₦airaland Forum

kingxsamz:
Okay, so was Hitler bad?

I'll reply to this with another question, was UDHR a good thing?

kingxsamz:
Lol, if someone I loved killed someone just to make money, I'm not only going to reject the money, but I'll reject them, and that's if I don't call the police.
But this case is totally different because the god who accepted this sacrifice is omniscient, he knows the result of the outcome and yet let it happen. He did not only let it happen but went as far as granting the request of this person.
It's like you know the future, and someone comes to you that he will kill the first person he sees when he gets home for you, if only you can give him 1 million naira, and then you go ahead to give him 1 million naira even though you know that it'll cost him his little daughter's life.
I'm sure you know how terrible this is, even if you might try to water it down...

As for Abraham and his son.
My point is, an omniscient god "requesting" that a man should slaughter his son just to prove loyalty is a very sick concept. Imagine you at 15 years and your dad tied you up and wanted to cut off your head with a machete. Even if he says a god asked him to do it, won't that experience alone change your entire relationship with your father?
It's like you think this whole sacrifice issue is like a simple case of flogging a child or shouting at them.

Now to deal with you.

It seems you don't understand the meaning of love. To love someone means to accept them even when they don't accept themselves, to let a person know, I'm with you despite what you've done. It is helping one be the best they can be. Love doesn't accept the action, but the person regardless of the action, because love knows that the person is capable of doing much more. That is what I believe God is.

Now take a look past that one moment of when the person gives you the money from killing. Let me ask, who would the person listen to more, the one who accepted his show of appreciation or the one who not only rejected his show of appreciation but punished him for it?

Don't forget the basis of this, the fact that the person believes a rejection of his offering is a rejection of himself, (you could consider the case of Cain and Abel).

Taking this even further, what if you are the highest authority? You are the one who punishes. You are the police you turn this person in to.

If and when they come out of punishment you have created an outlier in your society, a rebel, who will disobey you because he believes you have rejected him.

In the other case, the person has an opportunity to be constantly influenced by your words, because he believes that you accept him.

Now, imagine if you made laws, and these laws governed how everything worked, literally everything. And no one, not even yourself, is above these laws. This is what happened in that case.

The world works on equivalent exchange, you must give before you get. Most people give up their time in order to get money, no matter the amount. But time is not the only thing you can give. You could give up your ideas, your mind, your opinion, your body, you life and yes even the life of others. The law of equivalent exchange cannot be violated, hence if you give up your daughter in exchange for 1 million you will get it.

The thing is that this happens everyday with us realizing it. When people pour all their time and attention into their work, they're in essence killing their relationship with others (if they don't also spend some time to keep those), sacrificing it you could say. In the end they get the money but have lost those people (though they are still alive). It is the non diabolical aspect of the same thing.

While I can't talk about what God was thinking when He requested for Isaac, I do know, the future is not fixed. Every moment we live we influence it. If someone gives a bad prophecy we can work hard and change it. Being omniscient means he is all knowing, he knows the end of a particular course of action, if you act in a particular way consistently you'll get a particular result. This will be your end.

But it is our responsibility to choose which end we want. Abraham could have decided to carry on and sacrifice his son, but he didn't. There are some times when parents scare children very badly and they refuse to relate with them for a while. Most times things go back to normal.

After all Abraham didn't go through with it, and it could have been explained off as an elaborate prank. It is we who are older who begin to question the believability of our parents because we understand the meaning behind what may have happened.

Yes sacrifice is as trivial as flogging a child. Yes it is as sacred as taking a life. It is something that happens everyday, but that doesn't make it less important.

Perhaps after the event you'll become afraid when you see your dad, or anyone else hold a machete, but the relationship can be mended. But that too takes sacrifice.

uche40:
I don't mean to come as across as antagonistic but to me this is just an exercise in obfuscation. In your first sentence, you accept the fact that the words you are using have already been defined, and yet you wish that you and I casually discard these definitions just so you can ruminate on pointless oxymorons and pretend that they are factual. If we start divorcing every word from their meanings, then where do we draw the line on what is or isn't sensible?

It is in the separation of words from their definitions that we get the beauty of idiomatic expressions.

While for normal use it is useless to do such extrapolations, doing so just for the fun of it is also... fun.

