₦airaland Forum

Another interesting article:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/WhyRBNoInt.HTM

Enjoy

Interesting article:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/WhyIntNoRB.HTM

Enjoy

OLAADEGBU:
Watch a short presentation from an ex evolution scientist.
http://www.creationworldview.org/sample.asp

I had a look at this site and found it is all rubbish. Why do you think this would be useful?

Why are there no scientifically reference publications on the site refuting evolution. Even the leading scientific proponent of Intelligent Design (ID) (Michael Behe) acception evolution as the explanation for the diversity of life. This is a theist who has examined the evidence and is convinced of the arguments. Other notable theist who accept evolution are;

Kenneth Miller
Francis Collins
The Vatican
Daniel J. Fairbanks

and many others

Awesome explanatory power of the Theory Of Evolution is given in these videos;


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFG-aLidT8s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UbpL83oJNo&feature=related


I can foresee the day when such knowledge would be put to use to relieve some of the many ailments that afflict us. Hooray, hooray, hooray!

Enjoy!

Have you got any means of validating the claims of GO?

Pastor AIO:
Sir, are you telling us something or are you asking us something. I wonder what it is you understand by philosophy. Is the philosophy practiced by the likes of Plato and Pythagoras the same as the philosophy discussed by Wittgenstein?

Did it strike a nerve? What did you take from the article?

javarules:
@huxley
I don't have to know reliably that there is a god because I am a god! God in my own opinion is different from god, and my believe in a God makes me a god.doesn't make sense right? yap, its too simple, your mind it too learned, it can't accept it.

There are so many things that logical thinking can't explain. Ask me for examples and i wont give you one that is far fetched. I am 27 years old, I weigh 150 pounds, I am 6'2 tall. My friend here has same configurations of body build. We both ate 50 pounds of wheat in the morning. By 12noon I am feeling hungry while my friend is not.

Now as a programmer, logically that shouldn't happen because our bodies so similarly built should consume materials at the same rate. But a biologist will now take me further to explain some other factors that makes that so. So in my programmer mind, I say its fuzzy-logic. Logically its not ok, biologically its ok.

Logically God doesn't exist, spiritually he does. Again my analogy is too simple that some minds can't just accept it.

That is it. simple things don't appeal to complex minds, as much as some people can't understand why some "fools" will believe in a God.

And so if I am a fool for believing in God, I agree. In fact I am the foolishest of them all

Then what was the point flashing your logical achievements, as if to say "I am logical and clever and find nothing incompatible to harbouring a belief in god" ?.

So you agree that belief in god is irrational?

javarules:
There is no God and that is very true.

I wont try to prove otherwise.

I wont also beg anyone to accept the fact.

but why doesn't anyone reply to this Which is better, to live like there's a God, die and found out that you've been a fool. Or to live like there's no God, die and found out that there's really a God.

A beg forget that thing. There's God. It's simple that is why minds that are very learned can't accept that fact.

If you say I have a simple mind or that I am a fool, I agree, with a 2-1 B.Tech Certificate from a reknown state university in Nigeria, four contributions to open source software, several softwares to my credit(more still coming), recognition by Sun Microsystems and Netbeans, Working at a respectable Software company, a poetry award etc, If I have a simple mind, I guess I am OK.

You truly have some outstanding achievements. Congratulations!

I am curious as to how you come to know reliably that there is a god?

The value of philosophy

Written by Douglas Anele
Sunday, 25 May 2008

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8876&Itemid=71


FOR a long time in this country, there has been bias against the arts or humanities by successive administrations and by Nigerians in general. This bias manifests in various ways.

For example, many parents insist that their children should study the so-called professional courses like law, medicine, engineering, accountancy, banking and finance etc rather than subjects such as history, philosophy, the different Nigerian languages, and so on.

One of the reasons for this ignorant attitude to higher education is that some parents think it is prestigious to answer mama doctor, nna lawyer or papa engineer to boost their egos in the neighbourhood.

Also, the level of unemployment in the country today tends to force students to select courses which they feel give them greater opportunity for employment.

Nevertheless, in many instances, children are compelled to study courses for which they have little or no aptitude whatsoever. The result of this situation is that such students do not perform well in those courses, thereby creating
problems for themselves and their lecturers.

I know instances where third year students of either engineering or business administration earnestly beg for change of course to philosophy, perhaps because they could not cope with the level of numeracy required in those courses.

Secondly, the policy on education which stipulates that sixty present of admission into universities should be reserved for the sciences and science-based courses whereas the remaining forty percent should be for arts suggests that arts subjects are not as important as the sciences for the development of the individual and the society.

It is clear that the policy has failed to promote scientific development in Nigeria. Perhaps, some people think that scientific development can be achieved just by having more students enroll in science subjects and engineering. However, detailed studies of the history of the various sciences indicate that the route to scientific breakthrough is extraordinarily arduous.

It requires a combination of complex factors such as the right intellectual and cultural environment, institutional framework for the promotion and organization of science, adequate funding and availability of sufficient number of individuals devoted to seeking knowledge of objective reality for its own sake.

The last factor is the most elusive and yet the most important, because no one can guarantee that at any point in time in a society there would be sufficient number of men and women that have what Albert Einstein called “intellectual love of phenomena.” Several scholars have presented convincing arguments demonstrating the essential connection between the liberal arts and sciences. Discussing those arguments would considerably lengthen this essay.

Rather what I will do is to present and defend the view that the subject called philosophy is extremely important for the optimum development of the sciences, the human person and the society in general.

Now, since the evolution of human societies, mankind has faced two broad interrelated problems. The first problem concerns the mastery of natural forces, that is, the problem of acquiring knowledge and skill required for the production of tools and weapons. It also involves finding out ways of encouraging nature to produce useful plants and animals for human use.

Francis Bacon was the first philosopher who saw clearly the practical import of scientific technique as a mode of conquering nature by obeying it. Increasingly, this problem is dealt with by the various scientific and engineering disciplines.

