₦airaland Forum

JeSoul: That is one bone I can give you - the USA is ~230yrs - development does not happen overnight. But I will argue the seeds that have grown to what it is today were visible during the Lincoln days.

What positive seeds can you point to in our political system that inspires hope?

Exactly. I have had course to argue this point than once. When I heard Dieziani Alison-Madueke saying that at 50 Nigeria was not doing badly because at 50 Britain was still fighting the knights of the roundtable, I shook my head in pity. Or when someone reminds us that it took the US over a century (or how long was it?) to extend voting rights to women and longer than that to extend full constitutional protection to blacks. For God’s sakes the US got independence in 1776, not 1976. How do you use the standards of the past to judge today? That the US did not give women the vote in 1776 was not because they were backward or corrupt and not progressing, it was because of the TIME. You have to compare Britain’s level of development at 50 with countries that were 50 at the time not Nigeria in the 21st century. Nigerian leaders are not siphoning their country’s money to foreign accounts because it is what is expected of leaders in the 21st century. Customs aren’t stealing at our borders because of the TIME and Mrs Madueke and her fellow ministers aren’t awarding contracts and oil deals to friends and relatives who aren’t qualified and without due process because our country needs to pass through that process to get it right. The indices of progress were there in the States back then. The people cared about the country – especially the elite. Even the colonialists that came here 150 years ago did not steal to line their own pockets. They stole for their queen and country.

Now, let me say something briefly about Nigerian optimism. Optimism is good. No, not just for sentimental reasons like Ihedinobi pointed out, but there are practical reasons why keeping the hope alive can bring positive results. And optimism is certainly not something I can sit here and debunk (Copyright © logicboy0-3, logicbwoy, MacDaddy0-2, Cheers0-3).

The only thing I can do is to question the basis for Nigerian optimism. To illustrate. In 2002, shortly after Obasanjo and Buhari were announced as presidential candidates of the two leading parties for the presidential election of 2003, a British commentator said “the fact that it is these two that have been put forward shows that the Nigerian elite have not made up their minds for things to change.” Today, ten years later, where are we? A couple of days or so ago I saw a newspaper headline – “2015 Election: North Considers Atiku, Buhari and Lamido”! (You can Google it). Yes, in 2012, Nigerian kingmakers are seriously considering Atiku Abubakar, the former Customs boss whose name is synonymous with graft, who it is said used to collect $20,000 to sign contract papers when he was VP for the post of Nigeria’s presidency. And if that fails they can’t see past Buhari, a common coup plotter and a bye-word for ethno-religious irredentism. And if “worse comes to worse”, they have on standby Sule Lamido, the uninspiring governor of a sparsely populated semi-desert state whose account books have never balanced. When Obasanjo came in 1999, many Nigerians, including me, were optimistic. You asked about Fashola. He also filled some people with optimism and proved the naysayers wrong in the early part of his time at Lagos House. Look how he has turned out – the sort of leader that lacks problem solving skills and so buries his head in the sand in the belief that once you deploy mobile policemen with AK-47s and whips and armoured tanks to coerce the people to obey your latest edict, you have sorted things out. That is what we always get whenever we dare to hope – disappointment.

Going further, most Nigerians will agree that the governorship elections held in Edo and Ondo states were free and fair – by “Nigerian standards”. Do these fill me with hope? Well, we have to scratch above the surface. It is a fact that the president made a heavy deployment of policemen, SSS and soldiers to nearly every street in these states during the elections. In other words, there was no snatching of ballot boxes because security agents were heavily deployed and instructed not to allow ballot box snatching, not because our politicians have decided to let us enjoy our rights to choose our rulers. So what happens in a general election since we don’t have enough security agents to deploy in 36 states in this manner? You see why it can be hard to find a strong basis for hope?

Look, again, at corruption. It’s not uniquely Nigerian. In Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico and countless other countries, including even first world South Korea, it happens that when a minister gives someone a contract, the contractor would give him a kickback of 10%. That is not what happens in Nigeria. Here, you can award a contract and collect 100%, that is, simply put the money in your pocket and let the grass grow on site. Alternatively, you can award a contract for N10 million and get the contractor to sign for N80 million. And then (this happens in the LGs) you can have someone hint the contractor that he has no business going to site because “we use that road to eat every year”.

Where is the hope then? We have a whole generation who have emigrated to the West. Those who have difficulties getting to the West have gone to the East. The rest have gone to neighbouring countries – anything just to be far from Nigeria! And it’s our best brains mostly affected.

Our problems are not too hard to solve such that they are unsolvable – all you need is some radical thinking and a preparedness to rock the boat. This point must be made. On health for instance, a thinking president would probably call the NMA, the NRD and the others and say, “look, our people are traveling to die in Mumbai and London and Berlin. What do we do? Tell us what we need and we will build a few of these good hospitals in Nigeria and fly in the specialists to carry out procedures so our people can study things and domesticate the expertise”. On the state of our security he would possibly ask states to recruit their own police forces, dissolve the present federal police and build a new one modelled after the American FBI – for good measure I would bring in a foreigner or foreigners to run it at start-up. (Britain, the country where the industrial revolution started, the country that gave birth to the USA, the home of Cambridge and Oxford universities, home of London “the world’s capital”, just hired a foreigner to run its central bank). On corruption he would call the Body of SANs, the NBA and others and bark at them that enough is enough. How do we reform our laws to ensure judges aren’t able to grant these injunctions and criminal trials can really go on the way they do in countries inhabited by civilised people? He would call his cabinet and other appointees and tell them enough is enough – there is an interagency monitoring of movement of money and anyone found stealing will lose his job first and face the courts next. Corruption is not really a monster you can’t tackle. Let the pension systems work, let there be some form of social security, and let thieves go to jail like Ibori and Blagoyevitch and corruption will go down.

Getting the right leader – that is the challenge. I am not saying that a good leader will never emerge in Nigeria – that would not be a reasonable conclusion. That one will emerge in the foreseeable future, my lifetime, is what nothing points to. Gut feeling that it can happen? I have no issues with that. But no hard evidence seriously points to it.

I meant there is a pervasive sense of eat or you are eaten. To be sure, I agree it doesn’t explain everything, but you have to look at things on a larger scale. The Ononiles are collecting their “own” – that is how they see it. They know what’s happening in Abuja and Alausa and elsewhere. The only way it’s ever going to get to them is that piece of land! The same goes for those who siphon fuel, the sheer idiocy of their action being a separate matter. Some people will say this sort of morality is neither right nor wrong – it’s just the way things are. To me it is wrong; but still, it’s the way things are. People normally think they will be shortchanged if they play fair when everyone else isn't.