Like some people say, even in nonsense there is sense. Certain inspirations can only be arrived at by doing this needless extrapolations.

The reason behind the ruminations being considered, I ask, why draw a line? The point of my rumination was not so that it would be used in exchange for what is normally used, it was to view things from a different pair of lens.

You draw the line where you can make no more extrapolations, when you can find no more oxymorons? It is an exercise that boosts creativity.

There would be no need to examine poetry if the words of the poem were taken for what they literally meant. Deeper layers would not be found.

When you imagine, all ideas are valid ideas. They are to be had. When one ruminates over what you have imagined, you can now decide which is acceptable and which to cast away. But this should happen after.

One may see his situation in a rock, and may even think himself to be a rock. Is that a contradiction? For the man is not the rock, he is clearly a man and the rock is clearly just a rock.

But it is only in the divorce for literal definitions can we truly see what is meant. That he is the only constant thing in a world that constantly changes. Just like the rock remains thought he environment changes, perhaps due to it being displaced or some disaster destroying it's previous habitat.

In the same way I try to bring to mind that the rejection by all is more absolute than the acceptance of none.

kingxsamz:
Okay, you can't answer abi?
Great. But you can tell people that "God is good". Okay o, continue.

You can tell a lot about a person, but you can only say as much as you've experienced with him/her. God is good because we have decided to experience the side of Him that is good.

Even the kindest person you know can lose it and become someone you've can't recognize. Thinking you can know all about any human is an arrogant view. It is impossible, talkless of a being our minds can't even begin to comprehend.

kingxsamz:
Lol, where in my write up did you see "asked for human sacrifice"?
I said he accepted it, not ask.

If you see a man in the bush about to slaughter his son and burn him to ashes, will you shout for help or try to stop him, or will you let him be if he told you "God requested for it"? Let me know.
Also, you ignored the many other atrocious acts carried out by the Christian god in the bible.

I know, I changed my wording because of it lol.

Yeah, I ignored them because I'm only pointing out the ones I have problem with. Yes people carried out the acts. Yes they received instructions from God to do so. To deny it would be to lie.

The Bible is a historical collection of events, these things happened in wars. It was penned down my men who are prone to painting things through their lens. We cannot know if it was truly God inspired we can only believe it.

Also, I think the asking is more important than the receiving. Permitting something because you know the person isn't ready to change their ways carries a different weight than asking someone to do it.

If someone you loved killed someone to make money and gave you a portion of it, to reject it would be akin to rejecting them, especially if they believe it their only way of making said money. You may accept it, but it doesn't mean you agree with them or what they've done.

The case would be different if you asked them to do it, wouldn't it?

As for the question I've been dancing around, I'll try to stop it if I can, but a man who is stuck in their ways won't be so easily persuaded.

The focus of the story of Abraham and Isaac should be Abraham's openness to hear when God told him to stop. Some may not hear it and go ahead and kill their son, then proceed to blame God for it, when God had nothing to do with it.

Asour:
Maybe but

People aren't INHERENTLY good.
Nevertheless, we are all capable of good deeds.

Just as even the worst of men have done good before.

The 'best' of us go out of their way to control /discipline themselves but even them have missteps.

Wish there was a higher level of liking

Lol, I feel like you've stepped into a trap

Asour:
No. It's not good. Why do you ask?

Lol, I feel like you've stepped into a trap

kingxsamz:
accepted human sacrifice, ordered a man to slaughter his son to prove loyalty to him,

God never asked for human sacrifice, (the only thing I can think of was a case where a man promised God the first thing that came out to meet him, and it was his only daughter, poor guy)

Abraham didn't kill the Isaac in the end, so...

Also, it wasn't an order it was a request

But I don't think I'm qualified enough to refute you arguments well

Babysho:
Lol this is how Europeans sold Africans. They told us that we’re wild animals without the Ten Commandments and then proceeded side by side, the European churches and their govt enslaved African people for hundreds of years. What happened to their moral compass? Open your head

What I find funny about comments like this is that people fail to realize that Christianity is not originally European.

Islam and Christianity have the same ancestor, Judaism. Hence Christianity is actually Asian, just like Islam.

The thing is that at it's formation Rome was in power in it's locality, so it quickly spread westward, instead of eastward.

