₦airaland Forum

A bunch of crabs were sitting in a barrel at a seafood restaurant, waiting to be cooked. One of them said to the others, "Hey, you know what, if we all climb to the top and push on the lid, it'll come off and then we can escape."

The other crabs all laughed. They knew it was impossible to escape. What could this foolish dreamer be thinking? It was nonsense. Couldn't be done. Not even worth trying.

After a few minutes, when it was clear he wouldn't be getting any help, the one hopeful crab climbed up and started pushing on the lid alone. The other crabs just laughed harder, until they heard a faint creaking noise and realized that the lid was starting to shift a little. Then they all got angry. How dare one crab try to escape by himself? He was just another crab, and he needed to be shown that he was no better than the rest of them.

So they grabbed the crab who had been trying to escape and dragged him back down to the bottom of the barrel. They all got cooked and eaten soon afterward, but at least they had the satisfaction of knowing that no other crab was able to achieve more than they had.


I think we should give him a chance AND follow his example.

A third of the worlds population are Christians and the other 2 thirds are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and non believers etc.

If you think that Christianity is the one true faith, please let me know why, and dont just say because the Bible says so. That would be circular reasoning like if i ask a Muslim the same question and he says because the Quaran says so, or a Hindu 'the Vedas says so'. etc. etc.

We all agree that it is not possible for all religions to be the right one,

However, it is possible that they could all be wrong,

If you are a Christian, or a Muslim, what makes you so certain that you are following the right one and that all other religions (the vast majority of the worlds population are wrong?)

I have been watching this very interesting, informative and well made documentary on the bbc called "Around the world in 80 faiths". It is hosted by a Christian priest called Peter Owen Jones and is very enlightening, whilst also being respectful of all the various different beliefs of our fellow humans.

The episode on Africa, i found truly amazing and awe inspiring, and last weeks one on the middle east was equally informative and fascinating. Next weeks episode is all about North America ( i cant wait to see that one!).

If anyone is interested in watching it you can see it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00glqx9

or here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PxZ7_rEaQ

Enjoy

This is what the Holy Bible says about marrying a non-virgin.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/proof_of_virginity/dt22_13.html



Very Shocking!!!

In my humble opinion, it seems to me like Christians are trying to save Atheists being thrown into the lake of fire, and Atheists are trying to save Christians from wasting their whole lives believing in said lake of fire.

This is mankinds humanity to man.

We need to realise that the various concepts of God began with and are based on the creation myths of early bronze age civilizations first attempts to comprehend and understand the origins of life, the universe, and the immensely powerful forces of nature.

Peace

Samson and the prostitute!

This is soooo funny i almost fell off my chair!!

http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/samson_and_the_prostitute/jg16_01a.html

The 1 Million Commandments!

Here is the link:

http://uk.youtube.com/user/SpellBreaker19

Here is an interesting video from some former nuwaubian members

Montel Show: CULT SURVIVORS SPEAK OUT

Kuns, bro you need to let it go. It seems like you are in serious denial.

There are still people who believe in the 'prophet' Jim Jones.

It takes time and i sincerely hope you can one day release yourself from the psychological chains you are in.

All this alien stuff is total nonsense.

"What is the name of the religion you are practising? what deity do you serve or worship? I saw you drop some African names on the other thread are they the deities you worship? why is nobody buying what you are selling? It seems you have to try harder."

Hey Kuns, Are you a nauwabian? and is Malachi York your divine leader?

I would really like to know more about him and your beliefs. Did he really claim to have come from another planet in a different galaxy?

I had a friend you used to be one untill Malachi York was arrested, and convicted on multiple counts of child molestation and rape a few years ago.

Is he still in jail and how is the campaign to release him going?

you still havent answered me on how christianity negatively affects you as a citizen of the UK.

Just thought I'd mention how Christianity negatively affects me and millions of others in the UK.

I want to send my children to the best school in my area, but i cant because they are not Roman Catholic, and don't follow that particular interpretation of the Bible. I pay my taxes like everyone else to help fund and run this school, so i should be allowed to send my children there.

No where else in society is this kind of discrimination allowed, but why are faith schools still allowed to practice archaic, separatist, and divisive selection policies.

