Corruption is a natural human instinct of ALL human peoples everywhere. It is basically the old school approach to public office and public services in what was often, in antiquity, a relatively hostile and untrustworthy environment. It really has no modern roots, although certain conditions can cause it to thrive. Those of you who think corruption in Nigeria is rooted in colonialism or some modern-era politician should read the journals of the European explorers who visited pre-colonial West Africa in the early 19th century, like Mungo Park and the Lander brothers. You may be surprised to discover familiar behavioural patterns in the African chiefs and their officials extorting "presents" and bribes from the travellers, which seemed to be their modus operandi. The difference between the developed countries of this world and other countries like Nigeria is that at a certain stage the leaders of the former saw the problem and worked hard to reduce corruption in their societies to minimal levels.

Interesting thread.

Lee Kuan Yew in his book From Third World to First mentioned at the start of this thread, recounts encounters with African leaders, including those that occurred during a Commonwealth conference hosted in Lagos in early January 1966. Perhaps we can find therein a few clues to our predicament - from his perspective, at least:

The night before the meeting [Commonwealth conference], Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, whom I had visited two years before, gave us a banquet in the hotel. Raja and I were seated opposite a hefty Nigerian, Chief Festus, their finance minister. The conversation is still fresh in my mind. He was going to retire soon, he said. He had done enough for his country and now had to look after his business, a shoe factory. As finance minister, he had imposed a tax on imported shoes so that Nigeria could make shoes. Raja and I were incredulous. Chief Festus had a good appetite that showed in his rotund figure, elegantly camouflaged in colorful Nigerian robes with gold ornamentation and a splendid cap. I went to bed that night convinced that they were a different people playing by a different set of rules.

Yew, From Third World to First, Harper-Collins, pp 352.


Further on, he makes some controversial statements reflecting on the conference:

I was not optimistic about Africa. In less than 10 years after independence in 1957, Nigeria had had a coup and Ghana a failed coup. I thought their tribal loyalties were stronger than their sense of common nationhood. This was especially so in Nigeria, where there was a deep cleavage between the Muslim Hausa northerners and the Christian and pagan southerners, In Ghana, the problem was less acute, but there were still clear tribal divisions. Unlike India, Ghana did not have long years of training and tutelage in the methods and discipline of modern government.

pp 357, From Third World to First.

olabowale:

Er Longman83 check out the fact that you don't know what Jesus said exactly in his original statement. It was in the language of his mother tongue. It isnt Roman, Greek, English, but a sematic language.

And I guess you do? Care to show us the 'sematic' document that provided you with the knowledge of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane, or his lack of knowledge of the hour of his second coming?  
Some of us are here for honest discussion, you know. Disingenuity is not a virtue. Peace,
longman

olabowale:

Pritypeety: lol.
The action "made," would definitely disqualify him as the "Maker!" The Maker, Who is The Only True God, can not be MADE. Jesus was made (at least by your account into Flesh, so that he can dwell among man. But The True God does not have to dwell among His Creations). The fact that The True God is not made, because there should not be a maker for Him, since He makes everything, and that He Lords Over everyone, there is no need for Him to dwell among us, in our earthly realm. Have you ever seen a King dwelling in the Slums, or even with ordinary citizens, before he can excercise his Kingly responsibilities over them? Yet Kings are part of the creations, like you and me and oh, the atheists and agnostics. And all of us, including the Kings still need The True God for all of our sustenances. No one can do without what God proves: air, Oxygen, etc, water, the vegetations and flesh.


Its ironic that Jesus did not tell anyone in all the time in his earthly ministry, about his second coming according to your writing, above. But he left to heaven first, according to you, before he told people on earth. Why would he have to go to heaven first before he did so? Is it because, the One who has the Power to get him body and soul to heaven was the One in control, rather than Jesus? It will assumed that Jesus like all the other prophets and messengers before him, did not have complete knowledge, and definitely not everything about the future. This was the reason Jesus did not know and did not give the info about his second coming while stil on earth. The same inabsolute knowledge he displayed when asked about the time of the Hour. No wonder he prayed, begged to be saved from death at the Garden of Geshemane.

