₦airaland Forum

superhumanist:
I see the problem. Lagos.

I work around Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun (although it might change soon).

Lagos is very developed compared to these other states. You can't try to be bold with your atheism in somewhere like Osun or Oyo.

Lagos is not the problem. I live in Enugu and i have all my life.

superhumanist:
If it was only my experience to go on, I would be wrong. Your experience too could be wrong/subjective as well.


There are two other objective measures we can use

1. Right here on nairaland, how do christians respond to atheism? Is it with open arms or with hostility?

Another wrong approach, christians on nairaland is simply but a fraction of the lot and does not in any way mirror the expected reaction likelihood from Christians within your circle offline.

2. We can use another religious country- The USA. As developed as it is, we can see how many cases of discrimination against atheist arise.

Furthermore on the issue of "atheist experience" in the USA, you cannot be an atheist and be a president in the USA. There are polls showing that atheists are one of the least trusted people in the country.

So, oga, I have precedent to back my assertions. What do you have to back up your experience?

We can as well put into consideration other factors which include; the way one exhibits one's atheism? as Budaatum suggested and everyone knows just how verbally aggressive such movements are in the United States per say.

So at the end of the day, you are still incorrect in your submission, it is not as linear as you'd have us believe.

- Not every christian reacts with hostility to atheism
- Not every atheist is a condescending prick with attitude issues towards religious folks

There are several variables that contribute to reactions either way it leans.

And at the end point of it, your experience does not define mine neither can it be used as a benchmark to measure mine.

Stop imposing your own problems on others. I am an atheist and i am quite open about it when asked, i discuss and argue when necessary and everyone in my circle, family, friend, girl friend, peers are all christians and i do not have one flying ounce of problem with them neither do they based on the polarity of our beliefs.

Martinez19:
@ johnydon22, let's not fault superhumanist, he might have had many consistent experiences with christians to come to that conclusion.

At the same time he has to step out of his shell and understand his experience does not hold true for everyone else or everywhere else. it just a depiction of his own little world. Everyone else might as well reach an approximation through their own personal experience in other words, i'd say that christians are mostly curious about atheism which being my experience does not hold true for everyone else.

such self-absolved assumption is not only flawed but dangerous.

We all do not respond to certain things the same way, my approach with my atheism is different from that of everyone else and maybe i do not find myself in antagonize situations because

1. None have a leverage over me
2. the caliber of people i deal with
3. My attitude when demonstrating the points of my atheism.

I have lived a little more than a quarter century on earth, i have been an atheist for many years, nobody have ever attacked me physically based on this knowledge, no one has ever denied me opportunities due to me based on this knowledge too. I know when and when it is necessary to argue. I don't jump into a hostile environment and feel it is a form of moral charter to throw my atheism about.

Nevertheless, to be safe I would follow the advice of superhumanist.

Which is exactly the first point i made in this post.

remember these

johnydon22:
If you feel your revelation might be detrimental to your progress or welfare in school or prospective job.

I don't see the importance of such revelation

johnydon22:
Why exactly is it important for the lecturer to know you are an atheist?

johnydon22:
Sometimes I feel that some outspokenness are misplaced and unnecessary.

If there is ethnic tension in Nigeria and I'm Igbo living in the North, I won't be so quick to let anyone know I'm Igbo

budaatum:
That's a rather bold statement Super. Doesn't it depend on the sort of Christians one meets, and the way one exhibits one's atheism?

I think Superhumanist 's experience is a benchmark to measure every other ...

superhumanist:
Yes. But you like talking with two sides of your mouth. Let me analyse your comment below



Either you are delusional with your success or you are lying.

Bro, I am independent as well. However, religion is a madness of its own. There are people who will beg you for money and still advice you to stop your satanic ways so that you can give your life to Christ.

Even at work, people will use style to bring you to their church. Virtually every office on Nigeria has at least two "Deeply born agains" that will worry for your soul.


I remember one of my bosses who chopped blasting from the managing partner because he was unavailable due to Friday prayers at the mosque.

Obama was called an anti-christ just because he wasn't a serious Christian (or they suspected him to be a secret atheist)


In short, most Nigerian Christians do not respond with curiousity when they face an atheist (especially for the first time). This means that I am saying that you are lying when you claim that your family and friends respond with curiousity to your atheism.

The initial response is that they think

-you are joking
-you are mad
-you don join cult
-you don become Satanist.


The above is far more popular as responses than curiousity. Or maybe you are thinking that their questions are not sarcastic.

So in other words, your experience must mirror mine or else i am lying or delusional?

great.

superhumanist:
Martinez19,

IF YOU ARE IN NIGERIA, KEEP YOUR ATHEISM CLOSE TO YOURSELF.

The only exception to this rule is when you are financially independent. You have money to support yourself and so, no religious fool can touch you.


