₦airaland Forum

Beretta92:
If I ever believe in god again, it would never be the Christian god or any personal/anthropomorphic god for that matter. Such gods don't exist.

Ok let time and event determine.

I am not about to write another gospel but I think this may be the closest explanation as to how non-christains may be saved.i am not saying that am absolutely right and may God forgive me if I am about to add to his word.This thought came to me after I had an argument with a gentleman and I remember telling him that my granddad was a good man.

I was told that during the time of my grandfather that you will be recognized as a man after you must have gone into the bush, capture an able bodied man and hack off his head, come home and show to your people. But the story was that my granddad refused to do that because he placed himself in the position of the person he will kill just for ego .That made him have compassion on a human like him.

During the argument the gentleman tried to prove to me that my granddad is in hell because he did not confess Christ before he died. Here I disagreed and told him that it was a very difficult thing for my granddad to have accepted Christ eventhough he heard the gospel once or twice.

Here is what i am saying.Jesus made a point and he said" I am the way, the truth and the life.no man comes to the father except through me"this simply means that for anybody to have access to the father, his gateway is Jesus.but if we are to go by the popular interpretation of the bible, one will conclude that the people who are not christains will automatically be condemned but here is what I tell anybody who reasons in such manner. I tell them that if I am born in Iraq or Palestine or any of the Arab world, then there is a 99.99% probability that I will be a Muslim and in this case christainity may not make sense to me. The simple reason is that my parents raised me in Islam and I see the truth in Islam. Therefore just like it will take heaven and earth to convert me from christainity to any religion so it will be to convert me from Islam if I happened to be born in the Arab world.

Now the question is what is Gods plans for those who did not suscribe to Christianity? I my humble opinion, God will save some.i believe that Jesus Christ is the way and that some people actually find that way of life without even knowing it.some people some how just contact the spirit of Christ without knowing it. I believe that it is the spirit of Christ that made my grandpa to have human compassion and refused to kill another human being.

You see God will go out of the ordinary to save his people ( those he created in his image and likeness) and that is why Jesus we were told in the book of Peter that he went and preached to the spirit that is in prison when he died.why will Jesus preach to those who died in the Noah flood if there is no chance that he will save some.God in his mercy gives everybody a chance for salvation.He may not bring a bible carrying pastor to come and preach to the Muslim but God through the spirit of Christ appeals to his conscience and if he accept The law of God is his heart he is will be saved eventhough he still goes to the Mosque.
Another thing is that God through his prophet Jeol said that in the last day the He (God) will send out his spirit upon all flesh. Remember He said all flesh and not some flesh.This spirit that is sent out is the spirit of Christ that go about through out the whole earth to appeal to men to appeal to the heart of man to accept the law of Christ.anyone who responds to this spirit and live according to law of Christ will be saved not minding his religion.a Muslim who has the spirit of Christ will not kill during jihad rather he will risk his life to save those who are fleeing from the Jihadist.yes he may be a budist, a Muslim and any other religion that you can mention but somehow in his daily life he responds to spirit of Christ and live the same life that is lived by christains.
God will always go out of the normal to save people and he gives everybody opportunity to be saved. Everybody born in this world will somehow have access to Christ knowingly or unknowingly and his eternal destiny will be determined by how he responds.
Christ is beyond the church building. Christ is a person, he is a spirit and he is everywhere and people can contact him even when they are ignorantly following other religion which happens maybe because of their upbringing.
Final point is that everybody can be saved no matter the religion.christ is the one that saves people and true Christianity simply means that you have contacted the spirit of Christ.

Kay17:
I believe everyone has their subjective realities (mini universes), and within mine, God does not exist.

Yea that's for you but to me He does exist.
Meanwhile if don't mind I would want to know why you choose the part of atheism.