Er, Olabowale, Jesus discussed very thoroughly his second coming while on earth. Check out Matthew 24 and 25.

LOL!
This thread is funny . Boxers may not be as explicit as a woman's undies, but it is still inappropriate for guys to chill with girls with just boxers on. As for the whole shirtless business - well, maybe girls aren't all the same in this regard. Personally I don't go shirtless even in the comfort of my own home, and I recall that my female housemate and some of my other female friends have complained that they've never seen me shirtless. They were Christians too,
Your point is well taken nevertheless. Guys ackrite!

therationa:

7) King David's kingdom

Have you heard of the Tel Dan Stele?

therationa:

10) The existence of King Ezekiel

Who?

tpaine, why do you have two handles?

This is for those naysayers who really want to know if Jesus sang: The context of this verse is the Jesus' last supper with his disciples before he was betrayed and crucified:


Matthew 26:30
[size=18pt]When they[Jesus and his disciples] had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.[/size]

Next please . . .

huxley:

Mark 4: 12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and [their] sins should be forgiven them .


Is this the mark (no pun intended) of a good teacher?

Perhaps you should read the corresponding account in Matthew 13; it clears this issue up quite nicely.

Matthew 13: 10-18

¹⁰The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"

¹¹He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. ¹²Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. ¹³This is why I speak to them in parables:

   "Though seeing, they do not see;
      though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
¹⁴In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

   " 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
      you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
¹⁵For this people's heart has become calloused;
      they hardly hear with their ears,
      and they have closed their eyes.
   Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
      hear with their ears,
      understand with their hearts
   and turn, and I would heal them.'[Isaiah 6:9,10]

¹⁶But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

¹⁸"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means . . .

What this passage shows is that the while Jesus said everything in parables to the crowd, the meaning of those parables (aka the 'secrets ot the kingdom of heaven' from verse 11) was revealed only to the disciples. Why? Because, as Jesus indicates, the disciples possess a certain quality that the rest of the crowd lacks. Of the crowd Jesus says,

For this people's heart has become calloused;
      they hardly hear with their ears,
      and they have closed their eyes.

But to the disciples he says:

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.

In other words, the disciples were willing and ready to hear and accept the truth. This attitude qualified them for deeper knowledge of the truth about God. In contrast, the crowd having already closed their minds, were now in danger of altogether losing the the little they knew. This is the meaning of Jesus' words in verse 12:

Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

So then, what is the mark of a good teacher? I submit to you that it is the ability to recognise a good student, and invest in him accordingly.

Seun:

Forget all that mumbo jumbo about praying together and celebrate her for who she is,
otherwise you will spend your last days on earth miserable and alone. it's a guarantee.

Don't just tolerate her beliefs. It's not enough. You must appreciate her as she is.
Don't allow your primitive religious beliefs to tear apart your family. Tolerance is just step 1.

Oga Seun, which kin misyarn be dis? Calling yvskc's beliefs  'primitive' is hardly an effective means of encouraging her tolerance or 'celebration' of her daughter's differing beliefs! I wonder if you'd have so careless if yvskc was of another Abrahamic religion that wasn't Judaism,   


[size=3pt]*runs away in anticipation of trouble* [/size]

You can also put it this way: faith is reason that submits to God's revelation.

therationa,
Now you're really becoming irrational.

the

therationa:

KAG,

Whenever I get the Stalin, Hitler Pol Pot argument against atheism (which is a very bad argument anyway) I always given them back Romans 13; It never fails to do the job.

This is Romans 13;

[b]1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you.
4 For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing.
7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.[/b]

therationa,

Clever but ultimately faulty reasoning. What do you think was the purpose of this passage in Romans 13? Was it specifically to endorse every government as 'good', or to remind Christians of their specific obligations under them? I submit to you that it is the latter; and also this: that the fact that Christians are told to submit to their state authorities does not necessarily mean that those authorities are righteous, or 'good' in God's eyes. If it were so, then one would be pressed to explain why the major factor of the 'endgame' of present human civilazation will be the conplete destruction of human government by the person of Christ!

