₦airaland Forum

Does it really matter? the fact that he is a muslim is not going to affect my purchase of the next windows version. neither will the reverse. lets not deal with useless topics. you can find out from any of the biographical sites online.

This is the way I feel about xtianity and the catholic church.

Q: what r the main principles of xtianity?
Love of God
Love Of man
Belief that Jesus Christ (God in the flesh) died for our sins

Q: Is membership of the catholic church required to get to heaven?
No

Q: Is the pope necessarily superior to me in God's eyes?
No

I believe you catholics place more emphasis on being catholics than on being christian. Focus on the essentials. As martin luther said, the scripture must be the sole source of christian doctrine not church tradition(catechism).

@nferyn i was answering the first poster. As to what i was trying to disprove. his articles ranged were based on mathematical inconsistencies observed and so-called differences from science which i tried to correct. 10q


as to my scientific background, while i might still be an undergraduate computer science student that does not stop me from reading ANYTHING that comes my way. I subscribe to all physics and programming mags i come across. "thank you".

as to my passing many exams. . i passed my cambridge a levels in physics and had an A in O level physics and B in my geography but i am smart enough to know that established science is not always right and i read not just recommended topics. I firmly believe in creation and i have read many articles providing scientific basis for that argument.

Its faulty logic to attack the messenger not the message. When i have the time(not everyone is jobless enough to sit in front of a pc when you can be doing serious work.) i will start a post on radio-carbon dating,proofs for a young earth and young universe and disproofs of the so-called proofs of evolution.

If I may ask, what is your own scientific background? As to whether the thought of a God never entered your mind, i find that preposterous to say the least.


@elbaron Why do you think he would need eyes? light is not the only way of measuring time. Time is independent of earth's planetary revolution. We are not just talking about the earth here but the whole universe of which the earth is one tiny insignificant body.

i will reply to your asinine suggestions according to their order of appearance
1 (a) i am a science student and can possibly explain that in terms of photons or energy. light is a form of energy and energy is needed to start ANY reaction or process.
(b) if you were in a dark room all day would you still use the sun to know when the day has passed or a watch? does god need eyes to tell the time? is time dependent on planetary bodies or independent of them?
(c) they were simply time divisions (first half and second half). the hebrew day started in the evening of the previous dayi.e night and day not day and night.

2. the statement that the sun was not created until that time simply represents the fact that it had not yet shone on the earth. we are told there was a firmament covering the face of the heavens. light could not easily get through. that does not mean there were no other forms of light.

3A the creation attempts should be considered in terms of the emergence of the different bodies not in terms of their actual creation. GET THIS POINT >THE BIBLE IS NOT A SCIENCE TEXTBOOK THOUGH IT HAS BASIC SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE>
B Let me tell you that some scientists believe the speed of light was much faster and has changed significantly over time since the "BIG BANG".

4 Geological science is not exact about the emergence of species. Till today there is no agreement on when the first cell actually arrived. if i stand up in a biological or geological convention and claim
it happened 2 or 3 billion years ago there are people who would support me so that is not a point and that is faulty logic (appeal to authority).

5 same as for 4

6same as for 4

7 what science? Radio-carbon dating which you rely on is not exact. they postulate the periods of emergence of the different species based on fossils they found. It is a flawed method. newly solidified lava has been dated millions of years old. so that is not an issue.

8i don't know your version of the bible but mine does not say the birds should come out of the water. He creates the fish then the birds.

10 We are not CARNIVOROUS, we are OMNIVOROUS(BOTH MEAT AND HERBS). mind you, wounded dogs have been known to eat medicinal plants. TALLIES PERFECTLY

11 Hebrews refer to God in the masculine because it is believed man was created first in the image of God. So that is obviously dumb. He does not procreate. he creates. NOT A CONTRADICTION

12 you obviously know very little about the science which you preach. Geology(which you keep referring to) claims that the climatic zones were much different in the past man migrated during the ice age and it is only logical that animals did too. Isreal was a forested region in the past not the dry land it currently is. read about the reforestation project in isreal. Has it occured to you that the deforestation might have had an effect on the climate in that region?we know the Sahara was not always as big as it currently is. Same goes for other deserts.

