I concur with all of the above

Why your heavenly father is small without equal? Because he needs folks like you to big him up at every opportunity. If your heavenly dad is so big, he wouldn't be needing you to propagate his "bigness" so often. Your heavenly daddy is small fry, therefore.

You just shied away from my request. I asked you to describe how your lord physically look like and all you could come up with is useless preachings. Anyways, no worries. I did not expect you to come up with anything concrete. Cheers!

alexleo:

The best way to experience God is by having a personal encounter with him. The one that somebody told you doesnt sink well and can make you slide back into atheism as time goes on. A sincere prayer in your closet telling God that you want to feel him in your life, asking him to save your soul. If you pray with sincerity avoid this arrogant statemet about settles it. Cheers.

And you, sir. Has God made himself known to you? If that is the case, can you give us his physical description? Just the physical description and nothing more. We'd love to know how he looks like.

alexleo:

I pray God to make himself known to you and give you genuine salvation. Amen. Those who serve God for fear of hell are the ones who slide into atheism after some time. We talk about hell because its in the scripture not because want to scare anybody. I pray i ll see you testify about having this genuine salvation and making heaven at last.

Lord KRISHNA gets my praise today. Hare Rama, hare Krishna! Hare Krishna, hare Rama!

The name is Jagunlabi, mate.

Enigma: ^^ Do as it suits you, Jenw, erm jagunlabi.

The bible god has even bigger shortcomings than we human beings, so he has to be criticized also. Moreover, why would any sane person want to seek or be found by such a flawed deity?

Enigma: @cyrexx

One way is this: don't hold the shortcomings of us Christians against God; regard that as the shortcomings of weak human beings.

Challenge us, criticise us --- leave God out of it. You may even choose not to worry about him.

The funny thing is this: God Himself is looking for you and if you let Him, He will find you!

Nature is GOD, then. Agreed?

Martian:

You love this argument about nature's inability to do this,that or the other. Humans are nature, humans build huts, so nature has built countless huts. By saying nature can't do this or that, you are ignoring that you're a part of nature;and that is caused by your religious beliefs that your supernatural entity is reponsible for nature itelf.

Anyway, the ultimate reification is God because he's nothing but an abstraction of certain human qualities.

Especially at the side of the bible god.

FunmyKemmy: Satan is doomed forever.

All this one way you dey yarn na long tory. Your lord's attitude towards humans, according to the OT part of the bible, definitely changed for the better in the NT part of the same book. Either that, or the deity in the NT was different and of different, more benign and benevolent.

Telling us why your OT lord did what he did to humans in the OT bible is neither here nor there in this thread. The fact is, if the bible was talking about the same god - which i very much doubt - then "he", your lord, underwent a serious repentance and deliverance from his evil ways of old.

buzugee: same God, different convenant. the old testament is basically about the indigenous people of the earth. the indigenous people of the world and their laws statutes and commandments. those were pioneering times and to whom much is given, much is expected. they were given the laws ( psalms 147 vs 19 and 20 ) and ownership of the earth. they lived in a lap of luxury basically. however inspite of the luxury they went to worshipping baal and milcolm and molech. started sacrificing their babies. started sacrificing each other and started lynching and mutilating all the lords prophets who came to get them to change their ways. these people were BADAZZEZZZZZZZ. so the lord went HARD and HARSH on them. he removed his protection and allowed them to be taken into all manners of slavery and suffering and torture.

with the new testament, their was already the emergence of so many other races who were not israelites so God had to look for a way to get the laws to them too, seeing as the people who naturally should civilize them with the lords laws were themselves in a seriouslly fallen state. so the lord sent Jesus to die for the israelites so they can ressurect from their spiritual death, and then write the laws ( lord only deals with israelites to write his laws ) that will rope in the gentiles and israelites as one. however these gentiles are not jews ( israelites ) so it will be unfair to expect them to follow jewish laws of circumcision and ceremonial laws and traditional laws etc etc. so the new convenant that united both jews and gentiles got rid of all those jewish traditional and ceremonial laws. only the moral laws stand now. that in essence is why the new testament looks softer than the old testament

Rubbish, buzee. The god of OT belonged to the jewish people, not the whole world. He only operated within a specific region of the planet and that was the middle eastern desert regions. Why are you spreading untruths?

Nice rhyme, buddy.

I can assure you that Jesus was not referring to the sheeple of today with that quote, martian. But they use it on the sheeple, anyway.

Martian:

"Blessed are those who are persecuted in my name, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven".

Nigeria, as a nation, is doomed, isn't she? On whose agenda are these pastors working? That is the question. Our nation is being totally destroyed from within by these men of doom. I don't see the Nigerian nation ever recovering from this poisoning of the souls of Nigerians caught up in this scammery. And the worst of all is that we are yet to see the full consequences of the damage being perpetrated on this faithfuls as it affects the society at large.

Deep Sight:
I sit right now at the service for House on the Rock at Eko Hotel.

Please do not ask me what i am doing here. Its just business, nothing personal.

