₦airaland Forum

Eddy Tells:
i definitely have no problem with you calling me names. Its a free thread for exhibiting our traits/opinions, just like you have exhibited your clear adamant nature in clear stupidity of the knowledge you have acquired in science and related to supremacy.

Can you transform this mishmash of words into a coherent sentence?

Eddy Tells:
It would shock you to know that ama qualified medical doctor and i cld get all the scientic and medical jaggon on this thread but who am i trying toimpress a d**b A## like you. Nahhh! No need.

Ah, argumentum ad verecundium. You, as a medial doctor surely have some knowledge of Latin.
I've had meaningful discussions with other christian medical doctors on many subjects, but your arguments sir have not yet impressed me in the least. And as for namecalling, if I am a d**b A##, then you are most definitely an idiot savant
How come so many medical doctors don't have a clue when it comes to the scientfic method? The nature of experiental knowledge, perhaps

Eddy Tells:
But i'd be willing totake you up one on one on another thread though on scientific analysis. Because in even in the scientific field, most times, scientific analysis and explanations don't add up.
At this point, i begin to challenge your knowledge of science.

Please do, I'd be glad to accept the challenge. By the way, what exactly are you challenging, be precise.

Eddy Tells:
As of you saying your sorry when you wrong, am yet to see that. I have seen though, you putting people's posts down and always analyzing members replies like they didnt make sense. Its almost like you can't afford to makea point on your own without looking for a victim tostep on, hmmmmmm maybe it builds your confidence when you attack others

I question people's argument, but the problem is that you think that any challenge to your beliefs is putting people down.
Some Christians, layi, chrisd [/i]and [i]nicetohave, are capable of having a civilised discussion on religion and even though our oppinions differ, they do not have to descend to your level.

And if you accuse me of not being able to make a point of my own, why don't you join layi's discussion on evolution (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-6208.0.html). We'll see if you have what it takes to stand against my points

Eddy Tells:
Not just evidence. Even you will agree that experience brings knowledge too.

Only if properly verified and if it cannot be attributed to anything else.

Eddy Tells:
So i speak of not only what i have faith in but also what i believe in and have experience in.
And evidence tooo
God is da Bomb!!!!!

Start your bombardment then.

Eddy Tells:
[quote author=nferyn link=topic=6786.msg208527#msg208527 date=1139919865]And that's exactly what you are not doing. Your points are based in fantasy, not realism. You have no evidence for your claims about God.

I have, but unfortunately you can't see it because u have termed yourself, God of your own so you only aprrove that which you term correct. I asked you questions which i expected you to answer using your "logical reasoning tactics"
Daft![/quote]Well then, present the evidence for the existence of God.

I was willing to answer your questions, but in another thread. As we already have messed up this thread, maybe you can present them again.

exu:
It seems to me as if this is a pretty uneven discussion.

Whilst (most of) those who refuse to align themselves with any particular religious group have contemplated the idea of 'God', those who claim 'faith' have not even thought about a anything contrary to what they've been taught.

I have indeed contemplated it and found it lacking. Most theists do not dare to question the foundations of their belief. It's all faith for them.

Eddy Tells:
I spoke on what i know because i have stood by this knowledge all my life

You speak of what you believe in, what you have faith in, not what you know. Knowledge requires evidence.

Eddy Tells:
unlike you who was a dedicated catholic and turned atheist because a priest molested your father. Denying the existence of God so as to suppress the hurt of childhood can't change the fact that you once served God and that He still exist.

I have never in my life been a dedicated catholic. Stop lying about me and using these lies in an trying to attribute false motives to my position. When I wrote about what happened to my father, it was meant as background information to differentiate between my position and that of my father, not to be used as slander and insult by your kind. How deep can you sink in defense of your positions?

Eddy Tells:
so i guess my second statement suits you

What second statement

Eddy Tells:
hmmm, Atheism is the belief in no God. Most Atheist acknowledge there is a God but they choose not to belief in God. So i guess with that you can say Atheism is the denial of the existence of God.

Can you round me up those atheists that acknowledge there is a God, because they do not exist. If they would exist, they wouldn't be atheist.
Once more, atheism is not a positive denial of the existence in God, it is simply the lack of a belief in God and these are not the same. I am an [b]agnostic [/b]atheist, meaning that I take the position that I cannot have [b]knowledge [/b]of God and I have no belief in God.