Indeed, all authorities have been established and permitted by God - for if it were not so, then God would not be sovereign over the world - but that does not mean that God is entirely pleased with them. The OT, which you seem to especially dislike, desmonstrates this well. For instance, when God brings the kingdom of Babylon to destroy his chosen people Israel, he refers to the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar as his servant!

Jeremiah 25:9
I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin.

Jeremiah 27:6
Now I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him.

Jeremiah 43:10
Then say to them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I will send for my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and I will set his throne over these stones I have buried here; he will spread his royal canopy above them.

Does this mean that Nebuchadnezzar and his Empire weren't evil in God's sight? Certainly not. Jeremiah 50 and 51 record God's impending judgement on that evil empire, as does the book of Isaiah. Daniel also makes evident the evil nature of Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Later, when God brings Israel back from exile, he identifies the Persian emperor Cyrus as his 'anointed' - an even more significant designation as servant of God - though Cyrus himself does not honor God:

Isaiah 45:1, 4-5.
This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut,
.
.
.
For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.

5 I am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me.

The bottom line, therationa, is this: we are all servants of God in a sense, whether we choose to be so or not. While we are allowed to rebel and fight against Him, we cannot ultimately thwart His sovereignty. The difference lies in the consequences. Those who choose to serve God will be honored by God, while those who don't will suffer loss and punishment. So rest assured that Stalin, Hitler and PolPot will not go unpunished! If we claim that their existence is proof of God's unqualified approval, then we might as well claim that murder/rape is also in God's good graces, since He 'allows' them to happen. Of course, we know what the Bible has to say about that.

P.S. While I also have reservations about the Hitler-Stalin argument against atheism, I also think that the view you espoused here on religion is tragically short-sighted and probably suffers the same problems that you believe the anti-atheism argument does. Frankly neither path is incapable of straying into crassless societal ruin.

Logical:

Can someone put it in layman's language how to interpret "how the bible says Christian slave owners should treat their slaves" ? I would prefer constructive interpretations with references. Thank you.

Fair question. Here you go:
Ephesians 6:5-9
5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

Similar instructions are given in Colossians 4:1
1Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

Frankly I believe that the passages speak for themselves and need no further explanation. And even without them, it would be ridiculous to assume that a God and Christ who encourages us to 'love our neighbours as ourselves' and to 'do to others what you would have do unto you' would ever be pleased with roughhandling of slaves.

More plagiarism from our resident Bible scholar:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/vulgar.html

Next!

No, Alphazee, YOU have not studied the Bible. As I said before, plagiarising EvilBible.com does not show that you have studied the Bible!

http://www.evilbible.com/Slavery.htm

Infact it is plain that you did not even check evilbible.com's work for accuracy of presentation. Proof: I'd like you to defend your inclusion of the Luke 12 verses as proof of Biblically-sanctioned slavery (as quoted here),

The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it.  "But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly.  Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given."  (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

, especially when the context of those verses clearly show that Jesus was speaking in parables
Luke 12:

41Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?"

42The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? 43It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. 44I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. 46The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

47"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. 48But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Alphazee:

Plagiarizing EvilBible.com does not prove that you have studied the Bible!

http://www.evilbible.com/Slavery.htm

d_oracle,

As pilgrim.1 has shown, God let Moses off the hook once his son had been circumsized. This shows that the problem here was Moses' apparent disobedience to God's covenant of circumcision which he instituted with Abraham and all his descendants in Genesis 17:

9 Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

We know from the end of this chapter that Abraham circumcized his son Ishmael and all the males in his household. Later in Gen 21:4 Abraham also circumcized Isaac when he was eight days old. Jacob's sons were circumsized (Genesis 34:15,22), and they undoubtedly carried this tradition of the circumcision covenant into Egypt. So from the above, it is probable that this tradition survived through the Israelite stay in Egypt. Moses himself must have been circumcized; if not God wouldn't have been pacified by just the circumcision of his son.

