₦airaland Forum

Martian: I guffawed when I read this part.

So according to you, god won't appear because he has already destined me for his torture chamber.

that was to humour you. Good to know you are aware of the torture chamber.

And despite the fact that theophany is part of his nature, it will contradict his his will and ontology if he appears in front of multitudes?

You can walk, why have you not chosen to walk from lagos to kano? you can eat, why have you not chosen to eat a live-lizard?
God can, but by the liberty of His consciousness, He chooses not to.

You're just "assuming" that, that is the way your god feels because you're god feelings are the same as yours. Even the so called theophany in eodus never happened..............even the jews admit that there is no evidence that they ever roamed the desert with their tribal god.
Anyway,if god can't perform a theophany, then he isn't omnipotent.

Whats your point?

cyrexx: attack atheism and humanistic philosophies, tear it to shreds if you can. nobody is shedding no crocodile tears. its just that discussion is impossible in an atmosphere of hostility.
it will be nice if it is their argument you attack. that is way different from throwing insult that does not negate their claims.

No one is attacking atheism or humanism. What we have done on the forum is to reveal the loopholes in this human manufactured theories, through which natural events are being misinterpreted as evidence. And by natural, I mean God-ordained.

Atheism is a fallacy, that lives in the mind of those with limited or nihilant imagination, intellectual prowess or a strong logical ability to make analysis. Truth is, we are yet to see any plausible scientific or other wise evidence that supports atheistic arguments. This explains why responses to you might sound insulting, but are just our way of telling you that we have heard this same old tales before, and we know where it lead to.

Dude, no one is insulting you. If you have any plausible evidence or logical analogy that supports your atheistic postulations, feel free to tender it. until then, atheism remains the sacred religion of intellectual lightweights.

Martian: You didn't answer my question. How does theophany contradict the ontology, will or convictions of your god?

"why answer a question with another?"-Noetic16

God appeared in these forms to aid the children of Israel, by His own discretion at His own will and time and for His own purpose. This implies that He has a mind of His own to make his own decisions. The implication is that, while God is capable of theophany (as we can see from the bible), appearing to you (martian) in such form may not be according to his will and purpose, perharps because you have been destined for HELL fire or (just assuming)or destined to be saved through another means. Hence, this appearance contradicts His will and ontology.

Martian: Seriously? How exactly does this contradict his ontology, will or convictions?
If your god is the "god of israel", then theophany doesn't contradict his ontology.

"pillar of cloud" by day, "pillar of fire" at night.........

just before we proceed on this interesting turn . . . . it brings us to the question of liberty. Is God intelligent enough to decide whether or not to grant your wishes?

Kay 17: From a dictionary website:

Empirical

"provable or verifiable by experience or experiment."

so is big ban.g in conformity with empirical evidence?

Kay 17: No, davidlyan, you have nothing credible to put forward. First you made a BaD claim by saying big ban.g is a random event, next you claim there is no empirical basis for this cosmological model, despite its great reception by scientists as the best explanation for the beginning of the universe. And by claiming so, saying scientific theories have no empirical basis!

And the next thing yoi ask is what is "empirical"?!

You dont know what empirical means Your ignorance has been exposed.

Kay 17: You are therefore implying that scientific theories aren't empirically focused?

And also that they are built with specific preconceived notions, such that everything in our natural world (described as "evidence" is interpreted to support this theory. It is absolutely ridiculous.

^^^

Perhaps Kay should apply some element of objectivity in his responses. This attempt at Christian-bashing is quite porous.

cyrexx: Nice reply,
so the fact that the bible contains some untrue statements and errors and contradictions is a valid proof that the message of Jesus might be untrue and error.
VERY NICE!
But wait, apologists will defend it ignoring all these errors...

The fact that certain babies in Asia are born deformed, means that all babies born in Asia are deformed. You lack the intellectual prowess to reason constructively.

