₦airaland Forum

Logicboy03: I understand.

However.....you misunderstand the atheist debate. It is not about evolution. Example....“.atheism or islam, which is more rational?” as a debate topic. It has been done before

In Nigeria? First you have to be sure they know what rational means! LB are you in Nigeria at all?

^^^
pls stop trolling. Read the rules at the OP. Nobody is interested in your proselytising.

striktlymi: To a large extent you are right. Tithing for riches leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. I don't believe anyone should pay tithe because he or she wants to be rich. If this is the reason why some perform the act then they would be better of investing their hard earned money on a 'profitable' venture.

Hear their testimonies and you'd see what i'm saying. People just like to be deceived.

Alfa Seltzer: You interpretation does not qualify my actions no matters how dear you hold them or how many people agree with you.

You can only bring a horse to the stream. Those that want to know will know but ostriches cannot do otherwise than burying their heads.

I give knowledge. You reject it and accuse me of slander. Your problem. I hope you go to heaven. Spits.

touched a nerve? Why the long face?

joel lala: Well, only a dead person can actually be reset to that default position and we all knw that you aint dead...so you are either an atheist or a believer..simple

lol. False Dichotomy. Anyway, i'm not interested in impressing you or anybody so if you think default position means dead then good for you.

Logicboy03: Sorry.


Cant remember....just flick to it and didnt even finish cos i hard to go to work

striktlymi: Probably what he meant but can we say for sure that majority of Christians believe in the tithe thingy? At least I know that the Catholic church does not make tithing mandatory for anyone.

Anyways, I believe that a lot of Nigerians are sceptical about paying taxes because a number of our politicians consider the 'National treasury' to be their personal bank accounts.

Hence there is a disconnect between the level of moneys generated through tax collection and the level of infrastructural development. I believe firmly that some Nigerians will be glad to pay their taxes when the Government demonstrates some level of maturity and accountability.

you may be right but on the other hand, of what benefit is paying tithe? Except to enrich the 'tithee'
all those supernatural increase being promised are hogwash and cannot be proven to actually happen. Heck! You can still be rich whether or not you pay tithe and if really tithing is all that then Nigerians should produce the highest number of rich people at least in africa. The reality is that it is just a fraud that only goes to enrich the pastors while all they give back are fake ass promises whose veracity cannot be ascertained.
We are too lazy and we just expect magic to happen all the time. The pastors know this and will always capitalise on this to rob us. . .

Alfa Seltzer: Share knowledge.

So far, what progress have you made? Its only slander i see you sharing here

Chibuebem: I get what you're saying. I'm trying to make it make sense to you. To everybody. That's why I preach.

ok. You de try. . .

Being human does not justify sin sir. You know that. We all do. God demands perfection. Especially in these days when its a readily available gift. And sin is not something that we cannot fathom sir, infact sin binds us together under fear and guilt and darkness. The fact that we're guilty of sin makes all men hush before God. It's not unfathomable. This is not about religious notions, infact, its what makes all religious notions, from islam to buddism, to judaism, to even those who claim 'christianity' with fault and hopeless and guilty. Once a man sees clearly, he understands he is guilty of sin. Of wrong doing. And some people try to make it(sin, wrong doing) natural, they end up in deeper perversion. They enjoy sin and don't want to answer to God or anybody for that matter. They want to be 'free'. God has provided a way, but they refuse his way. He leaves them to wallow in sin and answer to him on judgement day. That's the tale of the world today.

You are not getting it. . .
What i said is unfathomable is the age old puzzle why humans are not perfect, not sin. I understand the christian concept of sin, which is sometimes ridiculous and very different from the concept of good and evil. You didn't answer my question on whether you've heard about Pandora's box. That is another mythological explanation for the evils in this world just like the Adam and Eve story. All through the ages, man has always wondered on the problem of evil, why we are not perfect etc. The adam story is just one of many and has its own short comings. . .This is what we are trying to show here.

how does it not fit in?

now take a moment to ponder this. . .

An omniscient god creates 2 humans and puts them into a garden. . . He then plants a tree of good and evil in their midst(what for?) and tells them not to eat of it(tree should just be bearing magical fruits, falling down and getting rotten for all eternity). Meanwhile he didn't warn them of a cunning talking() serpent who would try to make them disobey him. . . Said humans don't even know difference between good and evil so of course they wouldn't know whether what they are doing would be bad. . . After eating said magical fruit twice!(where was the omnipresent god then?), they now know what good and evil is(which to me is a good thing). . . But the omniscient god is inexplicably very angry that they disobeyed him(something he should have known before creating them) and punishes them severely including their unborn generation(presumably, said magical fruit has some mutagenic properties that makes perfectly formed cells to get old and die with time and also affects the sex cells too) unless said unborn generations will accept the redemption of his son whom he sent to earth to be killed as a sacrifice(why does he like blood sacrifices sef) to himself in order to forgive us and make us free from said imperfection which the magical fruit eaten by adam some thousand years ago caused.
so this is the christian version. . . Tell me it all makes perfect sense to you

joel lala: That doesnt justify you being an atheist or not..if you dont believe in a god or gods or a diety then you are an atheist and vice versa...

