₦airaland Forum

davidylan:
we know ur strategy too. when you run into a brickwall of facts you come crying about atomic THEORIES. We are tired of theories, conjecture and assumptions being used to question the bible.

Either you prove them or shut up.

Since diseases and microbes did not appear by magic . . . how about you educate us on how they came by first?

Heym, educate? That would be a waste of time. Pearls and swines come to mind. Such addled minds do not admit of educating.

davidylan:
all these fraudulent recourse to high sounding but meaningless words don't sway me.

Much of what you all tout as "science" here is nothing but bogus theories propagated by people who have plenty of time to waste. Perhaps you would all be well served if you ACTUALLY practiced science instead of constantly TALKING about it.

We all know this strategy. When e don pass u, u dey commot all this woolly stuff. Answer dey question abi.

Why does the Atomic Theory NOT account for the propagation of diseases by micro-organisms?

davidylan:
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.

It is hard to believe that someone who claim to work in the scientific domain could spew out such inanity.


Why does not the Atomic Theory account for the propagation of diseases by micro-organisms?

asha 80:
You are asking what made them homogenous?Simple.The people that make up the countries you listed are from the same ethnic group.Any other person that says he or she is from that country but is not from that 'ethnic group' got assimilated into the dominant culture of that country.

You asked why has 50 years not forged a nation hood in nigeria? Good question.does the hausa man trust the yoruba man?Does the yoruba man trust the igbo man?Does the igbo man trust the ijaw man?

You also asked why nigeria has not forged a homogenous entity.Is a yoruba man willing to give up his culture and language for the hausa man and vice varsa?Same question for other ethnic groups for the other?Even as lingua franca of nigeria is english and peeps from south are much more readily to learn it and behave like the white man,are northern muslims interested in it?just chew on these facts.

You have just restated facts which is widely known but you have not said anything about how such diversity could be overcome. I live in Great Britain now, but time waa when there were no less that 10 ethnic groups, each with its own kingdom, in the British Isle. You barely hear of these groups today. In fact countries in Westerm Europe in still fractured into ethnic groups although this terms is rarely used with respect to Europe. The whole Western Europe is like a tiny fraction of Africa, but how many countries are there in Western Europe. Even within the present national borders there are local minority groups.

The mechanism by which Europe created homogeinity in the past cannot be adopted today by most civilised societies. Europe is forging ahead today under the European Community directives, another vehicle of unity, with the hamonisation of most gevernmental and legislative procedures. African countries will have to find its own way to build nations and overcome the diversity of tribes and cultures.

Kuns:
@Chrisbenogor  

We need to learn to love and respect ourselves first.

You don't overstand the reality of the situation that our nation and people are in.

People need to realise (see with your[b] real eyes[/b]) that the colonialist (slave) masters are not playing.

If this was a Jesus picture of a pale albino you will have no problem. And you can't show me a real Jesus picture.

Well, we need to overstand who the enemies of our people are first.

Begin to reason soundly reason, carry on with ignorance (religious, mental, spiritual), or else I have your medicine - to shock your sences into thinking soundly again.

Chrisbenogor, you better start talking if you have something reasonably worth saying.

All I want is the Fact beyond the shadow of belief or doubt. in all matter, not some.

This is pure and simple madness writ large.

For a start, what is wrong with the word "understand"?  Slavery, as bad as it was and is, has been a feature of all human history. Almost all nations have enslaved their neighbours/enemies, etc.  Black have colonised and enslaves blacks, Africans enslaved Africans,  European enslaved Europeans, etc, etc, etc.   Human are coming out of these dark periods of our history and striding ahead, forging communities for the betterment of humankind.   Incidentally many of the communities and institutions that work for the wealthfare of humankind are formed in Europ-centric countries, such as UN, UNICEF, WHO,  the concept of human rights,  ICJ, the plethera of charities, etc, etc.  Have you got a problem with these?

Man you are really deluded

asha 80:
My guy countries u have listed here are homogenous or largely homogenous.Look at them and compare them to nigeria.

If these countries are homogeneous, what made them so? Could it be because collectively they agree to subscribe to the same worldview, loosely defined?