^^^

Makes complete sense. The issue has always been folks designing theories to suit preconceived notions (non-existence of God) as in the case of evolution, big b.ang amongst others and then FALSELY interpreting evidences to back them up.

thehomer: What a demented response.
Who wrote The God Delusion? Darwin? Have you been drinking again? If you think you can debunk them, why don't you actually do that after reading the book rather than just shouting? Is your laziness so much that you cannot finish reading the book and you cannot think up rebuttals to the parts you've read?

This is getting boring. Your response is quite DUMB. I finished the book, Darwin (your god) messed up. He is an intellectual light weight, look at how he bundled up the whole arguments especially the Boeing argument. did that make sense to you? idiot.

What a dullard. The universe isn't man-made unlike the devices you're talking about.

What a big FOOL. The universe and the devices in question are products of intelligence that is greater than them. None of these human devices was made by a baby, simply because babies do not have such intelligence. is this rocket science? are you so dumb? If as humans we can make intelligent devices, does your common sense not preach that we as intelligent beings (including our universe) is a product of a more intelligent being? do you have a brain at all?

Why don't you actually address your fallacious statement?

yawns loudly

Do you think you're intelligent with your childish attempts at a rebuttal?
The universe wasn't made by humans while those items were? You're supposed to show that the universe was actually created. Instead, you're just making poor analogies.

Get this once and for all. The universe is a complex intelligent entity. It is absolutely STUPID, inconceivable and intellectually awkward to assert that it sprung into existence by chance. It is either you lack basic education or you are intentionally DUMB.

You come across as deeply ignorant and at the same time, full of hubris.

I have repeatedly exposed and educated your ignorance. You should show some gratitude.

Martian: @Op,

Simple answer. Theophany that is repeatable in front of multitudes of people.

what if this contradicts his ontology, will and convictions?

musKeeto: Well, maybe Yahweh already planned for me to go to hell, cos for months before dropping Christianity, I studied the Bible, [b]asked him for answers and came up with nothing. [/b]If He has given you answers, I hold no grudges. He's our creator, right?

Really? You asked for answers. Implying that at one point in time, you believed that God exists and asked for answers? What does the bible teach about asking and hearing from God? what were your questions to God?

thehomer: Actually, what you show is that you're too ignorant about your God to make any reasonable deductions. What concrete, logical reasons do you have for disbelieving in the existence of Brahman?

why answer a question with another? Can you just answer the OP, and for once show us your intellectual weight? what evidence will change or cause a rethink of your atheistic postulations?

thehomer: Any entity worthy of the title "God" should know me well enough to know what the necessary evidence would be even if I didn't know what it would be. So, I'll simply wait for him to present it since what people have so far based their beliefs on is pretty baseless.

This is quite LAZY. it explains the fact that you are an emotional atheist, without any concrete, logical reason for disbelieving the existence of God. QED.

musKeeto: Who's responsible for breathing?
I solved a Maths problem today and I got 2 as the answer. Can you tell me the exact question I solved?
The earth and all around us possesss an intricate design. This could be God or god or whatever. We keep seeking solutions, thays why we are humans..

I think I used to read on Mazaje's profile a.quote that went like this ; "Our ignorance is God, our knowledge is science"

If there's a god, he isnt bothered one bit about whats going on down here

Your assertions are misinformed.

1. I cannot tell you what question you solved, simply because you could have solved any of a billion questions that leads to the answer 2. But in the case of human breathing, it is the composition of a complex structure that is part of the human body. The argument remains the same, that who or whatever is capable of designing this structure is super-intelligent.

2. Claiming that God is not bothered is also a mis-informed opinion. Have you ever bothered to read the bible? pray to God? seek answers from Him? I have tried to, and I can state that God is concerned about the state of things and things are working according to plan.

Kay 17: The proof for the Big Ban.g?! Its credible as a scientific theory with great reliance on empirical evidence and enjoys a good concensus with scientists.