Not really. I'm not atheist. I'm at the default position. . . Figure it out.

FOLYKAZE: Alfa is a satanist who belief satan is his master but doesn't accept satan exist.....pantheist have believe. where are you going to tag Jain pls?

Tag them how? I don't understand the question?

Yoruba God are philosophical and you can understand it spiritually. Note, allegory and tales were attributed to it but I dont think we should look at the surface of it.

I have explained that Ifa literally mean body of knowledge.

Ogun is Iron

Sango is electric energy

Eshu is mere intuition. Nothing more, nothing less.

I dont believe in those stuff because I already know them. Adding, I dont believe in supernatural, everything I see in nature is super enough. The question should be do I have explaination for everything in nature? Nope I dont but wont deny things happen and im skeptical into knowing about why, how, what and if things happen.

are you saying the yoruba gods are actually abstract concepts and not actual spiritual deities?

Some sceptical television programmes will be interesting to see. Programmes that promote scientific reason and logic. Just don't call it atheistic programmes else no station will agree to air it. Lol

Ihedinobi: Lol. My friend, you seem to be implying that the laws of nature should have been different. By all means, tell me why and what configuration they would have taken to be better.

oh no you misunderstand. What i'm implying is that a perfectly good and just omnipotent and omniscient god if he exists should have done better. Nature as it is now is sometimes cruel and unjust but if we want to ascribe it to some supernatural entity then it should do better. . . Gerrit?

Chibuebem: ok. But the bible, and even nature shows clearly that the SINFUL NATURE(not sin sir, the sinful nature. The nature that makes one tend to sin, even enjoy it, as plaetton has admitted) is what we have as humans. It's nature sir. And you can't blame God for it. I don't know why you guys are always trying to discredit God. You should get to know him as he is first, then ask him your questions. No use bickering from afar. And Sir, there is a law, whether we acknowledge it or not, its Inherent in our conscience, and this law is of God. When we break it we're guilty.

you call it sinful nature. We call it just being human. You see, while you claim that the human nature is imperfect because of sin and needs to be made perfect, we contend that this your notion of sin is just an explanation for something we cannot fathom and is not different from other religious notions out there. Have you heard of Pandora's box?
We also go further to tell you that your concept of a just and all powerful omniscient god does not fit in well with your explanation.

Get this my guy, the concept of sin and redemption is a religious concept and it doesn't make sense to a non religious person. This seems to be our sore point. . .

Logicboy03: True talk. However, are you saying that the actions of the American Atheists organisation are wrong? The American Atheists have signboards and rallies promoting atheism

No. Like i said, preaching theism or atheism is not wrong. I was talking about it in the Nigerian context. We need to have a healthy dose of rationality before any discussion of atheism will make sense. . .

While it is not wrong to preach atheism or theism, you would be hard pressed to define what exactly you are doing to an average die hard theist who assumes that every discussion about religious beliefs is about conversion and saving of soul etc etc.
I would advise the promotion of reason, logic and scepticism. . . Let people come to their own personal conclusions.

joel lala: If you are not an atheist then what are you?

A troll.
a pain in the butt

Alfa, what is your mission here on NL as a satanist?

trolling: let me make it really simple for you guys, God's create good and evil, now let me show you a mystery, evil and good was created to battle, and our Almighty Yah wants to see good and evil in action, and watch good conquer evil as for why sin was created, there are so many other reasons why it was created but I'll list one, mind you Yah don't do evil, He creates it and His demons carry it out, now back to why evil was created, one of the reasons was for good to redeem us from evil, O can go on and on but I'd like to keep the mysteries for my peeps

So basically, we are in a game? Like greek mythology? Lol. Pls keep the mysteries for your peeps

I don't believe in all religious notions of God. There are no empirical evidence for them, just conjectures and confirmation bias.

As for other dictionary uses like admiration or metaphor, i don't see how it requires belief in order to use it as an admiration or a metaphor. . .
@OP, do you believe in the existence of the yoruba gods with their attendant supernatural powers?

Btw, i'm not an atheist

Oluwaseytiano: nope i was hoping you would tell me?

Let me, against my better judgement, give you a little education. . .
An opium is drug gotten from the seed of the poppy plant(papaver somniferum). It is from this seed that the drug Morphine is synthesized from. What does Morphine do?

Morphine is a very potent drug that is used to alleviate severe pains is small quantities. It is a very addictive drug, meaning that if taken for too long can cause both physical and psychological dependence. This means that you will have the urge to continue taking it whether the pain is there or not. It also has the effect of altering your consciousness and making you 'high'. . . Everything becomes funny and sweet and while others are in despair, you are in a cloud 9.

Now, do you understand what the article in your OP was talking about?
Do you think someone who has broken free of this addiction is dumber or smarter than the one who decides to continue living in his cloud 9 bubble?
Have you also heard of the placebo effect?

By the way. . . This your Pascal's wager has been soundly debunked several times. It only goes to show how smart you are when you continue using it. . .