Pastor Paul Adefarasin is howling his lungs out. Whoever said this fella doesn't work hard for his money.

It has always intrigued me that the faithful do not readily see what a sham religion, and particularly the commercial brand of christianity, has become - particularly in Nigeria. It has always amazed me that simple logic will not faze the faithful. Now i am having a slight peak into the fact that the sheep are actually armed against logic by these 'Men of God'...

Here are some of the sound bites that the Pastor has REPEATEDLY drummed into the faithful today -

"Be prepared for the persecution of criticism and contrary opinions"

"Don't listen to the spritit of thosse who will criticize your faith and belief, dont listen to those opinions about our beliefs"

"Every body is entitled to their opinion. You are also entitled not to listen to their opinions"...

I am still here. Now i can see what goes thru the mind of the faithful when faced with logical arguments from atheists or other 'non-believers'... They are well coached to reject logic... The booming voice of the Pastor's encouragement must ring in their souls..."we are not to yield to the persecution of criticism... We should not listen to those opinions...we are entitled not to listen to their critical views....

Amen...

Ayomivic, do you even realize that the bible god himself is a PAGAN deity?

Complete nonsense. Your fear of everything is a sin.

Divepen: 1.it is a sin
2.it cause sin
many people will tell me it is in the bible that we should be fruitful and multiplied but remember that they who cause men to sin have a greater sin watch what you do

Oh shut up, frosbel! As if your christianity is not the product/child of paganism. While i agree that there are too much derailing of threads with strict christian topics going on, do christians themselves stay away from threads with non-christian topics like atheism? No, they don't is the answer. So why the moaning and whinning?

Pragmatic solution is to indicate, in the thread titles, which audience a thread is directed at. If a thread is directed at christians only, then indicate it in the title thus, CHRISTIANS ONLY - THREAD TITLE. Simples. That way, there is no doubt about who is being invited to participate in the thread at first glance.

But, should the topic of the thread itself contain references to non-christians, then the thread should automatically lose it's "christian only" status and becomes open to contributions from all non-christians. That is to say, therefore, that the contents of threads matter too.

If you christians want to keep non-christians away from your threads, then avoid including non-christian elements in your OP and in the thread itself. Failure to do that would bring non-christians into the thread, naturally.

frosbel: Appears to be the case in my opinion.

Heretics who do not have the Spirit of God joining hands with the atheists to blaspheme the name of the Lord on a daily basis.

You open an article for Christian discussions , they jump in and deface it.

We need some controls in place to delete all spam comments on this board .

May God have mercy on them I say !!!

No, it is not.

aliya247: You may already know that old testament predicted Christ's first coming, but did you know there are five times as many prophecies concerning his second coming? Twenty reasons for believing that the Rapture and Tribulation could occur during our generation. You'll be amazed as you learn ours is the first generation that has the technology and opportunity to unquely fulfill the many prophecies of Revelation.

So, where is the freedom of choice, then? Why give the choices when they are only two in number? It is like living in a tyrannical country in which the tyrant leader demands that the entire populace either do his will or face incarceration.

If you, alexleo, enjoy living under a tyrant, even if "he" is a celestial one, there are a whole lot of other folks on this planet who don't, and that includes myself.

alexleo: ]

They are not the same. In your example you lose either ways but in God's case you choose him and you gain or reject him and lose. Its just like a son who rejected his father and declared another person to be his father. He stops answering his father's name and changed it with the other man's name. By so doing he has no moral right to inherit any of his father's wealth. When you choose to live a life or sin you simply becomes of the devil and has no moral right to inherit God's kingdom. You cant be working for union bank and be earning salary from First Bank.

SEUN!!!! Give them their own forum, dammit!!! Does your life has to be threatened before you do what is needed? Give them their own section and be done with it. We don't want them in here, anyway. JUST DO IT!

Odunnu: I have quietly observed the happenings in this section and to say i'm saddened each time I come here is an understatement. I really dont know how to express it without mentioning names stepping on toes and starting a fight. The bottomline is that I want an exclusively Christian section where I can express my faith online, with an equally christian Moderator.
Please attend to this humble request, as I dont make too much demands.

Every living being, cloned or not, have their own soul. Without a soul, a living being, cloned or not, cannot interact with the physical world.

And Souls cannot be shared.

Logic Mind:
The question is, will the cloned human have its own soul or will it share the soul of the "parent"?

Drama queen, you. I know you have a whole lot of enemies, especially in your head.

acfrancisc: if your enemy is attacking you spiritual and you don't know want to do about it, here is a solution prayer to help you, if you want to send it back to the person ,i we tell you how to do it. if you have be looking for job and you are disappointed any where you go,this prayer we help you. if you need it here is my email address (acfrancisc@yahoo.com)

How do you expect those of us who are still living to know the answer to this question? Abeg, ask kweshion wey we fit answer jo.

Dondav: People often console themselves with words like " he/she is in a better place"..
But what really happens after one dies? Where do they go? What's next?

Yes, it does. In many cases, religion can even override conscience to make man do evil things that he would normally not do. As the saying goes, a good man does good deeds, evil man do evil deeds, but it takes a religion to make a good man do evil deeds.