But I agree that Nigerians don’t live right. It’s complex like I said and eat or you are eaten does not quite suffice to explain it. Nigerians are, generally speaking, just badly behaved, even in the smallest of things – leaving the outside lights on in the daytime, throwing thrash out of a moving car and into the drainage, wasting food, etc. Things were not always like. There was a time in this country things worked – when you reported a problem to a government agency you got a response. When a kid failed a class he repeated it. When you entered a fuel station you had no fear someone would sell you bad fuel as good one. I think the situation of your environment creates a mentality. I can’t produce the link with scientific precision, but some evidence points to it. Let me tell you an incident to illustrate how the general mood of the country can affect a people. Around 2001 – not sure I’m getting the year right but it should be about then – when a new party came to power in Kenya, after the long years of Kanu and Moi. Shortly after President Kibaki and his gang of former opposition crowd were sworn in, promising “zero corruption” and a brand new Kenya, an incident took place in Nairobi. The bus got to a police checkpoint and as usual, the driver produce a crumpled note and was offering it to the cop. Suddenly, the passengers erupted – “Nooooo, they don’t do that anymore! Nooooo, they don’t do that anymore!” The policeman and the driver were shamed into aborting their foul act. Of course, it didn’t take long to become clear to everyone that it was business as usual, as the new leaders not only failed to deliver on their promises to get to the bottom of old corruption but started their own new corruption, Kenya being one of those countries that would give Nigeria a run for its money if you make an Olympic event of corruption.

Ihedinobi: I agree with the declaration that Nigeria needs the kind of leader MyJoe alluded to to be set right and that such a leader is not readily available. But I do not agree that he does not exist. It may take some time for him to emerge but he does exist . . . among the impoverished masses.

Right, basically. But let’s look at one biblical parallel. When Elijah (or was it Elisha?) thought he was the only Yahweh loyalist remaining in Israel he was told there were 7000 besides him. No matter how bad a society gets, there are always good people. The presence of 7000 who had not bowed to Baal was ground for hope – hope that the nation was not lost and that the Messiah would still come. But it would all have been false hope if Elijah had then hoped for a renaissance in which Israel would be rid of idolatry and be restored fully to the worship of Yahweh just like things were in the glorious days of Moses and Joshua because that never happened in the prophet’s lifetime.

JeSoul: I'm doing oh sir. We thank God. And you? hope happyness is harrasing you daily. On another subject...you see wetin dey happen with our friends the MB in Egypt? hmm...

I'm fine o. Thank you for all your kind words.

I think something is going down down there. The MB already served us notice long ago, though - I'm just watching.

JeSoul: Farming is not an answer for everyone, I do think it is a viable option for many currently roaming the streets joblessly. And not solely farming for business reasons, but also for self-sustenance. It certainly beats what the vast majority of them are doing now - nothing.

Unfortunately, there are many many practical problems in the way of this. On subsistence farming, I have been to a few staff quarters of universities and secondary schools in Nigeria. In those staff quarters where land is available, many professors have the sort of farm you are talking about behind their quarters. But in many places such land is not there. A lot of Nigerians would like to plant yams and melons beside their house if only they had the option.

Besides, you see, I know quite a bit about the grim task of farming in Nigeria, although, again, I am not going into many details. You see, many will tell you that Pa Oladeji is “lucky”. One of the reasons Nigerians are so self-centered and keen on “hammering” is the absence of social security. The extended family system that used to provide this is withering away and, of course, it was never available to everyone. In other words, once tragedy befalls you, you are on your own. Farming has a lot of hazards. As a commercial farmer in Nigeria, you are on your own because the government does not “send you”. Tell you what I mean.

In 1999 or 2000 (one of them) Nigerian farmers had a bumper cassava harvest – in fact, it was like one of the seven years of plenty once prophesied by a Yusuf. A certain commercial farmer in the SW was whistling contentedly to himself that morning as he oversaw final preparations for the harvest – the men and women that would uproot the cassava out of the ground, the trucks to convey them to the market, everything. Work stated. The workers uprooted cassava. The trucks loaded and made the first trip. They came back. And then the whole work stopped. The price of cassava had crashed – it had crashed such that sales was unlikely to cover the cost of labour for the day. The great farmer’s only option was to suspend work and send everyone home. He never returned to that farm because the price of cassava did not pick up that year. That was the fate of many cassava farmers that year. The following year this particular farmer did not plant – neither did many others. And that year saw the steepest rise in the price of cassava products the country had seen because we started importing [i]garri [/i]from Benin Republic to meet demand!

1. In medicine, it would rank alongside the discovery of anti-biotics. In Common Law, it would rank alongside Lord Denning’s rediscovery of the promissory estoppel. It was the bright summer the day frosbel dropped his bombshell about Jesus Christ. Previously, the young man had caused a considerable stir when he declared one of the great doctrines of Christianity, the Trinity, to be false. He sent shock waves through this place when he declared that nobody is going to heaven. But Nairaland Christendom was still reeling from that one when he dropped the big one – Jesus did not have a heavenly pre-existence prior to his birth!

Ihedinobi robbed his eyes to see if he was seeing right and then managed something about things getting out of hand. Enigma stared at it for a while and asked a question to ascertain that he understood things correctly. When he realized that frosbel wasn’t going to reverse himself, he muttered a thank you and sighed in Greek. He later came back with his now familiar Trinity verses but the occasion reminded this poster of that scene in Elechi Amadi’s The Great Ponds when the protagonist Olumba shot some poisoned arrows at his archenemy Wago the leopard killer and the arrows went wild since Wago had the “arrow-diverting amulet”. Enigma’s verses went wild as Frosbel deployed a few of his own, neutralizing Enigma’s without breaking his stride.

Putting on that belligerent garb he uses on posters he doesn’t get along with very much, Aletheia also followed the Trinity approach, obviously to remind Frosbel that “Jesus is God”, but it could have been Olumba shooting arrows at Wago.

Even Mr_Anony, who is never short of words, was so dazed at this one he was speechless. He could only manage to offer a phone convo.

At first, there was a loud silence from the JW corner, where frosbel could until now be almost always counted as an ally, even though they were also challenged on the thread, but on a different topic. This one was beyond even the Ijawkid who ever-readily “espoused the JW stance” and the impulsive thread elf truthislight whose response in these matters was normally “automatic”.

Chukwudi44 delved right into the heart of the matter by citing a verse where Jesus said he was before Abraham. But Frosbel “fell my hand” by skipping that one. I could imagine him looking into his I-pad at it, his brow furrowed, then waiving it off with a little hiss. Or maybe he didn’t see it – frosbel isn’t one to skip anything. The other famous Christians in the section were too flummoxed to utter a word.

Outside of here, it’s the kind of thing that seals your fate forever, either positively or negatively and we would be having frosbelian churches all over the place the way they have Lutheran churches.

________________

2. Love him or loathe him, logicboy is a phenomenon. Since the early part of this year when the young man came on the scene, things have not been the same. Brash, intelligent, ubiquitous, rude, sometimes obnoxious, sometimes abusive, the evangelical atheist, who is also known as MacDaddy, Cheers and logicbwoy, has more enemies than the Redeemed Christian Church of God has branches. He is, perhaps, the only fellow in this section who has managed to beat the humongous record set by noetic in terms of number of usernames, having been banned more than Gani Fawehinmi was detained. But he has just as many friends as he has enemies.

His principal subject is atheism. But logicboy is, sometimes, the principal subject. He was no doubt one of those JeSoul had in mind when she used the phrase “baby atheists”. When manmustwack opened a thread to warn about “trolling”, he was the first entity that lept into some people’s head, notably Buzugee and toba. Mr_Anony has used some interesting adjectives on him. Ihedinobi loves to call him names. Deep Sight once screamed who is going to save Nairaland from big MacDaddy. Purist opened a whole thread dedicated to him. And he once opened one himself to sing his own praises.