Why has nearly 50 years of statehood not produced a sense of nationhood in Nigeria. If homogeneity is vital for development why have Nigerians not forged a homogeneous identity. Why is God standing by and not assisting in this goal?

Pastor AIO:
Are you alright Mr. Huxley, or is this some half arsed attempt at demonstrating a balanced view?

Anyway, me too, I believe that there is a lot wrong with our traditional cultures, social structures, and ideologies that haven't been properly addressed in this 21st century. It wasn't addressed in the 20th century either, I don't think.

What do you mean? Don't you see how demeaning and patronising this whole article is? That is why I felt it appropriate to us, Africans, to see how we are seen by others.

Matthew Parris is a UK journalist I generally tend to like and I see the premise he makes. In many ways his approach is a for-today pragmatic position, advocating that we solve our problems with solution that have been known to be inadequate and wrong for many decades now. The reason he advances to using 17th century solution is because socio-economically and intellectually, we have not advanced much, so 17th solution will be OK for us. While there is some truth in that, it is only storing up greater problems for future generation of Africans.

The institution that should really be educating and enlightening the society are non-existence or are failing in their duty to bring such changes. Remember that what you have in African now is not unique to Africa. Virtually all human societies have gone through periods of great superstitions and irrationalism. In fact, these were worse when the religious held sway. Parris's approach deal with short-term problems while sowing the seed for more deep-rooted intractable problems in the future.

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.

The Christian religion teachings that nobody goes into heaven but thus Jesus, that is believing that Jesus is God. In this pronouncement, Jesus is basically restrict access to heaven but to a tiny minority of those who get to know about him and believe in him. How about those you are in capable of knowing about him and developing a belief in him? Are such excluded from heaven by virtue of their lack of belief?

There are a number of categories of people who are incapable of believing in Jesus;

1) The billions who lived and died before Jesus made the statement.
2) Those for whom the concept of Jesus has not yet impacted
3) The cognitively challenged.

I want to focus on a subclass of the cognitively challenge, a group I shall call human non-persons. Rather than give a narrative description of human non-persons, I shall provide examples:

1) Foetuses lost "early" in pregnancy
2) Human fertilised eggs used in medical research or aborted naturally from the body.

I describe them as persons essentially because they derive from the human body and ordinarily require protection. Non-person, because they have not developed the full mind and bodily functionality typical of ordinary humans.


Now, is there a place for foetuses and fertilsed eggs in heaven? If there is, are they going to forever remain foetues/eggs or would they have the option of growing and developing full bodily parts?

I doubt it is poverty that causes some of the issues you mention. More like ignorance, credulity and gullibility.

The thought of sharing this small planet with people as deluded as the religionists (particularly the Christians) is my idea of hell. Just see the ignorance and stupidity the spout out. pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeghf

mazaje:
if heaven is'nt physical then why does it have dimensions? what about hell? is it invisible too i have seen and meet christains _{and moslems}  who claim to have been to heaven and back and their description is just as it is written in the bible _{or the koran}. they claim to have seen daimonds, gold, angels etc.

metric units 

Remember the verses in the bible in which Jesus advises his followers to maim themselves if the suffer problems with sin?  Here it is;
Mark 9
42 And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.
43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.
45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48where 'their worm does not die,  and the fire is not quenched.'
49Everyone will be salted with fire.

I think these verses are very revealing.  These not only reveal the physical nature of heaven, but they also reveal the physical nature of the "risen" body.  Otherwise, why would Jesus mention maimed bodily parts if a body was not to be associated with the risen sipirt?

So your theses that the paucity of space in heaven is a real problem given that its intended occupants are to take their place in here in bodily form.