To handle it effectively, it is absolutely necessary to train a significant number of experts in narrow scientific subjects. The second problem is about how humans can best utilize their knowledge of natural forces and phenomena.

A cluster of issues about the organization of society politically and economically rear up at this point. In most cases, the second problem is not completely amenable to the exactitude and experimental protocols of science.

According to Bertrand Russell, whose illuminating analysis forms the fulcrum of our discussion, the type of knowledge most suitable for handling the second class of problems can only be derived from a panoramic survey of human life, both past and present, and an appreciation of the source of misery or contentment as vouchsafed by history.

From history, we learn that improvement in skill and knowledge alone has never produced any increase in human happiness and well-being. Examples to prove this are legion.

When our remote ancestors invented agriculture, they used the knowledge to institute a brutal cult of human sacrifice. In our own epoch, scientific and technological creativity has led to the production of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and unheard of environmental degradation.

To deal with the second type of problem, then, something other than technical skill is needed, something which, loosely, might be called wisdom. Science, on its own, cannot give us wisdom. But humanity requires wisdom now more than ever before, because the accelerated growth of science and technology has rendered ancient habits of thought and action more unsatisfactory at this time than at any other time.

Etymologically, philosophy means “love of wisdom” and the genuine lover of wisdom is called a philosopher. It is philosophy in this sense that human beings world-wide should acquire if the increased power and control we have over nature would not lead to disaster. The philosophy we have in mind here is not the one that interests only specialists in philosophy, but one that has cultural value which can be incorporated as part of general education.

Most members of the public conflate the abstruse and abstract nature of philosophical discussion by specialists with aspects of philosophy that can contribute meaningfully to enlightenment and enrichment of culture.

Although in Nigeria, the National Universities Commission has stipulated courses in philosophy for all fresh undergraduates, the course content and general mode of teaching these courses in some universities, including the University of Lagos where I teach, leave much to be desired. I will discuss later what philosophy should, as part of general education offer those that study it.

However, it should be noted that philosophy, from its inception in remote antiquity, aimed both at a theoretical understanding of the universe and at proposing ethical paradigms for the good life. Philosophers such as Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, C.S. Momoh, J.I Omoregbe, Evelyn Fox Keller, Odera Oruka etc practiced philosophy this way. Thus, philosophy has been closely associated with science and religion. In its relation to science, philosophy has served as a touch-bearer or pathfinder.

The theories of planetary motion, evolution, and atoms etc. were first postulated by philosophers as speculative attempts to explain reality. But when these theories were verified empirically, they ceased to be philosophy and become parts of the corpus of scientific knowledge.

Therefore, as an adventure of the human mind per excellence, philosophy charts the uncharted domains of reality which are filled in later by scientists with verifiable and verified entities of all sorts.

There are two widespread dangerous attitudes which philosophy helps to curb. On the one hand, there are those who dogmatically believe in the omnipotence of science, to the extent that they forget the huge ignorance existing even in the face of our best scientific efforts to cognize reality.

On the other hand, there are a large number of people who uncritically downplay the achievements of science. Individuals in the first group tend to become overconfident and complacent, and visit with opprobrium attention to problems lacking the exactitude necessary for scientific solution.

People in the second group usually revert to some antiquated harmful mumbo-jumbo or superstition, and refuse to accept the incredible possibilities for human happiness which exist as a result of wise application of technology in handling human problems. Philosophy saves us from these intellectual maladies by encouraging us to critically examine the scope, power and limitations of scientific knowledge.

On the ethical side, philosophy, argues Russell, is premised on the belief that knowledge is good, even if what is known makes people uncomfortable. A person with philosophical temperament would love to know, and truly dislikes error. She or he would want to have ideas, theories and opinions that are as verisimilar as possible.

Written by Douglas Anele
Sunday, 01 June 2008
Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9263&Itemid=71

IN this connection, and echoing the view of Karl Popper, criticism, which is at the heart of philosophical reasoning, is essential in helping people attain truth.

It is only through criticism that we can examine those cherished beliefs which we find most painful to doubt. In this way, the acerbity associated with personal disagreements would lessen dramatically, a major gain for interpersonal relationships.

Ethical generality, either through abstract thinking or generalized emotion, is also one of the positive concomitants of philosophy.

The essential point of interest to note at this juncture is that we should learn to think in abstract terms in matters which involve us and those who we do not like, for one reason or another. We also need to cultivate, through philosophy, the ability to feel distant evils acutely.

Nowadays, in Nigeria and all the countries of the world, the frenetic hankering after money, power and material things has drastically reduced people’s concern with those purely theoretical questions which are of personal and passionate interest, and which science is unable to deal with satisfactorily at present.

Some of the questions are: Is there any sense in which human beings survive death, and if so, do we survive death temporarily or permanently? What is mind? What is matter? What is the relationship, if any, between the two? Is there a divine plan behind the universe, or is it the product of the blind operation of cause and effect?

What is man? Do humans have, perhaps, limited freedom of the will or are they completely determined by their biological make-up and environment? What is the ultimate fate of the universe and all its contents?

No one knows the correct answers to these and related questions, but human life would be impoverished if they are completely ignored, or if the proposed answers, such as those contained in religious texts or scripture, are accepted uncritically without adequate evidence.

It is one of the functions of philosophy to remind people of the significance of these questions, and to evaluate suggested answers.

Throughout human history, groups of people have dogmatically accepted views for which there is scant evidence.

There is a natural craving for certainty, and those who prefer quick and definite answers to the most troubling existential questions of life may scoff at philosophy, a discipline that reminds us how fallible we are, a study which seems to encourage what might be considered time-wasting occupation with tentative contemplation of insoluble problems.

The consequence is that mankind has remained divided into rival groups of fanatics; each group utterly convinced that its own version of hogwash is divinely inspired, whereas, the other side is satanic heresy.

Christians and muslims, communists and capitalistic imperialists, Israelis and Arabs, ethnic chauvinists and irredentists, etc., have, for more than two thousand years, fought in vain, when some philosophical knowledge would have demonstrated to everyone concerned that none had any good reason to believe that their opinion is right.