It is also possible that God reminded Moses of the circumcision covenant beforehand. This may have been necessary due to Moses' long 40-year sojourn in the desert with foreign peoples (one of whom he married - Zipporah) and subsequent disconnection with Israel. Moses' non-compliance is at least due to Zipporah's disapproval of the rite, in part - she registers her displeasure by calling him a 'bridegroom of blood' or 'bloody husband' after the incident.

As dafidixone and pilgrim.1 have stated, the lesson here is that God is no respecter of persons. If indeed Moses was to become the lawgiver and mediator of God's covenant with Israel, then Moses first had to come to terms with the reality of a just and holy God. In other words, he could not be found to be in disregard of God's previous circumcision covenant - a rite that Moses would later incorporate into God's Law (Lev. 12:3).

Alphazee,

Not surprisingly, I'm calling you out yet again on your disingenous scholarship:

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2004/11/biblical-inconsistencies.php

As I said on the other thread, it is hypocritical of you to chide us us for our apparent loathe for critical reasoning when you yourself have shown no capacity for objective thought concerning the Bible. Until you do so, there will be no serious forthcoming response to exchristian.net's woefully unreasonable arguments. As pilgrim.1 has said, she as a non-Bible reading Muslim used to same article to bait Christians, so what you are doing here is nothing new.

Alphazee,

Anyone who is serious about honest discussion and discovering the truth ought to be forthright about his/her sources:

http://www.aethlos.com/biblenotes.htm

These are not your original postulations; they are the jaundiced views of a website that portrays the Holy Bible as 'depraved literature'. I've seen this article copied-and-pasted on other nigerians forums, and in similar fashion neither their proponents bothered to acknowledge their sources. Perhaps it should be no surprise - afterall, why would recalcitrant anti-Christians be bothered about the objectivity of sources that preach what they want to hear?

You demand from Christians what you yourself are unwilling to do - process intellectually what one has heard/read instead of swallowing it wholesale. Friend, this is hypocrisy. Some of us Christians are more interested in engaging people than faceless ideas. Hence for my part, I certainly will not consider your post qualitatively until you yourself do so.

Cheers.

P.S. There is also the matter of your post being a deliberate obfuscation of the matter brought up by the thread starter.

Please don’t get it wrong, the account of the gospel where moses and Elijah were seen with Jesus is according to the disciples. They could have been wrong. Y?
1).Wen Jesus was seen walking on water, they thought it was a ghost, If Jesus had not told them He was the one and asked peter to come along, the biblibical account would have been they a ghost on water.
2). Moses and Elijah lived thousands of years before the time of Jesus, how then did the disciples recognise them? The jewish tradition forbade worship with pictoral images, how then did they know what this prophets look like?

Wha??

Noetic, surely you can do better than this. The quote above belongs to stubborn Bible skeptics and mockers like some of the muslim apologists on this site, not mature Christians. Perhaps this thread has outlived its usefulness. Thorough work has been put by Tayo-D, ricadelide and my student pilgrim.1 ( student ke??) to answer your question, and IMHO you haven't done enough to come to serious terms with their work. Rather, you seem determined to drag us in circles by having things repeated over and over again. Either you are confused about the whole subject of death and ressurection, or you are just spoiling for a fight. Up until now I believed that the former was the case.

