₦airaland Forum

RhodaRose:
nferyn

ME thinks you and I have nothing in common and maybe you're on the wrong part of this forum...this is religion and you don't have any.

We may have little in common, but as I only know one aspect of you (your writings on this board), I cannot possibly determine whether or not we have much in commen. At least we're both human beings and now how to express ourselves using the English language

I am very interested though in religion and the reasons why people choose to believe. Why would that mean that I'm in the wrong part of the forum? Is that a reason to dismiss what I write or not answer my questions?
Is your faith perhaps so shaky that it cannot withstand questioning?

RhodaRose:
Mt 7:6
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Why waste your time and mine...?

Until now I have appreciated your posts, as you have showed a spirituality that is heart warming. Are you now showing your true colours by insulting me? If not, why insert this here?

RhodaRose:
I have souls to save.and the time is short...

RhodaRose

layi:
The issue is dealth with here http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c005.html

The issue is explained away there, not dealt with. How many scientific publications does your author have behind his name and in what periodicals? There is no basis whatsoever for a declining speed of light. Light that passes through matter does lose some of it's speed, but that is irrelevant in the void of space.

The speed of light would need to be astronomically higher than 300.000 km/s to explain a young earth and there is [b]no [/b]evidence for any such speed. And even if that would somehow miraculously happen to be true, this would only mean that the possibility of a young earth is there. There is enough evidence from other fields to refute such a ridiculous claim hundred times over

Layi, you can hold your beliefs, but please don't go to nutcase sources such as Ansers in Genesis. You, as a medical doctor to be, should know better.

RhodaRose:
So, you are saying you do not believe in a Creator?

No I do not believe in a creator.

RhodaRose:
Who spoke the creation into being?

As I do not believe in a creator, there is no point in speaking about a creation, nor about someone who spoke it into being, whatever that means

RhodaRose:
It was a "big bang" that put everything into order?

The Big Bang is what is currently the explanation that is most in line with the available evidence. Of course, the Big Bang could be called the act of creation by God, but in that case, the account in Genesis need to go out of the window.

RhodaRose:
I have never seen or heard of a tornado, hurricane, atomic bomb (or any bomb!) or any action of nature or man putting things "in order", have you?

What do you mean by this? Are you re-hashing Paley's watchmaker argument?
Natural selection (as a force in nature) puts many things in order. It is the single cause of most adaptation in living beings.

RhodaRose:
illogical and explains nothing? Only to some...

In itself it is illogical and proves nothing. Only if you take the a priori position that a supreme being exists does it make sense.

Ayinke:
But where can you find the Trinity in the Gospel? The only person who talked about it is Paul and he was not a disciple of Jesus. Never met him … only in the book of Acts where he met Jesus in his dream and gave four conflicting accounts of it.

That's not what I meant. There was no Bible prior to canonisation, so obviously there won't be any trinity. The different early churches had very different beliefs about Jesus. Some were using written texts as foundation, some were only using oral transmission, some were using both, but they hardly ever agreed on a single set of authoritative texts or even on the core foundations or their belief

@ RhodaRose
You're not really answering my questions. The process by which the diversity of life on this planet came into being is evolution (fact). The proximate cause of evolution is the evolution theory (explanation). The ultimate cause (as the first mover) of the diversity of life could be God. The creation account in the Bible most definitely is not the way the diversity of life came into being.

Concerning the creation of the Creator, it is true that God is portrayed as the Alfa and Omega, the beginning and the end and has no creator. Unfortunately this is illogical and explains absolutely nothing.

RhodaRose:
[SNIP]
Look around you...creation is the evidence for a Supreme Being
No man can create what God created and He did it with a Word
Speak something and see if it happens...
...now do you believe in a Supreme Being?

RhodaRose

Please define creation.

If you're talking about the diversity of life, then there is a naturalistic explanation available backed up by mountains of reliable evidence.
If you're talking about the origin of space/time, you may possibly have a point, but then who created the creator?

Ayinke:
In 2 Timothy 3:16 it says:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

This means that the Bible is not God’s dictation - it is inspired ... but not God’s word.

Literalists, better remember this.

Ayinke:
The Trinity was added by the Romans (Emperor Constantine) and was never taught in the early Churches. And there are so many other things in the Bible, like human sacrifice and incest, which clearly could not have come from God.

Not entirely correct. Some early churches did not a accept the trinity while others did. Among the churches that did accept the trinity, few took the orthodox catholic interpretation.