13 a-h mathematical inaccuracies are human, nowhere is it said that God directly wrote the scriptures. So any accuracy does not change the message.


9 there's proof for a young earth. (soon in another post)

some disproofs of evolutionary proofs

1. the appendix is not vestigeal but a part of the immune system though you can live without it. it reduces risk of leukemia, hodgkin's disease etc

2. coccyx or tail bone is not vestigeal but is a support for some pelvic muscles (nine in fact).

Z4M4eva:
You tell a Skinny guy to eat some more food!

Will all skinny guys join me in telling him this.

"We eat but WE DON'T GAIN WEIGHT"

I heard it said somewhere that one or two companies pulled up the japanese economy. let me correct that by listing some of them, Mitsui, Misubishi, Sumitomo, Toyota, Toshiba and many other families (Honda was not a big one and it grew independent of government support.).

What makes them different is that they had many thousand small companies doing it for them and the government was willing to stifle foreign companies with the capability to overrun them. The Nigerian government will not do that. Apart from that, what nigeria needs is heavy and light manufacturing with emphasis on the heavy aspect. you cannot pay for german trucks or japanese cars with oil, it will always be skewed in their favour. though it might not be a bad idea to start with those sectors mentioned and then move into others.

the likely scenario is that they will site their businesses in lagos or other large metropolis and this itself will only create more problems than they solve. there are many companies that are peforming well in all sectors of the economy, let the government focus on selecteed sectors one at a time and ensure that nigeria truly gains dominance in those sectors,(maybe chase away Julius berger and use reputable nigerian companies.) they should try to help create nigerian multinationals like Glo who can give the foreign companies a run for their money.

I believe its only a way to take over anything they might have missed during the privatisation era.

sorry but at the moment nigerians don't buy by proxy. but don't stop because of me, refine it and find the unique twist thatt wud make it a sucess in such and environment.

I believe every foreign company in Nigeria is here for their own piece of the pie. It makes no difference whether they are yellow, white or black. its all the same. the same governors who would not give free land to nigerian citizens are now chasing the expelled zimbabwean whites like naked women.

I believe we should use the West( and East) for our own ends not the other way round.

we thank God but thats not going to solve anything really. People who live in Nigeria wud know what i am talking about. Local govt chairmen don't do anything, they simply come and share out the allocation and return to wherever they came from. Same goes for other levels. Adamu Ciroma, former finance minister once made a remark about governors saying they have enough unaudited funds yet they steal out of the audited ones and refuse to embark on any meaningful projects. Lets just pray the N1000 note will not make it easier for them to steal our money and salt it overseas. May The thieves among them go the way of Diepreye Alamiesegha currently in jail in the UK.

@exu they also speak a common language. each of the major nigerian languages has populations of more than 30 million speakers(conservative estimate) and thats more than the number of people who speak swedish. To add to the problems, we fought each other before the british came so remnants of earlier disputes still resurrect once in a while like the Afonja dispute in Ilorin recently between yorubas and fulani.

I believe you mean common sense.

Since i have absolutely no intention of becoming a politician in future, the only way i can move nigeria forward through my own efforts is to strive for the maximum within my own field or line of work and ensure that i make a meaningful local impact in my chosen area of specialization. There's nothing that stops the nigerian movie industry from producing animated films except the will to do so. There's no reason why we cannot export software(we 've started that.). We can create games, graphics.... the list is endless.
Just do what you can to make your environment a better place. many drops become a raging torrent. if everyone could try to improve themselves and their community at the same time we would be better off.

Christianity is intrinsically peaceful and as such most of those who fought in all those conflicts back then were motivated by other reasons besides religion. We know the bulk of the people on both sides of the conflict were uneducated and willing followers of misguided people who interpreted for them and hence controlled them. We should guided by our religions but we should not enforce them on people who don't believe them.

Anybody heard of Freecycle?

It's very likely you haven't heard about it. It's a giveaway site. You post things you don't want any longer and people will queue up to request it. You have the prerogative to give it to whom you choose. You can also get free stuff too, there are reports of people getting cell phones on the site.