Good point but you "appear to suffer under the delusion" that the heaven (or the Kingdom of God) is a physical thing. The Bible says, the Kingdom of God is within you, so all these dimensions are just allegorical. Although I fail to see how metrical units could ever be allegorical.

lucabrasi:
if GOD wasnt working for nigeria,dyu think it ll still be one and not in tatters after everything nigeria has been through?
the m.k.o abiola 93 election saga including abiola's death was enough to destabilise any country
the 3rd term intirigues during obj
the various religious and ethnic conflagrations
remember the likes of rwanda,congo,kenya,liberia,sierra leone don't have as peculiar a country as nigeria yet it took less than we have experienced to spark off a long drawn out war with massive loss of lives,i understand that u r an atheist but as a christian we r not to ask or grumble about what GOD hasnt done when we r despondent but to count our blessings,and see what the lord has done in our lives.
you contradicted yourself with the mention of america as they are rooted in christianity and the greatest nation in the world

seeing as you r tacitly advocating for nigerians to abandon their believe in christianity,would you rather advocate for china's system of governance?bearing in mind that all these things you listed about nigeria is prevalent in china as well in spite of their sucesses

Look at some of the other countries in the top ten positions on the HDI, such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, etc. Couldn't Nigeria try to emulate the attitudes and approach of such countries. Basically, I am arguing for rationalism NOT irrationalism and supernationalism.

The vast majority of Nigerian are overwhelmingly theistic, believing in a omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent God who intervenes hourly in humanly affairs, issuing justices, retributions, rewards and blessings. Not least, of course, the ultimate reward of eternal life in the bossom of their god.

To this end, Nigerians spend a great deal of their spare time, financial means and mental effort in praise and worship of their God, requesting all manner of blessings from him. But the factors of the ground in Nigeria correlates so poorly with a people who are so god-fearing and pious. How can this be explain?

Why is Nigeria one of the poorest nations on earth in spite of its wealth in natural resources, talent and most importantly a particular favourite nation of God? Is God sitting up in his thrown, folded arms, watching this utter waste of his blessings? In fact, does wealth, prosperity and well-being matter to God?

Nigeria ranks about 154 on the Human development Index scale. With the exception of the USA, all the countries in the top twenty positions report generally low levels of religiosity. How ironic?

Further irony is that the very same factor that the religious claim would help alleviate their poverty, is instrumental in anchoring them to eternal poverty and slavery, mental and financial exploitation - religion. Religion and all its accoutrements robs people of the ability to be self-reliant, and the desire to see this world as their only home for which all their efforts has to be dedicated. Thus, they have encouraged the dispossessed to throw their hands up in the air and wait for blessings for heaven. The problems for which the religious pray hourly for godly intervention still continue to afflict them; crushing poverty, hunger, starvation, diseases, bad governance, poor infrastructure, poor education, etc, etc.

Such feeble and weak minded believers have been raised to think that anything happening in their lives are due to supernatural forces. Thus a student who succeeds at her exams at schools achieved this thanks to God, a businessman struggling in business is being held back due to involvement with the supernatural, someone gets a visa to go abroad is usually ascribed to the benevolence of God. Where would such stupidity end? I shall leave the last word to the African American writter, Frederick Douglass;

"I prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs"

The vast majority of Nigerian are overwhelmingly theistic, believing in a omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent God who intervenes hourly in humanly affairs, issuing justices, retributions, rewards and blessings. Not least, of course, the ultimate reward of eternal life in the bossom of their god.

To this end, Nigerians spend a great deal of their spare time, financial means and mental effort in praise and worship of their God, requesting all manner of blessings from him.  But the factors of the ground in Nigeria correlates so poorly with a people who are so god-fearing and pious.  How can this be explain?

Why is Nigeria one of the poorest nations on earth in spite of its wealth in natural resources, talent and most importantly a particular favourite nation of God?  Is God sitting up in his thrown, folded arms, watching this utter waste of his blessings?  In fact, does wealth, prosperity and well-being matter to God?

Nigeria ranks about 154 on the Human development Index scale.  With the exception of the USA, all the countries in the top twenty positions report generally low levels of religiosity.  How ironic?

Further irony is that the very same factor that the religious claim would help alleviate their poverty, is instrumental in anchoring them to eternal poverty and slavery, mental and financial exploitation - religion.  Religion and all its accoutrements robs people of the ability to be self-reliant, and the desire to see this world as their only home for which all their efforts has to be dedicated.  Thus, they have encouraged the dispossessed to throw their hands up in the air and wait for blessings for heaven.  The problems for which the religious pray hourly for godly intervention still continue to afflict them;  crushing poverty, hunger, starvation, diseases, bad governance, poor infrastructure, poor education, etc, etc.