No.
There is no evidence for a supreme being and even under the assumption there would be a supreme being, there is no material evidence pointing out that the source of the Bible is that supreme being.

Any other conclusion is wishful thinking.

goodguy:
@Elbaron, Do you believe in God?

Why is this relevant, goodguy?

@ elbaron
I can very well imagine that. When those hard core literalist believers cross your path and you confront them with the internal contradictions in the Bible as well as with the contradictions with established scientific knowledge, all you hear is na na na na, I don't want to listen to you because you don't believe.
Either that, or they simply ignore your points/questions. My answer to that usually is how weak their belief really must be if it cannot stand any critical scrutiny.

Sorry, goodguy, but this is pathethic self-serving teleological circular reasoning. It explains nothing and only puts any belief beyond questioning.

Only belief will make you understand the word of God? This means that in each and every instance where something nonsensical or contradictory in the Bible is met, only the believers can even discuss it.

I rather rely on logic, history and evidence to find truth than on a self-defined, self-reliant and unquestionable revelation that only considers itself authoritarian.

Seun:
Some of these contradictions can be solved, explained away, or dismissed as irrelevant. I'll leave that to the Christians like Layi and donnie.

They indeed can, but why would you need to do that in the first place if the Bible text is perfect, as it comes from God?

elbaron:
In today's world, Sex makes up for 45% of the marriage. If it weren't so, why are women who have relative comfort in marriage cheat on the husbands and vice versa? If the sex is better than good and there is 25% love, 10% understanding and trust + caring etc take up the balance, well... It is a relatively fair balanced marriage in my opinion.

There are loads of evolutionary reasons why women and men would cheat on their husbands or wives, even when they love them dearly.
I think you're right that good sex is essential to a marriage, but good sex alone cannot sustain a marriage.

elbaron:
And who told you size does not matter? Unless you are very proffessional in giving head.

Maybe I am Anyway as long as your penis isn't excessively small or excessively big, with the right technique you've got all you need.

@ Akolawole
Why would you want that? there is no violence in this thread. The honest discussion is showing exactly the kind of spirit that can stop those religious fights.

My personal reading (and I'm neither Christian, nor Muslim) is that the Christians are much easier offended than the Muslims on this board. Educated Muslims usually respect Christians and Jews, something that cannot be said of the other side of the divide

Especially when you consider the incredible horror that the Christians of the past have inflicted on Muslims, it is highly commendable that most Muslims take such a respectful attitude. The current Muslim terrorism as well as the theocratic regimes in some Muslim countries is rather atypical in a historical context.

donnie:
You see, the reason it seems as though i am not answering straightforward is that you really cannot put God in a box...of sense knowledge. So trying to carve my belief or rather this discussion in those outlines, questions and/ sentenses just wouldnt work for me. Jesus was that way. His words sounded like parables to those that did not believe. i am not a theologean. i am a christian.

That's exactly what it sounds like to me: some parables which are a source for a moral foundation. I just think we're occupying different realms here. No intellectual underpinning of the Christian faith has ever been convincing to me. Even the proof of the existence of God by Thomas Aquinas was sloppy, circular thinking.
Let's just say that I cannot understand your belief just as a human cannot understand the way a bat [i]sees [/i]through sound.

Let me tell you that I'm baffled by the number of people that follow orthodox religions (especially the different branches of Christianity). I cannot understand how adult, thinking humans can come to such positions and that's why I try to learn and understand their motivations and thiinking as much as possible. That's also why I like to participate in those threads about religion. I want to learn about and from those people that have these very different modes of thinking.

donnie:
However, let me respond to some of them:

1. What we cherish in chistianity is not just the traditions or religion. It is more than that. Christianity is not a religion...it is the pulsating life of God in a human person. There is religion in Christainity... but christainity is not a religion! This is all that pure religion is about:

James 1:27
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Jeus did not come to introduce another religion to us. He came to give us life: "i am come that they might have life and that they might have it to the full."

Can you explain that to me? Did he give us life by taking away the original sin by dying on the cross? It really seems quite nonsensical to me. I just cannot get my head around it.

donnie:
2. The bible contains the Word of God. Men of God spoke as they were moved of the Spirit of God. Jeus, Paul, Peter and the rest of the Apostles esteemed God's Word highly as authority and quoted from the same. We cannot do less. Infact, we are told to stick to the sciptures as a light that shines in a dark place.

