in the gospels.

Another fallacy committed by Pastor Adeboye is his argument that the increasing number of Nigerians who embrace Christianity, and the exploits of Nigerian pastors overseas, imply that the rest of the world see Africa as the hope of the world. He even unwittingly created the impression that idol worship, witchcraft and human sacrifice existed in Africa alone until the West brought the light of the gospel to us.

One should not be surprised if Adeboye is exultant about his claim that churches brought to Britain by Nigerians are packed full every Sunday, whereas the older more traditional and orthodox churches are “slowing down”. Adeboye is happy that the churches headed by Africans are bubbling with life every Sunday.

As a leader of one of the popular churches in Nigeria, it is definitely in his interest that Pentecostalism is expanding, because the more RCCG members there are, the larger the tithes, offerings, gifts etc. that would accrue to the church.

A visit to any of the Holy Ghost congresses organized by Adeboye’s church, and a quick mental calculation of the amount that would be realized from the “multitude”, would give one a fair idea of how smart and ingenious Nigerian pastors are as businessmen and businesswomen.

I am surprised that a man who has a background in science would suggest that Africa is becoming “the lighting continent” for other parts of the world, that when you look at the other side of the world, “we are doing better”, simply because Africans are exporting Christianity back to the West.

This is sad. It suggests that our religious leaders, unlike their colleagues in Europe and America, are yet to wake up from their dogmatic slumbers. In recent years, all the parameters used to evaluate different aspects of human development point to the disturbing conclusion that Africa is stagnating.

With the arguable exception of South Africa, there is no genuinely technologically advanced or industrialized country in Africa. Africa’s contribution to the world economy is below ten percent.

Most African countries receive one form of assistance or another from countries outside Africa. The continent is currently ravaged by poverty, disease and internecine conflicts and wars.

Thus, given this scenario, no objective observer can honestly affirm that Africa is doing better, in any positive sense, than the West. The fact that warehouses originally built for manufactured products have been converted to churches proves beyond reasonable doubt that Nigeria’s economy is asphixiating.

Are Adeboye and his colleagues unperturbed by the deepening economic problems of Nigeria, by the fact that explosion in the number of Pentecostal Christians is directly proportional to the economic hardships facing Nigerians?

Why is it a good thing that instead of exporting manufactured products and technological know-how to the West we are exporting religion, foreign religion at that, to Europe? Indeed, if Africa is doing better in any meaningful sense, why is the continent experiencing brain drain continuously?

What Pastor Adeboye and those who reason like him on this matter fail to realize is that the West had tried religion during the Dark and Middle Ages, and discovered that it led to a dead end. Hence, since the scientific revolution of the 17th century, and the industrial revolution of the 18th, the West has directed its productive forces to the acquisition of scientific knowledge and its technological and industrial applications.

The long term consequence of this paradigm-shift is that Western countries now enjoy some of the highest standards of living known in human history. Pastor Adeoye is wrong in claiming that we are doing better than the West, simply because of the wave of new Pentecostalism sweeping across Africa.

Adeboye and other rich pastors can afford to downplay the negative consequences of exporting Christianity rather than manufactured products and hi-tech services to the West. After all, they and their families have escaped from the gravitational pull of poverty.

Even, the immoral activities in Western countries which Adeboye referred to in the interview, and worse, exist here in Africa as well. The recent documentary on Africa’s witch children is a case in point. Adeboye makes the usual ecclesiastical mistake of denigrating aspects of our traditional culture uncritically.

====================================================================================


http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/24493/71/


FOR example, he talked about idol worship, human sacrifice and witchcraft. But these  practices are not peculiar to African villages; in fact they are still practiced all over the world, although human sacrifice is outlawed in all countries.

When Adeboye says that Africans worship idols, it appears that he does not understand the fundamentals of African ontology and religious worship, and the role the effigies and figurines play in the religious consciousness of the traditionalist.

For the African, the supreme being, what the Igbo call Chi-Ukwu, is too big, too powerful and remote to be worshipped directly.

Therefore, the physical embodiments of lower deities are used as means to channel the prayers and psychic energy generated during religious worship to the Supreme Being. The African does not worship the effigies and figurines per se.

Rather, just like the Christian uses rosaries and the crucifixes, the traditionalist employs the physical objects of his religion to help him concentrate and focus his attention on the major task at hand, namely, the propitiation of the God of his people, usually accompanied by requests.