Such feeble and weak minded believers have been raised to think that anything happening in their lives are due to supernatural forces. Thus a student who succeeds at her exams at schools achieved this thanks to God,  a businessman struggling in business is being held back due to involvement with the supernatural, someone gets a visa to go abroad is usually ascribed to the benevolence of God.  Where would such stupidity end?  I shall leave the last word to the African American writter, Frederick Douglass;

"I prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs"

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?

I believe you describe yourself as a scientist or as someone working working in the scientific field. A comment such as the above displays your ignorance of science and does a travesty to the real hard work real scientist do out there.

For examples of atheist who, in all likelihood, do not know about evolution, never mind accept it, check out the Piraha of Brazil. A great description of their language and culture is given by Daniel L Everett in his book.. Everret went to live with the Piraha as a Christian missionary and researcher, but he ended up deconverting from the falsehood of theism after the Piraha pointed out to him just how stupid the beliefs he was trying to sell to them was.

KAG:
Where in the Bible was the Biblical God titled Jealous?

English is neither Hebrew nor Arabic, so the quip about the name being read from left to right isn't applicable.

Exodus 34:14, Ex 20:5, and Dt 4:24 are just a few. This is the flavour of what they say:

Do not worship any other god, for the Lord , whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

My Christmas message? There's probably no God
by Polly Toynbee, The Guardian from here

It is neither emotionally nor spiritually deficient to reject religions that seek to infantilise us with impossible beliefs

Antidisestablishmentarianism is on the march. Which is odd, considering there is only the faintest whiff of disestablishmentarianism to fight. The Archbishop of Canterbury set this hare running with his usual confused mumbling into his beard. To disestablish the church would be "by no means the end of the world", he said bravely. He hastened to add that he did not want the church sundered from the state right now. And he would oppose "secularists [boo, hiss] trying to push religion into the private sphere". This sent the Telegraph and Mail into a spin, claiming a devilish distestablishment plot on the Labour backbenches - though they could find only three usual suspects. These MPs say the likely move to end the 1701 Act of Settlement that bars Catholics from the throne will make an established church impossible.

How likely is this? Look at how Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have promoted faith and religiosity as "community", and ask yourself if there is the faintest chance that Labour spends untold parliamentary time unpicking the cat's cradle of a relationship between church, Lords and crown? Frankly, if Labour had the inclination for constitutional reform, first priority should be ending our disastrous first-past-the-post voting system.

True, it is embarrassing to be the only western democracy that has theocracy built into its legislature. The 26 bishops in the Lords interfere regularly: they are a threat on abortion, and their campaign sank the Joffe bill, giving the terminally ill the right to die in dignity. Of course they should not be there, when only 16% of people will grace the pews on Christmas Day, and Christian Research forecasts church attendance falling by 90%. But a dying faith clings hard to its inexplicable influence on public life.

Labour has encouraged the power of the religions to a remarkable degree, consulting them on endless committees. To be an atheist is now unacceptable in a political leader: when Nick Clegg confessed his non-belief, he had to recant and re-define himself as an "agnostic". The BBC is increasing religious broadcasting; Radio 4 already does 200 hours. Is this by popular demand? No. An Ofcom survey put religion last in the public's interests. Expect a worsening clash in the new Equality Commission between religious rights and gay and women's rights. The Islington registrar who refused to conduct civil partnerships for religious reasons was an ominous landmark case.

This has been the year of religion's fightback against secularism - a word made almost synonymous with the spiritual and moral decadence of materialism. Angered by the runaway success of anti-God books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, AC Grayling and others, the different faiths - though each believes it has the one and only divinely revealed truth and often fights to the death to prove it - combine in curious harmony against secularists.

They blame us for all the evils of modernity, as if they could point to some morally better time when people feared God and sinned less. There is, of course, no evidence that God-fearers ever behaved better than the ungodly. One of the great mysteries of religion is why, even when people believed that heaven awaited the virtuous and everlasting torment was the destiny of sinners, there is no sign it made them any less prone to all the sins flesh is heir to. Yet they turn on atheists for lacking any moral base without a God.