2 Peter 1:19
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.

So then you're of the opinion that the Bible should be taken literally. If that is the case, why is it so full of contradictions?

donnie:
3. Have you read the gospel of thomas before? I have said before that the reason many of those books were not recognised is because hey did not have any evidence of divine inspiration. No prophesies concerning the messiah. There were no connections to or quotaion from any of the known prophets of God. The Jews themselves never considered these books to be God-inspired. There were seveal poetic books at the time which contained contemporary wisdom written by poets of their time. (REf: write to Loveworld School of Ministry- www.loveworldchistiannetwork.net)

I have, but it's been a long time.
How exactly do you determine divine inspiration? Who judges of whether or not something is divinely inspired?

donnie:
They were introduced and added much later ...several years after the books as we have in the King James version of the bible were chosen as canonical. Only the catholic church recognised those other books even as at the time.

Most apocryphical gospels and texts were written in the same time period as the canonical gospels. Can you be a little more specific concerning your timesframe. I don't understand your point

donnie:
I know i cannot communicate with those people like that. That is why we were commanded by the scriptures to preach the Word, not with mere words but with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

Donnie, i have the feeling you're circling around the issues here. Maybe we do not share a common language Can you reply to my simple questions?

1. Is your Christian tradition more valueable than the Ethiopian one? If so, what makes it more valueable?
2. Is the Bible:
a. the word of God?
b. inspired by God?
c. Allegorical?
d. Literal?
3. Do you consider the apocrypical gospels (such as the Gospel by Thomas)
a. as valuable as the canonized gospels?
b. less valuable than the canonized gospels?
c. inspired by God?
4. If you consider the apocryphical gospels as less valuable than the canonized gospels, on what basis do you make that distinction?
5. What is the root source of your belief:
a. the Bible?
b. experience with the holy spirit?
c. a combination of both
d. something else?

lioness:

Sorry, lioness ... I'm @ it again

waool:
nferyn said" Don't forget that at the rate our body replaces our cells, no bodypart will be the same after 9 months maximum. If you're really that worried about cleanliness, just wait a couple of months and you'll have a brand new girl "

I think this is only correct for people who want to have sex casually, without the meaning of the sex being involved.

On what basis are you saying this?

waool:
A girl who has been fucking before 100 times is not clean even if her "cells" are renewd mr. nferyn.

Please define [i]clean [/i]to me and then we can have a meaningful discussion. It is pointless if we are talking about different things

waool:
At least she will always compare between your performance and the other guys in her mind before u.
She can say, Ok Mr nferyn was doing his best but, Mr X had a larger cock. Do u like to be put in this situation? Always in comparoson for your dignity.

So what if she does? Besides, someone who thinks that the size of his [i]cock [/i]is that important has got serious issues

waool:
Having sex after marriage makes a family with all its meanings, compared with animals!

So you are defining the worth of the marriage by having sex. I was under the impression that marriage was about more than sex, but of course, I could be wrong.

waool:
If u get all what u want before marriage, then why getting married then, and if u don;t get married then there is no family and if there is no family then there is nothing left to be done. Have sex, have sex, and then have sex, so what?

Once again, you're stating that the only thing you get from marriage is sex.

The first impression I get is that either you're not married (and thus do not really know what married life is about) and/or you haven't had sex (which would explain your obsessive approach to sex)

donnie:
How do you know it is the same experience?

Nobody can ever know and that's precisely the problem. You cannot scale or compare these experiences, so for someone that did not have these experiences, their subjectivity means that it cannot be a basis for comparison or a basis for evidence. Only a shared [i]language [/i]can settle the dispute.

donnie:
And besides, god's Word commands us to follow th written Word as a light that shines in the dark. If not, how can we know the way...or how can we distinguish b/w what is right and what is wrong if the scriptures do not shed light on it?

Thw Word is as light to our path.

I guess your falling in the trap of using something that is not shared (the place/position of the Bible) to prove a position on what is shared (the belief in Christ). You do not even communicate with these people like that, because they have a different frame of reference. You can only use what you share to communicate

Could you tell us what's your position on the gospels that were not cannonised or the dead sea scrolls?

@ prettyH,
I hate tu burst your bubble of ignorance (actually, I don't ), but Christians have been involved in far more bloodshed, murder and killing than the Muslims ever will be capable of.
Are you aware of some historical facts, such as the Crusades, the (Holy) Inquisition, the Reformation and Contrareformation (and the wars that followed), the witch hunts, ...