The first Europeans to visit autochthonous African communities were ignorant of African religion. As usual, what they did not understand they denigrated.

The same colonial mentality makes Africans to denounce traditional African religions without genuine attempt to grasp the philosophical underpinnings of those religions. Logically speaking, the rosaries, crucifixes and other physical aids to Christian worship have the same ontological status as the so-called idols of traditional African religion.

Therefore, when Adeboye says that “things are different now”, he simply means that one set of physical aids to religious worship developed by Africans has been supplanted by the one he prefers, that is the set imposed on Africans by European missionaries and colonialists.

Pastor Adeboye actually missed the point when he dismissed off-handedly the question of the true birthday of Jesus of Nazareth. For him what is important is the belief that Jesus came as a saviour; the date of his birth is immaterial.

One of the most controversial topics in biblical scholarship is the identification of when Jesus was born. This question has direct relevance to the lingering doubt about whether the individual presented in the gospels as Jesus actually existed or whether the character in question is the product of accretion of legends and myths around an obscure deviant Jew.

Adeboye’s response is typical among believers who are satisfied with dogmatic uncritical acceptance of religious doctrines.

Such people are not interested in the truth or falsity of what they believe. Adeboye’s anti-intellectualistic attitude to religion is expressed by his assertion that discussion of, and arguing about, religious doctrines is an academic exercise, which will merely make us “feel that at least we have exercised our brains.”

This cavalier attitude to the veridicality of religious doctrines, coming from a former academic with a doctorate in mathematics, is rather disappointing. Truth is usually the first casualty when probing questions tend to unsettle convenient religious dogma.

I am convinced that truth, in terms of the correspondence of our ideas, theories and doctrines to reality ought to be the basic regulative principle of human transactions. It may be convenient for a believer like Adeboye to concentrate his energies on “making heaven”.

But for millions of people all over the world, the question of the historicity of Jesus is of critical importance, and rightly so, in defining their attitude to Christianity. 

The writings of scholars such as Albert Schweitzer, Arnold Toynbee, Alfred Reynolds, Barbara, Thierring, David Tabor and many others demonstrate that the question concerning the actual existence of Jesus of the gospels is far from settled.

Ascertaining the truth about Jesus is fundamental to establishing the authenticity of Christianity as a reliable path to spiritual development.

This implies that an honest Christian must be interested in questions relating to the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, unless he or she is subconsciously aware that unearthing the truth would shake his or her belief to its very foundations.

Adeboye’s analogy with his own birthday is misplaced, because there is no doubt or controversy about his actual existence, or supernatural powers  and  occurrences associated with his life  whereas, as I stated earlier, there are reasons to doubt whether an individual described in the gospels as Jesus of Nazareth existed.

Also December 25, which is officially accepted by a vast majority of Christian denominations as the birthday of Jesus, is known to have originated from the ancient festival commemorating the birth of the sun-god. Some Christian sects, for example the Jehovah’s Witnesses, believe that Jesus was born in October, not December.

Thus, it does not help Christianity if church leaders dismiss cavalierly questions relating to certain key historical episodes of their religion, as Adeboye

On the controversial issue of whether the practice of monogamy was divinely founded and decreed, Pastor Adeboye manifested the usual Christianity-induced narrowness of vision characteristic of most Christian clergy in Nigeria. He referred those interested in the matter to the book of Genesis which narrated how Yaweh created only Eve for Adam!

It is really amazing the level of ignorance which our pastors display on matters one can easily investigate to ascertain the real facts.

The literature on marriage is huge. I suggest that Adeboye and other die-hard monogamists should read Friedrick Engel’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Bertrand Russell’s Marriage and Morals, Havelock Ellis’ Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Albert Ellis’ Sex Without Guilt, Clorinda and Joseph Margolis “Alternative Lifestyles and Sexual Tolerance”. Throughout history, human beings have tried all sorts of combinations in marriage, as determined by socio-cultural, economic, political and psychological factors.

Therefore, any suggestion that the institution of marriage, or that a particular form of marriage relationship is decreed or favoured by a certain deity, betrays a disappointing and unacceptable devaluation of man’s capacity to create relationships suitable to his needs.

Is the marriage institution so sophisticated, beyond the inventive capacity of human beings, that a divine origin has to be postulated in order to explain it?

Of course, it is not. Marriage is well within the productive powers of humans to forge relationships among themselves. Polygamy, monogamy, polyandry, communal marriages, etc. are some of the possible modes of marital relationship, which have prevailed in human societies at various times.