This is quite dumb. In order words you have no proof for it. It is a theory cooked up by the imagination of one man and accepted as a concesus amongst scientist, still without empirical evidence. In order words, these men rely on FAITH to ASSUME that life was kick started by a big ban.g.

Please hide your face in shame, the next time you question the credibility of creationism.

cyrexx: ^^
when christians talk like this they think its normal but when non-christians talk like this they say we are disrespecting their religion.
They guy calmly expressed his opinion, the next thing from your mouth is to insult him.
Why?

Delafruita: *shaking head for you*

For crying out loud, mazaje is my pal and would see the humour in my post.

You joined this forum just yesterday and you think you know everything and everyone

The bible makes a bold assertion that God created everything and hence, is the source of life. I am a protagonist of this claim. Simply because of both the faith and logical application of this assertions. Perhaps, the reality of faith is lost on everyone. Hence, I choose to define faith for the purpose of this thread. It is the simple interpretation of evidence to support a belief. This is applicable to both religionists and atheists. Atheists believe that there is no God, even though they have no evidence to back this claim. They believe that there is no heaven or hell, they also have no evidence for this. atheists erroneously assert that prayers are a waste of time even though they have no evidence for it.

On the contrary, as a Christian, I hear from God daily, I see visions every now and then of the things to come, which always come to pass. I pray and receive assurances in my spirit that my prayers are answered. Hence, I can personally assert that there is Jehovah God who reigns in the heavens. For the purpose of this thread, a Christian with personal proofs is not relying on faith but on a perception of intangible and abstract things to assert that there is God. an atheist on the other hand, who without access to God asserts that God does not exist for the sake of convenience, without any proofs and hence relies on FAITH.

Does my personal christian reality constitute an emprical proof for the existence of God? No. But it does help in constructing the foundation of the case that God does exist.

Okay the crux of the debate has been the existence (theism) or nihilance (atheism) of God. You would agree with me that after a long while on this forum, atheists have been unable to produce any credible or plausible evidence to either support their assertions that there is no Jehovah God or to back up their theories with regards to the source and origin of life. This is quite disheartening, considering the level of noise atheists make on this forum.

You would also agree with me, that logically the best way to analyse the God question would be to answer the question of the origin of life. Because if for instance, there is plausible and exceptional evidence or logic which proves that the universe or life has no creator, catalyst or super-intelligence behind it, then it would once and for all assert that there is no God. But at the moment, everything logical illustrates the influence of a super-intelligence behind the present material world (universe) and life itself.

The floor is open. There is just one question; what is the origin of life as we see it today?

^^^

wetin be your own? Why are you using panadol over someone else's headache? has mazaje complained to you?

thehomer: What a lame excuse. You set out to show that the book is simply full of wrong yet you abandon the task halfway? Isn't this laziness?

Quite idiotic.

There is nothing darwin mentioned that has not been mentioned previously by atheists and subsequently debunked. I actually regret buying the book cos I thought it was going to be sensational like a John Grisham novel. Darwin, just like you, is intellectually incapable of emprically, exhaustively and convincingly prove that Jehovah God does not exist.

This is a shift of the burden of proof. You actually need to show that the world is due to a designer that is super intelligent rather than saying someone else should prove you wrong otherwise you're right.

Very silly. Do electronic items have a manufacturer? how many gadgets (ipads, laptops, fridges) do not have a designer?

This is also fallacious to think that if you cannot conceive of something, it therefore couldn't have happened.

The issue here is your living in denial and lack of imagination.

The man made objects are poor examples because they differ significantly from the universe or the sun so you've simply presented a bad analogy.

You are not intelligent at all . How are these objects different from the universe? please explain . . .

Of course you remain baffled but not due to the atheist argument being illogical, but due to your inability to comprehend what they're actually saying.

You come across as not-educated

mazaje: Made all my wealth when I became an atheist. . .Religion or atheism has nothing to do with wealth anyway. . .Its just LUCK fist of all, connections secondly and after that hard work. . .

how about those who made all their wealth as Christians? and by the way, how much do you have that you call wealth?