Check www.freecycle.org for more info. The Lagos Chapter has 40 members.

@nferyn any human being is just a bundle of cells. so justifying abortion on the basis of that is not really valid.

@seun Overpopulation is a myth, what we have is mismanagement of resources and a reluctance by governments to see the real truth because it might involve changing whole lifestyles. If you support this then you have to support eugenics which believes in choosing humans based on certain physical characteristics selected as desirable (example: hitler's belief in a blond,strong race of aryans, chinese women's abortion of female children because of the one-child policy.). we can as well kill old people because they are no longer productive and are prone to diseases that will make life uncomfortabe to them, they are slow and are usually much of a hindrance in daily life and disaster situations(those are complaints by other people not me).
If you keep viewing humans as commodities or objects or things, that would be permissible but i believe we are more than that.

@michelin
Every child has a right to live. In the case of a woman who was raped, if i were the child of such a union, I believe i would prefer to be born than to be aborted,no matter how deep the hate my mother may have for me, while it might cause me distress, i can still live a fulfilled life so that is not an issue.

Similar question: Does a man have the right to end his own life? doesn't the government have a duty to end the life of people who are undesirable to the society like disabled people, minorities and people who oppose the state's progressive policies?

answer to all the above including yours: NO.

consider it from the ethical point of view: doesn't that child have a right to live? The fact that he/she constitutes a temporary hindrance or nuisance should not mean abortion is the next thing. If you don't need the baby give it up for adoption. The state(even here in nigeria) will willingly take care of YOUR ABANDONED CHILD. If we just consider humans as objects, then what is the point of calling ourselves civilized. we might as well kill and eat each other (yes, to satisfy hunger.)

Every child has a right to live, to be loved and to love. so i believe its a crime.

I agree that killing a pregnant woman and abortion should both be ranked as crimes.

since when has killing been a crime?

thank you seun.

@vexxy Japan attacked the US against the better advice of its best admirals. Of Course it was motivated by the policies of all the major powers (US included). Japan wanted to stop colonialists from exploiting southeast asia and where They failed communism(vietnam, burma,china, cambodia, laos,north korea, mongolia, bhutan etc) suceeded.

Jesus did not condone it. Jesus tells us that the ten commandments can be reduced to one(love of God and Man). Someone who does that cannot be a soldier and still be a true christian. Its like a worker producing missiles claiming he has no blood on his hands. Or a Drug dealer tithing every week(claiming he is not responsible for his clients' addiction.)

Slavery is a thing of the mind. If you allow your mind to be enslaved then your body is. The germans specially hated Jehovah witnesses (called bibelforscher) because they kept preaching that war was ungodly while Catholic priests used the verse you talked about on the first page to motivate their members to fight and obey ALL ORDERS(we all know what that led to; the massacre of more than a million jews, poles and slavs.)

That verse led to the Al aqsa massacre , cromwell's massacre and many other massacres. Christianity is a religion of peace , don't pervert it.

Read your bible. There is a part of the Gospels where Jesus condemned wars as being motivated by greed. How do you connect that with praying for soldiers? Let me give you an example, during the Thirty years war in europe, chaplains on both sides proclaimed that they were supported by God. Cromwell who was the only person to rule Britain by coup d'etat believed heaven supported his cause and massacred the people who supported the rightful King James. If Both sides pray, who does God support?

As christians, we believe all nations are under God, so fighting for a flag is both unreasonable and unbiblical. The bible tells us that with the coming of christ all classifications are dead. there are no Jews Or Gentiles but believers in God and salvation through Christ.

Jesus commended the centurion for his faith and not because of his job. He was surprised a non-Jew could show such faith. When he prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, he asked all christians to head for the hills and not try to remain in the city because "no two stones will be left standing on each other ".

He did not tell them to stay and fight for their lives. Jesus rebuked Peter for cutting the ear of his captors saying "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword". I don't think he could have been more candid about it.