Beretta92:
Well, Christianity isn't an African thing either. For me, I can't say I chose to become an atheist. In fact, I wanted to remain a Christian and deep down I wanted to believe in god. You know, the idea of a loving super father who cares for you is a very soothing one, especially in this part of the world. But in my everyday life, I found stark contradictions between reality and what the Bible and the church said. Praying was tantamount to talking to the air. No evidence of a god in our lives. No god anywhere around us. I became really distraught and confused. I wanted to believe in god but reality stared me in the eye. I eventually became an atheist after an intense struggle.

Atheism for me is a consequence of the compendium of all my life experiences, observations, thoughts, etc. Several of which were determined by forces beyond me. I never planned or chose how my life would play out. In fact, a few years ago I couldn't even understand how anyone could be an atheist. I'd read books that recounted stories of famous "atheists" that attempted to repent while on their death beds. And they were all said to have gone to hell. I remember some books that referred to Robert Ingersoll as a very "wicked" man. I even opened a thread asking atheists what they'd do in the face of death.The responses I got amazed me. Plaetton said something about me not understanding what it meant to be an atheist and a host of other things. Truly, I didn't understand then but now I perfectly do. I don't know how to make long, elaborate and sophisticated arguments like several chiefs on here but I do know now what it means to be an atheist. I faced what seemed like certain death recently and even though thoughts of "repenting" before dying crossed my mind( no thanks to my former hyper religious life), I brushed it off while awaiting death. That would have been unthinkable and impossible a few years back.

Well I am not saying that am sure this will happen but I think you will be back to christainity. From what you just wrote, it seem you were actually looking for something beyond what we hear everyday but since then you have not found that.
God will somehow come to you even if it means the same way he came to Paul.

ozara:
i got successful prompt

Please can you forward the form to my email. I got a mail from sure-p to fill a survey form but I checked my inbox and spam and did not find the form.
Just help me forward the form to my mail if it is convenient to you.
ojihnijioma@gmail.com

sonOfLucifer:
have you let Lucifer shine his light upon you?

you are a poor lunatic. Son of the one that has already been condemned.
I see satan fall from the sky.

The only problem is the wrong means they employ in getting their money.
You threaten some guys with hell fire, curses and the devourer and out of fear they surrender their cash to you and then you call that prosperity.
If giving is really the deal to make money, then oyedepo and mike Murdock should give out their private jet and expect 100 brand new jets

shikshark:
if you destroy all your cities.....who will help you to rebuild?

Remember the oil is still flowing in the Niger Delta.

Abba999:
Am a proud LESBIAN!!!

Stop all these ranting.you will never be a Tim cook. By the way there are no real lesbians in Nigeria.the only lesbians are girls that don't have male admirers.
You that are shouting am a proud lesbian will soon be under a man pumping out babies. Abi you no go marry if husband come?

PastorKun:
And since when did Abraham become the standard for christians to follow I though we were meant to follow christ. Is there any injunction in your bible to follow abraham's one off tithe example? If then how did pastor's arrive at weekly/monthly tithes as Abraham known to tithe only once in his entire life.

I also want to ask if Abraham one time tithe was what made him rich and great? I thought Abraham was already a rich guy before he paid the tithe.so how can one say that Abraham was practicing a success principle when he paid tithe?

Weah96:
HAHAHA. Dude, you're funny. So what happened to the proof?

Only you can tell bro

frank317:
this is funny... when someone slaps you or cheats you out, do you have to run to your bible to check if what the person did to you was condemned before deciding to be hurt?

Oga.. good moral is simply deciding not to hurt others or do something bad because you know if its done to you it will hurt you.

stop acting like your brain has been sold out to slavery.

My brain is not sold out to any slavery. Am only saying that you have to learn morality. Morality is not a human gift. Only religion teach you what is bad.

urcutecrush:
Do you believe in any other gods like ogun,osun,sango etc?

Absolutely not.

qstar:
Do you realise that you are indirectly or directly refuting your religion's concept of morality- absolute?

Are you saying that "morality" evolves?