So the same Christianity the Europeans used to subjugate Africans, someone else used to subjugate them.

cayorday89:
I have no issues with what you wrote except that even the so called religious folks you are trying to defend are not any better as most are guilty of all that you listed there.


Except we want to deceive ourselves, it's better you deal with people based on their personality irrespective of their religious affiliations to avoid dissappoinment. Religion helps to curtail all that you put up there but an individual has his or her own mind which most times takes precedent over spirituality.

I would like to add that the mind always takes precedence over spirituality. It is you deciding to follow it and not it controlling you to obey.

dhardline:
Do you really believe the bolded deep down, even as a Nigerian ! Let me remind you of the savage nature of man, look back to the end Sars riots. How we saw even the average Joe rushing into malls just to steal what does not belong to them. How people looted trucks carrying goods, warehouses etc. This is just a tip of what man is capable of if presented with the right circumstances. So the bolded statement is total fallacy.

I think you need to look deeper than what took place, and farther than that moment. Understand why it happened.

I believe that there is always a build up to any situation, it doesn't just happen out of nowhere. Why would people who were able to take care of their needs rush to the streets to steal from others?

Even you yourself said under the right circumstances, meaning that such an event is isolated and differs from the norm, after all if the norm was the right circumstances then won't everyone be looting everyday?

What the EndSars riots shows is the universal Law of Balance. You can't treat people badly and expect that they will take it lying down forever. When children shout at their parents, it is an explosion of pent up resentment and suppressed anger which hasn't been allowed to be expressed.

Nigerians have suffered many injustices over the course of her history especially in the last few years before it. And this was just an outlet for all the pent up feelings that people had harboured.

A societal level recreation of the child shouting at the parent.

Also man always looks to benefit himself, and those he considers as his own. The widening of that scope of who one's own is, is a sign of spiritual maturity, culminating in the point of viewing all people as your own people, family and even as one's self. This is independent of religion but succinctly captured by Jesus and the Bible in the statement of "Love your neighbor as yourself."

kingxsamz:
It's not even about cultural values. It's acknowledging the fact that those things bring pain to other people. It's just as simple as that.

Person wey sabi

uche40:
Lol. If atheism is a religion, then I guess silence is a sound .

Silence is a sound, the same way nobody is a person (even though the definitions say otherwise).

After all people wouldn't say all I heard was silence. Or Nobody listened.

If silence wasn't a sound how could you hear it?

If Nobody wasn't a person how could it listen?

While everybody didn't listen feels very awkward, I feel it carries more weight than nobody listened.

After all the former tells you that all the people didn't pay attention while the latter says a non-entity did.

It's just a few things I think about, don't have to accept it.

But I'll end with this

In mathematics the definition of a set also includes the empty set, which is meant to contain nothing. An empty set is also an item within the set.

So in "Everybody didn't listen," even that which is nobody didn't listen

Nosayer:
Really? So many comments on this Nairaland that attempt to show philosophical Ideologies without any depth.

If there is no one setting moral standard, then, morality is objective. And if morality is objective, then it's supposed to be voluntary. Isn't that the argument for a lot of sexual-related issues we have around.

As for the conscience, how do humans have conscience when they're just higher animals? Who gave them the conscience?

Morality is always objective, like right and wrong. You may think your way of doing something is right, another may think it's wrong.

A lot of people agree that killing another is wrong, it doesn't matter if you are religious or not. Even Christianity agrees with this.

Now consider this situation, an individual wants to take the life of someone close to you, or even yours. In such a situation would you allow them to be killed, considering that this man won't stop unless he is dead? Or would you just allow yourself to die?

Let's say you defend yourself and you killed the man in the process, have you done wrong? After all you were only defending yourself or another close to you.

Or perhaps 2 children are playing and by mistake on kills the other, is the child that killed in the wrong?

It doesn't matter how hard and fast you want your rules of morality to be, it will always be subjective, because unlike facts and figures, each situation is unique and should be considered while taking in the details of the circumstances in which they occurred.

Consider this situation, Someone attacks you, and on the basis that he might come back for you or your loved one in the future you kill him, even when there was a higher chance he wouldn't have. In this case are you in the right? After all you are also protecting yourself or your loved ones.

Or you preemptively attack and kill someone because in future they would be a threat to you, even when the person is too young to do even be aware of it.