I am completely convinced that marriage is better understood and practiced when looked at as a purely human invention meant to satisfy some basic human needs.

If, as Pastor Adeboye argued, monogamy is divinely ordained, how can one account for the incredible variety of marriage types which had been practiced in various cultures of the world? Why should God prefer monogamy to all the rest?

The truth is that monogamy is the cultural product of a strand in the intersection of Hellenic and Jewish cultures, supported by St. Paul and the Church Fathers who were motivated by the desire to maintain mathematical equivalence of gender in marriage.

I am persuaded that no one acquainted with the history of marriage throughout the ages, and its intimate connections with socio-cultural, economic, environmental and psychological factors, would postulate a divine origin for marriage or insist that monogamy was decreed by God. On this issue, therefore, Pastor Adeboye committed the fallacy of non causa pro causa.

To the question of whether the churches should pay tax, Pastor Adeboye, naturally, believes that they should not. But the reasons he gave are superficial, unconvincing and unsatisfactory.

He argues that the income of the churches come from the members who, he believes, had already paid taxes.

Thus, to tax the church “is to double tax the members, and that will be illegal”. For Adeboye, then, taxing the churches means an unjust double taxation of the members!

The fallacies of Pastor Enoch Adeboye
Written by Douglas Anele   
Sunday, 14 December 2008

Taken from Vanguard

RECENTLY, in an interview with Sunday Vanguard’s Sam Eyoboka, the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye, made some assertions which have generated debate in the media.

Adeboye responded to issues ranging from the perennial traffic logjam along Lagos-Ibadan expressway whenever his church is having a programme at the Redemption Camp, the problem of immorality and corruption in Nigeria, to the question of deregulation of churches in the country.

My overriding purpose in this essay is to draw attention to some weaknesses in the responses of Pastor Adeboye to the issues raised by Mr. Eyoboka. At the outset, I completely agree with Adeboye on the ultimate futility of amassing wealth one does not really need by stealing from the public.

In my view, it shows that those who do this are intellectually, morally and spiritually very immature. But Adeboye is wrong when he says that “the only way we could eradicate corruption is to bring everybody to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the fear of God will dwell in them…”

I also disagree with his view that “there’s no way you could trace the money to them (corrupt public officers) except the Almighty God exposes them”. Nigerians have good reasons to believe that top government functionaries nationwide stole billions of naira between 1970 and 2007.

These corrupt big men and thick madams are either in Nigeria or abroad enjoying their loot. In well organized countries, such criminals are imprisoned and their properties, including cash, confiscated by government. Moreover, it does not require superhuman intervention for a serious-minded government and relevant law enforcement agencies to track the bulk of the stolen funds and assets.

In Europe, Asia and North America, for example, intelligence agencies and the police regularly succeed in tracking down monies illicitly acquired both by public office holders and private individuals, sometimes many years after the crimes had been committed. The United States and her allies in the war on terrorism have, to a large extent, blocked the financial arteries of some well-known terrorist groups.

Therefore, although the sophisticated methods used by corrupt public officials to steal money make it difficult to identify the looters and their loot, as Adeboye correctly proclaims, it is grossly misleading to suggest, as he does, that only divine intervention would expose looters or that only the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ can eradicate corruption in Nigeria. The notion of “saving knowledge of Jesus Christ” is very ambiguous theoretically, and it is difficult to see how such a vague notion can be effectively applied practically.

Corruption can never be completely eradicated in any human society because it is based on some ineradicable existential conditions of human existence here on earth, especially greed and desire to benefit maximally from available opportunities. What countries serious about reducing corruption to a level where it does not impede development have done is to create traditions, institutions and laws which make it extremely difficult for people to steal public funds and get away with it, no matter how highly placed such criminals might be.

At any rate, the over emphasis on financial breakthroughs, sowing of seeds and tithes by the new Pentecostal churches encourages corruption, because it indirectly compels church members to struggle to impress the general overseers and win admiration, respect and special praises from everyone due to the size of their “gifts” to the church.

For the “bible believing” churches, the most important thing in the life of a Christian is not spiritual enlightenment and growth, but willingness to pay tithe and give donations - the bigger the better - to the church. In fact, since clergymen and clergywomen started amassing wealth, the level of corruption, even in the various churches, escalated to the extent that the churches themselves are now run like family ventures.

The high level of greed and materialism exhibited by church leaders is a complete departure from the main thrust of the teachings of Jesus contained in the gospels.