HumbledbYGrace: I am sorry guys we have enough chatrooms.

If we have a general chatroom things will go back to being chaotic, we cannot have that. We all do not agree on one thing, for hot topics, questions, debates or stuff that we feel we cannot share in the chatrooms then we are allowed to open threads about such which gives everyone a room to voice his/her opinion.

Thanks.

There are a lot of things i disagree with in this post but i'm not gonna push it further.

What i want to say is that whatever you guys do should be within the rules and as unambiguous as possible. From experience, i think it will be better when you guys close threads or ban people the reasons should be clearly stated to avoid this type of back and forth complaints.
For example, if any MOD is closing a thread, he/she should make it clear why the thread is being closed on said thread before closing. This style of acting with little or no explanation thereafter leaves much to be desired. It gives an impression that we are being bossed around instead of being moderated.
I don talk finish.

@chibuebem, your response to my post was too long to quote. . .

I'm sure you realise that what this discussion is really about is to show how the christian theology of inherited sin or imperfection is unreasonable and unjust. It is not a discussion to argue whether we sin or not or whether we want to convert. Not all religions have this concept of sin and redemption as preached by the bible, so i'm afraid your response was slightly misplaced

Ihedinobi: That's better! Inheriting a nature prone to sin is not a punishment or act of judgment of any sort. We inherit what we do because of our pedigree. There would be no human being if there wasn't a first human being from whom all human beings derived. It's simply a law of nature. Adam is our father, thus we are derivations of him. We are what we are because he was what he was. That is not God's judgment, it is just how nature operates.

This here, is trying to deflect the blame unto 'nature'. I thought you guys always argued that all the laws of nature were actually put in place by God? So if its a law of nature then it means that your god simply made it so. And we are back to the fact that it is Yahweh who made it so, the fact that we all had to inherit Adams imperfection.

Now, God's Own Judgment is that no one should die simply because Adam made some stupid decision ages ago. He offers instead to fix our "defective" gene so that we can be free to do good and not sin anymore and thus earn the condemnation due to sin. That, not our derived moral nature, is His Judgment.

So in other words, Yahweh is willing to cure us of our defect which was inherited from Adam through a law in which he(Yahweh) instituted. Great!

striktlymi: Hi Caj,

First of, I don't believe the bold is accurate. If we can place some level of reliance on the demographics here then it would be proper to say that majority of Nigerians do not believe in paying tithes and as such your claim of a 'majority' is less than accurate.

surely, you understand that he meant most christians na.

I wanted to reply sensibly until i saw this. . .

Obviously it is the believers
that are smarter and anyone
who thinks otherwise is
mentally ill.

Do you know why religion is called the opium of the masses?

Ihedinobi: I'm still struggling to get this "punished" part. If we are "naturally predisposed" to sin, that may be Adam's fault. But is it Addam's fault that we refuse a cure for that natural predisposition? How is that not on us?

Let me spell it out. . .
If Adam was made perfect and then became imperfect because of his sin and then we are now born imperfect does it not mean that we are in fact sharing in the consequences of Adams sin? Something we had no part in?
Edit: and if it is a natural predisposition then why do we need a cure? If we need a cure, does it not mean that we might have a 'disease' that needs curing? And if so, does it not mean that we inherited it from Adams sin? Something we had no part of? How is that just? Inheriting sin?

Ihedinobi: The Bible said that? Where, if you please?

Regardless, what punishment are you talking about? How much intelligence is required to know that if A is God and He tells you not to do X, then you should not do X even if B who is not God tells you to do it? And if God has said that doing X brings Y consequence, would He still be God and faithful if it didn't? Why should God lie?

really man? If they knew right from wrong before then what was the point of the fruit?was it not to open their eyes to knowing good and bad?
And if they didn't know what was good and what was bad, how will they know that disobeying god was bad?

Wu Zetian: What height of morality are we trying to attain here?? And why should an Atheist live his life based on the Christian moral standards??

Daz all! This thread does not merit further discussion. . .

I have no problem with religion as a concept, but the problem is that every religion claims to be the only correct one. Their adherents will find no problem pronouncing others doomed for all eternity based on their own dogma. If only people will be brave enough to accept that their religion only serves to give them a source of hope and comfort in trying times we will all live in peace and nobody will harm his fellow man because he thinks he's doing his god a favour.

Spirit power makes Usain Bolt to be fast.

haibe: I used to believe in him, I stopped, infact I believed in him before believing in Christ, when I saw the truth in Christ I clinged to it, I didn't waste any more time in my blindness.

So why don't you believe in Jesus first and then the truth of the bible will be made manifest to you.

What if i told you that i used to believe in christ too until i saw reason and left the delusion?

Nevertheless, this is not a rational answer because for you to convert someone who has no idea what christianity is about, you have to show how it makes sense and is better than other religions. You can't just tell me to believe first! I might as well believe in Amadioha too and the truth of Amadioha will be revealed to me. By this singular logic, i'll have to test all possible religions before i die. Huge work if you ask me