Dogmatism is a mortal enemy of peace and truth. In this country, we have heard northerners cry “Kill all the Igbo and Nigeria will witness unparalleled progress”. “Liquidate all the Christians and sharia law will reign supreme.”

“Exclude northerners from the top echelons of politics and the south will triumph.” Beyond Nigeria, we have the following: “Destroy the ‘axis of evil’ and America will be secure.” “Obliterate the Jews and the Arabs will be free.”

“Eliminate the Arabs, because their existence threatens Israel , the holy land”. These are some of the propaganda slogans that have been widely accepted in our time. But a moment’s reflection would show that these bloodthirsty views are untenable.

But, as long as people are not trained to suspend judgment when relevant evidence to an issue is unavailable, they would be misled by cocksure wicked prophets, and it is very likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest pretenders and hypocrites.

As a discipline, philosophy is supremely fitted for inculcating the virtues of skepticism, for dissipating the feeling of certainty. Beyond this, philosophy should teach the importance of acting on the basis of the best hypothesis available in any situation, without believing in that hypothesis dogmatically.

If a matter is one that requires empirical evidence, for example, it is best for you to look for the evidence yourself. When it is difficult or impossible to do so, you should appeal to the opinions of experts in the relevant fields, rather than cling fanatically to the views of your pastor, imam or elder.

Where the experts disagree, the best thing to do is to suspend judgment. Bear in mind that it is always wrong, everywhere at any time, to believe something without sufficient evidence. If the attitude of skepticism, which can be imbibed from philosophy, were to become more widespread world-wide, the paradise, which people dream of and which religious adherents hope to enjoy in heaven, would become a reality on earth.

Obviously, it is evident that a large number of men and women in human societies must devote considerable time and energy to acquiring the technical knowledge and skill needed to maintain our standard of living.

Nevertheless, as Russell argues, even in “the time that can easily be spared without injury to the learning of technical skills, philosophy can give certain things which will greatly increase the student’s value as a human being and as a citizen.”

A good number of Nigerians, either because of poverty, physical disability, or vicissitudes of life, lack essential self-confidence, thereby making themselves easy preys to scoundrels masquerading as “men and women of God.”

A little acquaintance with existentialist philosophy will dispel the illusion of being a sinner, or of being singled out by unknown cosmic forces to suffer, by showing that human existence on earth is fundamentally existential; that is, that human life only has meaning within the context of those challenges that individuals face and, eventually, overcome.

Philosophy can help those who study it acquire a habit of precise and careful thought, not only in the exact sciences and mathematics, but also in handling questions of large practical import.

Some of the throbbing questions raised above demand open-minded philosophical treatment which allows for the “weapon of criticism and the criticism of weapons”, so to speak.

It can give an objective impersonal scope to the conception of human nature and the proper purpose for living. In addition, philosophy can assist one to arrive at a level-headed measure of himself or herself in relation to society, of human beings in the present to those who lived in the past and those who will live in future, and of the whole history of man in relation to the astronomical universe.

By expanding the objects and horizon of thought for those who study it, philosophy, says Russell, “supplies an antidote to the anxieties and anguish of the present, and makes possible the nearest approach to serenity that is available to a sensible mind in our tortured and uncertain world”.

I conclude this essay with the tantalizing words of Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher: “Let no one, when young, delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul.” Those who have ears, let them hear!

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9263&Itemid=71

m_nwankwo:
People change their "convictions" every day. Theists become atheists, athesists become theists, christians become moslems or budhists and vice versa, and that is the reality for those who try to understand God with their brain. The brain and the human mind can only understand forms and since these forms change, it is not unusual that the change their "convictions". What the brain concieves as Truth today, the brain will see as false tomorrow and in ten years or so, it will see some aspects of truth in the same thing, then falsity, it goes on an on without an end. Neither theology nor science can explain God since both branches of human knowledge use brain as the instrument of investigation. To recognise God and experience his power, a scientist, an atheists, or a theist should work with a hypothesis that their are spiritual faculties required to recognise God. He or she should test that hypothesis and find out the truth or otherwise. God and his power has to be experienced, intellectual knowlege cannot open the door to the power of God. Therefore all attempts to recognise or prove the existence of God with all branches of human knowlege will prove a failure. The failure lies with choosing the wrong instrument for investigation (the brain). That probably what happened to the Professor you sited. The professor is quite a brilliant scientist and is well respected in the academic community here in Norway. All the time that he believed himself a christian, he has not reported one single personal experience of God and his power. A human being has to undergo thousands of personal encounter with the power of God to mature to the recognition of Truth. Only such experiences will give the individual a recognition of Truth, a recognition of God and his power, a conviction that cannot be suprised or deviated by the change of forms since such a human being can sense with his spiritual faculties the unchageable power to which the varied forms own their origin, their maintainance, their development, their death and their transformation. The power of God has to be experienced personally. Any person who do not have myriads of these experiences is not a christian even if he professes to be one. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A TRUE CHRISTIAN TO CONVERT TO ATHEISM.

Therefore all attempts to recognise or prove the existence of God with all branches of human knowlege will prove a failure. The failure lies with choosing the wrong instrument for investigation (the brain).

Neither theology nor science can explain God since both branches of human knowledge use brain as the instrument of investigation

All the time that he believed himself a christian, he has not reported one single personal experience of God and his power.

The power of God has to be experienced personally. Any person who do not have myriads of these experiences is not a christian even if he professes to be one.

Is this the standard by which one is a REAL christian? How do you know he has never reported a single personal experience of God. Are you in his regular company, in his mind? BTW, what is a personal experience of God? Are you saying that all the people today who claim to be Christians and have never reported a single personal experience of god are delusional?

Can you give some concrete examples of personal experience with god that you think warrants the claimant calling themselves as christian?

Is a TRUE CHRISTIAN someone who is well and truly thoroughly delusional and impervious to reason? The question is WHY does one convert? Are you persuaded by reason or by fear and mythology?