Please, do not listen to Johnydon22. Even though the guy makes sense most of the time, he likes to behave like Martin Luther King thinking that his oppressors will change if you are nice and open with them.

The average Nigerian is religiously crazy. You are in a nation of crazy religious people and you think they will act normally to your rejection of their religion?


Oga, quietly study and make your money. Forget exposing yourself to dangerous people.


I have experience working in different companies across southern Nigeria and soon I will open a diary on it so that people will know where I am coming from

Aren't the bolded exactly what I said bro?

azraeljaheel:
True that.... But fact is the whole thing is confusing...

Someone just said now that in heaven we'd all be zombies acting upon God's will... Also meaning freewill taken from us....



Religion is just complex trying to fathom it would make a soul run mad



Thanks for the insight tho

That makes heaven undesirable. And the whole idea of heaven is in its desirability.

If its not desirable, it defeats the point of heaven and actually suggests heaven to be the opposite of what people may think

If there will be freewill in heaven then heaven won't be any different from a fallen earth.

Take an instance from how the whole story started.

God created a perfect world then due to man's freewill he made the wrong choice and because of this, God damns everything and its no longer a perfect world.

Take a hint from the story of Lucifer who conspired against God in heaven.

This can only mean that Lucifer was acting on freewill therefore suggests freewill in heaven.


If at the end of the day humans have freewill in heaven, one of the entails of freewill is that there is no specific knowledge on what choice must be, it can lean either way.

So what is to say that humans won't make wrong choices in heaven while exercising their freewill which will eventually cause the damnation of heavenly purity just like earth?

And the whole show repeats itself.

What's to say that there won't be another revolt or coup to usurp God leading to another heavenly civil war?..

But if there is no freewill in heaven, how can it really be bliss?

Look at it this way; if there is such a thing as a perfect world and a perfect God with the ability to create a perfect world and wants you to be in such a world, you would have been there already. The whole doctrine of uncalled test to earn that perfect world is both unnecessary and nonsensical

I'm here!!!

OLAADEGBU:
Get an afterlife!

Nope. I'm ok with this

CAPSLOCKED:

MAYBE THAT'S WHY THEY'VE NOT BEEN TELLING YOU ALL THE TRASH THEY HAVE IN THEIR MINDS ABOUT YOU.

Maybe or maybe not.

OLAADEGBU:
Why is it cool?

Cus its cool. Die at 90 or 94, what's the issue?

its cool either way

bloodofthelamb:
Atheism and hypocrisy are five and six. If you can't die for what you believe in, you ain't living.

1. What is so special about dying for what you believe in?

2. Your quote is quite the reverse. If you can and want to die for what you believe in, then you are just living to believe.

3. Dying for what you believe in? Well atheism lacks belief. Is that a surprise?

CAPSLOCKED:

HOW HAVE YOU MANAGED TO KEEP ALL THESE PEOPLE CLOSE?
I MEAN, THEY ALL START TO THINK YOU'RE ABNORMAL THE MINUTE THEY DISCOVER YOU'RE DIFFERENT.
HOW HAVE YOU MANAGED TO LET THEM KNOW THAT FREETHINKING IS NOT INSANITY?

Amazingly they don't automatically assume I was insane. The first hint I notice is curiosity.

You don't believe in God? Wow. How come?

Why?

What do you believe in?

I take time to explain, try to sate their curiosity the best way I can.

They don't lose their respect or love for me. They somehow develop a different kind of admiration and respect.

Maybe because no one really have any leverage on me.

Martinez19:
I never meant one would reveal one's atheism to the lecturer instead I was referring to the event where one is out spoken and the lecturer gets to hear.

Sometimes I feel that some outspokenness are misplaced and unnecessary.

If there is ethnic tension in Nigeria and I'm Igbo living in the North, I won't be so quick to let anyone know I'm Igbo

Martinez19:
Career-wise, has the revelation of your atheism been detrimental?

Nope. There have been no way my atheism have ever being detrimental to my progress or wellbeing.

I'm quite independent financially.

For my social life, I have been quite open about my unbelief when asked.

Almost everyone who knows me, family, friends, girl friend, peers. Knows I'm an atheist.

Martinez19:
I know but some people do deprive others of their right and get away with it. I such a case, there is nothing one can do eg. If a lecturer purposely fail you here in Nigeria, there is nothing you can do.

Why exactly is it important for the lecturer to know you are an atheist?

Martinez19:
Is it right and safe to reveal the fact that you are an atheist especially if you are student on campus or looking for job? I feel that as a student, staffs in the university might want to put you in a difficult position(reduce your mark, increase your carry overs or extend the duration of your post graduate programme) so that you can be frustrated and "see that without god, you can't be anything in life". During job interviews, it seems that selection is influenced by religious bias ie. A religious boss favours a religious candidate.