Gog in his dealings with humans introduced perfection over a period of time.morality does not evolve in the eyes of God but for us us humans, He deals with us based on the level of our development( in terms of the acquisition of spiritual knowledge and wisdom).He may have allowed some things to happen in the past but that does not mean that He put a stamp of approval on them.

Weah96:
Actually it's the other way around. NOTHING happened.

One day I realized that prayers offered to Jesus were answered at the same rate as prayers offered to any random object.

On top of that, I had NEVER heard Jesus speak to me. In my ENTIRE LIFE. Not even once.

So when the time came, I counted 1,2,3, and asked the man to speak or present himself for the last time.

Obviously, nothing happened. The laws of nature remained the same.

Wow you needed a prove to believe and it never came then off you go to athiesm.

urcutecrush:
When i started thinking i became an atheist

Can you share some of those thoughts

urcutecrush:
Because it teaches moral doesn't mean it is right.I have my conscience i don't need religion

Really? your conscience automatically teach you good morals without some religious undertone.Please is there any place that your conscience refers to in supporting your moral life style or does the morality just pop up fr nowhere and guide your daily living.
Meanwhile do you have any other special reason for abandoning the idea of God?

omonuan:
Your assertions are false. The bible is replete with support for slavery and man inhumanity to man. I will just give you two examples-one from Old Testament and another from New Testament:

Leviticus Chapter 25:44:

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

It is clear here that God states where you may purchase your slaves, and clearly specifies that slaves are property to be bought, sold and handed down.

Luke, Chapter 7:2:

Now a centurion had a slave who was dear to him, who was sick and at the point of death. When he heard of Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his slave. And when they came to Jesus, they besought him earnestly, saying, "He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue." And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this he marveled at him, and turned and said to the multitude that followed him, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave well.

Even Jesus shows that he is completely okay with the concept of slavery. Jesus heals the slave without any thought of freeing the slave or admonishing the slave's owner. The question is : of what use is good health to a slave in bondage? Would it have been better for him to be a freeman in his grave than living in bondage as a slave?

As for the Arabs they started the slavery of Africans before the Trans Atlantic slave trade.

Please when you talk about slavery as you find it in the bible. Do you at all put in picture the timing of the events.slaves trade or slavery as at that time was a normal thing and that was just how the world goes.
The authorities at that time never saw slavery as a bad thing unlike now that the concept I slaves had been declares as an evil thing.
But I still want to know why you or how you turned athiest.

plaetton:
How can you, how can anyone still associate religion and moral values when slave ships were named " the good ship Jesus", and were mannedby devout bible carrying men who composed and sang hymns while transporting human cargo, human tradeable merchandise?

How can you associate religion with morality when Sunnis and Shiites are still murdering each other on account of sectarian differences?

The men who carried bible and at the same sold humans into slavery were actually working against the teachings of what is writing in the bible. The teachings of Christ has never encouraged hurting Your fellow human. The fact that some men went against it does mean that Christianity does not emphasize on moral values.the idea of morality is rooted in religion.
As for Islam, I don't have anything to say there. There problem is more of a misunderstanding among the different sects.

voltron:
The Holy Koran. In English or Arabic. Let me ask you one simple Bible question. How old was Jesus Christ when the book of Mathew was written

I don't know where you are driving at

plaetton:
The issue of values is probably the one tends to force people to think about religion and it's many contradictions.

Where are these moral values that you refer to?
Religion only has a moral pretence.

Africa's moral values are originally cultural, not religious.
I can make a strong argument that foreign religions ha e eroded and decimated our core moral value system..
The histories of our two Abrahsmic religions are filled with grand acts of immorality that even the adherents are shameful about, even in their holy scriptures.

One of the first contradictions that struck me in my youth was that the average religious person displayed no superior character than any non religious person.
Therefore, I began to see religion as a convenient pretence, a camouflage to hide character flaws.