He belongs to that small minority of atheists who can carry the monumentally foolish argument that God, as a matter of fact, does not exist. His irrationality, at times, is as deep as his intelligence, and his shallowness, as his ability to write good logic. For example, he once made the utterly shallow declaration that someone was “the best president in the world” just because the man donated 90% of his salary to charities and went about in a VW beetle.

Love him or loathe him, logicboy is a phenomenon. Not a garden variety phenomenon, but a fiery fireball searing through the section and leaving ashes in his wake.

I see I missed this. I would have nominated frosbel and logicboy. In fact, the award should go jointly to these two. Forget the other nominees. You see, these enfants terribles, one a radical Christian, the other an dyed-in-the-wool atheist, ran the section this year. More shortly.

Now, can we get a leader who can lead by personal example and end impunity? A leader who will initiate laws to make “excellencies” and political office holders and mothers of the nation and honourables to live like normal people? A leader who can make political office less attractive? A leader who can do something about judges granting “perpetual injunction” against Nigeria? A leader who will roll up his sleeves and tackle the tough challenge of building institutions? A leader who is prepared to put his life on the line – yes, conspiracies and cabals do exist?

Flaunting is a Nigerian word and that is a problem. To curtail the Nigerian problem people will have to see their political and religious leaders living like middle class people. You can’t ask successful businessmen or oil workers or bank executives or telecomm “big boys” not to show off. But getting political and religious leaders on board can make some huge difference. Well, some religious leaders – there is still a measure of order in the old churches like Catholic and Anglican even if we can’t hope to get the Pentecostal leaders to “take it easy” with the ostentatious lifestyle since they are free citizens running private businesses in a capitalist system.

Now, to the second issue – will Nigeria change? No, because nothing leads me to believe that the kind of leaders I have fantasised about will emerge. The current system is bad and can be trusted to always throw up either a reprobate who stands at the head of a tribe of gluttons who eat so much and vomit on our shoes like Ibrahim Babangida, or someone whose obsession for power will blind him to real issues like Olusegun Obasanjo, or someone who is simply useless like Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, or someone who is just content to be president like Goodluck Jonathan.

The possible alternative to the solution I outlined above is a revolution. When a former establishment person like Bolaji Akinyemi and someone who has spent most of his life teaching and preaching constitutionalism and the rule of law like Ben Nwabueze start calling for a revolution, you know how bad things have got. But personally, I am deeply sceptical about revolutions. First, I doubt Nigerians can do it. If we march on the Nass and demand to be heard I think they will simply identify the leaders and pay dollars into their accounts. What if we make it a violent revolution like the Bolsheviks and the Iranians and the Arabs did and we march on Aso Rock and the Nass and beat them to death? Not that I would support any such killing of people, but let’s say it does happen - you can never tell how it will end. Well, maybe we can tell. The bolshies got Stalin – I’m not saying communism is of itself bad, far from it. Look what the Iranians got – the fatwa-spouting Ayatollahs and reactionary judges who can send a girl to jail for wearing something called “bad hijab”. Libya has replaced the rule of a crazy dictator with anarchy. Tunisia and Egypt offered some hope but look what Mursi just did, making the judiciary and just about anyone but himself irrelevant.

And back home look what happened after the 1966 revolution – over a million of us dead from pogroms, bullets, bombs and kwashiorkor. All for nothing because corruption reinforced and came back. Look what happened after every military coup we have had in Nigeria and other West African countries. After any Nigerian revolution tomorrow I would expect a batch of selfish mumus to take over and syphon money to Swiss accounts the way we never saw it before since it is their turn to “hammer”. Our traders will continue to go to China to give them specifications for bad products and electricity will not come. The reason most revolutions and coups fail to change things for the better is simple: the revolutionaries or soldiers who plot coups do not have the answers to the complex socioeconomic problems that plague countries. Revolutions and coups merely serve as outlets of pent up anger and frustrations. No, for a society that is so broken, one where values are no more, change will have to come from the top and it will have to take some time. My “it will have to take some time” cannot be a subterfuge for empty promises of a better future made by administrations like those of Obasanjo and Jonathan because once we get on the right track, once we get the kind of leadership I am fantasizing about here, it should be possible to tell.

There are many examples of countries that have been turned around from a hopeless state to that of hope. Stalin came through a revolution and turned a country of poor peasants into a superpower. But look at the cost. For more admirable examples of the kind of leader I am fantasising about, you have to look at post World War II Germany under Erhard and Adenaur. The United States under Roosevelt and England under Churchill. The “Asian Tigers” of Singapore, S. Korea and Malaysia also got such leaders. Even here in Africa, Museveni nearly made the list before he derailed and went the way of the rest of them “African leaders”.

What was I saying? Yes, change will have to be top down. Two things are all it will take in my opinion – (i) leaders will have to lead by personal example, and (ii) crime will have to be punished. Once this is done the majority who are inherently good but turned bad because of their “environment” will see a reason to manifest good and it will be easier to deal with the few bad ones. This is not presently the case. What we need is a leader who can look Nigerians in the eye while telling them to make sacrifices. I am talking of a system where people see their legislator driving a simple car and living in a modest house and where the president’s feeding does not blow a hole in the budget. I believe this will go a long way in addressing the matter of impatience on the part of Nigerians that plaetton alluded to. Those who do figures will recall the figures that were bandied about during the fuel protest of early 2012. For example, we were shown figures comparing what the Spanish king spends in one year with what the Nigerian president spends.

In Lee Kwan Yew’s famous book, From Third World to First Word: The Singapore Story, he narrated the story of an African leader who came to a Commonwealth CHOGM asking that help be given to his country – not technical help, of course, but financial help. On a tarmac visible from the venue of the summit was a glistening jumbo jet belonging to the said African leader. It was parked there, idle, throughout the summit. The mumu leader did not see the irony, but those he was asking for money, leaders from serious countries who flew to the summit in commercial aircrafts did.

Anyone reading this thread who has either lived in Germany or is familiar with their people and culture will likely agree with me that frugality is partly responsible for their being Europe’s number one after taking a beating in two world wars. (Which is why I think them Greeks don’t get it and probably never will!) You can argue that the bottom up thing has worked for the Germans and the government reflects the people. But ostentatiousness was hardly our lifestyle.

Now to the issue that brought us where we are today – impunity. Corruption at the top was not so bad in early Nigeria. First Republic minister of petroleum, Maitama Sule, did not even own a house. Many of them left power not having houses – yet they created the problems that got us where we are today. Reports got to them of how much civil servants were stealing and they did nothing about it. A classic case was that of Joseph Tarka, Gowon’s young and flamboyant minister for communications. Mr Tarka was accused of corrupt dealing and self enrichment in his official capacity as a minister – or federal commissioner, as they called it then. No, not barroom gossip or banters made at the meat section of Ketu Market. The finger pointer took out an affidavit at the Lagos High Court and affidavit was complete with facts and figures – amounts, Swiss account numbers, addresses of houses, photographs, phone numbers, names of accomplices and all.