Millions and millions of people have been massacred by Good Christians before. Do not go looking for a spliter in someone elses eye while you still have a treetrunk in yours.

You are very right, but the same can be said for all organised religions.
Only the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has held her position of power for so long ensured that there is more dirt to dig up within the Catholic Church.
The Protestant Churches are not entirely free of vice either. The behaviour of the Lutherans, the persecution of the Anabaptists by the Calvinists, the reign of terror by the Puritans, etc are not exactly examples of outstanding behaviour, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to your next episode

Bibi:
@nferyn; you just agreed with me that Its a closed platform. Openness is not only about software, but hardware. Which is why Windows or Linux comes top.

Still, as far as the OS goes, Mac OS tops Windows by a big margin. If it's about both hardware and software Windows and Mac are in a tie. If it's about hardware, then Mac is definitely the least open.

Anyway, religious OS wars have never been very fruitful.

RhodaRose:
Opps

I should have been more specific, sorry.

No, your position was fine, I meant the early Christan (Catholic) Churches were close but no cigar. The feminine part of the "trinity" was not Mary but the Holy Spirit.

Your Friend in Michigan USA
RhodaRose

Now I understand your position and I agree with it. The Catholic Church (after the establishment in the Roman Empire) used Mary as a sort of stand in for the divine feminine. They actually wanted to get rid of the whole trinitarian thinking, but were not capable of doing so, as it was well established, both in the existing Churches as in similar pagan and gnostic rituals.

Actually, it is true that the use of Mary as the divine feminine is a misrepresentation by Islamic scholars, because they took what they saw (the Mary cult) and assumed that that's where the feminine part of the trinity (in their sources) was coming from.

RhodaRose:
Now the best for last !!

This issue about the Holy Trinity is actually quite funny. If you go back to earlier sources, prior to the establishment of the Catholic Church, especially in the Gnostic Gospels, the trinity is more than the union of father, son and holy spirit. It is the unity of the masculine (father), feminine (spirit) and intermediary (son). The original Hebrew term for ghost was ruah, which is definitely feminine. During the council of Nicea, ruah was translated into the Greek pneuma, which is gender neutral.
Islam, which had access to Original Christian text that were either burned or lost by the Catholic Church made a correct interpretation (?) of the Trinity as a unity of God-Jesus-Mary.

Close...but no cigar
[SNIP]

You have not really made the case against my position. Is anything I said factually incorrect? Did the early Christian Churches not interpret the trinity as I posted before?

Bibi:
@ gbade: I don't see the advantage for Nigerians to cling on to mac. For all you know, If Nigerians should be more open minded, then there is no reason to cling onto a closed-minded platform like mac...compared to windows, mac is sooo closed-up.

I don't know where you get the myth that Mac is a closed-minded platform. Mac OS X is actually [i]waaay [/i]opener that Windows will ever be. It's basically BSD Unix with a nifty UI and some cool technologies on top. You could make that point on a harware level, but certainly not concerning the OS.

K2DaC:
<3 theyre so0o0 cute can i babysit?

Sure you can - but you'll have to buy your plane ticket yourself

legry:
@nferyn Lovely pics bro they are both adorable, but something baffles me here why is everyone shocked that you are white, or am i missing something here?

Dunno, I don't think they're shocked, but are rather surprised. I've been quite active on the forum, so many would have thought that I'm Nigerian, I guess.

What I find less pleasant and actually very impolite is that some - I guess for that reason - do not address me personally. I don't know what causes them to react that way.

Quite interesting take you have on these issues, elbaron

Contrary to many apologetical literature, I have not seen one factual error in your account. As a matter of fact, I fully agree with your position that the the Catholic Church has taken in a lot of pagan elements to appease to its constituency. Could you give us the sources you have used to compile this post?

What I don't understand though is what exactly you wish to accomplish with this post. Can you enlighten us?

If you mean this post: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-2894.0.html#msg98817 , then true Catholics are born again as well. Case closed.

@ goodguy

Can you give a precise and concise overview of what you want to look at, not just general statements. You cannot possibly make any comparisons based on this

Once more, what you've been summing up has happened continuously since Biblical times.

Can't you explain why the precise prophecies I mentioned before did not happen?
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" Matthew 24:34 (the end times)
"And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power." Mark 9:1