It is time for religious discrimination to  be abolished and outlawed just like racial discrimination was. Its just not right, Remember when black children were banned from the best schools in America. It took the civil rights movement to bring the government kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

I think in the 21st century a secular religious rights movement is required to bring the churches into line with the concept of equality.

We are all the same.

'You need to free your mind from your own mythical Gods. Who are these Gods you are talking about?(Neteru, the Anu-nnagi Eloheem ) I don't not believe in them.'

I think he is a Nuwaubian. They are followers of an african american man called Malachi York who claims he came from a planet called rizq in a different galaxy far far away. He claims he came here on a spaceship hidden in a comet. He built an Egyptian compound in Georgia and had hundreds of followers until he was arrested and thrown in jail for 134 years for 74 counts of child molestation, 29 counts of aggravated child molestation, one count of rape, four counts of statutory rape, five counts of enticing a child for indecent purposes, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of influencing a witness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuwaubianism

It seems like people will believe in anything these days.

Can God make a rock that is too heavy for him to lift?

If yes, Can he lift it?

I saw this documentary about him on tv the other day.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CvytVhqiO6E

He convinced his followers that the world was about to end in October 2007.

The sad thing about it is that the children who were rescued from the cult by their parents, actually went back after a while because they truly believed in him and loved him so much.

Never underestimate the power of faith, Any faith!

It makes me sad to think that children are being taught that the most important part of their life is auditioning for the next one.
This is a truly poisonous and dangerous concept that inevitably leads to the degradation of our current world as a transit life - a 'vale of tears' that we must put up with momentarily until our ticket is clipped and we are rescued from this miserable existence of trial and temptation.

I'm beginning to think that maybe the religious world is about to end soon. And that the atheists will inherit the earth.

Maybe only then will humans finally enter into the Age of Reason.

peace and love

"All i'm saying is, if you live in Nigeria, will you still be bold to declare openly you are an atheist? Just curious." Huh

What are you implying?

Religion is a mental illness.

Religion is a widespread mental illness, of which the defining feature is delusional belief in a powerful invisible being or beings who is/are always watching you and will punish you if you don't follow his/her/their will. (The paranoid delusions found in schizophrenia are often remarkably similar). The illness comes in various strains, of which the most severe is Islam / Christianity, symptoms of which include virulent anti-Semitism and homophobia. Almost matching in severity is Scientology, the system in which aliens blew up a volcano, creating life. People not afflicted by religion are called atheists, and they can be identified by their ability and willingness to use rational thought, unless they don't (see Communism).

Religion is the most common infection in the world, with over 90% of the populace infected with one or another strain. Religion is usually brought on by infection by the group: Fatal Anginal-Infective Transcribing Hepatitis virus more often known by the acronym FAITH. Symptoms involve believing something that is not only unproven but also outrageously illogical simply because someone (or occasionally a book), somewhere, says it's true. In this respect, faith can be considered the chronic form of the lesser mental disorder; Gullibility. For synonyms, see How To Make a Million Dollars. The official catch phrase of religion is "Give us your money, and you will have a good afterlife!", known to critics as the "Pie In The Sky" allegory.

Other symptoms involve donation of money to televangelists, participation in holy wars, a feeling of superiority, paraphilic fetishes towards guilt, lack of sense of humour, and spontaneous combustion.

It seems to me to be quite obvious that revelations in the bible was written thousands of years ago by a bronze age man with serious psychological problems.

Lets not be like crabs in a barrel.

"Christianity is not based on any of the Old testament scriptures you quoted"

It seems to me that the most important part of the old testament for Christian pastors is the part which says you must give them 10% of your income.

The God of the old testament is plain evil, egotistical, and an immoral, genocidal mass murderer!

http://www.evilbible.com/

Thank God for the New Testament.

The bible is no joke!

As you will see from the link below:

http://www.evilbible.com/

Open your eyes, use your brain, think rationally and free yourselves from the slavery of faith.

Jesus saves, and Drogba scores the rebound.

Can someone here help me to understand the whole trinity godhead principle.
Because the way i see it Jesus doesn't need any genealogy. Mary was a virgin before being made pregnant by the Holy Ghost.