Another fallacy committed by Pastor Adeboye is his argument that the increasing number of Nigerians who embrace Christianity, and the exploits of Nigerian pastors overseas, imply that the rest of the world see Africa as the hope of the world. He even unwittingly created the impression that idol worship, witchcraft and human sacrifice existed in Africa alone until the West brought the light of the gospel to us.

One should not be surprised if Adeboye is exultant about his claim that churches brought to Britain by Nigerians are packed full every Sunday, whereas the older more traditional and orthodox churches are “slowing down”. Adeboye is happy that the churches headed by Africans are bubbling with life every Sunday.

As a leader of one of the popular churches in Nigeria, it is definitely in his interest that Pentecostalism is expanding, because the more RCCG members there are, the larger the tithes, offerings, gifts etc. that would accrue to the church.

A visit to any of the Holy Ghost congresses organized by Adeboye’s church, and a quick mental calculation of the amount that would be realized from the “multitude”, would give one a fair idea of how smart and ingenious Nigerian pastors are as businessmen and businesswomen.

I am surprised that a man who has a background in science would suggest that Africa is becoming “the lighting continent” for other parts of the world, that when you look at the other side of the world, “we are doing better”, simply because Africans are exporting Christianity back to the West.

This is sad. It suggests that our religious leaders, unlike their colleagues in Europe and America, are yet to wake up from their dogmatic slumbers. In recent years, all the parameters used to evaluate different aspects of human development point to the disturbing conclusion that Africa is stagnating.

With the arguable exception of South Africa, there is no genuinely technologically advanced or industrialized country in Africa. Africa’s contribution to the world economy is below ten percent.

Most African countries receive one form of assistance or another from countries outside Africa. The continent is currently ravaged by poverty, disease and internecine conflicts and wars.

Thus, given this scenario, no objective observer can honestly affirm that Africa is doing better, in any positive sense, than the West. The fact that warehouses originally built for manufactured products have been converted to churches proves beyond reasonable doubt that Nigeria’s economy is asphixiating.

Are Adeboye and his colleagues unperturbed by the deepening economic problems of Nigeria, by the fact that explosion in the number of Pentecostal Christians is directly proportional to the economic hardships facing Nigerians?

Why is it a good thing that instead of exporting manufactured products and technological know-how to the West we are exporting religion, foreign religion at that, to Europe? Indeed, if Africa is doing better in any meaningful sense, why is the continent experiencing brain drain continuously?

What Pastor Adeboye and those who reason like him on this matter fail to realize is that the West had tried religion during the Dark and Middle Ages, and discovered that it led to a dead end. Hence, since the scientific revolution of the 17th century, and the industrial revolution of the 18th, the West has directed its productive forces to the acquisition of scientific knowledge and its technological and industrial applications.

The long term consequence of this paradigm-shift is that Western countries now enjoy some of the highest standards of living known in human history. Pastor Adeoye is wrong in claiming that we are doing better than the West, simply because of the wave of new Pentecostalism sweeping across Africa.

Adeboye and other rich pastors can afford to downplay the negative consequences of exporting Christianity rather than manufactured products and hi-tech services to the West. After all, they and their families have escaped from the gravitational pull of poverty.

Even, the immoral activities in Western countries which Adeboye referred to in the interview, and worse, exist here in Africa as well. The recent documentary on Africa’s witch children is a case in point. Adeboye makes the usual ecclesiastical mistake of denigrating aspects of our traditional culture uncritically.

====================================================================================


http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/24493/71/


FOR example, he talked about idol worship, human sacrifice and witchcraft. But these  practices are not peculiar to African villages; in fact they are still practiced all over the world, although human sacrifice is outlawed in all countries.

When Adeboye says that Africans worship idols, it appears that he does not understand the fundamentals of African ontology and religious worship, and the role the effigies and figurines play in the religious consciousness of the traditionalist.

For the African, the supreme being, what the Igbo call Chi-Ukwu, is too big, too powerful and remote to be worshipped directly.

Therefore, the physical embodiments of lower deities are used as means to channel the prayers and psychic energy generated during religious worship to the Supreme Being. The African does not worship the effigies and figurines per se.

Rather, just like the Christian uses rosaries and the crucifixes, the traditionalist employs the physical objects of his religion to help him concentrate and focus his attention on the major task at hand, namely, the propitiation of the God of his people, usually accompanied by requests.