The government’s response? Gowon and his fellow “officers and gentlemen” running Nigeria simply chose to ignore it! In fact, when the minister for information was cornered by reporters at the airport, his pre-emptive response before the reporters could say anything summed up the attitude of the government - “Let me tell you questions I will not answer,” Anthony Enahoro said. “Don’t ask me any questions on Tarka. I will not answer”.

Today, impunity has assumed Olympian heights, with the justice system firmly in grips of the thieving and murdering political elite. Who has forgotten the efforts put in by our own AGF Aondoakaa to scuttle the prosecution of Dan Etete in Paris and the investigation of James Ibori in London? Ibrahim Lamorde, the serving head of the EFCC was a few days ago lamenting how his agency was only sending yahoo boys to jail while the big thieves got away.

I don’t know if you are familiar with the Odili case. About N100b is said to have “disappeared” during his time as governor of Rivers State. In the twilight of his days as governor, as his immunity from prosecution was about to expire and the then EFCC’s Nuhu Ribadu was talking tough, Mr Odili’s AG went to the High Court of Rivers State and obtained – wait for it – “a perpetual injunction” restraining just about anybody from ever asking him just about any question. A gelded EFCC later appealed against the injunction but they have never diligently pursued the appeal. A US-based Nigerian wrote a letter to the former CJN – the immediate past one, the same one who loudly asked for the death penalty for corruption, can’t recall his name right now - questioning the whole matter and asking how a judge could grant such an injunction. His Lordship told the Nigerian there was a problem with his letter and that was that. The case is effectively dead at the Court of Appeal. Someone said something about “orders from above”. Odili is free. In fact, his wife has risen rapidly from the Rivers State High Court to the Supreme Court within the time in question.

Odili is just one example. They are many and they only steal in billions.

Nigerian courts don’t convict. If they do, the big man gets away with a fine of N3m or so – Lucky Igbinedion - or they get sentenced to a few months in jail under special treatment – in the case of Cecilia Ibru the judge not only ordered that she serve the jail term in a hospital but actually specified a high brow hospital in Victoria Island. There is zero anti-corruption fight going on in Nigeria. There is a flash in the pan every now and then - like Bode George who was actually jailed and James Ibori who had to run like Ben Johnson – involving someone who fell out with “them”, but there is no sustained fight going on.

People see these and take note – if you steal small you go jail; if you steal billions, nothing dey happen. Elsewhere when the system catches a big thief like Bernard Madoff it is particularly harsh on him and example is made of him. In fact, the FBI will spend good money tracking such a person and letting small accomplices off the hook so they can build a good case against the big thief. In Nigeria, the reverse is the case. Some Arewa leaders just called for the death penalty for corruption – calls for the death penalty for corruption or kidnaping or just about any crime have been dropping from mouths like ripe mangoes from an overburdened tree lately. The foolishness of it is bewildering. It is not because the penalties are not harsh enough that there is corruption. One wonders what police or judiciary will bring people to their death penalty.

@JeSoul
Long time and how is you doing?

I want to attempt the ICAN kweshun.

Can Nigeria change for the better? My short answer is Yes.

Will Nigeria change for the better? My short answer is No.

For Nigeria to change, you need a top down approach. I agree with plaetton that the problem is bottom up since the leadership don’t drop from outer space. But the solution cannot be bottom up since it is impossible to get everyone to be good at the same time. It will have to be top down. To those who said the solution lies in business – well, I feel qualified to comment on that, having made three attempts at starting business in Nigeria, two of them unsuccessful and the other successful. Maybe some other time. But I do agree firmly with logicboy and Enigma that the idea that people can simply go back to the land is simplistic. Nigeria is not business friendly. I have heard people lately saying we should forget about the government and simply embrace entrepreneurship. I think they are living in a parallel world. The government is one huge problem in Nigeria and we can’t just forget about them. Many of the countries that have had devastating civil wars have better infrastructure than Nigeria. Even Somalia where there is no government and DR Congo where the government is of no use are better than Nigeria in many respects. At least, they have stable power supply in Mogadishu and if Deep Sight was in Mogadishu he would have known the score and definitely had one or two bodyguards carrying AK-47s with him in the car.

Yes, it is possible to do business in Nigeria. But it is hard, especially if you don’t have a solid financial background. Let me tell an anecdote to drive home the point. A teenage boy had a fascination with computers - he didn’t have access to them growing up. But one day he managed to attend a roadside computer training school. Then he went on the Internet and discovered business opportunities in affiliate marketing. He decided to purchase a computer so he could work from home and not spend too much on poor service in cybercafés. He had no money for a computer so he took on some afterschool jobs and “worked his a.ss off”. He begged and borrowed from friends and relatives. It took three quarters of a year, but the money was completed and he bought his computer. It took him about a week to realise that to “enjoy” his computer, he needed a UPS, as he kept loosing unsaved work and he was told his hard drive was at risk of crashing if he did nothing about the shock to it resulting from frequent power outage. He managed to buy a UPS. But guess what? The power holding company was fond of supplying “low current” to his place. The UPS brand he bought did not work well with “low current” and the frequent beeping was driving him crazy. He needed a stabilizer. And he bought one. But his problems were not over. The power holding company was getting worse by the day and nothing short of purchasing a generator would save him….

Yes, life is often about facing up to challenges. So some boy will overcome all the above and go on to be successful. Another will crumble and give up and vow never to attempt to start his own business again. Yet another will sell what remains of his computer and UPS and use the proceeds to proceed to a cybercafé for full time “yahoo runs”. I don’t think you or me are in a position to put down the one who gave up and vowed not to do business again as lazy or something like that just because someone else succeeded under the same circumstances. There are complex situations people face – temperament, family wahaha, upbringing, etc. And that, there, is a very small example.

The country is crawling with business opportunities, they say. And it is true, too. When you look around you, you can see these opportunities. But the fact is that if you do not have a strong financial background, nothing for you. First you need millions to buy a big generator. If you are in Lagos, God help you about rental, as that city’s property market has been distorted out of shape by people with stolen government money who buy houses in Victoria Island and Lekki and can leave these houses unoccupied for years while waiting for someone who can pay N10m rents. That is the reality: if you are among the few with N10 to pay for rent and another N10m to splash on generators, you can start a business. It is for these people that Nigeria is crawling with opportunities. Small business? Well, that is a matter for another day, but let’s just quickly say it’s the same problem. The same set of people distorting the property market have their wives and girlfriends leasing shops in upscale shopping malls. When you look at what they pay in rent and do some maths in your head you realise they are not really there for business but for the status of owning a shop at so and so place! The “common man” simply can’t complete. At places like Tejuosho the pro-elite Fashola administration has demolished “common man” shops and they are replacing them with these million naira shops. I personally know a couple of people who lost shops there. One of them, a lady, has joined the large army of those who wait on randy men to get by.

Great thread. Sad thread.

This is an interesting topic – can Nigeria be salvaged? It’s a topic one spends good amounts of time discussing with friends and colleagues. The thread has progressed quite so permit me to first offer some comments on some of the interesting and brilliant perspectives offered so far before stating a few thoughts of my own.

