₦airaland Forum

Kukutente23:
Are you in an alternate universe of some sort?
I don't know of any situation where aging is defined as the whole definition of human existence

That's because you've sidestepped the actual proposition with the elegance of someone tripping over their own deflection. Given that the original point was about guaranteed suffering being incompatible with mandatory gratitude, your objection addresses a conversation happening entirely in your own head. Or is your misreading of my argument, perhaps, also God's perfect design?

Kukutente23:
Is ageing the foundation of life?
I'm not getting your logic
It seems you just want to type something

The logic is simple: physical existence is defined by inevitable suffering, genetic defects, and eventual total systemic collapse. It's patently absurd to think that human gratitude is mandatory when the reality of living involves constant vulnerability to disease and mental decline.

Kukutente23:
Mercy and intent is at the discretion of the bestower
You can't tell a man how to use his property

Word? Well then you've just abolished the entire moral case for worshipping God in a single sentence - because a deity whose mercy is merely discretionary and whose creation is just property cannot be a loving Father. You’ve essentially reduced the "King of Kings" to a petty, disgruntled fella who treats human beings like his lawn furniture.

DeepSight:
The very fact that this supposedly omniscient God regrets his actions is enough to throw his omniscience into the dust bin.

I mean, it's an internal contradiction that collapses the entire doctrinal architecture from the foundation upward, and it's fairly obvious to anyone who's taken a philosophy seminar, except to, well, most fundie Christians.

TV01:
Foreseeable and foreseen. Planned for and ultimately dealt with.


TV

Where and when? Planned for by whom, executed how, and why is this plan indistinguishable from no plan at all?

TV01:
Nice line of thinking...although ultimately incorrect.
The fall of man wasn't a slip-up by God, neither was it by His design. But, He knew it would happen, and it is dealt with as part of His unfolding plan
Ephesians 3:10
to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,


TV

Previous rejoinder applies here as well.

TV01:
Yes.

To ultimately demonstrate His power and wisdom. To show forth His glory. It's not just about mankind.

Ephesians 3:10 - to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,


TV

...therefore your God is essentially an omnipotent showman who engineered the entire catastrophe of human suffering as an exhibition piece for the heavenly cheap seats, which proves that he is NOT merciful in any definition that humans actually recognise.

And I don't suppose Ephesians 3:10 lands quite as reassuringly in a hospice ward, or at a child's funeral, or in the mind of someone whose dementia has stolen every dignified thing they ever were - quite the puzzler, isn't it?

TV01:
The entry of sin corrupted the creation - specifically the domain of man.


TV

Was this corruption foreseeable to an omniscient God? If yes, then why was the door left open?

TV01:
What was flawed about the creation or mankind in particular? A malfunction? Like in machinery . God is perfect in all His ways - no errors!


TV

The interesting thing about claiming no errors is that it actually makes God even more responsible for the existence of sin and the fall of man. If there were no errors in the creation of mankind, then the fall of man wasn't just a slip-up, but the intended design all along.
...which, you have to admit, raises considerably darker questions than mere human imperfection would.

TV01:
No it isn't.
Death (and all that is wrong with the world) entered through sin. God's creation was perfect. And it will be restored. Join us .


TV

We will, after you explain how a perfect being can produce such flawed products, and then blame said products for their own malfunction rather than checking the original blueprints for glaring errors.

Kukutente23:
That's how life is
You have to accept the sweet and the not so palatable

the original question is about mercy and intent, and 'that's how life is' doesn't address either, it simply restates the problem with more resignation and less honesty.

Kukutente23:
Why are you quoting me to this thread
Have you not enough on your hands blaming God for the process of ageing?
You've not thanked God for the gift of life but you blame God for the limitations of the living
Hmmm

Well, that's because praising the architect for the building a structure while still ignoring the crumbling foundation beneath it is just poor structural review.

otipoju:
You have the floor to yourself. You can take up her case and fight for her rights in the courts of law or on the pages of nairaland.

Enjoy.

A man who suggested someone's mother may have been unfaithful is now performing dignity on his way out. Lol. The audacity travels in a full suit and tie. Well, I didn't need your permission to be right anyway, but I appreciate the formal ceremony. You may now return to your regularly scheduled victim-blaming.

otipoju:
Once again, you displayed plenty of knowledge without any iota wisdom.

And you have displayed none of the above.

otipoju:
The girl,her father, the pastor, and the church administration are all a bunch of nasty people.