The first Europeans to visit autochthonous African communities were ignorant of African religion. As usual, what they did not understand they denigrated.

The same colonial mentality makes Africans to denounce traditional African religions without genuine attempt to grasp the philosophical underpinnings of those religions. Logically speaking, the rosaries, crucifixes and other physical aids to Christian worship have the same ontological status as the so-called idols of traditional African religion.

Therefore, when Adeboye says that “things are different now”, he simply means that one set of physical aids to religious worship developed by Africans has been supplanted by the one he prefers, that is the set imposed on Africans by European missionaries and colonialists.

Pastor Adeboye actually missed the point when he dismissed off-handedly the question of the true birthday of Jesus of Nazareth. For him what is important is the belief that Jesus came as a saviour; the date of his birth is immaterial.

One of the most controversial topics in biblical scholarship is the identification of when Jesus was born. This question has direct relevance to the lingering doubt about whether the individual presented in the gospels as Jesus actually existed or whether the character in question is the product of accretion of legends and myths around an obscure deviant Jew.

Adeboye’s response is typical among believers who are satisfied with dogmatic uncritical acceptance of religious doctrines.

Such people are not interested in the truth or falsity of what they believe. Adeboye’s anti-intellectualistic attitude to religion is expressed by his assertion that discussion of, and arguing about, religious doctrines is an academic exercise, which will merely make us “feel that at least we have exercised our brains.”

This cavalier attitude to the veridicality of religious doctrines, coming from a former academic with a doctorate in mathematics, is rather disappointing. Truth is usually the first casualty when probing questions tend to unsettle convenient religious dogma.

I am convinced that truth, in terms of the correspondence of our ideas, theories and doctrines to reality ought to be the basic regulative principle of human transactions. It may be convenient for a believer like Adeboye to concentrate his energies on “making heaven”.

But for millions of people all over the world, the question of the historicity of Jesus is of critical importance, and rightly so, in defining their attitude to Christianity. 

The writings of scholars such as Albert Schweitzer, Arnold Toynbee, Alfred Reynolds, Barbara, Thierring, David Tabor and many others demonstrate that the question concerning the actual existence of Jesus of the gospels is far from settled.

Ascertaining the truth about Jesus is fundamental to establishing the authenticity of Christianity as a reliable path to spiritual development.

This implies that an honest Christian must be interested in questions relating to the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, unless he or she is subconsciously aware that unearthing the truth would shake his or her belief to its very foundations.

Adeboye’s analogy with his own birthday is misplaced, because there is no doubt or controversy about his actual existence, or supernatural powers  and  occurrences associated with his life  whereas, as I stated earlier, there are reasons to doubt whether an individual described in the gospels as Jesus of Nazareth existed.

Also December 25, which is officially accepted by a vast majority of Christian denominations as the birthday of Jesus, is known to have originated from the ancient festival commemorating the birth of the sun-god. Some Christian sects, for example the Jehovah’s Witnesses, believe that Jesus was born in October, not December.

Thus, it does not help Christianity if church leaders dismiss cavalierly questions relating to certain key historical episodes of their religion, as Adeboye

On the controversial issue of whether the practice of monogamy was divinely founded and decreed, Pastor Adeboye manifested the usual Christianity-induced narrowness of vision characteristic of most Christian clergy in Nigeria. He referred those interested in the matter to the book of Genesis which narrated how Yaweh created only Eve for Adam!

It is really amazing the level of ignorance which our pastors display on matters one can easily investigate to ascertain the real facts.

The literature on marriage is huge. I suggest that Adeboye and other die-hard monogamists should read Friedrick Engel’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Bertrand Russell’s Marriage and Morals, Havelock Ellis’ Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Albert Ellis’ Sex Without Guilt, Clorinda and Joseph Margolis “Alternative Lifestyles and Sexual Tolerance”. Throughout history, human beings have tried all sorts of combinations in marriage, as determined by socio-cultural, economic, political and psychological factors.

Therefore, any suggestion that the institution of marriage, or that a particular form of marriage relationship is decreed or favoured by a certain deity, betrays a disappointing and unacceptable devaluation of man’s capacity to create relationships suitable to his needs.

Is the marriage institution so sophisticated, beyond the inventive capacity of human beings, that a divine origin has to be postulated in order to explain it?

Of course, it is not. Marriage is well within the productive powers of humans to forge relationships among themselves. Polygamy, monogamy, polyandry, communal marriages, etc. are some of the possible modes of marital relationship, which have prevailed in human societies at various times.