If you really think about it and believe that there is only one god. Then Jesus Christ, who is his own father and son, actually impregnates his own mother to begat himself, so that he can sacrifice himself to himself to appease himself for his own mistakes in the garden of Eden.
You cannot blame Adam and Eve for eating the fruit because before they ate it they would not have known about good and evil and would not have known that the talking snake was evil.

If God is truly omnipotent and omniscient why did he allow the devil into the garden in the first place? The smart thing to do would be to keep the devil out of his perfect creation and protect his children like you would your own children.

If an evil person tried to entice your innocent young children away from you, you would do everything in your power to protect them and warn them of the danger wouldn't you? You wouldn't punish them and their unborn children for all eternity. And then drown them all when things start getting from bad to worse!

If God created everything then where did the devil come from? God must have created him too. He created all the angels, archangels, cherubims. seraphims etc. so why send the fallen angel to earth and let him into the garden to mess it all up in the first place?

Please understand that i am not trying to disrespect anyone but you can see from my way of thinking how it is becoming more and more difficult to believe in the story any more. Just as you would find it difficult to understand why someone has faith in another belief, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Scientology, Mormonism, nuwabianism, Sikhism etc. etc. etc. Even though It doesn't make any sense to you that person will swear that it is all true and that all others faiths are wrong.

Don't be afraid to question. But never underestimate the power of denial.

Peace and love to all.

Horus
Is that a picture of your saviour Malachi York, and is he still in jail?

I dont know if you guys know this but there is a huge problem with the ten commandments as followed by us Christians, considering that it is the most important part of the bible and written by God himself.

The first set of commandments in exodus 20 was later smashed to pieces by Moses when he came down from the mountain and saw the people dancing before the golden calf. He had to go back up the mountain to get them again!

It is quite revealing to read exodus 34: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and i will write upon these tablets the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, " So Moses obeyed, "And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did eat neither bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, The Ten Commandments"

Here is the list Moses got the second time around:

1. Thou shalt worship no other god
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.
4. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.
5. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks.
6. Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the Lord God.
7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
8. Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of passover be left until the
morning.
9.The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the
Lord thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mothers milk.

As you can see, the first, second and fourth commandments are the same, exept that 'molten' rather than 'graven' images are verboten; but the others are totally different. Did God lose his memory? What happened to murder, theft and perjury? Notice that these are not additional commandments; they are "the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest".
So, if you have ever been tempted to boil a goat in the milk of its mother, now you know better.

Other religions also have lists of laws. For example; The "Ten Precepts" of Buddhism (at least 500 BC) include:
1. Abstinence from destrying life.
2. Abstinence from stealing.
3. Abstinence from impurity.
4. Abstinence from lying.
5. Abstinence from strong drinks and intoxicating liquor,
And five more rules for monks only.

Notice that these are "precepts". not commandments, and that they also contain prohibitions against killing, stealing and lying, which did not originate on Mount Sinai.
This just shows that the human race has a tendency to make behaviour lists and that the Ten Commandments is not unique. Yet the first ten has been presented to the world by Christians as the highest code of moral conduct ever created. What about the new Ten Commandments after Moses smashed the first lot? Where they not the ten that were put into to ark of the covenant?

This is what Jesus actually taught about loving your enemies

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_teachings_of_jesus/on_love/lk06_17p20p27.html

391 stories with 4,214 illustrations. More to come,

- CONTENT NOTICE -
The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children. These labels identify stories containing:

N= nudity S= sexual content V= violence C= cursing

I believe it can work if you both release the chains from your minds and realise that we are all gods children. You did not choose to be born into a christian family and he didnt choose to be born into a muslim family. At least you are both worshipping the same God.
Why does religion have to be so divisive? Think about it, Christianity has been spread throughout the world to all nations to bring people together. Jesus did not teach separation and prejudice amongst Gods children. I think its time we appreciate the things that bind us together and not the things that divide us,
A change in thinking is required and is coming. Each generation is becoming a little bit more rational than the last one.