You are in the habit of making all these broad statements like;

"The brain and the human mind can only understand forms and since these forms change . . ."
"A human being has to undergo thousands of personal encounter with the power of God to mature to the recognition of Truth"

How do you come by these assertions?

What is your centre of cognition? Have humans got some kind of faith-organ unknown to us? By your standard, you can make up anything and pass it off as God's will, or God. There is no standard by which to verify. At least in conventional christianity, Christians will brandy the bible about as being the way way which to know god. You appear not to accept this one either.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A TRUE CHRISTIAN TO CONVERT TO ATHEISM

What would you say about someone who spent 20 or more years of their life evangelizing in the name of Jesus worldwide, speaking in tongues, healing, etc, etc. Then sees reason and de-converts. Here is a list of such people;


Charles Templeton (Former close colleague of Billy Graham)

Robert M. Price (Beyond Born Again)

Farrell Till (The skeptical review. http://www.theskepticalreview.com/AuthorFarrellTill1.html)

Joseph McCabe

John W Loftus ( Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains)

Dan Barker (Losing Faith in Faith)

Ed Babinski (Leaving the Fold)

Joe Holman

G Vincent Runyon

Ray Billington

Raymond Fontaine


BTW, can you name some REAL christians who meet your standard? Would Mother Teresa, for example feature in that list?

I await your response with bated breath

Oystein Elgaroy - the Christian defender who became an Atheist
by Even Gran

From fritanke.no, translated by Strappado

Taken from RichardDawkins.net(http://richarddawkins.net/article,2732,Oystein-Elgaroy----the-Christian-defender-who-became-an-Atheist,Even-Gran)

A short while ago professor of astrophysics Øystein Elgarøy was a profiled liberal Christian who defended his faith in articles and at debates. But then he discovered that he actually agreed more with his opponents.



The first time the undersigned got acquainted with Øystein Elgarøy was at a debate about faith and science at a pub in Oslo, autumn 2005.

Elgarøy sat there with all his ballast as a professor of astrophysics and assured the audience that there are no conflicts between his field of research and God's existence. On the contrary, what we know of the cosmos points to there in fact being a god, he thought. The arguments from the Atheists in the panel, among others professor of biology, Dag Hessen, bounced off.

A little later, in 2006, the book "Tro og vitenskap – sammenheng eller sammenstøt"("Faith and science – connection or conflict" was released by the Christian publisher Lunde Forlag. Elgarøy contributed here too, and there was no doubt that his answer to the title was "connection". (http://www.lundeforlag.no/bok.cfm?id=1496 )

– There is a beautiful symmetry and simple laws that govern nature. [, ] Where I see God's hand clearest is in the beauty of these laws of nature, said Elgarøy in the interview he gave together with the nun and astrophysicist Katrina Pajchel in the beginning of the book.

But all this happened before he one Sunday in January this year heard a debate between the Atheist Christopher Hitchens and the theologian Alister McGrath.

Most in agreement with the opponent
– Suddenly I realized that it was much easier to agree with Hitchens than with McGrath. To put it short, I agreed more with the person I should disagree with. I then realised that I had to take the consequence of this. I could no longer live on an illusion. You might say that this Sunday became a turning point of sorts, Elgarøy says to Fritanke.no

He says that this of course had matured within him for quite a while. The disappointment over the book "The Dawkins Delusion" by the same McGrath was one of the factors. In this book McGrath tries to rebut the Atheist Richard Dawkins' attack on faith in the book "The God Delusion".

– I read McGrath's book hoping to find some good answers to the challenges from Dawkins, but the book was a genuine disappointment. While reading it struck me that "is this really the best answer a theologian can come up with?" I don't think he came up with any good arguments. It was a surprisingly weak answer in many ways, says Elgarøy.

Irrational to believe without reason
He adds that even if both Dawkins and Hitchens are imprecise and may not come up with the most sophisticated arguments against religious faith, it's hard for Christians to come up with good answers to the main accusation that there's no empirical evidence for Christianity, or any other religion, being true.

– And that's not enough for me. As a scientist and astrophysicist I am used to rejecting hypotheses that don't cut it. That's what after a while made it hard for me to hold on to the hypothesis about God. I could not support it rationally, and realised in the end that I could not live with that there should be an exception for just this question. That's probably what I realised that Sunday in January, he says.

– So you're not an adherent to the widespread idea that religion and science are "two non-overlapping spheres"?

– I used to think so. But I can't really see any reason to believe that there's anything more than one reality. Religious allegations then becomes allegations about this one reality, and then they will also have to accept critical examination, as well as being rejected if they don't measure up.

– You say that you could not support the faith in God rationally. Are you saying that it is irrational to believe in God?

– Yes, I think so. It is irrational to hold on to something that simply is not the best explanation, and which has no empirical support. When one is examining the Christian notion of God, it just ends up as a fanciful idea, he says.

Elgarøy points out that there are so many other strange things too, that you're forced to accept if you want to be a Christian. A lot of stuff goes with it that makes it even harder to believe.

– Healing and miracles for example. As a scientist I can't believe that things like this happens now, and then it becomes difficult to believe that it might have happened 2000 years ago as well. Another problem is why one isn't instead a Muslim or Hindu. How can Christians say that they are right and the others are wrong, when they don't have any empirical evidence to build upon? When I was a Christian I could not come up with any good answers to this, he says.

The existence of evil was also something that bothered Elgarøy.

– There's so much going on in the world that is inconsistent with the existence of a benevolent and almighty god, and I think the Christian attempts to answer this are far-fetched and hapless, he says.



A relief to be spared from defending the faith
After a while Elgarøy realised that things fall better into place if the starting point is that there's no god, and that everything is created by humans.

– Reality and theory cohere better this way. If humans have created God and religions, and not the other way round, then it explains most of the paradoxes that Christians are struggling with today. As an example, it's not a problem that evil exists if everything around us is a result from natural processes that don't separate between good and evil. All the variations within and between religions, are no mystery either if your starting point is that only humans have created religions. But for a person with a Christian view of life, all of this is a great problem, he says.

– How did you react personally to the loss of faith?