I could say we are mortally offended and demand protection from such insult. But it is the prerogative of religions to be protected from feeling offended. Priests, imams and rabbis reserve for their beliefs a special respect, ringfenced from normal public argument. It is abusive and insulting to suggest that belief in gods and miracles is delusional, or that religions are inherently anti-women and anti-gay. Meanwhile, non-believers suffer the far worse insult that we inhabit a moral vacuum. But we will live with the insult if we are free to reply that there is no inherent virtue in being religious either: it does not make people behave better.

The unctuous claim there is a special religious ethos that can be poured like a sauce over schools and public services to improve them morally has been bought, to a depressing extent, by Labour, and over a third of all state schools are now religious institutions - despite overwhelming evidence that their only unique quality is selection of better pupils, storing up trouble with ever more cultural segregation.

Here is an enjoyably impudent piece of research from Innsbruck University. People were observed buying newspapers, using an honesty box to pay. They were interviewed later - so the person with the clipboard seemed unconnected with the newspaper purchase - and asked about age, occupation and attitudes. Men cheated more than women; people over 50 cheated more than the young; higher education made no difference; and by a long chalk churchgoers cheated most. This may be a statistical anomaly. But we all know one thing: religion no more makes people good than lack of it makes the rest of us bad.

Secularists take offence too at the way the religious paint unbelievers as poor desiccated rationalists, not only without values, but joyless, lacking a sense of mystery, devoid of awe. Yet, earthbound, there is enough wonder in the infinite capacity of the human imagination, in a magical world of thought, dream, hope, memory and fantasy. To be human is not to be particularly rational, the senses often overwhelming common sense. There is no emotional or spiritual deficiency in rejecting religions that infantilise the imagination with impossible beliefs.

In January many more atheist buses - an advertising campaign launched on Comment is Free - will roll on to the street than expected. The British Humanist Association is astonished at the response - a target of £5,500 has swelled to £130,000, most in small donations. The buses will bear as good a message as any this Christmas: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life".

• Polly Toynbee is president of the British Humanist Association and honorary associate of the National Secular Society

Omonla:
And you care about His innocence/guilt because? Your posts indicate that you hold Jesus in disdain. That's cool. Freedom of choice, God gives.

Your answer is in the Bible - But I bet you've read it so many times, but the only ideas that have jumped out at you, are your own understanding.

If you are unable to find the answers to your questions in the Bible without being critical about what you read every time, or attempting to discredit, then - Nobody here can help you find what you are looking for.

Clearly, you read the Bible. Or excerpts of it. You are not understanding, or at least, that is not your goal. None of us can reason with God. We ain't smart enough.

You are probably right that I am not smart enough, and I wonder whether that is what is hindering my understanding of the narrative.

As a smart person, the answers to these questions may come easily. Alas not for me. So could you please oblige me and relieve me of my lack of understanding, for is the only Christian thing to do.

Many of the Christian charismatic ministers exploit a known "flaw" in the human constitution to create spectacles and exploit their hapless followers.  This is sometimes manifested in the followers displaying elevated mental states of ecstacy. Many leading Christians ministers such as Pastor Chris, Peter Popoff and  Benni Hinn play on this human defect abundantly, to use a favoured christian word.

These Christian ministers induce hypnotic mental states, akin to trances, leaving them open to all manner of suggestions and exploitation.  Watch Benni Hinn slay people in the spirit here .

So have you ever been slain in the spirit?  How did it feel?  Were you on a "high"? 

Incidentally, some members of this forum, notably Davidylan, think religion is not a "high". While strictly speaking I agree with him, I think that one of the consequences of religion is the tendency to induce such mental states (or high) to its victims.

davidylan:
The problem is you want to use the extreme to define the whole.

The vast majority of christendom does not regard Peter Poppoff as a genuine man of God. If you read through this religion section you must have come across several christians who certainly do not agree with many of the unbiblical practices of charismatic christian preachers today.

Be that as it may.  The point you made was that

Religion is not a "high".

,  with which I partially agree with you.  But I make subtle distinctions which might have been lost on you.  Let me repeat;

There is religions/beliefs which may simply be as basic as believing that the tree in my backyard has supernatural powers. Then there are mental states which may be an expression of such beliefs by our cognitve systems. 