I am completely convinced that marriage is better understood and practiced when looked at as a purely human invention meant to satisfy some basic human needs.

If, as Pastor Adeboye argued, monogamy is divinely ordained, how can one account for the incredible variety of marriage types which had been practiced in various cultures of the world? Why should God prefer monogamy to all the rest?

The truth is that monogamy is the cultural product of a strand in the intersection of Hellenic and Jewish cultures, supported by St. Paul and the Church Fathers who were motivated by the desire to maintain mathematical equivalence of gender in marriage.

I am persuaded that no one acquainted with the history of marriage throughout the ages, and its intimate connections with socio-cultural, economic, environmental and psychological factors, would postulate a divine origin for marriage or insist that monogamy was decreed by God. On this issue, therefore, Pastor Adeboye committed the fallacy of non causa pro causa.

To the question of whether the churches should pay tax, Pastor Adeboye, naturally, believes that they should not. But the reasons he gave are superficial, unconvincing and unsatisfactory.

He argues that the income of the churches come from the members who, he believes, had already paid taxes.

Thus, to tax the church “is to double tax the members, and that will be illegal”. For Adeboye, then, taxing the churches means an unjust double taxation of the members!

===================================================================================

The fallacies of Pastor Enoch Adeboye (3) E-mail
Written by Douglas Anele
Sunday, 28 December 2008

I THOUGHT that the main reason religious organizations all over the world are exempted from tax is that they are classified as charity organizations.

Since a charity organization is a non-profit making body created to provide humanitarian services to the community, it is reasonable not to tax them, because of the important roles they play especially in those areas where government is regularly found wanting. For instance, before the explosion in Pentecostalism, the orthodox traditional churches like the Catholic, Methodist, Anglican and Baptist churches had parishes in the cities and villages. T

hese churches provided educational, healthcare and other humanitarian services to the people, especially in the rural areas, either at no charge or at highly subsidized rates. Consequently, it was reasonable that the churches were exempted from paying taxes. But, what do we have now? To be candid, the new Pentecostal churches have become safe havens for "retired"people of questionable character who exploit the ignorance and poverty (both material and intellectual) prevalent in Nigeria to swindle gullible Nigerians.

Most of these churches have their headquarters and few branches in the urban centres, and do not, by any stretch of the imagination,provide humanitarian services to anyone. They cannot even be described as charity organizations. Adeboye seems to acknowledge this, when he talked about crooks in the churches as analogous to Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. However, his analogy deliberately downplays the level of spiritual decay and moral crises within Pentecostal Christendom today. Instead of one Judas, we have many Judases betraying the fundamental rationale of religion, viz, spiritual enlightenment and growth.

The showy and materialistic lifestyles of Church leaders, particularly the pastors of Pentecostal churches, is a good reason for taxing their churches, because it is evident that the main focus here is to make enough money to "live big". Yet, I am not totally convinced that taxing the churches would help Nigerians in any significant way, because our government cannot be trusted to manage the money well – there are just too many kleptomaniacs in government. Pastor Adeboye made a category mistake when he argued that taxing the churches is equivalent to double-taxing the members.

If his argument is valid, then there is no reason to tax any firm or business organization, because those that transact business with them have already paid tax also. Pastor Adeboye conflated the taxable income of Church members with the income that accrues to the Church. Both are separate, and it is logically absurd to treat them as identical. No one likes a reduction in his or her income. Pastor Adeboye knows that if churches are required to pay tax, his income as the general overseer of RCCG will likely go down, a situation that might necessitate inconvenient belt-tightening measures by his family, and more ingenious ways of getting more money from RCCG members.

In Nigeria today, it is very difficult to see a Pentecostal pastor who lives a modest lifestyle different from the sordid "bread and butter" Christianity prevalent in the country nowadays. Whenever the issue of vain glorious materialism among the clergy and Christian elite rears up, Pentecostal pastors flip-flop, and misinterpret some verses of the Bible to justify their greed and acquisitiveness. Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of Christianity, at every opportunity, scathingly criticized the quest for material things. Pastors usually rail against materialism from pulpits. Nevertheless, their actions are the opposite of what they preach. Nowadays, "men and women of God" insist that the love of money is the root of all evil; but they are always willing to pal around and accept tithes, gifts and offerings from shady characters, including looters of public treasury. For example, sometime ago, a lowly paid worker in a Lagos Hotel was alleged to have given gifts amounting to N39million to his church, for which he received a letter of commendation from his pastor.