God bless

slimlady I agree with the spirit of your post, which concerns peace and harmony between Muslims and Christians. Now rather than disputing your presentation of Islam as the others have done, I will take your word for it. That said, I believe that moderate muslims need to do more to dissolve the unflattering image Islam has today. For example, just look at these posts from a Northern Nigerian/muslim internet forum:

[list]
[li]On this recent thread about Benazir Bhutto's assasination, certain folks gang up on a fellow muslim for insinuating that the Al-Quaeda is not a proper Islamic movement.  [/li]
[li]Here, the forumner Musin unabashedly defends his support for Palestinian terrorist groups and the practice of suicide bombing.[/li]
[li] This one is rather disturbing. I wish I knew exactly what the thread starter said, but I don't understand hausa. From the subsequent posts it seems that he contemplated lynching a fellow human being for allegedly insulting sacred Islamic icons and symbols. . Thankfully the other muslims strongly rejected the idea.  [/li][/list]

These are just recent examples. Bottom line is that I hope that people like you are vigorously engaged in intellectual jihad against such elements among you. Otherwise, your preaching to us is in vain.

Peace unto you  

Bobbyaf:

So longman do you actually believe that Saul spoke to Samuel who was dead and buried? Hahahaha, You really have a lot to learn.

Indeed I have a lot to learn, and so do you  .

Bobbyaf:

Why do you think God would establish a law against consulting with familiar spirits, if when anyone died then they could easily communicate with the living?

You did not pay close attention to my post; hence you're attacking a straw man here. A literal interpretation of the Samuel story does not lead to the conclusion that communication with the dead is routinely possible. On the contrary, the Bible shows that this was no usual occurrence; certainly not for the witch of Endor. As I said before:

longman83:

the woman saw Samuel, and that she was surprised! Why would she be surprised, and how did she realise that her client was actually King Saul, if this was just like all her other episodes of necromancy?

If this witch was used to bringing up the actual dead, then why was she surprised to see Samuel? And why did this lead to her discovery of Saul's true identity? Obviously she saw something that she was not used to seeing. My interpretation of this story is that God in his sovereignty hijacked this act of necromancy by sending the actual spirit of Samuel to delivering his final judgement on Saul. And it would not be the first time that God has 'hijacked' divination for His own sovereign ends - the story of Balaam the prophet is another case in point. God spoke to him through sorcery and divination - which he forbade the Israelites from doing.

Bobbyaf:

If spirits of men had consciousness of their surroundings after leaving the respective bodies after death, then all God had to do was to give them bodies right there and then without having to await the resurrection. Why the time lapse?

Red herring fallacy. Why aren't we transformed the second we accept Jesus into our lives? Wouldn't that be an even greater witness to skeptics? 

I see that you did not comment on the rest of my post. How come? My position does not rest on the story of Saul and and the witch of Endor - concerning which I've already conceeded that some will be undertandably uneasy - but actually on the NT evidence. So how about the rest of my post? 

Bobbyaf, your response is entirely conjectural and lacks essential Biblical evidence.

Bobbyaf:

@ Longman83


There is actually no confusion at all. The spirit means "breath of life"

See ricadelide's posts.

Bobbyaf:
Jesus calls death a sleep. (See John 11)

Yes he did, and so did the apostles in their writings. However, we must balance the word of God properly. It is improper to impute your own meaning to this euphemism (i.e. that 'sleep' in this context means absolute unconsciousness), when other Scriptural evidence clearly shows that dead saints  are clearly consciously with God. This evidence has been diligently provided by ricadelide, Tayo-D, and others. Now let's deal with the little evidence I brought up.

Bobbyaf:
Well, in actual fact king Saul communicated with a "familiar spirit" or one of Satan's demons pretending to be Samuel. Today people practise chanelling, or using a medium to reach their supposedly loved ones who are alive in the spirit world. This kind of practice was forbidden by God. God knew that Satan was only decieving people into believing that when a person dies they are not really dead. Recall that satan once led Eve to believe the same thing when he told her she would not surely die if she ate the forbidden fruit.

Thats why I am wary of such arguments about people going to heaven after death. The spirit that goes back to God in heaven is not conscious or aware of what is going on, since it only the breath of life and nothing more.

First of all, I'm quite aware of this view about the Samuel story, but frankly there is no Scriptural evidence for it. Let's read that passage in I Samuel 28.

