₦airaland Forum

pilgrim.1:
@huxley,

I'm sorry again, but please don't even try to wave this simplistic idea promoted by people like Michael Martin in our face. Buddhism is NOT atheism by any stretch; and if you want to take me up on that, I shall be too glad to help throw Martin's miscalculations about this to the bin once and for all. I'm not being crude, huxley. . . but I'm weary already of celebrated writers misleading the public - which was what Martin did; and yet I have looked in vain to see how many atheists have tried to correct Martin.

olabowale:
Huxley: You are a funny dude. In my days in the University, there was this Cameroonian guy who was in Electrical Engineering. His name was Mathias. You are the antithesis of this dude.

While he appreciated God, you and all the atheists of Africa, seem to even be worse that the puppettiers of Euro and new world whom you are blindly copying.

If I have just discovered the above, when did you discovered it before last year? Rather when did you discovered it? Stop the african madman syndrome. As much as I enjoy your provocative efforts, you seem to be blind to reality! Who do you think created and supported the people on the other side of the world from you, as well as you?

The guys on the exact opposite of you, on the other side of the world sees you as if you are Upside down. Yet it is the same way you see them, if you visually can see each other! But yet neither of you has lost his footing on the surface of the earth! You are not floating away from the surface of the earth and away into the atmosphere, the space!

That God that has prevented you from this certain calamitous event, is able to produce anything He wills. If it exists, whether you or I or any person ever saw it or not, it does not matter.

pilgrim.1:
@huxley,

Lol, what do you call the "well-reasoned, philosophically assessed propositions" of Communist persecutions, eh? Just try and be balanced and include that one as well, so we see how "well-reasoned" atheism truly is.

pilgrim.1:
. . . er, try and be magnanimous enough to include atheistic irrationalism - it doesn't hurt to mention them as well as the others, abi?

---

pilgrim.1:
I think I have stated a few of the things I believe as a Christian. That you are no longer one and have chosen to not believe in those things does not necessarily mean that everyone else is wrong. I sense that has been the current of your efforts lately, and apart from me, several others have highlight that such an attitude is unsustainable in the arena of reason. Not even whne one has to put the cards on the table and rationally discuss issues in their proper contexts.

One example already offered - the pretence of misconstruing theology for teleology. Just an analogy - imagine some theist trying to discuss the atheistic worldview in theistic slants in whuch they invariably arrive at skewed inferences. What do you make of such folks even after they have been offered the necessarycorrections to go back and think again - but rather than do that, they surface in another town and parade the same hubris?

pilgrim.1:
How could I disagree with my Christian beliefs? It is like asking if there are any "core" values of atheism that you disagree with - what do you think I would be asking then? The thing is this: both ways (Christianity and atheism), it is not in either my place or yours to try to interprete our worldviews for every single proponent we interract with. I don't have the moral justification to say that I do not agree with such and such "core Christian doctrine" - albeit we may all have issues that we may not all agree over (different from "agree with". The same thing with you: you cannot claim to disagree with the "core" values or ideas of atheism; and just as these differences in interpretations exists, we find so many coteries (factions, groups, sects) in both worldviews.

pilgrim.1:
I actually have mentioned these matters to you besides others who have done so. As for what you meant by "above", am I mistaken that it was you I discussed the "Origin of the Universe" and showed how you were wrongly passing out information that was misleading to the public interest?

I abandoned that thread, not once, but twice - and I already said that I would do so the moment I notice that there was no need to further dialogue with people who are pushing their own ideas without the openness to reason. I only came back after initially leaving it, because I just could not bear seeing you drivelling on and on about "ORIGIN" or the Universe hen I knew that the BB did not have any such evidence for that! Now, dear huxley, are you trying to tell me that KAG's offer of abiogenesis is what accounts for the ORIGIN of the universe? Do you imagine that I would waste my time trying for many pages more to keep repeating myself on that issue? No, I don't behave like that - even though my silence may be misinterpreted. When you find the evidence for the ORIGIN and not those clever terms you have been shoving around, I may come back in - I said so.

pilgrim.1:
The problem with engaging discourses with you sometimes (not problem with "you" is that you just assume that not many people know these matters. From the very onset, I knew you were not talking about ORIGIN of the Universe - I tried to point that out, but you went on about your prerogative to be either illogical, rude, etc (I satnd to be corrected). I already indicated that if we needed info about the Big Bang, we knew already where to go, because what you were reposting did not have any bearing at all with what you were trying to argue. . . Until I thought to simply help you post just one example of what the BB theorists were actually saying in regards to the formation of planets, noting also that they stated clearly that the BB does not have any evidence whatsoever for the ORIGIN of the universe (which was rather the evolution of the universe - yet just a theory).

pilgrim.1:
I saw all those matters, that's why when I felt we were not getting anywhere, I simply folded myself away from that thread - I always do so these days when reason is dismissed for hubris (dare I say we all are guilty of this same thing between times). Reason why I didn't come back after KAG's posts? Simply because I didn't see any improvement on the same things we have been arguing back and forth until then.

