₦airaland Forum

Uyi Iredia: No. Intelligence is pre-requisite to life (especially it's origin). You are looking at it from the materialist view that a physical body is required for intelligence. Idealists are looking at the attribute of the physical body given other physical bodies which lack the attribute - intelligence. You forget I said intelligence is NECESSARILY EXPRESSED through matter. That effectively admits the problem. Because the paradox is how something that isn't material makes what we observe is material. There is simply no say one can escape matter. It is needed for intelligence to be made manifest. But intelligence comes first. Both intelligence (or mind) and matter are fundamental to reality. Though I answer I feel my post isnlost on you because I answered your question implicitly in that post.

Food for thought: Is the dynamism of matter necessary of contingent ?

It is taken that what's not alive is dead. No middle ground. If I'm to consider intelligence with the absence of life, what can one possibly conceive of it? Can intelligence be likened to a 'dead' stone (forget the materialist trappings). I think intelligence is in the class of consciousness, deliberation and discretion all which are results of life. A Cartesian thought "I think therefore I'm dead" can't be coneived of such intelligence.

My conclusion is intelligence is unintelligble without Life.

@uyi iredia

1. Is life a prerequisite for intelligence?

If yes, then the main question is as to the Origin of Life itself.

Conceding that Good and Evil are objectively discernible, and man freely choses either; what justification other than God arbitriness, for the punishment of Evil?

[quote author=outc@st]Nah men...

The coming of Christ changed a whole lot for Christians. A number of laws that were applicable in the old were rendered obsolete with the coming of Christ. Like Christ said, he came to fulfil the law and not to abolish it.

He carried on himself the weight of the law for our sake and in the process established a new covenant which Christians are expected to live by.

Do note that when the Apostles gave specific instructions to the gentile converts not to eat food sacrificed to idols and the rest, they were not saying that those things were bad in themselves but on the contrary they were saying that the gentiles were not yet strong enough in the faith and this might lead them to doing things the wrong way.

Paul puts it succinctly:

1 Corinthians 8:1-2
King James Version (KJV)

1 Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. 2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.

Since you might not be interested in what sacred scriptures has to say about the matter, I will spare you further quotes but in the event that you are interested, the whole of that chapter explains why the gentiles were asked to abstain from certain food items.

I believe Demi has provided us with a reference from sacred scriptures which shows that Christians are not bound by the law of abstaining from eating some specific food items.[/quote]Isn't it dangerous to believe God's laws can be obsolete? If the divine inspired Mosaic laws can be outdated and out of touch, likewise Jesus' Gospel. And it seems Christianity is joining that boat.

And when do they switch sides??

^^ we are all masked existentialists.

bolaino: have'nt u heard of people who have suffered from illnesses that even advanced medicine has no clue about how to deal with it? And in those kind of cases the best doctors would have run out of ideas on what to do, and the patient is left to his/her fate, if you were in such a position what would u do?

Illnesses like HIV, diabetes, arthritis, herpes, OCD, there are many out there that are incurable. Would that suddenly result to the conclusion that atheists wld lean on spiritual medicine?

^^ the problem with thw above is a failure of imagination. The (or most) atheists are absolutely convinced about the absence of the spirit world/God, that they see and give life a uniquely different meaning from religious ppl.

So if an atheist has an accident or is saved from one, he interprets it differently from the religious individual who constantly see redemption/salvation in all events of his life.

^^
Deep down in the soul of the spiritual Christian is a materialist core.

It is difficult to believe mustard seeds grow into huge trees. That's the beauty of life, the diversity.

@uyi

If time is a mentation of the mind, then we can alter it, it can stand still or regress at our command.

^^

You didn't answer satisfactorily. If I go to MFM or Deeper Life, am I to believe the mere healing of a wound is a miracle? Or a cure from malaria or cold?

A miracle shld be a divine intervention in the lives of Christians which is unattainable by the unbelievers.

The good Samaritian adequately fits the unbeliever. Those condemned for immorality. The prostitutes, atheists, pagans. The unbeliever here, is good without the belief of God, he is dignified by his actions rather than beliefs.

Good people go to Hell also, hence it isn't profitable to be good.

That's the conclusion I got.

What are miracles?

^^
Yet clearly clocks and sundials exhibit a function, which is measurement of another object. In other words, clocks are like a mirror with reflections. And the object of reflection, an abstract recognised by a rational being.

While we watch a clock, we observe a progression from a frame to another, from present to future and a sting of the past. We are also made realise errors in our clocks, if it stands still for example, it is a malfunction.

chukkynwob: A scientific law is universal and has been tested and retested like Platteon pointed out.eg Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics holds true no matter what.

I am christian,the basis of faith is your ability to believe without proof.

That is faith.