Eddy Tells:
May i just point out that being smart is not the ability to put gramma/vocabs together in a sentence. Rathe, its that sentence actually making a realistic point.

And that's exactly what you are not doing. Your points are based in fantasy, not realism. You have no evidence for your claims about God.

Eddy Tells:
The faculty of reason is logic - Daft Daft Daft

You can't get by without insults, can you? And then you dare accuse me of insults?

Eddy Tells:
All birds can fly because they have wings. Eagles fly high up in the sky.
But Chickens can hardly fly above a high fence.

And is this supposed to be your representation of logic?

Eddy Tells:
The world they say rotates but why don't we all go round and round. If you speak of mind games, you should ask yourselves how sure you are that what you say is white is actually white or if that face of yours is actually how you look or perhaps how you have choosen to look which has gradually taken the form of how others see you.

Really, I advise you to get an introductionary book into physics. A new world of things unseen will open for you

Eddy Tells:
[quote author=nferyn link=topic=6786.msg208431#msg208431 date=1139912892]Showing off your ignorance about science is only revealing what you really are: an ignoramus.

Again , resolving to insults as a point only shows your a weak willed person struggling to stand firm by exacting opression.
It also shows you always want to be right and never wrong even when u know your wrong. [/quote]You may call that an insult. I call it a factual observation. You are ignorant when it comes to science and thus may rightly be called an ignoramus, especially when you try to show of that ignorance. I must be more precise, though, as this only applies to science. My appoplogies for using too broad a brush, I should call you a scientific ignoramus

I have no problem admitting when I am wrong. It will take more than your scribblings though to do that. Other Christians on this board have shown that they can conduct an argument in an intellectually fitting manner, you on the other hand do nothing but proudly exclaiming your ignorance about the most basic facts of science.
And please shed of your persecution complex. Where exactly have I been exacting oppression?

Eddy Tells:
Am not the one confused so i don't need to open another thread.
My questions were to help you reason beyond what physics told you.
i guess Physics or maybe biology also told you how the world came to be huh Daft

The faculty of reason is logic. Your mind games are anything but logical and thus have nothing to do with reason. What exactly is there to know beyond the physical, because all you consider non-physical is a product of the physical
Showing off your ignorance about science is only revealing what you really are: an ignoramus.

Eddy Tells:
A man who thinks he knows but knows not deceiveth himself
But a man who knows that he knows not and still says he knows is worse than a fool.

And yet you make all these claims about God with the utmost certainty about their validity? What does that make you?

Eddy Tells, I can explain all that you ask for and more, but not in this thread. Open another one and invite me to answer your questions, or maybe read a basic book on physics first before you start asking silly questions like How do u explain the air you breath.

nightrider:
Its absolutely funny how someone can "let go of God'. Atheism is the denial of the existence of God, so how canyou let go of what you say doesn't exist.

No, it isn't. It's the lack of belief in a supreme being. There is no need to deny something that is imaginary to start with.

nightrider:
Some people feel dissappionted by God, because he doesnt conform to the imagination in their head that he should strike out all evil at once, so they claim atheism.

I'm certainly not one of those caricatures of atheism you portray here. It's actually very simple: there is no good enough reason to believe in a God, so I don't. You have to believe in the whole conceptual framework of God-Devil-Evil-Good to even try to make sense out of this statement. If you don't believe in it, it's just plain nonsense.

nightrider:
Do you say, because your dad did'nt buy yu a bike in school that he doesn't exist. Its absolute escapism and they greatest form of satans deception closely followed by homosexuality.

The true loving and tolerant nature of your belief shows
There is one fundamental difference between your dad and God: there is hard, undeniable evidence of your dad's existence. There is no such thing for God.

nightrider:
God is the greatest form of love i have ever experienced , no one can take that away.