Look at this poor man

ghostofsparta: Another religionist apologist wannabe.

Quite unlike you, I am an intellectual capable of constructing rational thoughts in light of science and religion. And definitely a Christian. This is in contrast to your dogma-infested intellectual bankruptcy, that inspires you to reject anything Christian or God related without having the courage to profess intelligent reasons or evidences to back up your position. I have been on and off this forum for a long time, hence, I know your type.

If God breathed 'life' into Adam and Eve to make them 'alive' and 'conscious'...who/what breathed 'life' into animals to make them 'alive' and 'conscious'. Don't tell me its God (Yaweh/Jeovah/Allah) because

Your assertion here is quite STUPID.

The bible asserts that God created the animals. At no point was it asserted that they were made to have souls or in the image and likeness of God or to have dominion. Genesis 1:20 tells of God decreeing that the waters bring forth creatures that have LIFE. Verse 21 proceeds to tell of God creating this animals that already contained life.

1. He has to do that to all kinds of animals, including the dinosaurs

No apologies, but you are quite DUMB. You state that God does not exist, you also state that He did not create the earth. Yet you are here dictating how he should have done it if he did it. Just shows the level of intellectual poverty by atheists here.

2. There is no record in the Bible that he did no.1

Genesis 1:20-21; I am assuming that you can read and are educated.

I hope you don't feel too trapped.

I await your answer, no matter how ridiculous it may sound.

I have read your posts, you are incapable of constructing intelligent arguments. answer the following questions to start with:

1. What is your explanation for the origin of life as we know it today?

2. If the creation story is untrue, what is the alternative?

3. Mention the reasons why you find the existence of God to be implausible?

ghostofsparta: Ofcourse I was aware it should be HomoSapien. I could have easily changed it if I wanted to by using the 'modify' button but I needed a religionist to fall for my trap by re-quoting my deliberate mistake because that is what all you religionists resort to here on Nairaland whenever you can't objectively counter an argument. You religionists comb our wordings looking for blunders and holes to throw back as a logical answer.

I wasn't expecting that religionist would be you: Mr. DDS (Deep Dafted Sight). I wasn't even expecting you'll shoot yourself multiple times this time around with the Russian Roulette I sub-consciously keep giving you.

Mr. DDS, doesn't your reasoning faculty find it conflicting for you to accept the Scientific/Evolutionary theory that the Homo-Erectus whom you quoted to have lived between 1.3million to 1.8million years ago clearly contradicts the Biblical/Creationist account of the earth creation 6,000 years ago?

Yours is a grand case of INTELLECTUAL HYPOCRISY.

Your IGNORANCE was exposed with your tails running behind your legs. Be humble to admit that DS has educated you and let us all move on . . . .