There are many religions or ideas that do not trigger an elevated mental state.  For instance, the thought that the chemical composition of water is H2O would hardly trigger an elevated mental state in most people.  However, it is within the realms of possibility that I could formulate a religion today that takes something as basic as H2O and create a strong and powerful hold on the minds of some people.  Case in point are the hapless followers of the Comet Hale-Bopp, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(cult)] the Heaven's Gate[/url].  How could something as mundane as a comet have caused so much epileptic zeal in the minds of its followers?

The fact is, beliefs, if taken irrationally are capable of producing a high in many of its followers.  I see it with Pastor Chris followers,  many many other evangelists.

davidylan:
there is no such thing as religious ecstacy. It is simply a term coined by anti-religious folks like you desperate to delegitimise religion. Christianity is not a "mental state", it is a way or life . . . a spiritual code of conduct for the saved.

This need to classify religion as a "mental imbalance" different from the norm does not hold water at all. People have tried to use brain scans to differentiate between the brain of religious people and secular individuals . . . the result? no difference at all.

Religion is not a "high".

Would you describe the normal law-abiding citizen of having a peculiar mental state different from yours?

Sorry for not having made myself clearer.  There is a BIG difference between religions/beliefs and the mental states it is capable of inducing in some people (in some religions).  Case in point - Shamanism.  How often do people who do not belong to such religions as shamanism go into mental trances.

Have you seen the ministry of some of the Christian charismatic preacher and see what effects they have on the people?  What do you describe this?  Are the almost paralytic states they get into not mental states?

Have you ever heard of the concept of the Power of Suggestion, practiced so deftly by hypnotists?  Do they routine put their clients into mental states?  Are some of these states dissimilar to what you might see in Peter Popoff ministry?

davidylan:
I don't believe that for a second. We now live in a society that is desperate to wipe out religion and profer "scientific" rationalisations for just about anything. Is partying also a mental state? Compare two fellows . . . one likes to watch movies while the other would rather read a book . . . does that also have to do with their mental states?

The reason science will never be able to determine this is because such rationalisations exist only in the minds of the deluded.

Take for example the idea that drug addiction is mostly a mental state . . . while science has been able to tease out a few of the neurochemistry behind addiction it still hasnt found a cure. If there was one single genetic factor no one would be smoking today.

I acknowledge you reservation, but you talk as if the game is over yet.  While there may not be definitive cures or treatment to many of the "mental" disorders today, there has been tremendous leaps in the understanding of many of their mechanism and how to treat some.  Unfortunately many possible cures have other sideeffects which may discourage their use.

You are right in that there may really never be a fully comprehensive understanding of "mental" states and the agents require to effect these states.

The question I had in mind is slightly different from yours above.  Mine is - How would one distinguish a mental state of religious estacy from that of sexual, or literary, or physical estacy?

The campaigns of Ghenghis khan left ist mark right across the Asian continent. His genes and those of his soldier are still traceable in people living today from China to the hills of Istanbul.  Does this also mean that warfare has a direct impact/influence on genetics.  I mean warfare and NOT the indirect consequences of warfare, which tends to "redistribute" populations.

davidylan:
this is nothing but poppycock. Now there is no "good scientific evidence". All you woolheads who like trotting out such misinformation like you've been doing any real study on this issue shld be ashamed of yourselves . . .

Here is another article that should "strengthen" your case - A gene for Religion?

The problem is the Dopamine receptor D4 talked about in that short article is "implicated" in just about anything scientists cannot explain, from addiction to obesity, psychiatric and neurotic disorders. What shoots down the theory is that you get increased dopamine levels in the drug addict for example YET it doesnt make him any more religious than the average person doing just fine on lower dopamine levels.

Again let me repeat . . . enough of this attitude of deliberate misinformation. There is NO good scientific evidence for a genetic linkage to religion.

Who said there was? Certainly NOT me. It is a hypothesis that is currently being tested, as far as I know. You should treat such articles in the public domain, written by less-proficient scientific journalists with a great deal of salt.