Love for oneself, yes, but certainly not for those deviants, like homosexuals. To elevate oneself by kicking down on others, a true sign of love.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg206465#msg206465 date=1139714433]nferyn, again I want to acknowledge your well-thoughtout philosophy. However, your position and convictions fall far short of an inclusive understanding of what religion is - let alone the Christian faith. In the first place, when a man says that the premise of scientific investigation is to attack ideas, it matters nothing to me if one accuses me of making selective and abstract quotes (need I say that is precisely what you do when dealing with matters of faith in the Bible?). By stating that premise, what it means to me is that he rests everything on one goal - that is, to attack what he does not understand or believe in; and that is something radically opposed to what is called "investigation."[/quote]You are misunderstanding the article. He is talking about the scientific method, not about the purpose of science itself. You can just as well say that the purpose of the method of cooking (as opposed to the goal of cooking) is to destroy and decompose the basic ingredients of your meal, the destructive acts in the method don't say anything about the constructive goal.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg206465#msg206465 date=1139714433]Even among scientists, it is commonly believed that it is not by attacking ideas that one establishes an 'understanding of the cosmos'. The American physicist Stephen Weinberg says that "Religion is an insult to human dignity," and he speaks for himself, because not many physicists would agree with him. I wonder if he counted as retarded, all physicists who were erudite in their field and still held to a religious belief. This is what Albert Einstein, the German-born physicist once said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." ("Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium", 1941).[/quote]Most scientists are just not interested in questions of religion as they felt it's just a waste of their time and energy. Weinberg is an exception because he feels that the religious idea is doing a lot of harm in the world. You can say anything you want about Weinberg, but not that he is a retard. Retards don't usually receive Nobel Prizes.
Einstein did not hold a religious belief at all. That quote has constantly been rehashed to rpove that he was overall in favor of religion. His owm position was very different.
Some of his quotes:
“My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.”
“As the first way out there was religion, which is implanted into every child by way of the traditional education-machine. Thus I came — though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents — to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.”
“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.”
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.”

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg206465#msg206465 date=1139714433]I've heard many times that the skeptic mind requires evidence and proof (usually those appealing to the physical senses) for questions of religion and other phenomena; and if the answers are not tailored to their ideologies or expectations, then the religious mind is committed to the realms of 'ignorance.' I should remind you that not everything someone questions or seeks answers to can be proven this way. Bertrand Russell, the British mathematician and philosopher often quoted by skeptics, might have attested to this when he quipped, "It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."[/quote]I have no doubt about the fact that there are currently questions that science cannot annswer and that there are questions that science probably will never be able to answer, but to take the great leap of faith between that position and a positive assertion of a supreme being is a few bridges to far. It is a projection of human's deepest fears.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg206465#msg206465 date=1139714433]Religion - of whatever branch - has received a bad name from people who have given a false and ugly face to it. Yet, to generalise it in the way that Stephen Weinberg has done is to throw away the baby with the bath water. I should not belabour the point any further than to simply say that there are matters of life far beyond the methodology of science, even if denied by skeptics and atheists.[/quote]And by putting religion in that gap, you are closing it off for further investigation, as religion rests on faith, the assertion of truth on authority without evidence

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg206465#msg206465 date=1139714433]You may not agree, but I share the thoughts of
another scientist in this regard: "I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." (Richard Feynman, US educator & physicist c.1918 - 1988). Please note that I don't mean to be sarcastic towards your position; however, there certainly is a basis for faith that is both intelligent and genial.

4get_me.[/quote]I'd be glad to hear of that basis for faith. I have not found it.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg205995#msg205995 date=1139683886]@nferyn: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer my questions. Actually, there was nothing new in your definitions - I just wanted your own statement as to what you think of life and faith. Every worldview - religious or secular - have had grey shades in their history. As an individual of atheistic leanings, you cannot deny the fact that some atheists have been directly involved in the most dastardly and inhumane actions known to mankind (I don't mean any offences).[/quote]Allright, I couldn't know that you were familiar with the terms I used, as I have met many people that have a rather distorted view on atheism and humanism. What do I think about life and faith? I see no inherent meaning or purpose to life. Life just is and you have to give it meaning yourself. As for faith, I have a fundamental problem with faith for intelligent adults. I find it a willful regression into a childlike state of mind whereby you accept something on authority and do not investigate the fundamentals of what you have faith in thoroughly.