But not everything is life can be proven some concepts in life are abstract and non-emprically verifiable e.g emotions,Logic itself.

hmmm. Where is the part Truth rears its ugly head?

Provie: Faith & Reason ar quite compatible. Faith proceeds from reason/logic. Here it goes:

1. there is a supreme being>

2. this supreme being can do all things>

3. all things include the impossible>

4. the supreme being can do the impossible.

Talking of evidence, havnt we (scientists inclusive) ever seen & confirmed sometin happen without reason/explanation?

Faith and folly are two different things, plz note!

And why is the impossible called impossible if it is possible?? So much for Reason.

[quote author=Riba_man]Of course, yes!
Faith and reason are in deed very compatible!
This was the main thrust of the teaching, research and faith of the scholastic philosophers.
Even in Classical Islam, there was a huge leaning toward the unicity of Faith and reason. The period in question is the great apogee of Islam in human history.[/quote]The problem is one of covering the field. If reason sufficiently enlightens us, what then is the usefulness of faith?!

Also note: there were conflicts at time, whether Reason or faith holds the key to God.

Uyi Iredia: No wonder you think I'm wrong. It's really the other way around. You make the mistake, along with Deep Sight and musKeeto, of thinking time has a seperate existence apart from humans and objects and events used to determine time. You have to REALIZE that time (like abstracts as love and distance) is a concept we use to describe our physical world. Hence different ways (involving physical objects) of determining time as in watches, digital clocks, atomic clocks, sundials, shadow stick etc. ALL instances of time measurement (i.e determining the time) involve physical events. In an isolated room, you loose sense of time since there's no way to tell the time. How then can you agree that time has to exist for 2 seperate events to exist.

If time is a mentation of the mind, what exactly do clocks and sundials measure, given that they are outside the influence of the mind?

OLAADEGBU: Either you call it foetus, pregnancy or cells the fact remains that the baby is a human life separate from the life of the mother and has equal right to live.

What I'm saying is: the right to life of the foetus is at the behest of the woman. Otherwise its right to life is impracticable. And the law does not demand the impossible.

Muskeeto made some real good points. Actually atheism vs theism are just a conflict of ideas, and there are many other things to fight over.

Uyi Iredia: The universe is complex, hence, it requires causation.

Which isn't in dispute, what is; is to claim a mind (which is inherently complex) is without cause. I believe some form of harmony should be ironed out with God being uncaused and un-complex.

^^
Yet you can't deny the existence of the rights of a woman over her body. And these rights are exercisable against other persons including foetus!

OLAADEGBU: As soon as she realises that she is carrying another human being. The option of surrogacy, test tube and adoption is also available.

Under the general rules of property, an individual is entitled to protect, preserve and use his property in the manner he pleases. For a pregnancy, the woman is fully entitled to disallow a pregnancy

Are prions and viruses life?

^^
I didn't ask you anything about faith, neither did I insist on an overreliance on sight.

My question is do you accept that scientific findings are provisional?

OLAADEGBU: As I said earlier, we need to trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.

There are numerous reasons why we should trust and obey God's commandments. Obedience opens the door of God's mercies and places us on the right course and fellowship with Him. Obedience also endears believers in Christ to the heart of God. Another reason is that we enjoy God's best for us. We are prospered when we obey the Lord. When we disobey the Lord we attract God's anger and displeasure. There are many more reasons we trust and obey the Lord and even though we don't have all the reasons we are admonished to trust and obey Him and we may understand it all by and by.

Our faith is based on the evidence that is not detected with our physical senses but spiritual. True science can only be done when we have the Word of God as our presuppositions for the origins in the past and for our predictions for the present and future events.

Ola, it is really tiring arguing with you. If Scientific truths are not provisional, how come we have shifted frm Newtonian physics to Einstein's ??

^^
Under what duty is a woman obliged to carry a pregnancy?

^^
It is unfortunate Ola believes True Science is about being right, rather true science is following the right methodology, while scientific truths are provisional.

Science accepts the fraility of inductive reasoning.

Mr anony: I don't know where you are heading with this. I have already explained to you that the mind is not the same kind of thing as a car or a swiss army knife. It is not intricate/complex in the same way a car is intricate/complex. You are comparing apples to oranges here. Besides you still haven't told us how this intricate mind is simpler than chance.

I didn't insist the mind was of the same complex material as a car or swiss army knife, rather on complexity simpliciter. The idea of jurisprudence is complex but not of the same complex material as matter.

Also I have stressed and described on the complexity of the mind many times already! Besides you admitted to the complexity via function/behaviour, then you turn around acting puzzled about complexity of d mind

@anony

The nature of an entity determines its function

Hence a complex entity performs a complex function/action.

The mind's intricate nature, which makes it difficult to even understand and describe