Bros, hang on a bit. This lady here (pilgrim.1) is not one of those who is persuaded by that atheistic excuse that "we don't yet understand our world" - even with all the noise about the advancements of science? If memory serves me right, I know how many skeptics dismissed the crop circle phenomena as "hoaxes"; but when evidences were served them, they found excuses with clever words to describe them - even when they called them "scientific" explanations, others have largely debunked such philosophies because they leave more questions than answers. Was it too much for such skeptics to simply admit that they do not have answers to those paranormal pehnomena than to pretend the hubris of excusing those phenomena under "scientific" rationalism and further embarrassing themselves? No, they didn't say they were waiting until they understood - they first declared them hoaxes and then later excused them.

One thing I can appreciate, even though I've been slow to grow that thread, at least you at this point have given me a good turn with your simple honesty. That is something that is hard to find from so many other skeptics.

And during that time (if I'm thinking what you are thinking), I know how many such claims were declined and even debunked by theists; but that is not to say that there haven't been some instances where these phenomena occured supernaturally.

Lol, this strain sounds familiar - that's precisely the reactions of many skeptics who were invited to study genuine crop circles: they excused themselves on such grounds of "inanities" and sat behind their cubicles hooting that they were hoaxes. These phenomena are still happening today, being recorded, being studied, and being said to be "orphic" - honest investigators have reported events and occurences among these and asked skeptics to go and verify them results independently - wonder of wonders, those same skeptics baulked at the invitation and instead patted themselves on the back with the few crop circles that were man-made! How serious is that?

You see, huxley, in as much as we all agree that there are "orphic" phenomena in our world today, what I have stated again and again (as honestly as I can manage) is that I don't have any answers to them nor would I even pretend any. But the skeptics reaction seems to always be the same - for what he is too embarrassed to admit he has no answers for, he dismisses as an "inanity" or a "hoax". People are smarter than such hubris.

Enjoy all the same.

olabowale:
@Huxley: [size=16pt]Here is what I just found on MSNBC.com. I thought it might interest your "mind." The fact is that not all things in existence are already "discovered!" Some may be extinct before human may have a chance to get into their "territorial existence!" Discovery, discovery, and discovery. [/size]

Bug from Borneo is the world's longest
Insect is nearly the length of a human arm, British scientists say

AP
In this undated picture made available by Britain's Natural History Museum, Orthoptera Curator George Beccaloni holds a giant stick insect named Phobaeticus chani, which has been identified as the world's longest insect.
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Bug from Borneo is the world's longest

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updated 7:11 p.m. ET, Thurs., Oct. 16, 2008
LONDON - Nearly the length of a human arm, a recently identified stick bug from the island of Borneo is the world's longest insect, British scientists said Thursday.

The specimen was found by a local villager and handed to Malaysian amateur naturalist Datuk Chan Chew Lun in 1989, according to Philip Bragg, who formally identified the insect in this month's issue of peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The insect was named Phobaeticus chani, or "Chan's megastick," in Chan's honor.

Paul Brock, a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London unconnected to the animal's discovery said there was no doubt it was the longest extant insect ever found.


Olabowale's comment to prick Huxley and co's conscience. That is if there is any; We must just have to reflect on the power of the Creating force that brought about this creature. How many of those "rare," truly undiscovered creatures that may have perished, while we try to box the Creator, to only just what we know and have discovered!

Could people who lived 2,000 years ago, could have been able to imagine what the aircrafts of today formulated and manufactured by their offsprings, us, are capable of? Some aircrafts can almost stop in the air and hover on the spot. Some can go to tremendous distance in the space. Some are remotely controlled. Yet, others are different from any of these. I am sure there are still others to be discovered by this generations, maybe as a hub, where others will dock and take from the mother craft passengers to their specific destinations. There is no doubt that future human generations will even do better than this present generations.