Mr_Anony:

If I understand what you are saying, you are telling me that conscience transcends religion

No, i was not. Karma does augment the golden rule, though.

Mr_Anony:

I believe you were not refering to karma when you spoke of the golden rule.

Quite on the contrary, bro. To override the conscience to enable you do what you would not normally do, you need God or religion. Example of this is religious terrorism. God instructed me to do it, so i did it. Once God is involved as the initiator of a terrible action, conscience is flushed down the toilet. You are obeying the most high, right, so why listen to your conscience? Of what significance is a conscience when you are obeying the most high? None whatsoever. Can you see the danger?

Mr_Anony:
Notice that I am not saying that some people have a conscience while others don't, rather what i am saying is that everyone has a conscience but to obey your conscience you need God

Or, the law and the prophecies according to Jesus are the summary of the golden rule. Golden rule has been around much much much longer than Jesus laws and prophecies so it is only logical to think that Jesus based his laws and teachings on an already existing golden rule.

Mr_Anony:
especially in christianity since the golden rule you have quoted incidentally happens to be the summary of the law and the prophets according to Jesus Christ).

This is most untrue. Quite on the contrary, like i already mentioned, with a deity it is very easy to ignore the conscience (see religious terrorists) even though it is telling you that what you are dong or about to do is wrong. God is greater than any conscience, right? And the reward for obeying your God is everlasting reward in heaven, no?

Mr_Anony:
Without a diety, you might as well ignore your conscience even though it pricks you because there will be no need to obey your conscience or do what is right since there is no fear of punishment or hope reward.

gulfer: Just curious about this!

Mango.

Send him an email to ask whether he has received your prayer. Can't be any easier than that.

Okay. That is your own belief and not others, in this case, atheists. They believe that conscience comes from going against the golden rule, "do not unto others what you don't like done unto you". The so-called social contract. Going against this rule is enough to generate the so-called conscience, because one knows automatically that one has done something wrong by going against the golden rule. If you don't want your wife to be ra.ped by others, for example, you don't go and ra.e the wife of another. Social contract. If you do, your conscience will be pricking you that you have done something evil. Just the fact that you do not want the same done to you is enough deterrent.

We all operate by this rule. Now, whatever you wish to call the golden rule is your personal thing. Believing in a deity is not needed here. Man should be able to do this by himself.

Your theory about lack of believing in a deity result in hedonism is totally false, in my view. What if that deity in which you believe in, is itself, evil? Does that affect your conscience?

Mr_Anony:
I believe that man's conscience is God's law within us by which we are judged and can judge good and evil. It is because I can relate my conscience to pleasing/displeasing God that I do good and keep away from evil. If I say that God does not exist, then there will be no need to adhere to my conscience since I can't possibly displease someone who doesn't exist. All I am left with is whatever makes me happy and whatever I can get away with(hedonism and legality)

Well, that should show you that the matter of conscience goes way beyond the parameters that you have set here.

Mr_Anony: You know funny enough, a lot of theists explain their faith just like that (bolded)

This claim of yours i disagree with, totally. A creator should carry a certain amount of moral responsibility to his creations or else credibility will be lost in the eyes of the creations, especially if this creator is trying to be the focal point of morals. He shouldn't and is not free to do whatever he/she/it/they wishes with what is created just because he/she/it/they is the creator. This is a very dangerous way of thinking that leads to nowhere but tyranny.[quote author=Mr_Anony]
As for the analogy of the teacups, the point is that a creator is fully justified and is not evil for destroying his own creation considering that it was his in the first place. . . . . . and no it is not against my conscience to compare human beings with teacups; please don't try to guilt-trip me over figurative speech, I'm sure you are better than that.

Heaven forbid!

solidbroda: Are u a pastor? lol

solidbroda: their is nothing as spiritually nourishing than donating to the needy. churches should apply for charity if they need money instead of fraudulently brainwashing people to part away with their money.

Good for you, bro. The pastors won't like that, though. You are giving the cash that should be going into their wallet to the "worthless" needies? How dare you? You want to ruin them?

And why do you have to believe in a deity to have a conscience? That, i don't get. Explain the mechanism of that first. I know a lot of atheists who have serious conscience without having to believe in any deity. And, at the same time, i know a lot of believers of some deity or the other whose actions or deeds and thought processes show that they have absolutely no conscience whatsoever.

Note that most atheists (at least the ones on this forum) come from established religions like christianity, so you cannot leave this fact out. When you say "GOD", which one are you referring to, then?

I have never thought it necessary to know where my conscience comes from. I just know it is there and i respect it, very much. Which is why i left religion in the first place.

It means you are nuts if you do that, bro, not evil. But what exactly does this question got to do with the bible god? Are you comparing human beings with tea cups? Is it not against your conscience to compare humans with tea cups?

Mr_Anony: Notice, I purposely didn't mention God of the bible. Have you ever wondered where your conscience come from?
As for question 2. If I made a hundred teacups and broke them all, does that make me evil?