Therefore, Pastor Adeboye misses the point when he says that the churches of today "are doing better than the original one". If he means that the new churches are making more money and have more vociferous members than the older ones such as the Catholic and Anglican churches, he may be right. But that is if one neglects the most important criterion for evaluating religion: The level of spiritual enlightenment it inculcates in adherents which provides proper orientation for a life inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

On this criterion, contemporary Christianity is big failure. The overall tenor of Pastor Adeboye's response to the issues raised by Sunday Vanguard's reporter resonates with unreasoning acceptance of Christian dogmas as preached by the swanky pastors. The rising popularity of the new Pentecostalism, which Adeboye celebrates, should, instead, be a source of spiritual disquiet for sincere Christians who are genuinely concerned with spiritual, not material, prosperity. In practically all its mode of worship, contemporary Christianity has deviated substantially from the teachings of Jesus. Although one may explain such deviations as the consequence of adapting Christian religious worship to the demands of the time, I believe that the deviations indicate fundamental changes in the spirit or motivation of Christianity.

Pastor Adeboye's church and all Christian denominations pray in a manner contrary to how Jesus prayed and admonished his disciples to pray as well. Alfred Reynolds has provided an interesting perspective on this issue. In his work, Jesus Versus Christianity, he quoted copiously from the New Testament which proved that the noisy, showy and ostentatious mode of prayer, which presently dominates Christianity, is spiritual unsatisfactory. Jesus says: "And when thou prayest rest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the street, that they may be seen of men.

Verily I say to you, they have had their reward. But when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut the door, pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee"(Matt, 6:5-6)". Indeed, there is a consistent pattern of behaviour which shows that Jesus considered prayer as a personal affair between a man and his God. It is hard to find in the Gospels any record where Jesus actually prayed in public. We usually read that "he left them," "he departed", "he went a little further", "withdrew himself," to pray.

The Synoptic Gospels consistently recorded that Jesus considered prayer, fasting and alms-giving as matters between God and man which, in their most spiritually rewarding form, should be performed without witness. However, contemporary Pentecostal pastors think otherwise. Prayer, fasting and alms-giving must receive the widest publicity. Even, they issue commands to God, like military dictators, and consider it an act of piety to pray noisily and aggressively both at home and in the Church. Pastor Adeboye missed a good opportunity to call on his colleagues to turn away from "bread and butter" Christianity, and strive for spiritual excellence. He merely reminded us that there is a Judas in every twelve, and deliberately glossed over the mercantilist attitude of pastors to Christianity.

Those who call themselves Christians these days believe that God's grace, not good works and love of fellow human beings, is the most essential factor for spiritual growth. Self- styled " Bible – believing" Church members, encouraged by their general overseers, are convinced that material prosperity is a sure sign of genuine Christianity. All these are contrary to what Jesus taught, and how he lived. Where as Jesus taught that "by their fruits we shall know them, " pastors of Pentecostal churches teach that "by their tithes and gifts to the pastor we shall know them." Jesus was clear and unequivocal on his condemnation of riches and wealth.

The new churches preach prosperity and financial breakthroughs. These churches have enormous properties and revenues. The pastors and general overseers are involved in all sorts of financial transactions and extractions which have rendered them spiritually blind and impotent. Should it surprise any one, then, that, in spite of the increasing number of churches, corruption, hatred, armed robbery – indeed all symptoms of spiritual retadation – are increasing in Nigeria ? I suggest that Pastor Enoch Adeboye and his colleagues should embark on an honest soul-searching exercise to ascertain whether they are really helping people to grow spiritually or whether they are out to make " a quick buck ", as the Americans would say. But, surely, by their fruits, we already know them!

All you need is a tiny bit of faith. In fact, a faith as small as a mustard seed, and all your prayers will be answered. For the surefire route to a successful prayerful life, click here.

Bastage:
I'm still not getting you. In what way?

Continental drift by way of Plate Tectonic movement has resulted in diversity and in some cases, uniqueness of life. Take for example, Australia with egg laying mammals that can't be found anywhere else on Earth.

If what you're leading up to is the Pangaea theory then I'm with you on that. The continents fit together like jigsaws and I see it as undeniable proof that gives Creationism another kick up the backside.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea

But like I said, you need to be more specific for me to understand what you're trying to say here.