ghostofsparta: 1. DREAM
There are three phases of sleep and depending on how exhausted the body is, a dream may occur in between these phases notably during REM. REM? (Rapid Eyes Movement) Take for instance, suppose you were staring at a door-knob, your eyes fixated at the shiny metal knob and suddenly, a wall-gecko brisks by, you involuntarily move the position of your pupils from the door knob line of sight towards the location of the wall-gecko's line of sight. Such act of observation is called 'seeing' or 'watching' which is what goes on during REM because the pupil rapidly moves from one direction to another, seeing visuals, watching <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">moving</a></a> images. The next question is where does these 'visual images' comes from? There's an abstract thing called 'mind' which is responsible for our emotions, logic, intellects, reasoning and ofcourse 'imagination' which is the keypoint here been that when one imagines, one can be said to be visualising one's own thoughts e.g. 'kissing someone' or 'passing an exam' or 'surviving an accident'; kind of like watching one's own imagination. In other words the visual images seen by the eyes is generated from the mind, at this juncture I'm provided with the liberty to define 'dream' as the pre-lucid experience of visualising one's own imagination while 'dreaming' is the visual feedback of residual thoughts ex-imagined on a conscious mind, induced by the sub-conscious self. If the pupils are static, the subject would experience either a drifty or normal or deep sleep (no dream). I have dreamt about <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">events</a></a> that I wished could happen but never did, I have dreamt about nightmares that never transpired. I have had disturbing real life experience I never previously dreamt of, likewise have I had several delightful moments I never dreamt prior to. So no dreams actually come true. Your point of a dream coming true is highly subjective, unless taken metaphorically. You've only made a futile attempt in trying to connect the phenomenon of 'dreaming' to confirm the existence of semitic God (Yaweh/Allah) by claiming they govern a spirit-realm otherwise known as the dream-state. To further crush your 'pillar of dream' I will sincerely tell you that I personally do experience what is called 'phantasmagoria' an experience more weird than 'dejavu' yet never attributed it to any divinity, rather I took time to understand what it is, even before I knew it had a name. In conclusion, most people who think that to dream is an evidence of God's existence should explain why is it that in Yorubaland here, there are mysterious cases of people who after sleeping never wakes up again. Did God allowed Satan the Devil to have a field day? Well, in Yoruba belief system or theology...according to a aspect of Ifa known as Ishegun (craft of ogun) [a repository of various esoteric knowledge and science as thoughts by the 'irunmole' osanyin] contains means where one's dream state can be intruded by.....I won't go into that......and even if I should....it still wouldn't still confirm the existence of Yaweh/Allah but rather ours which is Olodumare and his 400 irunmole/orusha (Olorun is not God but a deity of the sky in Yoruba theology...Olu Orun i.e. Lord of The Sky. Orun is not heaven in Yoruba language, Orun is the blue sky while Ofurufu is the cloud. The concept of heaven and hell was borrowed into the Yoruba etymology from christeo-judaic influence. The Greeks have Atlas in their myths..Note: Mythology is neither true nor false. It is erroneous to relegate the Yoruba pantheon to a mythological status because Irumole/Orisha Ayilala do respond when *contactivated*)

That was one long and SENSELESS post.

1. The OP referred to an instance whereby for example Mr A goes to bed and has a dream. In that dream, he,
a. walks into a street called "pity street"
b. is approached by a white man named Kevin
c. Kevin is in a blue suit
d. Kevin spoke to Mr A in a SCOTTISH accent.
e. At the end of that conversation Kevin hands over £20 to Mr A.

Mr A wakes up and realises that he has been dreaming. On a sober reflection of the dream, he also acknowledges that
a. He does not know any street called pity street.
b. He has no friend by the name Kevin who has a Scottish accent.
c. He does not know why anyone would hand over £20 to anyone. Hence, Mr A dismisses this dream.

72 hours later, Mr A finds himself stranded on pity street after his bus (mode of public transport) journey is terminated. <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">London</a> bus drivers are on strike from 6pm. There is no way for him to get home. Out of his predicament, one of the fellow bus riders named Kevin with a scottish accent, gets into a conversation with him. Kevin offers to pay for Mr A's taxi ride back home, Mr A is pleased, hence, £20 is offered and received. Only when he got home did he realize that he had dreamt of this incident 72 hours ago.

The point is
A. The human brain is incapable of conjuring future events. Hence your instance of imagination propelling such dreams is rather POINTLESS.
B. People dying in sleep in yoruba land has nothing to do with the potency of dreams coming to pass. are you educated at all?
C. The dream in the above example is a message, that eventually comes to pass. The message could only have come from someone capable of knowing the future. This is an accurate description of God. In lieu of this, the OP submits that dreams serve as a plausible evidence for the existence of God.