Looking more like a solid shoot of bamboo than its smaller, frailer cousins, the dull-green insect measures about 22 inches (56.7 centimeters), if its delicate, twig-like legs are counted. There are 14 inches (35.7 centimeters) from the tip of its head to the bottom of its abdomen, beating the previous record body length, held by Phobaeticus kirbyi, also from Borneo, by about an inch (2.9 centimeters).

Stick bugs, also known as phasmids, have some of the animal kingdom's cleverest camouflage. Although some phasmids use noxious sprays or prickly spines to deter their predators, generally the bugs assume the shape of sticks and leaves to avoid drawing attention.

"Their main defense is basically hanging around, looking like a twig," Brock said. "It will even sway in the wind."


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For Bragg, who works as a schoolteacher and catalogues stick bugs as a hobby, the discovery showed the urgency of conservation work.

"There aren't enough specialists around to work on all the insects in the world," he said. "There's going to be stuff that's extinct before anyone gets around to describing it."

The Phobaeticus chani is now a part of the Natural History Museum's "Creepy Crawlies" gallery. It went on display Thursday.

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Pastor AIO:
But surely, this is what religious orthodoxy demands and Christianity as we have it today has been funnelled through orthodoxy.
I think that with this you've just described Huxley in a nutshell. He will not follow through with a line of reasoning or a discussion that he feels is not heading in the direction that he wants it to go.

Obviously he is not a man who is Concerned with Truth as he may Find It., but rather is agenda driven.

In fact this observation can be applied to a lot of other atheists who start snarling and foaming at the mouth when they are following an argument where they think they have the upper hand but then they run a million miles howling with their tails between their legs when presented with facts that will not support their agendas. Sorry, did I say howling, more like whimpering under their breaths.

pilgrim.1:
@huxley,

I think you're making a typical mistake that I often read from rationalistic skeptics. In Christianity, people are not asked to believe something because they don't have a choice but to just believe in them. While this is the typical "strawman" strategy that atheists do not like others to use against them, I see the same thing happening here and rather use the term fausse braie ('wrong pitch'). What is happening is that while as an atheist you would not like people to make suppositions about you before you define it for yourself, you seem to be happy to define other people's worldviews for them before even seeking to understand their raison d'etre!

I believe in the tenets of my Christian faith, not because I have no choice than to believe in them. But to assume that I should then be examined by a rationalistic worldvew that has consistently failed to examine its own ideas, is to play the same fausse braie sentimentality that you guys have often decried. If you think it is okay to bend Christianity by the prism of humanistic rationalism, would you be happy also to allow others to bend your own worldviews by the prism of their tenets? If not, does it not suggest the hubris I have often highlighted all along?

I have never shied away from rational dialogue - the reason why you may not have been receiving answers may be due to your prerogative to be determined to be irrational in your outlook and I can point just a few examples of some (who are not even Christians) having pointed this out to you personally.

A second thing is that you often fail to reason along with people, no matter how many times they have shared the same insight with you. An example in this case is when I remember highlighting the difference between THEOLOGY and TELEOLOGY - you keep making the same mistake of ignoring that pointer and then raise issues that when further scrutinized, you would simply have to come back and admit that you were hastily driving wrong assumptions. An example was the discourse on "Origin of the Universe", whereas the grounds for your arguements do not present ny evidence for the "origin" of the Universe.

I'm not here to beg that any "attacks" be forestalled - because the hypocrisy in that statement has been proven so many times. I was one of those who started asking you whether the aim of reason was to "attack" ideas: and even when you acquiesced that it should not be the case, have you stopped or relented in "attacking" others? It is not my worry that atheistic mindsets would always want to "attack" - and that is what stands as testimony that the very idea that atheists are 'rational' people is far from reality. We can dialogue without pretending this hubris; but if that is not sufficient and I make reference to atheistic fundamentalism, you guys protest against such mention. If you're going to reason out issues intelligently, let us know: if otherwise, nothing changes from this habit of holding out something you cannot receive when served at you.

I have my thoughts about Jinns - and I saw the thread you raised for that purpose. But huxley, you're coming a tad too late to asking me this question, because I already have said that I won't discuss anything that has to do with Islam. My discussions are not springboards for Islamic theological debates.