⁸ So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. "Consult a spirit for me," he said, "and bring up for me the one I name."

⁹ But the woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?"

¹⁰ Saul swore to her by the LORD, "As surely as the LORD lives, you will not be punished for this."

¹¹ Then the woman asked, "Whom shall I bring up for you?"
      "Bring up Samuel," he said.

¹² When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!"

¹³ The king said to her, "Don't be afraid. What do you see?"
      The woman said, "I see a spirit coming up out of the ground."

¹⁴ "What does he look like?" he asked.
      "An old man wearing a robe is coming up," she said.
      Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

¹⁵ Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?"
      "I am in great distress," Saul said. "The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do."

¹⁶ Samuel said, "Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has turned away from you and become your enemy? ¹⁷ The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. ¹⁸ Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today. ¹⁹ The LORD will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines."

²⁰ Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel's words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and night.


The Bible writer clearly states that Samuel was brought up. We are told that the woman saw Samuel, and that she was surprised! Why would she be surprised, and how did she realise that her client was actually King Saul, if this was just like all her other episodes of necromancy? We are also told that Saul KNEW (as opposed to 'thought') that it was Samuel. It was Samuel, IMHO. Now this interpretation is rejected by many on the basis of discomfort with the non-Biblical practice of necromancy, and I can understand this to an extent. However, soch problems do not exist with the Transfiguration of Jesus, to which you said:

Bobbyaf:
Simple. Moses was resurrected. How else do you explain his conversation with Christ.

The Bible never says anywhere that Moses was ressurrected. What this passage proves is that Moses's spirit clearly was conscious and with God, after his death.

Your repeated quotes from Ecclesiastes deserve notice, and perhaps I can already imagine ricadelide's opinions about these quotations; however, as a precursor to that, I will post the wider context of your earlier quotation from Ecclesiastes 9, which should hopefully reveal one of the problems with your exegesis of this verses.

1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. 2 All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
As it is with the good man,
so with the sinner;
as it is with those who take oaths,
so with those who are afraid to take them.
3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. 4 Anyone who is among the living has hope —even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
5 For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun.
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.


Questions:
[list]
[li]Verse 1: Are the righteous truly unsure of what awaits them, whether love or hate?[/li]
[li]Verse 6: Do the dead really have no further reward, esp. the dead in Christ?[/li]
[li]Verses 7-10: Is this really the proper attitude for a Christian in his approach to life?[/li]
[/list]

These questions should highlight the problem with unrestrained and unqualified doctrination of the book of Ecclesiastes. The same can be demonstrated with your quotations from the Psalms, in fact.

Finally, take note of Jesus' comments concerning the ressurection in Luke 20:37,38:

37But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' 38He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."

Enough said.

Not surprisingly, I sense a great deal of semantic confusion here, esp. over the word 'spirit'.
Let's leave that for now. Noetic, Bobbyaf et al, if I understand your position properly, you are saying that there is no consciousness in the grave. If that is the case then,
[list]
[li] How do you explain the conversation between Saul and the spirit of a dead Samuel in 1 Samuel 28?[/li]
[li] How do you explain the appearance of a long-dead Moses talking with Jesus in his Transfiguration(Matthew 17:3, Mark 9:4, Luke 9:30,31?[/li]
[li][/li]
[/list]

We can insert the wedding ceremony issue in place of the issues discussed in the passage above, such as eating meat and sacred days. Regardless of where we stand on the issue, each should be convinced in his own mind, desist from looking down on others with different views, AND glorify God by keeping his own conscience.

Personally, I find Tayo-D's post to be spot on. The marriage covenant was instituted by God long before the church wedding ceremony and other traditions came onto the scene. Therefore, all wedding ceremonies are valid before God. However, those of us who hold to this view must ensure that we will not create dissension, back-biting and strife by what our conscience permits. This is esp. relevant for those of us in the ultra-Pentecostal RCCG-type churches, where most Christians hold only the church ceremony to be valid. If you attend a church like this, or are surrounded by such-minded Christians - or even more importantly, have parents with those views - then it is better for you to put off sexual relations until after the church ceremony. As Paul said in Romans 14, 'don't let what you consider good to be spoken of as evil.' As Christians, we ought to put the benefit of others before our own.