Now, the hypothesis is the following: Our mental states are a function of the integral link with the body. Our bodies are shaped by our genetics. Thus our mental states are also shaped by our genetics. Religious beliefs are a form of mental states. There is a subtle argument here, which I think many people miss. There is a distinction between a mental state and a consequence of the mental state. What has been measure in the labs is the consequence of the beliefs. Thus if a certain thought or belief induces tremors, for examples, it is the tremors that are pick up. The careless scientists or journalist sometimes report this as the belief itself.

While I think science is getting closer to this issues, I think ultimately, there are too many indetermintes that we will "never" disentangle all the contributory factor out.

davidylan:
this is nothing but poppycock. Now there is no "good scientific evidence". All you woolheads who like trotting out such misinformation like you've been doing any real study on this issue shld be ashamed of yourselves . . .

Here is another article that should "strengthen" your case  - A gene for Religion?

The problem is the Dopamine receptor D4 talked about in that short article is "implicated" in just about anything scientists cannot explain, from addiction to obesity, psychiatric and neurotic disorders. What shoots down the theory is that you get increased dopamine levels in the drug addict for example YET it doesnt make him any more religious than the average person doing just fine on lower dopamine levels.

Again let me repeat . . . enough of this attitude of deliberate misinformation. There is NO good scientific evidence for a genetic linkage to religion.

Who said there was?   Certainly NOT me.   It is  a hypothesis that is currently being tested, as far as I know.  You should treat such articles in the public domain, written by less-proficient scientific journalists with a great deal of salt.

Now, the hypothesis is the following:  Our mental states are a function of the integral link with the body.  Our bodies are shaped by our genetics. Thus our mental states are also shaped by our genetics. Religious beliefs are a form of mental states. There is a subtle argument here, which I think many people miss.  There is a distinction between a mental state and a consequence of the mental state.  What has been measure in the labs is the consequence of the beliefs.  Thus if a certain thought or belief induces tremors, for examples, it is the tremors that are pick up.  The careless scientists or journalist sometimes report this as the belief itself.

While I think science is getting closer to this issues, I think ultimately, there are too many indetermintes that we will "never" disentangle all the contributory factor out.

Ah, just thought of the budding area of research called epigenetics.  I once saw a scientific program about this that discusses how environment might impact on DNA?   Don't know any more.   Is is what you are alluding to?

4 Play:
@Davidylan

All Bastage has done, which is why his argument lacks cogency, is google muslim genes and cited the first article he came across. That he doesn't understand the full import of the article has no bearing in his stridence.

He makes it up as he goes along contradicting himself with wreckless abandon. Everything is as a result of religion indeed

davidylan:
Nwam! If you google "religion genes" his article is EXACTLY the first one you come across!  

Bastage na wa o. Go to school again my friend.

Whether the article was the first or thousandth may NOT detract from its plausibility, which is determined by its content.  The thrust of this position is that if ultimately our mental state is owed to our genetic makeup, a position for which there is good scientific evidence, it stands to reason that our vulnerability to religion may also be explained by our genes.  This area of research is still in its infancy, but the chances are good that we will begin to see more psycho-genetic work in the public arena in the near future.

Bastage:
Come now. You are really clutching at straws. Race was only used as the medium to gauge the results.
The fact remains that an ethnic group was converted and the indigenous population absorbed their genes.
Religion was an influence on genetics.


Before anyone quotes this:

I know I made a mistake. I've already altered it. We're all guilty of typing faux pas now and again though.

WOW.  The first I have heard this.   What is the mechanism by which religion might have an influence on genetic?   It cannot certainly be directly, can it?

I know there are some scholars who think that religion should be considered as a natural phenonemon.  Or rather belief in god should be considered a natural phenonomenon, and as such subject to the same mechanism of evolution and dispersal as other biological artifacts.  Daniel Dennett's book "Breaking the Spell" goes into a lot of details about this approach.  In this regard, religion and beliefs are simply treated as memes.

If you say religions influences genetics, you most be capable of providing a plausible mechanism by which that might be true.  Any other sociological factors that determines who people segregate into tribes, countries, etc could equally be claimed to influence genetics, which I find very doubtful.