Terrible experience Deep Sight had – a robbing tour of Victoria Island! Nothing shocks me in Nigeria anymore and honestly his story didn’t. Well, since he survived it – thank God! – I think it’s okay to banter about it. One phrase that will stay with me from the write-up is “the boy with the land cruiser” – you know, just like “binders full of women” scored a hit among the Twitterati. I even got someone to translate it into Yoruba for me and I tried to visualise them boys saying “Ma gbagbe lati my bobo kunrin to ni Landcruiser yen wa o”. And I’m still thinking about that Adam’s hammer thing. Anyone here has a clue as to what can be done? I’m thinking poured concrete ceiling, titanium steel doors, hardened iron windows. Where’s InesQor? He would have some ideas.

I have always said Nigeria does not have the worst rates of crime but the official response to crime is the problem. The issue of police response at the crime scene Deep Sight highlighted at the end of his article is well known. When Funsho Williams was murdered the Scotland Yard officers brought in to help with the investigation told us that our police could not even take the simple of steps of cordoning off the crime, taking photographs and looking for finger prints. The police allowed every Tomiwa, Dike and Harrietta to enter the place and the Yard officers, when they arrived, had a thousand prints on their hands! The senior officers travel abroad and probably watch C & I. They know about forensic investigation – so what is the problem? We can’t afford labs and computers and computer experts? We can’t afford helicopters and night vision and equipments? Within the last 24 hours we have had two successful attacks on a military base and a police special unit headquarters.

The arguments made by logicboy and Enigma are similar – that Nigerians are not necessarily bad people, they are forced by their environment to become bad and even amidst such badness you still get to see a lot of good everyday, sometimes even from the people who do otherwise bad things. There are a lot of tangents to this argument, but I won’t explore them. I will break the argument into just two – (i) whether Nigerians are inherently good, and (ii) whether Nigerians are good. I would agree that the majority of Nigerians are inherently good, but I seriously doubt the Nigerians we can classify as good people are the majority. I used to think that the majority of Nigerians are good, but like JeSoul, things I have seen have forced me to have a rethink. In fact, my exact words to a colleague recently was that “I had given up” on Nigerians and that “nothing good will come of Nigeria”. I apologise to anyone who feels shocked by these statements but they were not lightly made, and note I used the word will, not can.

I don’t want to dwell much on this, and I certainly don’t want to bore you but Wanja’s statement in Ngugi’s Petals of Blood helps explain things. “This world, this Kenya, this Africa knows only one law. You eat somebody or you are eaten. You sit on somebody or somebody sits on you.… Nothing would I ever let for free…. No, I will never return to the herd of victims.”

I think people are driven by a sense of “eat or be eaten”. In an environment such as ours it takes a lot – perhaps, a highly elevated spirit or advanced intellect – to stay above it. It is possible to remain a good person – in fact, lowering your standards or morals is not really an option, but you better be “smart” otherwise people may keep taking advantage of you.

Sometimes I think maybe we are just plain dumb as a people. A couple of days ago someone was heaping praises on the Lagos commissioner of police for “working assiduously to route crime” in the city and they were giving an award to the IGP for “pragmatism”. We focus on irrelevant things like titles. We are always organising awards. Whenever anyone who held high office dies they go there and heap praises on him. Yet the country is messed up. Who messed it up? And what about those who steal billions and spend a little of it building churches in an unconscious attempt to bribe God and “make heaven”?

*BRB with my thoughts on JeSoul’s question.*

MacDaddy01: True.



However, what does that say about religion? Yaweh, Allah and christ are not necessary to be a good person.

Belief in God, that is conscious belief, yes. That is not necessary to be a good person. God is.

ijawkid: Altruism @ work....

In all he did good....

Its and example for the mumu leaders in nigeria to emulate.........

Mumu. That's a good word to describe Nigerian leaders in particular and black African leaders in general.

davidylan: Nauseating. You're just parroting the same nonsense i hear daily from misinformed racists white "evangelicals". People who profess Christ but foam at the mouth with incredulous hate for a man who did them no wrong other than pursuing the dream that a man can be whatever he sets his mind to be if he is diligent... all because of his skin color.

What is "obamacare chip"? Are you aware that if you have healthcare today you're not affected at all by obamacare? You just lost my respect. So many false christians around here.

I think he is sincere about his religion and is, therefore, not a false Christian in a sense, although one can see that his approach to this matter is similar to his approach to religion.

Olaadegbu's hatred for Mr. Obama and anything Obama is automatic, blind and unthinking. I recall asking him awhile back what is wrong with a plan to extend healthcare to the poor, but no reply was forthcoming. Because he really has no problem with that. The problem is Obama does not punctuate statements with Bible text or call for "morning devotion" like Nigerian leaders do, has what is said to be a Moslem name, and things along those lines. Oladeegbu even has facts that he prevented people from saying Christian prayers and gave 911 ground zero to Moslems to build a mosque. Hence, there goes the anti-Christ! You try to set him straight on his twisted facts and you soon get tired. How do you begin to address "Obamacare chip", for instance? *Sigh*.

Mr Adegbu has campaigned relentlessly against the man's second term for about three years. Now it's clear the man will get re-elected come November, I guess one can understand the mounting frustration at the fact his efforts have not paid off, resulting in increasing willingness to grasp at conspiracy theories and purvey them. You win some, you lose some, Ola.

**Edited**

all4naija: Dude, I don't know what you are on about. You make a list which I respond to accordingly and now you don't know what the rest is all about. Thank you for your complexity. Indeed, you can not define God in the first place yet you are bent on arguing about it.

Still, there is nothing like God in the real sense. Just humanly made up to have sense of something beyond what they don't understand about many things in the environment(the natural world).

Ok

all4naija: You are very funny.

1. God is now synonymous with creator? If God is creator what did it create? Should we accept the creator of the Bible, Koran ,The Hindu script,etc?

2. Religion is an established way of belief and worship of supernatural beings(fairies). Greeks have good history for gods.

3. Come on, some of you were quick to claim different gods and some also assert that existence of god is evident in nature - which is different from the mainstream belief that God spoken to people in the past, revealed to them his book and presence and send his only begotten son(Bwhahaha...)

Creator is the most common and most basic definition of God. Maybe you really didn't know.

Not sure what the rest of what you wrote is to do with my expressed views. Read me on page 0 - people have different views about the nature of God and what he does but he means creator to most. The Greeks had gods, yeah. Bye.

Enigma: Hmmm

I know your problem ------ and you know I know it.

That makes only you. I don't know what you are about there and I don't know your problem.

all4naija: God argument based on fallacy. It is right we define God first before making claim of religion God(as most of you are already distancing yourselves from religion God in your comments).

1. God has been defined - he's the creator.
2. What do you mean by "religion God" and who's making a claim of him?
3. Nobody is distancing themselves from anything. Deism does not start out from the backyard of any religion.

thehomer: Actually, it does because it would mean that God would need to have a body to be considered as being a conscious entity. If he does have a body, then it would mean that he exists in space and time.

I doubt it's possible to discuss this properly since your concept of "body" begins and ends with the physical.

plaetton: I would dread to meet Enigma. This guy seems to have a thing for me.
I am just trying to picture in my mind what a face to face meeting with him would be like.
First I would have to make sure my life insurance policy is duly paid up, have 911 on speed dial, no voice dialing, pack some heat myself in case it turns into a shootout, and then I could find out what he is fond of and take it with me as peace offering

This got me laughing out loud.