Pardon me for not having provided some context to the question, but I would have thought these would be easy questions for anyone with some scientific background to address. Looks like you have bee focusing too closely on the details of each of these theories without taking a panoramic view of what scientific theory address.


Now, let me give a bit of context. In other post on this forum, it has become customary for the pseudo-scientific members, notably Davidylan, to bastardise and misrepresent science. Take a look at how he does it here, which I present below;

Quote from: davidylan on Yesterday at 01:25:56 AM
the problem is KAG comes here spewing a lot of jargon and so the dumb here keep crying about how good she is with what are largely the theories of those with nothing to do with their time but dream up conjecture.

And? How have these theories proven anything about the central question?
How did earth appear here?

It is a desperately flawed theory that is only held by those who wish to negate the creation story. How did this big bang occur? when and through what?
What produced the big bang? Can science re-create life with a big bang?

bla bla bla . . . all this is big grammar that does little to educate us on the central question . . . how did we get on this planet?

Based on more of your flawed scientific theories? Where you there when the earth was created? Who created it? The big bang?
why is the earth the ONLY planet that supports life?

In other words . . . these scientists don't have a clue how we arrived here so they grasp at any straws to explain it away. when you probe deeper they hide under the banner of "we are still searching".
Now you mention "available evidence" . . . what evidence?

If we evolved from other species why have we suddenly stopped evolving? Which species did we evolve from and HOW?
Abiogenesis? Funny enough abiogenenesis DOES NOT occur in real life because amino acids cannot stably form peptides in the natural environment. We already know Miller's experiment was one huge manipulative failure.

Planetry formation? How? why have they stopped forming? Why havent we seen any new huge planets since?

Solar system? Why only one sun for the last million years? Why hasnt this sun died out yet?

don't worry, your praise singers will be here to cheer you on again.

davidylan:
A theory cannot be the basis of another theory. We don't know the big bang occured.

the correct answer is we don't know. You can only define space in the context of something else . . . in this case earth. Since earth didnt exist millions of years ago, what was in existence then?

Straw man alert. Does science have an answer for how we came to arrive on planet earth?

These are just two of the most recent misrepresentation of science (and to think he works in the scientific field).

Basically, Davidylan expect the Big Bang Theory of Cosmic expansion to also provide the explanatory mechanism for the start of life on the planet. If that were true, I would also expect the Atomic Theory to also explain the spread of disease via micro-organism and Plate Tectonic to explain the diversity of lifeform.

When I put this to him, he cowardly evaded. I know many delisional theists have the mindset of Davidylan, so I thought to address this bastardisation of science specifically, I would start a separate thread to deal with just this issue.

That is the context. I hope that helps.

Atheists have long been looked down upon and criticised for their beliefs. While open debate as to whether God exists is widespread, so are prejudiced views that paint atheists as lesser people. These views lead to insulting comments and occasionally downright hateful attacks aimed at atheists, the majority of whom are happy to live alongside religious peoples.

What Is Atheophobia?

Atheophobia is an irrational fear or hatred of atheists that manifests as a strong prejudice against those who do not believe in a God. Put short, it leads to anti-atheist bigotry.

This bigotry includes claims that atheists:

- are morally inferior
- are a cause of evil
- have rejected God and embraced sin
- intend to destroy religion and religious holidays
- have meaningless or decadent lives
- should not be allowed to express their beliefs
- are unsuitable for positions of responsibility

Read here for more

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset


By Matthew Parris, taken from timesonline .


Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn't fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.

First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.

We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.

Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.

This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.

It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.

There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.

I don't follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.

How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? “Because it's there,” he said.

To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's, well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity.

Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

Bastage:
Can you expand, huxley?

Pathogenic bacteria are micro-organisms and they invade other organisms and cause diseases. They're not to be confused with a virus, which is not a living entity and therefore not classed as a micro-organism.
That's basic biology and I can't see how that is contradicted by Atomic Theory.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogenic_microbes

Sorry if that was a bit cryptic. Let me put it another way:

Why does the Theory of Plate Tectonic NOT explain diversity of life on the planet?

Looks like Christian of today have been remiss with their duty of learning and living their lives by the Ten Commandments. I would like to take this opportunity to remind them of Gods Ten Commandments and advise then to rededicate their lives to the Commandments. Please turn to Exodus 34 and let's learn the commandments anew:

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.


Now I hope this terse version of the commandments assist your daily praise and worship of our Lord the Most High.