General it seems when you are atheist and outspoken about it and you are doing well in life, religious people that you are better than (especially those who are destitute and can only dream of what you have) seem to want you downfall or would try to bring your downfall - - - - all to prove life would be hard without god.

So is it right to reveal your atheism when you are a student on campus or when you have a religious supervisor in your doctorate programme ? Is it right when job hunting? In fact when and in what scenario should one keep a low profile about one's atheism?

If you feel your revelation might be detrimental to your progress or welfare in school or prospective job.

I don't see the importance of such revelation

zzzzy:
we can't know, by the way God has no beginning and no end. He's outside of time.

In your own words explain to me what it means to have no beginning nor end.

And what it means to be outside time ..

Gggg102:
this does not make any sense.

unicorns/fairies don't exist, yet they are in our consciousness.

logical contradictions don't exists yet it is in our consciousness.
I'm thinking of a square circle now.
...

the imagination brings about all these things even when they don't exist.

The guy is plain arss retarde_d. It beats me how someone can misunderstand even the simplest premise or say so much nonsense with confidence.

I've always ignored him. There is a limit to the kind of fuckery someone can endure.

I wanted to ignore you as usual but the reply was cringe worthy and the amount of naivety crumpled into one post with so much confidence was just too much to bear.

Butterflyleo:
Your entire thread and question is a non sequitor.

I am not sure you know what non sequitur means and when this fallacy of ambiguity is committed. My OP was the original premise of this thread and a premise cannot be non sequitur to itself.

It may be argued that a premise commits the fallacy of begging the question, false equivalency, ad hoc and many others but a premise is never non sequitur to itself.

Understand how a word is used before applying it.

How can you be asking ATHEISTS what they would consider as evidence for Gods existence?

Have you forgotten what atheism is?

Felixomor understood the thread and went on to bring out his submission.

Atheist lacks belief in God and on this ground of non-belief only evidence of subject can be sufficient to nullify disbelief. I know what Atheism is much more than you do or ever will.

There is a sun, everyone knows this, nobody disbelieves the existence of the sun. Why? because the sun is evidential, it is not on the purview of belief, it is on the purview of stiff certainty.

Some people believe in God.
Others don't.

Why?
Because of lack of such stiff evidence to convince them otherwise.

There a question on what such of evidence is needed is not only valid but necessary.

I don't understand how this could elude someone. Its quite elementary.

It is because of unbelief that proof is necessary.

So if atheists declare that absolutely no deities exist and God is a deity then where would evidence for a non existent deity come from? Shouldn't such evidence also be non existent?

There is a hypothesis mostly peddled by conspiracy theorists about an extra planet, the size of uranus called Planet X.
The scientific community and every sane human disbelief the existence of this hypothetical planet X because this hypothesis lacks suggestive evidences to its merit.

So the unbelief of the scientific community about planet X is based on the lack of evidence of planet X.

If you ask what sort of evidence is required, the answer is:

- gravitational perturbation on the orbit of Pluto and neptune due to gravitation interference expected from a body as large as the supposed planet X
- Behavior of transneptunian objects suggesting presence of a sufficient gravitational source.

This is same premise this thread is derived.

An atheist disbelieves the existence of God(s) on the basis of lack of evidence;

The question then says;

What sort of evidence do you need to validate the suggestion of God?

Felixomor please wasn't this as straight as it should be?

I'm really tired of dealing with moro_ns. I hate sounding condenscending and campaign against the use of insults but dammn, people can just take the bar too low to deal with.

This thread is an embarrassment to logic.

When opening this thread i did not think i'd have to explain to someone why the question is not only valid but necessary, the thread was self-explanatory.

I do not know how you see or read your own words or your own application of logic but one thing is certain, your application of logic is upside down.

I will go back to ignoring you now until i am convinced that reason and perception is in coincide with original argumentative premises.

Faust77:
sadly yes...I just can imagine my parents reaction when they discover I don't believe in religion and sky daddies

I don't see how it is necessary for them to have that information then

UserX18:
If there’s a design, that means someone created the design,

No it doesn't.

- How do you recognize a design that requires a designer

- How do you ascribe design in patterns as designs by reason?

- What is designed?

- How can this designed be judged or derived?

and from the passing of time, the carnal man has not been able to prove so many things correctly, and does not fully understand some things,

fallacy of Argumentum ad ignoratum.

This argument only makes God a replacement for ignorance

this means the creator the designer, must be a supreme being, whose knowledge surpasses without limit the knowledge and wisdom of carnal men.

Another flawed conclusion.

Not being able to understand something does not connote the originator is supreme (assuming there is an originator)

I do not understand engines in vehicles do not make engine designers supreme beings.