I think you really need to distinguish between on the one hand atheism, the lack of God belief, and on the other hand theism, the positive belief in a personal supreme being. Atheism is just a position regarding the belief in a supreme being, just as theism. Religions and worldviews on the other hand are constructions that allow to investigate and determine your position within society and the cosmos. They make positive assertion concerning the mechanics of the cosmos and how we should relate to it.

The fact that some atheists have done horrific things does not say anything whatsoever about my humanism. The philosophies those people subscribe to are radically opposed to secular humanism, they are actually the antithesis of secular humanism. Truth must be told though that the most heinous crimes against humanity have been cloacked under the cover of religion and this is exactly what Dawkins is referring to

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg205995#msg205995 date=1139683886]I respect your right to subscribe to Dawkins' ideas, but he does not prove anything to the effect that religion alone is responsible for his complaints.[/quote]No, but the religious condition, the claim for absolute truth on authority, not on evidence or proof, is the ideal justification and cover to let congnitive dissonance ignore contradictory information. Only active skepticism can counter this tendency. I'll take a quote I used in another thread to illustrate my point:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." (Stephen Weinberg, Washington, D.C., April 1999)
So in summary, it is never religion alone that makes people do evil things, but religion allows people to do horrible things and still believe they're doing a good thing.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg205995#msg205995 date=1139683886]However, I find it a bit worrisome that you have misrepresented Christianity. I define the Christian faith based on what it teaches in the Bible rather than on the opinions of people; and that is why I think that Dawkins misused words that confused matters rather than foster understanding.[/quote]You can both find good morals and horrible morals in the Bible. It all depends on what you choose from the text. It is a huge collection of writings, after all. The fact that the language used is rather ambiguous, allows an even furter narrowing of whichevermessage you may want to find. And to think that one would need the fear of God's wrath to do the just and moral thing is an insult to the human species. We are naturally an extremely moral animal, especially if you compare us to the other animals.
What I don't understand is that Christains ignore all the language of bigotry, ethnocentrism, racism and injustice that is contained in the Bible and at the same time claim that that book is THE[/b]Guide for morality? This is a very weird position for an outsider.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg205995#msg205995 date=1139683886]For example, he seemed to have narrowed the goal of scientific investigation to just one premise - [b]attack. "Now, the invention of the scientific method... rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked." (reference from your thread of Dawkins, third paragraph, accessible here: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-6509.0.html). Eminent and astute scientists of more worth would strongly disagree with that premise, for science is not about attacking ideologies, but rather seeking to better the cause of humanity.[/quote]This is highly selective quoting from your part, only because he uses the word attack. Attack in this context refers to the process of peer review whereby, when a scientist proposes a hypothesis and presents his evidence for that hypothesis, his peers, other scientists working in the same field, are systematically going to try to find the weaknesses of that hypothesis. This process is crucial in the advancement of scientific knowledge. Contrary to religion, there are NO sacred cows in science.
Also, if you say that science is seeking to better the cause of humanity, you are incorrect. Science does not directly try to better the cause of humanity, it tries to understand the mechanics of the cosmos and by doing so, we also better the cause of humanity, but that is not the primary objective of science.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg205995#msg205995 date=1139683886]Another point to this bane of misrepresentation is your statement that Christianity "...leads to bigotry and evil acts." I suppose you take that stance based on the ugly events in history like the Crusades. However, please bear with my pointing out that Arnaud-Amaury, the Abbot of Citeaux, was not quoting the Bible or stating Christian doctrine when he gave his advice to the religious armies to kill the inhabitants of Beziers. Why do I point this out? If you had read in the Bible that Christianity actually is bigotted and evil, I would patiently wait for you to quote the references. In the same vein, may I offer to quote what Jesus Himself said to His followers:

'But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.' (Mat 5:44).[/quote]Do you really want me to provide you quotes? Theres are so many that I wouldn't know where to start. Go and visit http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.html for all the injustices, cruelties, bigotry, paternalism and anti-women passages you wouldn't like to be remembered of. Once more, the Bible is so internally contradictory that it is hard to find any moral message in one quote that isn't contradicted in another.
This makes it easy for anyone intended to do something evil to find something in the Bible that justifies his acts.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg205995#msg205995 date=1139683886]That surely doesn't sound like bigotry or evil, does it? It is on Jesus Christ that Christians base their life and faith, not on any Abbot. Please look closely into your claims and ask yourself if indeed Christianity is what you think it is, especially when you haven't given it a fair hearing based on the Bible itself. I trust that you'll be better able to appreciate the fact that human dignity is not in ferreting people of other ideologies or worldviews that differ from your own by using uninformed prejudices. Although I'm not a philosopher or astute scientist, I do agree with the following statement:

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely re-arranging their prejudices." William James (US Pragmatist, philosopher & psychologist c.1842 - 1910)[/quote]Don't get me wrong, I do believe that most religious people are indeed honest, warm and good and even that some need the fear instilled by religion not to do evil, but religion in itself has an ugly and dangerous aspect, especially when it is being lived in a fundamentalist way.

[quote author=4get_me link=topic=682.msg205995#msg205995 date=1139683886]As regards what I think about the points you raised, I'll share my thoughts with you on this forum as amicably as I can, without prejudices or biases, hoping to warmly invite you to consider the raison d'etre of the Christian faith, not loosing sight of the main question of this thread as to if God and Allah are the same.

Very warmly yours,
4get_me.[/quote]Thank you very much for your kind consideration. Please believe that I'm not so ignorant about the main tenets of Christianity as you may believe, after all, European culture is largly built on Christianity. We have dealt with the ugly aspects of religion far too much in the past though. It is very important that religion remains something personal and that power and religion are never mixed.

As to the main question, the fact that some claim that they are not the same and vigorously fight for that conviction, even though it is clear in The Qu'ran that Allah is the same God as the God of Christianity and Judaism, just gives an indication that the problem rather lies with the fundamental characteristics of religion in itself.

Didn't really like his second album either. Third one was good as well, although not up to the same level as Introducing? I especially liked Let Her Down Easy

I'm just thinking of Terence Trent D'Arby's next to last song on his first album: As Yet Untitled (A-Cappella), it allways chills me to the bone to hear:

Out by a shanty where the dust hangs high
Far from a river where things grow green
The flowers weep and they lean away
From the blood stained soil beneath my feet

The thorns outnumber the petals on the rose
And the darkness amplifies the sound of printers' ink
On propaganda page
That will rule your life and fuel my rage

I tried to bend my knees
But my knees were already bent
I haven't stood like a man for such a long time now
I called to my god but he was sleeping on that day
I guess I'll just have to depend on me

Shall I tell my children if they ask of me
Did I surrender forth my right to be?
Y'see my daddy died to leave this haunting ground
And this same ground still haunts me

The cool September blows the seeds away
The harvest blown again this year
But I'll return a stronger man
I'll return to me my homeland
No grave shall hold my body down
This land is still my home

I said:
But I'll return a stronger man
I'll return to me my homeland
No grave shall hold my body down
This land is still my home
This land is still my home

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world

Good start, but you should really focus on making it grow. Ensure that their are apostles, theologians, anti-coconuts, coconut persecutions, cartoons about the holy coconut published in Danish newspapers, the appearance of the coconut in one or another case causing coconut pilgrimages, coconut art and literature, ....
Turn it into a community thing and be strict on the quality of the editorial content.This is bound to be successful

Then I like Sign Your Name by Terence Trent D'Arby better:

Fortunately you have got
Someone who relies on you
We started out as friends
But the thought of you just caves me in
The symptoms are so deep
It is so much too late to turn away
We started out as friends

Sign your name
Across my heart
I want you to be my baby
Sign your name
Across my heart
I want you to be my lady

Time I'm sure will bring
Disappointments in so many things
It seems to be the way
When your gambling cards on love you play
I'd rather be in Hell with you baby
Than in cool Heaven
It seems to be the way

Sign your name
Across my heart
I want you to be my baby
Sign your name
Across my heart
I want you to be my lady

Birds never look into the sun
Before the day is gone
But oh the light shines brighter
On a peaceful day
Stranger blue leave us alone
We don't want to deal with you
We'll shed our stains showering
In the room that makes the rain

All alone with you
Makes the butterflies in me arise
Slowly we make love
And the Earth rotates
To our dictates
Slowly we make love

Sign your name
Across my heart
I want you to be my baby
Sign your name
Across my heart
I want you to be my lady