I think he would be wearing an Alexander Amosu suit and a bowler hat, carrying a crocodile skin walking stick and puffing at a cigar. He’d probably be carrying .45 inside his suit – you can’t be too careful with these evangelical atheists.

Seriously, guy doesn’t have anything for you in particular – I think he comes across that way to anyone he deems “dishonest”, or “idiotic”, which includes anyone he has had a contentious exchange with, especially if “anyone” is an “evangelical atheist” or an “anti-Christian”.

Decent guy? Almost certainly would be in many matters.

jayriginal: MyJoe, would you consider the following article ?
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost.html

I just took a look at the write-up. It’s well-written and I’d like to find time to read everything, but my thinking right now is that the writer appears stuck in his materialist universe. I think the problem is, perhaps, that you guys look for things spiritual with the tools of science.

In asserting that consciousness cannot exist outside of a body because of observations made of humans, science or philosophy may be off its turf.

BTW, if a body is needed to have consciousness, it doesn't take anything away from the God argument.

stagger: LASTMA should thank their God I don't live in Lagos. I will mark the official in question and have his entire family killed one after the other.

And they said Idi Amin was dead. He's living somewhere in Nigeria.

all4naija: You don't have to lick your lips, there are evidences sub-atomic particle has a nature not influenced by outsiders(if you like you can called it sub-atomic universe).

I doubt you realise what those few lines do to "infinite regress" or what they say about the thought process of the atheist. Well, some atheists.

jayriginal: Deep Sight knows absolutely EVERYTHING about anything.

Lol. Well, this is Deep Sight in the twin thread:

Deep Sight: Initial Summation: Beyond these, I am not sure that there is much else that the individual can honestly claim that he knows for certain. Everything else there is to be known, which is relevant to the individual’s existence, I believe are inferences and intuitive perceptions from the foregoing basic truths. I can only say for now that the advanced and exact knowledge of supposed celestial spiritual happenings which are contained within the many religions - in my humble opinion – cannot really be said to be known for sure by anybody, and are thus largely assumed beliefs – and not steady and certain truth. This is the basis for my claim to that which I believe I may rationally and intuitively know for certain; namely that there is a source – God and that the purpose of the source is harmony.

Kay 17: Reality itself can have no origin, because to conceive an origin for reality, we would fall into a pit of absurdity. Therefore reality is self existent. As a result subjects of reality are equally self existent either potentially or in actuality.

The appearance of designs and orderliness is directly attributable to the Universe's personality, which may be called physical laws which we in turn are compelled by necessity to follow. That's why our cars follow the relevant laws of motion, our houses gravity, and our inventions are more or less discoveries of how the Universe accommodates our ideas.

In order words, it has always being here

When I read this post, I licked my lips. I see pak has been treating it.

[quote author=Mr_Anony]Ok, Let me see if I can get a grip on what you believe. Please correct me where I am wrong. You believe that.

1 God exists and has a will
2 God is a "superperson" (I think I know what you mean by superperson)
3 God can directly intervene in our affairs but does not need to because He has laws set in place.
4 God's justice system is such that it is set: human beings will continue to reincarnate as they journey towards attaining perfection.

Is this a fair representation of what you believe?

N.B. I am not in any way claiming that the above points are what deism is all about but I perceive that they are your personal beliefs.

If I am right then we can proceed, if I am wrong, please correct me.[/quote]1. Yes.

2. There is a whole lot I answer “I don’t know” to, so we need to be observant about differences between things I claim to know or be clear about – such as “God exists” and things I believe – such as reincarnation – and things I make guided speculations on – such as “superperson”. Like I have explained, I don’t discuss the nature of God much – in fact, I recoil when I think about it. God may be well a person. But he may well be a force. He may be neither.

3. This one is a bit complex – let me explain it a bit more. I won’t go so far as to make a positive statement that “God can intervene”. You, see, I believe EVERYTHING is governed by laws – what if God is bounded by his own laws? In fact, I don’t find the argument that God exists outside his own laws attractive. Even the Bible, for instance, supports my view. I hope you see what I’m getting at. If God is bound by his own laws and the laws in place don’t make room for his intervention, he cannot intervene. Still, that is different from saying that he does not have the power to intervene.

4. Human beings reincarnate as they journey towards perfection. All the evidence we have for reincarnation points towards this. Whether this is set to “continue” ad infinitum or there is some “cut-off” time, I don’t know.

Kay 17: @mrjoe
You in the bolded suggested some objectivity in God, taking him away from some definition by probable peeps in the Enlightenment Era!!

What exactly binds all deists together?!

I don't understand you. Truth.

thehomer: Computers and phones have groups of makers so are you proposing multiple Gods or just one? Then the fatal flaw of that claim is that humans are nothing like computers or phones.

What’s the issue about multiple makers and multiple gods? So if I say there multiple gods, you will buy it?

If the evidence is good, I expect that I will be persuaded and I understand that it isn't your aim neither is my persuasion what I'm asking for. All I'm asking for is that the evidence be non-fallacious and assessable. By laws are you talking about physical laws or do you have something else in mind? I've not asked you to prove anything to convince me, what I've asked for are those things that convinced you strongly. I'll address them as you bring them up.

Both physical and spiritual laws. Read my earlier post to Mr_Anony. I already told you what convinced me. I gave you two points. But you are still asking for them – that I why I reminded you that I have no mandate to convince you which is all that remains since I already did all you asked for.

Just to be clear, are you saying God and time are necessities? Is there anything else that is a necessity?

Yes. There probably are others.

Based on what we know about the only sort of consciousness available (human consciousness), I don't see how the consciousness you're proposing will work. How will it even be able to do something? Since as humans show, you need some sort of body to have consciousness and do some creating with it.

Lol. You need a body to have consciousness? That’s new to me.

The first cause argument depending on how you state it is fallacious. You can state the one you wish to use for me to point out why it is fallacious. The design argument that you're using above is fallacious because you're making a weak analogy since a shirt is not similar enough to a person to make such a comparison.

It’s a simple comparison and there is nothing weak about it. For anything to exist, a maker is a necessity. This, of course, is not a self-contained argument.

thehomer: Since you're willing to discuss any problems pointed out, I'll go ahead and show them to you.

How does everything around us tell us that there is a God? I mean why should the fact that I'm looking at a computer, a phone or an elephant tell me that there is a God?

Simples. Looking at a computer and a phone tells you they have a maker, right?

Actually, we can discuss subjective things on a forum the problem is whether you have any evidence for what you're claiming. If you have no doubt about it, then surely there must be something that you can point at that has convinced you so strongly.

Evidence I think will persuade you? No. Not that I have a mandate or desire to convince you. Besides, like I was explaining to Mr_Anony, I don’t believe God cares whether you believe he exists or not so it’s not a priority for me. You are answerable to his laws – that doesn’t require any “beliefs”. There are things that have convinced me strongly. I already pointed them out, thehomer. What I have not done is “prove” things, convince you, a project I already explained I have no serious commitment to.