Hmmm. That's a lot of "nasty" to keep track of. Did you run out of theological excuses and decide to just hate everyone?

otipoju:
You can report my account for ban again.

Why would I report you? Your comments are the best evidence I have for my points. If you get banned, I lose my favorite living illustration of what happens when cynicism meets a total lack of reading comprehension. So sit tight, I’m not done with the lesson.

jaephoenix:
Christians dont reason logically. They only pretend to do so.

Well I don't entirely agree with you here. Logical reasoning isn't unique to either believers or non-believers. I've met clumsy logicians on both sides.

jaephoenix:
And they label u as atheist if u try to prove their logic wrong. So if u r a Christian, I suggest u tell him now

I'm curious what my alignment has to do with the fact that his logic was invalid? Can't we all just assess people's arguments on their own merits without shoving everyone into the same box?

I identify as NerdCat, and that's it.

OLAADEGBU:
If you claim God has no proof you’re being dishonest or ignorant!

I claimed no such thing. I said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - that's a basic epistemological standard everyone is beholden to. Kindly respond to what I actually said before struggling and failing to diagnose my honesty levels. I'll wait here patiently.

OLAADEGBU:
The proof:

1. 1st law of thermodynamics
2. 2nd law of thermodynamics
3. Law of information
4. Law of biogenesis
5. Natural law
6. Laws of chemistry
7. Laws of physics
8. Laws of logic
9. Laws of mathematics
10. The Cambrian explosion
11. The entire fossil record
12. Mendel's genetic laws
13. Laws of geology
14. Fine tuning
15. Irreducible complexity
16. Specified complexity
17. Epigenetics
18. Recorded history from day one (Old Testament)
19. Recorded history of God in the flesh (New Testament) 24,000 manuscripts.

You've listed 19 categories spanning physics, biology, geology, history, and logic. None of them come with relevant citation. None of them individually, nor collectively, demonstrate a personal creator God. At best, they demonstrate a complex, ordered universe, and "complex and ordered" requiring a God is an inference. An inference is hardly the same thing as a conclusion. So... try again?

OLAADEGBU:
To sum it up the proof is all of science, the entire so called fossil record and all recorded history from day one. Honestly it’s absolute proof of God. Only those who are completely dishonest and ignorant could reject the proof.

There's a particular irony in calling your opponents dishonest immediately after presenting an argument-by-list rather than an actual argument. Proof means demonstrable, falsifiable, independently verifiable. What you've offered here is a catalogue of scientific disciplines that millions of brilliant, rigorously honest non-believers study professionally without reaching your conclusion. Calling Stephen Hawking dishonest requires considerably more courage than courage alone can supply. "Absolute proof" is the strongest epistemological claim available to a human being. Your numbered list - earnest as it is - doesn't even come close to clearing it. Confidence is not the same as correctness, and volume is not the same as validity. Those are different things, regardless of how emphatically one insists otherwise.

OLAADEGBU:
Source

Your "source" just took me to the Facebook homepage. I've seen more reliable citations in a WhatsApp forward from my auntie.

OLAADEGBU:
If you aren’t ready to disclose your presupposition then I’m ready to respond to your rebuttal. I’ll not waste my time and yours if you are not an atheist or at least have an evolutionist worldview.

I've disclosed plenty, chief - I said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That's a complete epistemological position, and not a dodge. I just refuse to let you reframe this debate around my biography instead of your argument's very public structural problems. My presupposition is irrelevant to whether A=B and B=C therefore A=C... which was YOUR framework, not mine. You invited mathematics into a theology discussion and mathematics doesn't care about my spiritual biography. It just checks whether the logic holds. Yours didn't. That verdict stands independent of my Sunday habits.

OLAADEGBU:
Seeing that you only registered on NL 2 days ago it is not out of place to ask for your worldview.

Well, I'm not interested in labels. I just think every extraordinary claim deserves extraordinary evidence. Simple enough.

Some very funny replies so far. I'll use this here post as an illustration.

otipoju:
Honestly , I don't know what to tell you.

Ironically, your opening line here was the smartest thing you produced in this riposte, and you promptly ignored its counsel. A rare moment of self-awareness, swiftly executed and buried. What followed was a masterclass in saying the loud part loud while somehow still missing the entire point - leaving behind a comment that reads as simultaneously devoid of empathy and remarkably ill-informed, a combination that ages about as gracefully as warm mayonnaise. You see, this is often what you get when you conflate being blunt with being wise, and then decide to moonlight as an unsolicited life coach. Nigerians have practically institutionalized this particular brand of cynicism-disguised-as-counsel. But before I get to the meat of this response, I'll start by highlighting the legal absurdity here, front and center:

otipoju:
The Pastor does not owe you money even if he promised you.Going to report him to his church leadership is way out of line.