– It was no sad experience. Absolutely not. It felt liberating. Suddenly I was free to use my energy on better things than defending self-contradictory religious dogmas and justify that I still called myself "Christian". It was a relief to let go of this, he says

He adds that he never really had any strong religious experiences as many other believers report they've had. Therefore, this has not been a loss for him either.

Article in "Kirke og kultur" started the process
Øystein Elgarøy grew up in a family that was active in "Den evangelisk-lutherske frikirke", and during his teens he was a rather conservative Christian.

– In the beginning I found all the answers I needed in the Bible, but as I grew older, and started to study, I realised that conservative Christianity did not measure up. I became more and more liberal, and in the end there wasn't much left other than that I "believed that there perhaps exists a god". And then it starts wearing a little thin, he says.

However, it's only a few years ago that he really got interested in the relationship between faith and science.

– Around 2004-2005 I was asked to write an article for the periodical "Kirke og kultur" ("Church and culture" about the relationship between Christian faith and my field of research, cosmology. Before this I merely separated faith and science into two spheres, and didn't think much more about it. But through the work with this article, I was forced to think about the borders for my field of research and my own faith. The work made me more aware of what one can really know. You might say that this article in Kirke og Kultur was the beginning of my departure from Christian faith, Elgarøy says.



Liberal Christian relativism becomes meaningless
Elgarøy doesn't fancy the liberal Christianity with an abstract concept of God and which says that whether God "exists in reality" really isn't that important.

– That's not enough for me. This relativism that the liberal Christians are up to is just nonsense. Whether or not there's a god, is an important question. That God exists "in the eye", "in the language" and "as a concept" there's no doubt about. But that's after all not what Christianity is about. The question is whether or not there exists a personal god that that has created everything we know. If one can't make oneself to believe in this concrete personal image of God, then one is not Christian, as I see it.

He can't do other than see this as an either/or question.

– Either one believes in this god, or one doesn't. Either Christianity is true, or it's untrue. There's nothing between, Elgarøy says.

– Do you think that liberal Christians' relativisation and abstraction of God is an attempt to make their own faith easier to defend?

– Yes, I think that's true for many of them. It was like this for me at least. I resorted to this strategy to escape from the notion of God that I after a while found more and more difficult to defend rationally, that is the belief in the really existing, personal, creation and conscious god. But one can't get around that this personal notion of God is of vital importance for the Christian faith, he says.

– Mankind is the only source of moral and ethics.
On the way out the astrophysicist is asked if he wants the latest paper version of Fri Tanke, that just arrived from the printers. But it's not needed, we learn.

– I probably get it in the mail. You see I just joined Human-Etisk Forbund, he says.

– What made you do it?

– It felt natural. It's very important for me that it's possible to have morality and ethics without God. Not even when I considered myself a Christian I based my morality and ethics in the Bible and the word of God. As I see it, it's only the ethics that starts with humans and human reason that holds water, he says.


Facts
Øystein Elgarøy (born 1972) is a professor in Astrophysics. He was only 27 years old when he did his Ph.D. a work he received H.M. the King's gold medal for. Elgarøy had by then published eleven scientific works. In 2004 he received Fridtjof Nansen's award for younger scientists.

In the 1990s Elgarøy was active in Norges Kristelige student– og skoleungdomslag, and has during the 2000s made a word for himself in the public as a defender of Christian faith.

Now he has abandoned the faith and joined Human-Etisk Forbund.(The Norwegian Humanist association)

mazaje:
The truth here means the purpose if existance and the true way to god i believe.

What is the purpose of existence then?

Are you really saying that a material inspired by god could have been lost? What sort of god is this?

Read the full report at http://www.uneca.org/eca_programmes/sdd/documents/Knowledge%20policies%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20in%20Africa.pdf

I have copied a select few paragraphs here:


In the African context, however, strong Evangelical and Islamic undercurrents with
enormous funds and power have been proliferating on the fertile grounds of poverty,
illiteracy, despair, innocence, credulity, trustfulness, anxieties and vulnerabilities. This
strong faith-based knowledge is changing the environment-economy equation. At the praxis
level, for instance, the islamization of knowledge has transformed the Sahel, the Magreb
and the Horn into massive pastoral grounds, with deforestation and soil erosion, aimed at
raising sheep for, among others, the celebration of Aid el Kebir. The human crises in the
heart of Christian Africa (Rwanda) and in the heart of Islamic Africa (Darfour) can also be
seen as environmental (eco-socio) crises. Page 12


7 Knowledge Demythologization and Remythologization

7.1 Scientific knowledge and scientific culture (knowledge de-deification


Mythologies hypnotize people, particularly early in childhood. They manipulate societies as
much as societies manipulate them. In Africa, mythological Gods - not scientific knowledge
- pervade African mindsets. These gods have the power of invading all areas of human life
(To a man with an empty stomach, food is God -Mahatma Gandhi). This is exemplified by
the following examples taken from the local press. A group of Imams in northern Nigeria
obstinately defends the idea that God commands all African men to grow beards in a certain
shape and a certain length. A young Mauritanian girl agrees with genital mutilation, veiling
and forced marriage ‘because god wants me to’. A preacher in Sudan explains the particular
way god wants wives to be beaten by their husbands. Still more telling is perhaps what is
not making news. Indeed, the African Christian mindscape, for example is full of truly
amazing weird winged anthropomorphic figures or humanoids such as phantoms, ghosts,
spirits, angels, archangels, guardian angels and devils. It is full of myths, such as divine
conceptions, immortality (pharaohs), after-lives, guiding stars, annunciations, miracles and
salvation – mythologies that predate Christianity.
These mythologies are kept alive with extensive rituals and celebrations. Mythological
indigenous knowledge, on the other hand, is filled with deities, spirits, superstitions,
fallacies, fictions, specters, phantasmagorias, chimeras, misconceptions, confabulations,
palavers, fantasies, and ancient cults, rituals and taboos. In many African languages the
word ‘god’, particularly in Islamic and Christian Africa, is continuously repeated throughout the day in salutations, enquiries, thanking, etc. Mythologies and superstitions are
by no means limited to Africa and to developing countries but African mythologies,
whether imported or home grown, are not helpful for bringing about a scientific culture and
is – under certain conditions - quite useless, if not counterproductive, to achieve sustainable
development. It is useless, for instance, for competing with China in low-tech industrial
goods, the main industrial competitor of Africa. There is an urgent need for de-deifying
African knowledge.