However, what about angels - since Christianity has something to say about the subject? Yes, I believe in angels, but not because I have no choice other than to believe in it. Do I believe in the existence of demons? I do as well, though I'm not affected by them in anyway - that does not mean I haven't seen what they can do to people. It is because the skeptical idea that we should only believe what we can see and account for in a naturalistic sense, that was why I started out the experiement with a thread on "Our Orphic world". It was not my aim to embarass anybody - but the point was to show that there are things happeing in our world which are "supernatural", because they cannot be measured or quantified in naturalistic terms. And for people to keep harping that these things are not "real" and rather "hoaxes" is to pretend the same hubris that has not served the atheistically driven mind of extremum.

It would have been interesting to see how people who are too bent with this extreme positions react to some of those phenomena mentioned earlier - eg., the crop circles, the UFOs, etc. There are more - and mention of these is not that I'm ducking the question of jinn and angels. Rather, I'm indicating to you that your tools of enquiry are too weak to account for supernatural and paranormal phenomena. A second thing to note is that atheism is not science - and to pretend as if it is only atheists who engage in science is to make the same extreme assertion that has not served your cause any better.

Cheers.

A second thing is that you often fail to reason along with people, no matter how many times they have shared the same insight with you. An example in this case is when I remember highlighting the difference between THEOLOGY and TELEOLOGY - you keep making the same mistake of ignoring that pointer and then raise issues that when further scrutinized, you would simply have to come back and admit that you were hastily driving wrong assumptions. An example was the discourse on "Origin of the Universe", whereas the grounds for your arguements do not present ny evidence for the "origin" of the Universe.

Pastor AIO:
Time was when it was dangerous to declare oneself as a dissident from the secular Rightwing American capitalist doctrine. To even express interest in an alternative ideology, to so much as attend a meeting with communists, was enough to start an inquisition, a witch hunt, A McCarthy style persecution of heretics throughout the land. These evils acts were carried out for doctrinal grounds by the secular authorities. Here are a few cogent examples:
Elmer Bernstein, composer and conductor[48]
Charlie Chaplin, actor[48]
Aaron Copland, composer[48]
Bartley Crum, attorney[49]
Jules Dassin, director[48]
W.E.B. DuBois, civil rights activist and author[50]
Howard Fast, author[51]
Lee Grant, actress[48]
Dashiell Hammett, author[48]
Lillian Hellman, playwright[48]
John Hubley, animator[48]
Langston Hughes, author[52]
Sam Jaffe, actor[48]
Gypsy Rose Lee, actress[53]
Philip Loeb, actor[54]
Joseph Losey, director[48]
Burgess Meredith, actor[53]
Arthur Miller, playwright and essayist[53]
Zero Mostel, actor[48]
Clifford Odets, author[48]
J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, "father of the atomic bomb"[55]
Linus Pauling, chemist, winner of two Nobel prizes[56]
Paul Robeson, actor, athlete, singer, author, political and civil rights activist[57]
Edward G. Robinson, actor[53]
Waldo Salt, author[48]
Pete Seeger, folk singer[52]
Artie Shaw, jazz musician[52]
Howard Da Silva, actor[48]
Paul Sweezy, economist and founder-editor of Monthly Review[58]
Tsien Hsue-shen, physicist[59]
Orson Welles, actor, author and director[53]
[edit]Critical reactions

pilgrim.1:
Okay, I hear you. Yes, you're right that as a Christian, I believe that there are witches, demons, the devil, angels, etc. But it is wrong and quite unhealthy to assume my position for me before you try to understand where I stand. In just the same way as it would be wrong for me to assume your position in atheism even before you have defined it for yourself, regardless of the fact that there are so many definitions of atheism given by atheists themselves.

pilgrim.1:
One such wrong assumption to make is that, even though I'm a Christian who believes that such phenomena exist, I'm not driven to endanger anyone's life on that basis. Do I believe in the Bible? yes, I do - and my discussions on the forum should clarify that position so well to a casual observer. However, even as a Christian, I do not have the authority to define the way the Bible should be interpreted for ALL Christians, just as you huxley do not have the rationale or moral position to define what atheism should be for every single atheist.

pilgrim.1:
If you want interpretations, I could offer one, even if you would reject it. How does that have a bearing on an appeal for your to be rational towards others? Even common sense does not keep driving this hubris we often see from those who assume so much about "rationality" and yet fail to exhibit some.

pilgrim.1:
Dear huxley,

That is hardly a rational attitude to reasoning - for we may as well ask you pointedly: what have been the fruit of atheistic irrationalism epitomised by all the hubris and extremum we have seen lately?