Actually, mate - in most functioning legal systems, a promise that causes someone to materially alter their course of action to their own detriment is called a promissory estoppel and it absolutely can create liability. Not only did she receive a promise, she literally abandoned a viable legal remedy because of it.

otipoju:
Leave the Pastor alone...even though he is a shitty human being as many of them are.

Figure out how to fix your life. And continually pray to reverse the curse that your father placed on you...him too na useless man.

So the pastor's promise is unenforceable, but the dead father's curse is still fully operational? That's some interesting theological selectivity. Apparently, the supernatural is only valid when it's working against you.

otipoju:
Unless you did something bad to him that you are not telling us or your mother did brought another man's pregnancy to him.

This line is where I had to physically set down my beverage. Completely unverifiable, completely irrelevant, and delivered with the casual cruelty of someone who thinks they're being refreshingly honest when they're actually just being foul.

Now - and I'll be fair here - buried somewhere in the labyrinthine rubble of your reply is one recoverable point:

otipoju:
Above all, NOBODY in this life owes you anything and you need to stop telling strangers and friends of you family issues.

Yes, chronic oversharing of vulnerability with the wrong people is tactically dangerous. That's true. Predators do use disclosed pain as a targeting system. Fine. Valid. One mark in the ledger. But the delivery method chosen here was to essentially tell a woman who got stranded, threatened, and gaslit by a man of God that her character is the problem. Not the fraud, not the institutional cover-up, but the victim herself. Victim-blaming at its most blatantly shameless if you ask me.

Change your character too

That's all? After paragraphs of speculation about her mother's fidelity and her father's curses? This is arguably the most damning indictment of your staggering lack of self-awareness. It's a toss up between this and when the pastor told her not to become a prostitute while refusing to pay rent he promised. Not sure which is less self-aware at the moment.

And this is yet another problem with religion. Certain religious structures create the perfect ecosystem for exactly this - a hierarchy where authority is sacred, accountability is optional, and the vulnerable are perpetually told their suffering is a spiritual character flaw rather than someone else's actionable misconduct. And you've exemplified this problem rather excellently with this post.

Too Hot 2 Handle. Tsk. Figures. I wonder why we Nigerian viewers crave the tepid broth of televised romance when we could just feast upon the jagged, strategic brilliance of shows like Survivor, The Challenge or The Traitors. Hell, even Bad Girls Club has more dramatic firecracker moments. Is it a national allergy to grit and strategy? Surely, people who get laid regularly don't fawn endlessly like this over mindless TV romance. It really sucks. We bypass the gritty survivalism of serious shows for the perfumed nonsense of matchmaking shows. Quite the tragic trade-off, if I do say so myself.

OLAADEGBU:
Are you an atheist?

Are you a detective? Seems not.

OLAADEGBU:
It’s all about logic as the topic of this thread portrays. The atheist logic and God’s logic. Below is how I use logic to decode John 1:1.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

The simple logic of this verse can be summed up as thus:

THE WORD = GOD

In John 1:14 it states:

"The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us."

From these verses we can deduce the following:

JESUS = THE WORD

Simple logic declares that

if A=B and

B=C  then

A=C.

Therefore, since

JESUS = THE WORD and

THE WORD = GOD, then

JESUS = GOD

QED.

That's cute. Three problems here though, just for starters

1) "The Word" is a translation of the Greek Logos - a philosophical concept Hellenistic thinkers used centuries before Jesus was born. John borrowed it from Stoic cosmology. So your QED is actually crediting Zeno of Citium. Congratulations, you've accidentally proven Greek philosophy, not Christianity.

2) Your transitive property requires clean substitution, but instead, John 1:1 gives us a God who is simultaneously distinct from the Word ["with God"] and identical to it ["was God"]. That's not A=B. That's A≠B AND A=B simultaneously, which in formal logic, is a contradiction, not a proof. Mathematics would reject this instantly.

3) "A is like B" does not mean "A equals B." When John calls Jesus the Word of God, he may be expressing function or representation, not ontological identity. A president's spokesperson isn't the president. The White House press secretary speaks for POTUS, but it doesn't make them POTUS. See how that analogy collapses?

What say ye?

Can't believe I just came across it. This movie's gonna kick ass!