Obviously a further explanation is necessary. So according to you, someone made time? But no one made God? Why should it be that it is time that was made and not God? Can it not be that neither time nor God were made?

Nowhere have I said someone made time. I said the maker of your shirt is a necessity for the shirt to be on your back. I did not say the shirt is a necessity – its maker is. Similarly, God, the maker of everything, is a necessity for everything to exist. Just as time is a necessity – it doesn’t come into being. I hope it’s clearer.

God doesn't explain the reality that we're in. I don't see how atheism is presumptive. In fact, I think theism in its multiple forms are presumptive in thinking that there must be someone out there who - like humans - likes making things. A first cause doesn't have to be from someone and your talk about some canon of logic would need to be defended and shown to work with our modern knowledge of the universe. Actually, given what we know about the world, atheism is the best conclusion.

I think it has to be a conscious being. There is no value in getting bogged down by “someone” or other definitions of God. Referring to God as “he” or other someonish descriptions is merely the easiest way for me to comprehend things and express them. The point is that there is some consciousness behind creation.

Reasons like the first cause you posited above and the design argument are generally fallacious while the claims of spirits are nebulous.

I recognize that we have been in different places and so would understand if spirits are mere “claims” to you and such claims are “nebulous”. The first cause and the design argument are not fallacious at all. I said a maker is a necessity for a shirt to be on your back. Is that fallacious?

Kay 17: ^^^
The first problem is you presume the Universality of God in that everyone has a common perception/definition of what God is and not as a unique individual idea. As seen below.

You say I “presume. . . that everyone has a common perception/definition of what God is” yet you then go on to quote a post I said “Different deists see things differently.” Your argument is not holding together. No, you are the one forcing your narrow ideas on deism, probably because you read of someone whose deism was a reaction to, and a rejection of, Christianity. And no, I don’t assume a common perception of God. There is a universality about God, but once you move beyond one or two basic points, there are differences in perception. Even one individual's perception changes from time to time.

The Christians have stressed so many times that God's nature itself is what incomprehensible, consequentially his actions. The fact that they manage to say so many things about him despite that itchy attribute is the irony. Which you are committed to.

I’m not sure what it is you say I am committed to. Where, for example, have I said “so many things about him” despite ironies? On the question of God or his ways being incomprehensible that you go on about and are strangely projecting as the core ontology of God in Christianity and deism, most faiths hold somewhat similar views. Did they get it from Christianity, too?

In view of the above, the so called deists agree on certain and common grounds: that there is a single creator and that God is a person: in that he is conscious, sentient/wilful and intelligent and holds a non interventionist policy. Apart from being interventionist, this is remarkably similar to the Christian God!

Deists don’t all agree that (1) there is a single creator, (2) he is a person; my reference to “a creator” and use of “he” notwithstanding. Not all deists even agree on the “non-interventionist policy” or what exactly it means – read my response to Mr_Anony. What you wrote is like staying that theists agree that there is a single creator and that he is a person. In fact, you don’t know what you are talking about. I think you need a basic education on deism and much as I hate to suggest Wikipedia since it can further confuse you, I think it will be a good place to start from. I haven’t read the article but I have glanced at it and am sure you can pick up a thing or two from it. At least, you can learn about diversity in deism.

Even if deists all agree that (1) there is a single creator, (2) he is a person - which they don't - you are still a long way from proving that these are borrowed from Christianity. Is Doondari, the creator God of Fulani mythology, borrowed from Christianity? Doondari is "a single creator" and "a person". So are Aondo, Oghene and Chukwu.

Image123: @MyJoe


Jesus has the final say, all power belongs to Him. He is the One who can say "Ye have heard this, but I say". Plus the new testament is a better covenant.


Actually, the war, if we can call it that, is before the 1000year reign. After the thousand year reign, the devil will gather people to fight, and God will 'send fire' from Heaven and destroy them. Just to correct that tiny detail.


ithink it was that Heaven is the believer's destination, not this earth. The point i proved was that believers will go to Heaven. If the argument is that they will go to the new earth after Heaven, well maybe i don't have problems with that. But to state that no man is going to Heaven, or that only 144000 will go to Heaven, i have issues with that. i don't know everything or understand everything, but i know that our reward is in Heaven as believers and all believers will go there. i'll leave it at this basics for now. The question of argument is not who inhabits the new earth, but that believers are going to Heaven. That issue has been dealt with, and glaringly left untouched as yet.

Thank you for the above. It's always refreshing to meet someone who admits that while we are in our current suit of flesh and bones, there is a lot we don't know or understand. Hopefully at the appropriate time, perhaps when our spirits get to the beyond, everything will become clear to us. I agree with you on the 144,000 thing. It's actually based on a poor reading of the Revelation verses where it appears.

Cheers.

In the portion you said does not add up, I was comparing the Matthew, not the Psalm, with the Luke to bring out the metaphor. But we're past the issue there now.

@Image123
I appreciate your thorough explanation. These are major points I looked out for and got from your write-up.

1. The words of Jesus and the NT saints should be given precedence over those of the OT patriarchs and prophets, bearing in mind that the prophets did not have the full picture like Jesus and even the saints would. Well, that makes sense. Even though the distinction you tried to make about “the earth” and “this earth” does not quite work for me since if we flip it, it works well for the opposite argument.

2. The people adjudged worthy will go to heaven. Then a reign of 1000 period will be instituted during which they will come with Christ to show the world how things should be run. After that they will make war on the earth and vanquish the bad guys. The old earth will then be ripped off. A new Jerusalem will then come down out of heaven. Not sure I understand it after that, but I believe the new earth will then be put in place. Since you say the saints will go back to heaven, who then inhabits the new earth?

To rephrase, here is what I am not yet cleared about. I doubt you have explained it, but, perhaps, I missed it. You say heaven is the final destination and have backed it up with scripture. So what happens to the new earth – who exactly inhabits it?

Kay 17: Not that it is the exclusive property of Christianity, but the Christians laid the foundation for the concept of the incomprehensible God and almighty which we commonly associate Gods to via Aquinas and the negatively defined being centuries before the first deists came. Its a borrowed idea.

You are merely shifting base, remixing things and making blank assertions without bothering to argue them logically. Now you make it sound like deism is defined by the incomprehensibility of God. It isn’t, the fact I am repeating it here that God is incomprehensible notwithstanding. Different deists see things differently. The views held by some is just a remixing of Christian theology without the Christ. Others are radically differently. These are not necessarily what deism is all about. A creator exists, but he does not look over our shoulders individually – anyone thinking along these lines is usually classified as a deist.

I honestly don’t know how you can say that Christians laid the foundation for the concept of the incomprehensible God. To take you up on what you just wrote, Aquinas may have said something like that, but Christianity does not hold that God is incomprehensible as its core ontology of God. It teaches that the ways of God are incomprehensible to man but nowhere does Christianity tell us that God is unknowable. In fact, it claims to know a lot about God, including that the facts that he loves Israel and has a son. It claims to comprehend a lot about God, for example, telling us that God relates with us by grace through which you can get “salvation” and even the good things of this life by simply “giving your life” and praying hard.