7.2 Faith-based knowledge lacks critical values (knowledge valuation)
Faith-based medieval (Middle Eastern) orthodox knowledge could also contribute more to
the sustainable development effort. This knowledge provides sound ethical bases for
development but these are largely incomplete and insufficient for sustainable development.
It profoundly influences the collective psyches, behaviors and development of many
Africans. Indeed, Evangelical24 and Qur’anic25 knowledge, for instance, promoted by
ubiquitous knowledge centers (churches and mosques), is amongst the most powerful ‘soft’
knowledge ever fashioned by humans and possibly the most influential knowledge
possessed by many Africans, who, in turn, are somewhat possessed by this knowledge. This
double possession may excessively focus many African minds and actions on speculative
knowledge for life-after-death (Wiredu, 1992) and on irrelevant and unproductive
knowledge for sustainable development. It is worth recalling that when Christianity
conquered the Roman Empire in the 3rd century it precipitated Western civilization into a
one-thousand years decline and when Islam conquered large parts of Africa in the 8th
century it kept them somewhat frozen, in many fundamental aspects, one thousand years in
the past.

To contribute more to sustainable development, this knowledge could evolve into more
efficient value-laden knowledge, such as democratic governance; fundamental freedoms;
gender equality and the full utilization of feminine talents, ingenuity and knowledge;
affection and care for nature; a concern for the future; superiority of scientific knowledge
over saintly scriptures; and a focus on life before death26 – all necessary conditions of
knowledge-enhanced sustainable development. Indeed, an emphasis on life before death and
an emphasis on relevant and reliable knowledge for sustainable development could save
millions of lives. Vigorously promoted by a pervasive and expanding physical and human
infrastructure27 - not exactly a fountain of fresh knowledge - this knowledge, in many
circumstances, constitutes a virtual owners’ manual for one’s life, especially for Africansof-
one-book (Hamel, 2004), which under certain conditions may not be conducive to
sustainable development. Page 24

Read this report to see one view of what confronts Nigeria and Africa as a whole:

http://www.uneca.org/eca_programmes/sdd/documents/Knowledge%20policies%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20in%20Africa.pdf

What TRUTHS do the religions possess?

joomiegal:
1. well, i scanned through some of your threads/posts in the religious section. my conclusion is that you are atheistic or woteva, and you start threads not because you really want information (u usually come off sounding like a made-up mind), but because you just want to needle a particular set of people (usually xtians), or just sit back and cynically watch what their replies will be. most times i wonder wot point it is your really trying to make.

for no1 above (truth about what), that would depend on your underlying motive for all what you are doing, spending so much time digging up stuff like that and posting them. and i cannot know for sure wot that is, i can only guess/assume. maybe the truth about God? His existence? are Christians correct? is the bible really the Word of God? Given the kind of atheistic, esoteric, and sometimes (don't get mad now, im not trying to diss) downright nonsensical kind of topics you start, only you can answer the question as to what truth your searching for, assuming your even searching for the truth at all. I don't know, only u can say, because i cannot see wots in your heart,

2. As for whether humans 'have a systematic methodology for discovering 'the truth', i wouldnt know.

3. As for discussion on what to believe, (you'll forgive me, but i have this tendency to be very blunt) frankly, im not going to involve myself in a long, drawn-out debate with you unless im sure you are really searching with your heart and not just cynically posting threads and replies with a closed, hardened heart. i would much rather pray for you. that's the starting point, plus its much more effective.

You are right! I do not have a god-belief nor do I think that he/she/it exists. I am also very critical of all forms of religions and superstitions. If any form of religion or superstition is intellectually coherent, it should be able to stand up to rigorous analysis. That is the tenor of my post on Nairaland. I intend no subterfuge and am upfront and forthright with my view. So feel free to throw the best you can at me; do not worry I am not offended. Discussion of ideologies do not offend me.

It is a constant refrain amongst the religious to talk of "the TRUTH". As is characteristic amongst the unthinking and uncritical religious folks, the meaning of this word (TRUTH) is taken for granted. However, when pressed to explain what they mean by TRUTH, I get the response I have just got from you: absolutely nothing.

If you cannot define and articulate what you claim to be searching for, how would you know when/whether you have found it? No wonder there are millions of religions, all claiming to possess the TRUTH. Are there many versions of the TRUTH?

All I asked was "What is the TRUTH you are talking about?" "The TRUTH about what?" Once we have identified the answers to these question, then we can talk about ways to getting at such TRUTHS.

If that is a problem, why not go have an "operation" to reverse it?

Any contributions on this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZmRoMMpjbs&feature=related

Enjoy

Just watch and marvel at the power of rationalism:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5ka-D5UMr0
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54

Enjoy

Jagoon:
@Huxley
It is this same man's proximity to distort the will of God that is making some "cults" highjack the truth as revealed by God in many ancient books that have now been highjacked by a few organizations which i refered to as "cults" It would suprise you that movements such as the resicusian amorc, free masons, eckankar and several other sects have there roots in the church especially the catholic church. It is these groups within the church that have highjacked several powerful secrets which God revealed to man in the ancient times and are using it for there own selfish ends. Of course to join these groups and gain the knowledge they have access to, you must take vows and engage in all sorts of rituals, all this is to ensure that their secret remains secret. You see the problem with most religions is Man himself, our religious leaders have manipulated the word of God to suit their whims and caprices and that is why there seems to be distortions here and there and a lot of question remain unanswered. Trust me the word of God is true the only problem is that what we have in circulation today as the bible is far from incomplete lots of other biblical books have been highjacked and that is why there iseems to be so many unanswered questions today.
I know you are a very logical Man, let me ask you one question the most intelligent people use less than ten percen of their brain capacity through out their life time (scientifically proven) (this also disproves the theory of evolution) why doyou think a man's brain is designed to be much more advanced than his requirement??