It doesn't matter what belief you hold, a lot of people would know what is right or wrong in all these situations, though some are harder to determine than others. If you require a religion to tell you what is right and wrong, then I agree that there is something wrong with you, but having or believing in said religion also means that there is nothing wrong with you.

Recognizing ones faults and dealing with them however we can is a hall mark of being a human (even though we don't deal with it in the best way everytime)

dhardline:
You can go ahead and call me all that you want still does not change the fact that you really have so much that you are yet to understand about my statement. Do you think those who sleep with animals feel they are in the wrong? Or do you think those who go ahead to have a sex change feel they are in the wrong or the average Joe who lies to get what he wants think he's in the wrong. You really need the learn the nature of man and he's capabilities, how man naturally seeks to live a life in which he gives no account to anyone. How what you regard to be 'morals' can become really fluid in the mind of a man who has nothing governing his mind.

P. S. I am a Christian!

I think you're mistaking a person without any guiding principles for a person who doesn't believe in God. Your view of man seems very biased, a thing that easily happens to people too clouded by religious dogmas. Take a look around you and you'll realize that a lot of people are innately good, they want to help others if they can, and while there are a few bad apples, a lot more people are good hearted.

But the thing however is that they are not likely to do things if it doesn't benefit them. And this is a trait that is in everyone.

While I don't agree with the stance that there is no God, I do have to say that the speed and manner in which heavily religious people disparage others who don't agree with the views is quite unfitting. The goal of religion is to bring one closer to God, and as far as all can see, God is very open minded (if not all these atheist for don die), and I feel like that is a standard worth emulating.

In fact, this is a trait exhibited by a lot of high standing religious people. They have a breath of mind that is truly wide.

P.S. I'm not saying the atheist are any better, some of them can be truly bigoted as well.

1809option:
Father Abraham....

Has many sons...

.

PoliteActivist:
Our Christian faith is NOT based on the Bible being perfect. To say there are no contradictions in the Bible is to lie.
Infact those imperfections are what prove that Rome did not make up the Bible (as someone once argued with me). Because Rome would have written a book with zero contradictions!

I hundred percent agree with you

PoliteActivist:
■ Where was Lord Jesus three days after his baptism?

* After his baptism, the spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days , (Mark 1:12-13)
* Next day after the baptism, Jesus selected two disciples. Second day: Jesus went to Galilee - two more disciples. Third day: Jesus was at a wedding feast in Cana in Galilee (see John 1:35; 1:43; 2:1-11)

(Didn't quote everything because it was too long)

But my dear Polite, while I agree that some of your arguments are valid, I do have to say, for some of them you are just splitting hairs.

Whats the difference between 3 months and 3 months and 10 days? And you decided to focus on that?

Don't forget, It wasn't a single person that wrote the Bible, people are prone to mistakes, and if you can estimate the discrepancies to the same value, it was probably a human error.

Another thing to note is that you are looking at the bible out of context. It wasn't written in one language, so cases where names change could easily be written off as the same name but in a different language, like how Jesus is the Greek(or Roman, I'm not too sure which one) version of the Hebrew word Joshua, so Jesus could be both Jesus and Joshua.

And another thing, once again, the fact that human beings wrote the Bible makes it possible for mistakes to crop up. Even if you and your friend experienced the same event, your retelling of it would be different. Perhaps you're more down to earth and he is more prone to exaggerating. If the 2 stories were put in the same book, someone would definitely point out how the book is wrong because it has contradictions (which it should, as proof that it is not the work of a single person).

What should be our concern is are the generalities the same?

Do the two of you agree the event happened?

If yes, then we can know for sure that it definitely did

My guy you funny me

babzo:
Is it possible he saw flying machines, helicopters, fighter Jets, space ships? Those things exist now and There was no way a man in 90 AD would know what those were. He would describe them as best as he knew.

Stars falling from Heaven?. Even today, in 2022, humans call many things in the sky, stars , that are not.
.

I have to say, I agree with this. Sometimes, satellites look like stars when moving across the sky, and anything falling to Earth from the atmosphere is going to look like a falling star because of re-entry (though the question is, is it re-entry if it never left?)

diggindeep:
Oh really

yeah really as can be seen from my user name

diggindeep:
Babatunde Nnamdi

This is my name