It simply means you don't understand it yet

Martinez19:
Yes, I would agree with you and johnydon22 here.

The word design is used in many ways and not all of these instances means a design that requires to be designed.

We refer to symmetry or patterns as design.

But people most often apply anthropomorphic meaning.

Take for instance when we use instances like "The river wants to go down hill"

These makes the downhill flow of the river as some form of deliberate effect by the river and not a strict effect of the laws of physics"

So I think the teleogical argument is from our anthromophic descriptions most often, often mistaking "reason" as in "how" for reason as in "why"

UserX18:
Every reasonable person can perceive all around, that everything we see today is actually of a design, because we ourselves have made designs from what we see, or from our imaginations.

Flawed argument.

You are basing your premise on assumptions that humans are designed therefore see design in everything.

- It is not established that humans are designed
- Designing things from other inspirations does not mean the inspiring piece is designed - Pos hoc.
- Seeing patterns is different from purposeful design - Fallacy of false equivalence.
-There is no relationship between seeing design and being designed or vise versa - you must demonstrate from whence the conclusion is derived.

Conclusions have been drawn even from the “greatest scientists” that these are designs..

Also Please give me an example of a design without a designer.

Snow flake

Design in definition used a decorative pattern

Note: if there is no designer, how did it become a design on its own..

Through natural process.

Snow formation is a common knowledge

Please reason, and give proofs and facts for your reason. (Give what you’re basing your reasons on)

Up there

I will be waiting for you to substantiate the quality of design (one that requires a designer) your argument up there is quite based on a false premise.

Martinez19:
The is no design without a designer. The question is who or what is the designer?

The first question should be to substantiate the actuality of design.

And yes there can be design without designer.

Evangkatsoulis:
I have nothing that would be sufficient proof/evidence to me that God exists.

When you demand for evidence in an argument yoi actually have nothing in mind?

Gggg102:
an interventionist god intervening in an unambiguos manner.

Alright that makes sense.

Example of such intervention?

But I'm kind of more concerned towards a cosmological conception of God.

Like per say, a creator God.

If God is an inclusion in the cosmos, what are the sort of things we may expect for a created universe or maybe contrast that with our conception of what an uncreated world should be like?

felixomor:
I have actually asked this question you are asking before
And finally, I found out there is no type of evidence that can convince a man on the existence of God.

As long as it remains on the purview of faith, this is correct.

For example,
Even if God appears in person to an atheist,
He can say to himself out of pride; "its a hallucination"
And that's it.

Even if he doesn't take it as a hallucination, how can he reach a conclusion that this apparition is indeed God?

Likewise the other way round,
No type of physical evidence can convince a man who has spiritual conviction of God.

This is what I have come to believe

So to you God remains a matter of stoic conviction.

I on the other is trying to see if there are things that can objectively be expected in a cosmos that God is necessary.

Take for instance: The big bang theory predicted a uniformed universe at every side, research was put out and this was confirmed.

Predicted the cosmic background radiation, confirmed objectively.

The observations of this predictions gives the theory a trustable merit in its explanation of what is, how the universe began.

My question basically is: If God is an inclusion in the cosmos, what are the sort of things we may expect for a created universe or maybe contrast that with our conception of what an uncreated world should be like.

tartar9:
Supernatural events,in my view,do not definitely prove the existence of God,and I certainly do not see how hearing a voice banging from the skies addressing all humans would change that perception;to me it only proves the existence of the supernatural and ends here.This remains same whether these occurrences are limitations of our current scientific understanding or what science would never profer an explanation to.

It won't be inordinate imagining a scenario where we have a supernatural realm and supernatural beings with this question of the existence of God being much of a conundrum to them as it has been to us.

Amazing response.

I wonder why there are no theists on this thread..

Martinez19:
There is no unshakeble, irrefutable and sound logical pathway from the observational reality you mentioned to Amadioha ie. there is nothing about the thunder, lightening and the concept of justice & vengeance that CONCLUSIVELY tells me that Amadioha, as described, exists. And your connection isn't not unshakeable if I ask if Amadioha can invoke thunder at any given and to any target (eg. hopefulLandlord ) to show that he is indeed the god of thunder.

Well you'd have to assume Amadioha wants to zap anybody with thunder

It takes a leap of faith and is a non sequitur to say the following :
1) thunder and lighting exists.
2) we have a concept of justice and vengeance.
3) given (1) & (2), amadioha exists.

3 comes before 1 and 2.

More like, Humanity exist because Big Bang.

It's like saying Francis Collins is correct to be a christian. We all know why he became a christian. Is your step 2 conclusive and consistent with the idea that amadioha confers justice and vengeance or is that the supposed vengeance is a coincidence which could have happened anyway given that some oppressors of amadioha worshippers go on to lead successful lives?

I don't understand this one