It is very difficult to have a conversation with you because you are in the habit of making claims without providing any supporting evidence. You have made claims about cults, highjacking of truths, god's word, human brain, evolution, etc, etc. For all I know, you opinions made just be local urban legends, which you have not put thru the rigor of intellectual analysis. Please, please, can you be more forthcoming with corroborating evidence?

kola oloye:
@ topic,
Redemption as in REDEMPTION. "If the Son shall set you free then you shall be free indeed".

The real christian boneheads who cannot speak without quoting dogma, are now coming on board. !!

italo:
christ is truth, if you're looking for truth beyond him, you're looking in vain and u`ll keep searching 4eva, trust mi

The real christian boneheads who cannot speak without quoting dogma, are now coming on board. !!

Jagoon:
Describing the methodolgy of my research here might be a bit cumbersome, but so far i have gained deeper understanding and discovered logical answers to previously unanswered or unexplained issues. These are truths you can identify with with and you can rationalize. In fact i can say a lot of things are beginning to fall into place. I can't say explain my self properly now because there is still a lot to learn ( you see the more i delve into this research the more i realise how little knowledge is available to us) I have discovered that a lot of things God revealed to Man are being monopolised by a few "cults" around the world. I can't rationalize the veracity of the research methods i am using now but one thing is for sure i know it is the truth i am discovering. Imagine you had a jigsaw puzzle when you fill in the right pieces and a clearer picture emerges, you know you are on the right path, that is why i believe the outcome of my research, but as i said i am still researching

Are you also questioning God's method of revealing his TRUTHS? Why would he prefer a method that would be hijacked and "monopolized" by some cults. Could he not have foreseen this in his omniscience and omnipotence. Is it not possible for him to redress the error he made to sort of the problem we have today with is method of communication with us?

Pastor AIO:
Facts are True, but not all Truth is fact! What is a fact? A fact is a done thing.

The word fact derives from the Latin Factum, and was first used in English with the same meaning: "a thing done or performed", a use that is now obsolete.[
From here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

Facts can only exist in history. That Croatia will win Euro 2008 is not a fact until it has happened. Facts are dependent on Time's process. They occur at some point in time. That water boils at 100 degrees celsius is not a fact until it has happened and when you have witnessed it happening then it becomes a fact. There are other facts that may not be witnessed but deduced from prior facts through various methods of conjecture.
Truth on the other hand is not limited to occurring temporally. Truths exist also in eternity. Eternity doesn't mean a long time but rather No Time. The existence of God is not a fact. It is a Truth. Another thing about facts is that they occur in time and have a span. All temporal things have a span. Everything that is a fact has a beginning also has an end. God has neither beginning or end.

The truth about water is the essence of water, the spiritual origin of water. No amount of facts about water is going to reveal this to you.

How does one go about discovering Truth? Was it you who said you were looking for a religion and I offered to help but you did not get back to me? you must be committed to the quest from the start. The quest for truth that is. I guess you were expecting me to present you with a doctrine which you could then pick apart and criticise. Well that was not what I was proposing for a religion. I was proposing a Practice which is a totally different proposition from a Doctrine. I can still suggest some practices for you if you are truly on a quest for Truth.

Current usage of the word FACT refers to items/events/material accepted at verifiably true "by the general consensus". For instance,

1) The earth is spherical
2) The earth revolves around the sun.
3) The earth rotates on its axis. On this basic one could say with great certainty that it is a fact that tomorrow will experience a period of darkness and a period of light, although tomorrow is yet to come.

That water boils at 100 degrees celsius is not a fact until it has happened and when you have witnessed it happening then it becomes a fact.

You are wrong in this. It is not the witnessing that makes it a fact. For instance, no one witness dinosaur walking the earth, but it is a fact that they did exist. Correctly specified with all the appropriate condition, you could say it is a fact that pure water (0% impurities) at atmosphere pressure, boils at 99.99899 degree celcius. A great deal of industrial processes are designed around this fact. If the boiling point of water was unknown, until it has boiled all of these processes would be unachievable.

Truth on the other hand is not limited to occurring temporally. Truths exist also in eternity. Eternity doesn't mean a long time but rather No Time. The existence of God is not a fact. It is a Truth. Another thing about facts is that they occur in time and have a span. All temporal things have a span. Everything that is a fact has a beginning also has an end. God has neither beginning or end.

Supposing I were to say, "The existence of fairies is not a fact, but a TRUTH", would that be correct?


Some facts have spatial and temporal elements but not all. For instance, it is a fact that ordinary water is composed of H2O. While this molecule may occupy space, this fact has no time on spacial component.

In the market place of ideas, every idea must be evaluated on its merit. I cannot commit to an idea before I know what it is about, Neither would you.

Pastor AIO:
These are not questions about Truth or truths but rather questions about Facts. The boiling point off water at standard atmospheric pressure is 100 degrees celsius. That is a FACT. Not a Truth.

Admittedly, these are facts about what, which incidentally if answered "correct" may reveal the truth about the nature of water.

BTW, what is your definition of TRUTH and how does it relate to human life? How does one go about uncovering such truths?

Jagoon:
Well we know that an adulterated version of tithing was smuggled back into the church in the year 586 AD at the council of bacon by the catholic church, it was essentialy introduced to assist the church raise money beos the church was growing then and revenues was not growing at a rate large enough to meet the demands of the church. It is a doctrine of Man mis-represented as the word of God, like so many other things in the church to day which is what is causing all the confusion.