Reason does not start out slurring other worldviews before even you enter into a discussion. What is the difference between your prejudice and a religious person's biases? I think these matters are more and more being noticed even among those who are not theistically inclined. Just a note of observation, though.

Cheers.

ife-eco-06:
Did you read the earlier posted Questions and Answers at all?
All your questions have been answered.

ife-eco-06:
Olabowale has brought for you rational/logical proofs, in addition to the Qur'anic proofs, which you may not believe in.

In today's world I don't expect any reasonable person to still hold the belief that only things that can be seen exists. It has been proved beyond reasonable doubts that some things exist that are not seen. There are many things that are believed to exist in science just because the effect can be felt, but they cannot be seen.

Take electric current for example. Can you see electric current physically? Do you believe it exists? We know there is electric current through its effects, not by sight.
Think about Jinn in this simple respect.

olabowale:
@Huxley: « #35 on: Yesterday at 07:07:15 PM »
Can you give us the word for Jinn in French, and then in authentic African languages spoken in Cameroon? I do mean authentic, please.

Have you seen everything that is in existence? For example have you seen the air, or wind, except its effect? The same apply to all unseen things. Jinn is an unseen. We already know that you speak a bit of Yoruba. Now tell us the word for "alujoonu," in Igbo and others?

Jinn does exist, in the same vein that I believe that Heaven does exist. When I say heaven, I am not talking about Paradise. I simply mean the layers that is above the earth. You and I or any person, alive today have not seen the first heaven which is the closest to us, among the seven that are layered one on to of each other, enveloping what is under itself.

Jesus was lifted and so was the journey of Muhammad, to and fro in a part of one night. And before both, Adam and his mate, Hawa decended from the Paradise which is above all heavens to earth.

If the heavens exist, and regardless of how far human and his devices go into space, they have not seen it, because they have never and can never travel far enough to get to it, then know that Jinn also do exist.

A friend, who is now a muslim, told us a story of an incident when he was a member of the Lodge, in New York City. He said a member died and they were performing his funeral ceremony at the lodge house. Of course, there came a time that the lodge ritual had to be performed. He said they opened the dead man's mouth and began to cut his tongue.

He said right there, everybody, including his family who were in the hall, heard a yell, in the dead man's voice. But this friend said that he knew it was not the man who yelled. But his "ghost/spirit" or Jinn. This incidence was a sngular reason that made this friend, from the Caribbean be so determined to get out of the mess they call Lodge!

I think you should know that all that you listed about, as if to ask real question is answered, even only you reflect about them. For instance, you stated about the creation of Jinn from Fire and then by Smokeless flame. Is fire different from flame? Is it not the sighting of flame that will allow us that there is fire? Hae you ever seen a fire without a flame? Have you ever seen a real flame with all the 100% effect of flame, except that there is fire going on?

What is interesting about the power of Allah, in His creation of the Jinn is that they are created from "Smokeless" Flame/Fire! It shows that they are not in the same as you and I from the wet mud that Adam was created from. They are also different from the "light," which the Angels are created from. Considering that all flame/fire gives out some amount of heat and light. While light simply gives out light, briliance, and brightness!

babs787:
@Huxley

Is it that you needs explanation to what you posted?

olabowale:
@Huxley: Your silly african mind. No, africans are more assured. You silly whitewashed British mind wants to be hanging out with Jinns?

You have one Jinn that knows you well. You are born with one. But your a playing a game of Chicken. You will get hurt and you will end up in Hellfire.

Try asking yourself, if you can stand the heat of a raging inferno? Can you throw yourself in one? Then imagine the fire specifically created to punish a disabedient person?

Stop acting silly. You are grown man.

olabowale:
@Huxley: « #24 on: Today at 03:58:26 PM »
I hope you can be patient and lets solve your problem, one issue at a time.
About Harry Porter, the creator must have been seduced and agitated/instigated
to revel in her own "imagination of evilness!" The same way magician can concort
interestingly, but deceiving story. Both and all are destined for the fire of Hell,
along with their instigators, be it Jinn or man.

huxley:
How is a jinn similar and/or different from a character in a Harry Potter story?

huxley:
According to the Quran (72: 1-15) some jinns flew up to heaven to eavesdrop on the reading of the Quran taking place there. Is that true?

Meteorites are flaming darts thrown by angels at jinns to keep them out of heaven. True?

These jinns overhead the message that Allah is one and had no wife or children. True?