Can you remain a prostitute and still be a christian? can you set out to become both a drug dealer and a christian? God can use anybody(moses was a stutterer, mary magdalene was a prostitute, jonah a coward) but that is no excuse for you to continue in that line of work. there are other things you could do. Being a christian and a soldier are two non-intersecting circles. You don't advertise sexy lingerie and preach chastity or christianity at the same time.

Churches that tell you to go to war are motivated by political and patriotic tendencies not religious tendencies. I will not fight for any country Nigeria included.

that is so wrong. The bible tells us to be subject to authorities but to keep it in mind that God is a higher authority. Both Paul and Jesus counselled christians to pay taxes.
But if we are to follow your line of reasoning, we are to obey authorities that forbid us from worshipping Christ. Christians are only required to obey governments as far as they don't prevent the true worship of Christ. Are you telling me that the same person that told us to turn a cheek when slapped would condone self-defence. Let's not confuse 'common-sense" with religion.

Killing in self defence is still murder. If it wasn't, the christians killed for amusement by the romans would not have tried to convert theit killers, they would have done what the Jews did and fought back. end result: annihilation.

Do not kill means Do not kill. let's not dilute the bible's message to serve our own vices.

Obviously every member of the "Nigerian elite" has a vested interest in maintaining a constant flow of oil(at any cost; human or otherwise). thats why they will consider crises in other parts of the country as mere civil disturbance.
Sharia is part of the constitution as claimed by some northern lawyers, i don't know how far thats true but nigerian universities offer courses in islamic law.
Until the nigerian elites(both political and business) are forced to change their ways that is going to be the status quo.

@Seun of course computers are linked through the internet but the way its structured messages still have to go to europe,isreal or US. How he intends to do it, i don't know. but it would not be a bad idea to link outside the VSAT framework.

In south Korea, Lineage and other multi-user domains are now the chief source of recreation among the youth. They use cybercafes for this and other uses. As to the issue of cafes being redundant, i don't think they ever will, only the less flexible among them will die (example: cheap GSM services has not killed call centres, it has only created even greater source of employment. ) Pc penetration is still low and internet awareness(at least outside Lagos) is only limited to seasonal use of WAEC and NECO online facilities and chatting(Yahoo Based

pls explain. so you mean networking all the cybercafes into one big network or what. and what exactly would that achieve. i am asking because that resembles an idea i once had.

We have all heard about the fighting in Port Harcourt. Imagine you are riding home from work and suddenly an angry-faced dirty-looking character walks up to you and deals you 6 hard blows with a sharp machete. thats what happened to the editor of this link.

http://improvenigeria..com/2005/09/dancing-with-lucillept1.html

I'll like to hear what people think about it.

the main reason i feel we need one is because we have a very large number of people who can't even speak english and the computer is definitely a different hurdle entirely. india faced the same problems until microsoft software was indigenised into punjab, hindi and bahasa languages. Now you hear of village women who go to the village cafe for remote appointments with doctors or agricultural boards. It won't be a bad idea if that were to happen in Nigeria.
You don't honestly expect a farmer in Kafanchan, Nigeria to customise his own distro or software. we will still use the base OS functions, what we are talking about is the GUI(s) for the software.

@layi your source is wrong. i read it somewhere else that it is 9-3-4 not 6-9-3. the space between primary and secondary was scrapped because they felt there was no point separating it from the primary school. a commissioner in lagos even said something about common entrance exams being obsolete. check and confirm.

@tunku then that makes me a new one cos i am replying to the post from a cafe pc.

uchetobi:
The school is alright. Don't worry, you'll get used to it. I've been there since 2002 and will be finishing next year June.

thanks but when you use the word alright, you scare me. Heard they are planning to move to a new site (don't know how far thats true?). anyway tell me more, what's your current class size(your own class). someone told me a fable about internet access in hostels (i must confess that was a major reason why i chose the school. )

I will be resuming in this school (Bowen University) in a month's time. I am interested in hearing any hints and tales about the school. I would also like to meet any Nairaland Member who is schooling there. Holla.

just saw this.

www.enownow.com

interesting how you all put God on the list.

@Timmy Is he on the list? Or possibly you intend to stop at cash n carry on the way home.