@Huxley
Sincerely i do appreciate this your quest for true knowledge, i am actually almost convinced that you are not really an atheist but someone who religion has confused ( and if everyone wants to say the truth, religion can be very confusing) and you are actually seeking true knowledge, in that regard i can identify with you. But the difference is that i strongly beleive in God and i worship him in faith. There is too much evidence that God exists so i won''t even bother to go in to that topic now. i think the problem you have is that of "doctrine of Men" that as poluted most religions especially the christian faith. I suggest you get a copy of the book "DOCTRINE OF MEN" it is available @amazon.com or you can do a google search to read the preview of the book, it puts a lot of things into perspective and you would understand a lot of things better and Appreciate the bible as the true word of God better. The biggest problem we have with christianity today is the church, i am doing some research on this and would share my findings on nairaland when the time comes

Thanks for your contribution, but would be much oblige if you had expounded more on the questions above.

i am doing some research on this and would share my findings on nairaland when the time comes

In your research, how would you know when/whether you have arrived at the objective truth of the material you are researching? What methods of research would you use as a benchmark or guide?

Christians claim that the blood of JC did away with the old traditions as given in the Old Testament and that his blood essentially ushered in a new dispensation. That being so, which of the following OT traditions were washed away by the blood of JC?

1) Sacrifices (human and animals)
2) Other burnt offerings at the alter
3) Dietary laws
4) Cleanliness laws
5) Sexual relationships laws
6) Eye-4-eye laws
7) 10 Commandments
8-) Tithing
9) Scapegoating


Is there any systematic means for knowing which were done away with and which were not?

Are you searching for the TRUTH?


If this is your starting premise, then your next logical question should (or might) be "the TRUTH about what?" or "What kind of truth, assuming there may be several varieties of TRUTH?".

For instance, suppose I was searching for the truth about water. I may ask the following questions;

1) What is the boiling point of water at standard atmospheric pressure?
2) What is the chemical composition of water?
3) What substances are indissolvable in water?
4) Is the surface tension of water capable of supporting a human, an insert etc?
5) What is the refractive index of water?
etc, etc.

And a host of many questions about the physical nature of water. Of course, I could also ask non-naturalistic questions about water, such as the following;

1) Is it true that witches are loathe to cross a body of water?
2) Can water wash away quilt?
etc, etc.

But do these non-naturalistic questions make any real sense? Can they reveal any "truths" about the nature of water? How could one go about investigating the "truth" quality of these non-naturalistic question?


What sorts of "truths" do the main religions or theistic traditions address? Are these "truths" amenable to naturalistic and non-naturalistic questions? For instance,

1) Do the "truths" of the religions address the questions of human origins?
2) Do they address the question of the origin of the universe?


Further, of all the various religious claims, how does one distinguish and discriminate as to which possesses the "TRUTH"?

joomiegal:
@ huxley
ok, that explains it. your job sounds like fun, though. correct me if im wrong, but most christian nairalanders who are familiar with you will agree, that its like you spend all your NOT searching for the truth, but energetically trying to JUSTIFY your beliefs. I really, really wish you were honestly searching for the truth, for then you would find it, you would know it in your heart, it would be revealed to you and no one would be able to shake you from it, so, are you really searching, or your on a justification mission? if its justification your looking for, you will find loads and loads of it, people with crazy ideas and so called "research" to back it up, imagine, they've even given demon-possesion a name, "Multiple Personality disorder", that a person can have up to 50 personalities that manifest, with a change in voice, habits, food prefrences, even different prescriptions for reading glasses, and the 'host' will have no recollection of the manifestation time, its a blank in his mind, young children getting demonised because the united states implemented several curricular that says children have hidden potentials and need to discover their 'inner guides' to help them reach it, and so they practice eastern meditation and 'invite' these guides' into their minds, all in the name of helping them reach their potential, and, laff laff, there's research to back it all up, the list is endless.
Research is great, but don't put so much faith in it, any poor deluded soul can wake up one morning and start research backing his claims that eating your own poo will make you live longer.

havent you ever wondered why man is energetically trying to disprove the existence of God? everyone was born with a sense of right and wrong. some people spend all their lives trying to smother that in-built sense. they hate the idea of an unseen God looking over their shoulder. they hate the sense of 'guilt'.

Dont mind my story o, please just read wot im writing with an open mind, i don't know why my heart is so drawn to you. i agree with you, "religion" is bondage. BUT, real christianity is NOT a religion, its a way of life. I'm telling you huxley, when you SEE real christians, not church-goers or 'religious' people, u'll know its the real deal. the enemy has always been good at counterfeiting, hence the several, let me call them 'cults' that claim they are christian churches. The devil is smart, hey, he's several thousand years older than any of us. despite the fact that the early christians were being fed to lions, dropped in vats of hot oil, etc, the gospel only grew stronger. people were actually DYING for it, but it was growing faster than the devil believed was possible. He saw that head-on opposition wasnt working, so he did something very smart, he infiltrated them instead!! Enter the roman catholic church!! a bunch of pagans who made 'peace' with the christians, adopting their form of worship but still holding onto pagan practices, they still bow down and pray to statues till date in the name of praying to some saint to intercede for them, something God totally abhors(see Ex 20 verse 4).
And the roman catholic church was one of his greatest weapons against christians, annihilating millions of them in the great inquisition centuries ago. Even their highest bishops never SMELT a bible in their lives, anything the pope said was gospel, until God shone His light in the mind of Martin Luther, most of the early the early bible translators were matyred trying to translate the bible to common english and make it accessible to all-the devil was desperate to keep us in the darkness! im sure ure familiar with all this stufff.

My point is, any man, christian, a great one, budhist, who is TRULY SEARCHING for the truth, eventually finds it. so, mon ami, which is it? are you truly, truly searching with an open mind, or ure energetically trying to justify or deny the existence of God and his mercy? i don't need an answer, but its a question i think is worth asking yourself.

good luck, praying for you.

Thanks for posting back. I read with interest this post but got two main issues from the post;

1) Search for the truth
2) The question of what to belief

On the search for the truth, you have to ask yourself first, "the truth about what?". What is this truth you are searching for about?

Secondly, you have to ask yourself whether humans have a systematic methodology for discovering the "truth" you are seeking?


I would be much oblige if you could answer the above question. Once you have done that, then we could discuss item (2) above.