Besides, I don’t agree that the people you call “the first deists” were the first deists. I think you are stuck on textbook deism, seeing it as another religion, one that is traceable to some founder or founders in the Enlightenment era rather than the simple acknowledgement of God that it is. Personally, I had deistic views long before I came across the term or read about classical deism. I have read very little on the subject compared to Christianity or atheism.

I'm not saying a leads b, just that a complements b.

I don’t understand.

thehomer: The existence of which God is well attested to by who?

Any inconsistencies and illogicalities you point out in my position may be discussed, and cleared up, if possible. Beyond that, I have no desire to convince anyone about God – or, in fact, anything else.

The existence of God is attested to by (1) everything around us and the order about them (2) spiritual things. Point 2 is subjective. Even where it is not, it is almost impossible to discuss in a forum such as things. So you can skip it. But I was telling you what attests to the existence of God – to me. I have no shred of doubt about it.

Sure you have no evidence supporting anything else so what is the reason why you say the existence of this unknown God is a necessity?

“Necessity” is so simple that I wouldn’t have thought any further explanation of it is necessary. What are you putting on now? Someone made it – that is, its maker is a necessity. The existence of time is a necessity – I don’t think time began. The existence of God, too, is a necessity.

What about atheism doesn't make sense? It is a reasonable conclusion given what we know about the world.

Atheism makes no sense because no better explanation than God has been found for the reality we are in. Mazaje would counter that we cannot on that basis conclude that God must be responsible. That is not an unreasonable thing to say. Anyway, I don’t dispute that atheism is a reasonable conclusion to some people. In fact, I have discussed that matter with Deep Sight in a thread and stated that I recognize that what convinces me might not convince someone else. What about atheism doesn’t make sense to me? Its presumptuousness. The rejection of a first cause does not follow any known canon of logic. Given what we currently know about the world, atheism is not a reasonable conclusion.

thehomer: Not really. One way to find out is by simply asking them what they believe about this God and why they believe it. The reasons they give are often fallacious, nebulous or they give no reasons at all.

So what reason did they give you that was fallacious or nebulous?

Welcome to the discussion, Mr_Anony.

[quote author=Mr_Anony]@MyJoe, may I butt in here.

If you hold that God is an intelligent and conscious creator, then you are basically saying that there is an intelligent purpose behind God's act of creation. This in turn implies that God has a will and intentions in other words a mind. The logical conclusion from this is that God must have a personality.

Secondly, if you hold that man is also an intelligent and conscious being and able to make choices, then it follows that man can make choices that oppose the will of God.
If it is true that man's will can be at loggerheads with God's, then you have a God that has to be able to intervene and it is necessary that He intervenes.

Your insisting that God is strictly non-interventionist will run you into many logical problems. Because now it is either God is incapable of intervening or God does not have a specific will, therefore no intelligence behind his design and finally we are back to the absurdity of order emanating from absolute disorder.[/quote]Lots of assumptions there^^^. I do not normally discuss the nature of God because, like I explained to Martian in another thread, when I think about the nature of God, I recoil. The only thing I have said with certainty here is that there is a first cause – God. I have said nothing else with certainty. Ok, actually there is something else I am quite certain about - that God does not intervene in our lives individually. There is no evidence that he does. Note that that is different from saying that God is incapable of intervening or that he does not intervene on behalf of humanity – for example by sending prophets or even sons. My response to whether God intervenes on behalf of humanity and sends prophets or sons would be I don’t know, since I have not come into knowledge that he does. It is a possibility. Nowhere have I said, much less “insisted”, that “God is strictly non-interventionist”.

Besides, bear in mind that when it comes to belief, what makes sense to the individual is usually important in forming them.

Let me comment briefly on the question of “intelligent purpose” behind creation. Anything I tell you about that is my subjective belief. And it is not deism or an essential of it – unless you want to follow K17 and trace deism to Lord Herbert or some other particular Enlightenment or Reformation writer - but it rhymes perfectly with my deism. For example, I subscribe to Eastern thought on the matter of life and death being the nature of all living things, the purpose being to attain perfection. I believe that we are born. Then we die. Then we are born again. And on and on. What you get from fate is determined, not by grace or other similar quixotic concept, but by the machinery that has been put in place to run the universe. You reap what you sow. The system is scrupulously fair so grace does not come in because everything you do, good or bad, is recorded automatically and never gets lost. The logical conclusion is that you are not accountable to God, but to his laws. That is why a life spent solely in the pursuit of fame and personal enrichment is a wasted and wretched one.

Let me tell you why this makes sense. On the 29th of this month, Nigerians, including the president and senate president, will gather at Ibadan to be led by Adeboye and co on a Christian National Day of Prayers. There is nothing wrong with people praying of itself. But the tragedy here is that when Nigerians do this sort of thing, they believe they are actually doing something productive, whereas they are wasting time. How do we know? Because they have been praying and nada has been wrought. We all know where China was 20 years ago and where they are today. That is an atheist country. They don’t even acknowledge the existence of God, much less hold national day of prayers, yet they are tremendous making progress. The least corrupt countries and the best countries to live, according to the indexes, are the Scandinavian countries, yet they are atheist countries. Why are their societies better than religious ones? Because they obey the laws of God more than the religious societies - the religious societies merely rate high in traditions and mantra that create an illusion of godliness. These atheistic societies have created an ordered and humane system. While they may be selfish as human beings, they also think of and work for the common good. For these “the grace of God” which abounds in the universe and does not know Christian, Mohamedan or atheist abides with them. It is simply laws at work.

If you plant your seed yams in the dry season you have disobeyed the law of God which says you should plant them in the wet season. You will get a terrible harvest. Prayers won’t change anything, except, perhaps, make you feel better. Now, why would anyone think that as it is in the physical world is not how it is in the spiritual? To obey the laws of God – that is what matters. That is the “intelligent purpose” behind creation.

And you can see why God does not intervene. He doesn’t need to.

On the rest of what you wrote, God may well be a personality – maybe some kind of superpersonality, I don’t know. I don’t dwell much on it. But no, it doesn’t follow logically for me that God is a personality just because intelligence and intentions are among the things he manifests. Note that I am not objecting to your reference to God as a personality since that is the only way we puny humans can conceive of God. I was objecting to K17’s “anthropomorphic” God tag on deism.

Secondly, if you hold that man is also an intelligent and conscious being and able to make choices, then it follows that man can make choices that oppose the will of God.

Yes.

If it is true that man's will can be at loggerheads with God's, then you have a God that has to be able to intervene and it is necessary that He intervenes.

Not when there are perfect and immutable laws in place. You know how your MS Word runs, making phone calls to Bill Gates unnecessary. A very inadequate illustration, but I’m sure you get what I’m saying. If you are rich and powerful and you kill an innocent person, for instance, and it’s in a country like Nigeria where the institutions of state are weak, what can happen? You may get away with it. What usually follows? Prayers. Prayers. Prayers. By the victim’s family, I mean. The praying people will hope for some lightening of retribution to strike down the evil man. They expect God to intervene quickly. Usually nothing happens. By why should God listen to them when he already has laws in place to deal with the situation? Now, the above makes sense because it’s, in fact, what we see everyday – sincere and godly people praying sincerely and nothing happening. Recall, please, that I am talking here about intervention in our day to day lives, not intervention on behalf of the whole of humanity.

**Edited**