I have read the bible from cover to cover many years ago before i studied engineering at university. Reading it again with an open mind and the knowledge that i now have of the sciences including physics, geology, chemistry, astromony, and the origin and properties of materials is actually causing me to question a lot of the stories contained within it.
I understand the fact that when it was written, people did not understand the nature of this world and the universe as we do now, but as it was written by God, then why does a lot of it not make sense.
Like for instance: the stars falling down from the sky and being trampled underfoot. People didnt know how big stars are back then, but now we know that it would be impossible.
Or the story of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still at Gideon and the moon to stay over the valley of Aijalon so that his army could have a longer day to finish their slaughter when they thought that the enemy was about to escape under cover of darkness. We now know that the planets rotate around the sun and not the sun around the earth as was thought back then.
Poor old Gallileo was arrested by the church, charged with heresy, thrown in prison, forced to recant his research and finally put in house arrest until he died for publishing what is now known as a fact!
As a lifelong christian, but also with my knowledge of the sciences i am having difficulty with many other passages in the bible which i wont go into now.
A work colleague has recommended i read a book called "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I saw it on amazon and see it has some very good reviews. Has anyone else read it?

My dear Chrisbenogor. Thanks for your suggestions, but i was more thinking of something i could read on the train on the way to and from work.

Should the bible be taken literally or allegorically?

Lady, you say it should be taken allegorically. Maybe you are right, but someone should have told these guys.

http://www.alrcnewskitchen.com/creationmuseum/index.htm
This website  absolutely contradicts virtually everything i learnt in science class!

http://www.thebricktestament.com/

The second link comes with this warning:
- CONTENT NOTICE -
The Bible contains material some may consider morally objectionable and/or inappropriate for children. These labels identify stories containing:

N= nudity  S= sexual content  V= violence   C= cursing

I found it quite amusing, but also a bit offensive and disrespectful.

I consider myself a very openminded christian and realise that i don't know everything and neither do scientists. However, unbelievers need to understand for us christians it is our life, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and intellectually. Think of it like this. You are in love with your wife / husband / children and would do anything to defend them even though that may seem irrational to someone who dose not feel what you do. Christians have a relationship with Jesus even though you may find it hard to understand,   
However, I think God gave me a brain for a reason and now i am using it to look at the bigger picture i am hungry for more knowledge.

Can someone recommend some good books for me to read from both sides of the fence?

Thanks for your replies to my post and all your various suggestions. I have learnt a lot that i didnt know before and will discuss them with my friend and our pastor when i see him on sunday. I consider myself an openminded christian and am willing to learn new things and interpretations of the bible. I have decided to use my own judgement in Gods eyes and go against my pastor's demands. I have been reading in other topics about pastors owning private jets and stuff, but my pastor is not like that. I will be giving as much as i feel i can but as i am also helping my sick mother back home, i will ask the pastor if i can reduce my monthly tithe to £100 per month, which is less than 10%, and send my mother an extra £100 pm instead. I hope he is understanding enough to accept my proposal, and will advise my friend to do the same.
I will also put to him the suggestion that christians shouldnt be giving compulsory tithes at all as it is not part of Christ's teachings,

Wish me luck :-)

Hi Guys.
I have enjoyed reading your arguments, and i am feeling a bit worried that you non believers seem to be making some very good points. Although i think your arguments are very logical and make a lot of sense, my faith is just that,  'faith' and comes from the heart not the head.

However, i am reading the passages you referred to in the old testament and am finding it very hard to understand, condone, or, justify the things i am reading. This is a very difficult and scary thing for me to admit, but i think i am starting to lose my faith in faith alone, and asking difficult questions that i never used to ask before.

For example;
Why do our pastors always pick and choose what is relevant from the old testament for us to follow and what is not? For example, they always quote the old testament when they want my monthly tithe. Now my pastor has just clarified to us that he expects us to give the church 10% before income tax is deducted and not after, like i used to give. My friend brought the issue up in church a couple weeks ago and i just kept quiet about it. My pastor has so much money whilst i am struggling to make ends meet. It's not fair!

The scary thing for me is that my faith is a very important part of my life and if i lose that, what will i have left.
Even The ten commandments don't make much sense anymore. This is very depressing, Help!!

I agree with you on points 1 and 2. However, i strongly disagree with point three. I dont just listen to hearsay and am very willing to listen to all sides of a story from believers and nonbelievers alike.

The more things you point to to prove how impossible it is for the earth to be 6000 years old only go to show me how miraculous the Lord is. What may seem impossible to you, is easy for God. He created the earth and EVERYTHING in it  (inluding petroleum) and gave us humans dominion over it.