Just my two cents. Then again, what do I know, I'm single  .

As far as I'm concerned this is something of a grey area, akin to the scenarios Paul discussed in Romans 14. I think this passage and also 1 Corinthians 8:10-13 are very instructive in dealing  with apparently disputable issues like this. I'll post Romans 14 for it is a very good read:

Romans 14

¹ Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. ²One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. ³The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. ⁴Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
⁵One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. ⁸If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord, 
.
.
.

¹³Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. ¹⁴As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. ¹⁵If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. ¹⁶Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. ¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, ¹⁸because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

¹⁹Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. ²⁰Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. ²¹It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

²²So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves. ²³But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

Babs787

I'm not surprised that you did everything except what I advised:

Check up the context of every one of those verses in a Bible

Well, amuse yourself. At the very least, there's no need reinventing the wheel, which almost always happens with 'recycled' questions.

Pilgrim.1,

Truly many of these discussions are a waste of time. A long time ago on another forum I butted heads (ideologically, of course) with a rather pompous Muslim apologist who claimed to be a Bible scholar and expert. Being unable to respond qualitatively to my rejoinders, he resorted to ad hominem tactics, repeatedly ridiculing my 'rudimentary knowledge', and eventually stormed off in a rage. Later I discovered, while reading some of Ahmed Deedat's booklets, that this guy simply plagiarised Deedat's work and presented them as evidence of his own intellectual superiority! Can you imagine ? I have learned my lesson since then. Happy New Year o jare .

You may ignore if you think its too hard for you. You should be bold enough to reply the questions.

No, hopefully I am wise enough to judge when pursuing a discussion would be of little merit. Jesus did not answer every question that was put to him, you know. He did not swallow wholesale the baiting of his detractors and those who were clearly not concerned about knowing the truth - case in point, his 'sign of Jonah' comment you brought up. Think about that one!

Babyosis, now Nwando has been lifting from links yet muslims respond but here you are exposing your falsehood further.

This habit of copy-pasting questions from other sources without acknowledging those sources, and demanding answers from others while prancing about as intellectual heavyweights is thoroughly childish and pointless IMO. People on both sides of this Christian-Muslim dialogue are guilty, and you are certainly among them! It is no wonder, then, the anti-intellectual spirit that pervades many-a-thread in this forum. For instance, you are already charging me of falsehood - under what basis?

I came across those questions when going through that links and I felt that it would further explain what christianity is all about.

Here are certain other things you should have done as well:
[list]
[li]First, you should have processed the information yourself[/li]
[list]
[li]Should questions 1, 2 and 4 really be separate?[/li]
[li]Did you open your Bible to see if these questions were actually substantial, and if you couldn't answer them yourself? You once claimed to know the Bible more than me, even though I'd hardly made a post on the board yet. . Well, now's the time to put that superiority to work. [/li]
[/list]
[li]Finally, present you queries in a forthright, honest manner. Deliberately leaving out your sources is misrepresentation and entirely disingenuous. Of course, this is a handy tool for those who like to posture as experts in subjects they actually have no understanding of, but if we're interested in honest discussion, we'll leave no room for deceit.  [/li]
[/list]

If you are serious about the truth, you'll do this. Check up the context of every one of those verses in a Bible, and you'll realise that most of your questions sideline the context and thus move on to attack straw men.

Over to you .

http://www.inu.net/skeptic/lie.html

babs787, as long as you're baiting Christians with arguments from atheists (see link), how about checking out what these atheists have to say about Islam?

Perhaps you should stop plagiarising questions from Islamic websites and study the Bible yourself. Then you might not need pilgrim.1 or other Christians to do your homework for you.

http://answering-christianity.com/101q.htm

P.S. Happy new Year!