Please when you talk about the atrocities recorded in the bible as a case against Christianity. first you have to remember that the history recorded there does not in any way represent Christianity. It may show how christainity emerged but it does not mean that chriatianit support those things you may want to refer to.
Secondly you have to also remember the timing of some of those events. Then humans behaved more like animals. Therefore people did a lot of stuffs that are too bad to recount.
Now to go back to issue of the moral values taught in religion, you made mention of the fact that those moral values were once our African culture but I beg to say that African culture stems from its belief in a deity. Our forefathers lives in a certain way because they believed that going against such way may attract the anger of the gods. So religion I believe teaches morals which in the long run tend to be incorporated into the peoples way of life.

voltron:
Did you choose to be Christian? honestly.. remember in order to choose you must have weighed the available options from.. giving each equal experience.. did you.. I know i did

I have red the Quoran and the other books from different religions and I came to the conclusion to continue with Christianity.

plaetton:
Atheism is not a kind of philosophy or religious creed than people just explore or choose.

Some people are naturally allergic to bulkshyte, while many others grow allergic to bullshyte over time with education and enlightenment.

Religion is something that is forcefed on people before they even begin to articulate thoughts, and reinforced with deadly threats.
The average mind yearns to be free from lifelong episodes of mental contradiction s and cognitive dissonance.
Some are brave enough to ditch religion, while others are too scared to free themselves.

Many times, one or more incidents forces people to re examine their beliefs, and sometime the journey to mental sovereignty takes a lifetime with a series of small steps.

Nice thoughts but apart from the fact that there is much treats associated with religion especially christainity and Islam. Don't you think that some of the values and morality taught in religion is good and should be adhered to even without being under the treat of eternal condemnation.

Atheism in my own opinion is not really am African thing. I am Saying this because our forefathers worshipped one deity or the other.
But the growing number of people claiming to not have a belief in the existence of God or a god is alarming which made me want to ask why it is happening.

I also believe that in the present Nigeria of today, there is no family that can be termed an athiest family. Every person who claims to be athiest where actually born into a home that had a belief in God or a god( this is an assumption )

So something must have happened to you that made you decide to abandon the idea of God.please let all the athiest share with us.

N/B. I am a christain

Alexis86:
pastor Chris remains a man of God. bad things happen to everybody

Ya he is a man of God but pride goes before a fall.

dein77:
I have learned some lessons from this saga.

We should value our wives. Never take them for granted. Respect them. And we should be humble and courageous enough to apologise to them when we've messed up.

We are not INFALLIBLE!

I love this. Women are to be respected.

dein77:
That's why we're individuals: we see the same thing but have different interpretations.

You've raised certain salient points I will have to look into afresh, especially concerning his alleged disregard to women.

Yes is painful to see that things turned out the way it is. He is one of those ministers that I had a high regard for but this latest happenings changed everything.
The major problem I have is not even that he is gonna have a divorce but his handling of it is just too poor.
Even as a single guy, I can't talk bad about a girl a dated in the past not to talk of the wife that I will marry.

Yea it affected my perception of him to a large extent. It made me see his spiritual pride and disregard for women. He is the first minister that was comfortable to talk bad stuff about his wife in the public.
Infact the latest happening in his marriage turned me off on things concerning him. I don't watch him anymore simply because whenever I do I see a man who does not regard family.

emmyskies:
How many of them can endure sound doctrine? Woe unto the inhabitants of the earth, woe unto men that the devil has come to reside amongst us.

Very few findeth the way to eternal life, but many are stiff-necked that won't heed to correction. They hear these things but don't bother to challenge themselves if it's true or not.

Continue in the faith bro, GOD bless you. I pray GOD uphold us in this evil world to His holy kingdom, in JESUS name; Amen

So this hogwash you wrote here is the sound doctrine. You are yet to know who God is.
It amaze me that some intelligent guys believe that simply putting on gold is a ticket to hell.ignorance is a cage.

plaetton:
It came from the ass of a unicorn.
That is my belief.

Very good then .so why don't you worship unicorn because it is actually the source of your life.it should be your god.

An Muslim who hears about Christ and refused him will sure burn in hell for eternity but for those Muslims who never heard about Christ, thier good works may save them.