2. DE JAVU
There's no such thing as a real de javu. It's a french term adopted to describe a feeling of reliving a particular event twice or more which is <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">very</a></a> different from 'Phantasmagoria' which is - in my own case involves the conscious partaking or observation of a series of real events that strongly SEEMS familiar, mostly from a dream. So what does that tell you - flashforwarding of one's own consciousness to a future time by an upped mind to be experienced later in reality. DeJavu on the other hand is the effect you feel whenever the mind recalls a repressed memory of event previously relived in a sub-conscious mind-state. It has a lot to do with incoming stream of sensory information overwritten into a SECTOR of the memory lane with SIMILAR make-up. My sister once passed a place where she spotted a red <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">car</a></a> with people passing by as normal, after a year later, she had forgotten (let assign a value to that event: 'FXK2f5y433z18r' which is repressed somewhere in the recesses of her memory bank since it's an insignificant or irrelevant stream of sensory information) but only to be recalled when she passed that same spot seeing either that same red car or a similar one with people passing by as usual, the difference this time around is that the sensory information would read almost the same as: FXL2g5y423z18y. It is the result of this conflict in <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">storage</a></a> location one feels as 'DeJavu. She told me her experience but none of us knew such thing had a name because we were like 9 - 10 years old back then. To her it was indeed very weird. Once again...another cheap attempt to validate the existence of the Abrahamic gods.

You are IGNORANT. For you to say that there is no such thing as Deja vu, you simply killed the argument with your intellectual incapacity. Go do some further reading and then come back.

3. UNIVERSAL ORDER
What a gimmick! You even shot yourself with a Russian Roulette. Are you aware that your analysis up there about planetary order, microbes, etc were all knowable thanks to science - the enemy of Abrahamic faiths. Talking about order...then tell me why is Uranus not obeying that order in it clock-wise orbit round the sun? Science explores and understand how things <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">work</a></a>, using that knowledge to the benefit or detriment of mankind. If anyone really want to know how everything began...I recommend the study of Yoruba Theology as espoused in Ifa. It had long provided answers to the tough debate that the Chicken came before the Egg. Genesis of Earthling.

This is quite MISLEADING and exposes a deep rooted ignorance in you. Abrahamic faiths (Christianity in particular) does not negate science, unless of course you dont know the meaning of science.

4. CAUSE AND EFFECT
To quote you:

for every cause there is definitely an effect.
Ofcourse we already know that as a scientific axiom whose origin isn't from any of the revealed books. Please refer to the First Law of Motion to be further cleared in that.

there is life on earth and the universe is well balanced
Have you explored the whole universe for you to assert the whole universe is 'well balanced'? Define balance within the context of your usage, How do you know there isn't chaos happening somewhere in another galaxy gazillion of <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">light</a> years away right now? How are you or the bible so sure Earth is the only planet that has life form? How would you describe as exploding over-densed gas also known as 'star'...Chaotic? Orderly?

something (or someone) must have caused it
Something - YES (science of Evolution and Big Bang Theory)
Someone - NO (not an omni-potent God who after creating the heavenly bodies still needs to REST on the seventh day) Have you heard about the omni-potent paradox before? Can an god be so omnipotent that it would create a stone so heavy that it can never carry? Duh!.......even in Yoruba theology...Olodunare whom Ifa never address it as neither a he nor a she wasn't credited as the creator of the universe. It just says it is 'awamaridi' i.e. It that is searched but never found....Olodumare isn't the same with the Jewish 'Yaweh/Jeovah' nor the Arabic 'Allah' because their characteristics completely differs. The Christian God (Yaweh/Jeovah) has an adversary known as Satan the Devil. The Yorubas Olodumare has no adversary, though there's a passage in deep Ifa that says 'Owo ni kan lo wo oju Olodumare' i.e. (Out of the 400 irunmoles/oruishas sent to ile-aiye (earth), it is only the irunmole called 'Owo' (money) that challenged Olodumare as saying 'he/she has become more popular and famous than Olodumare their Master, and so Olodumare laid 'ge-gun fun' (pronounced a curse on it) that 'won ma ma wa e kiri gbo gbo ojo ile aiye, iwo na ama wa won' meaning everyone would be searching for the proud and famous irunmole/orisha called 'Owo' and vice versa....this is 'deism'. Our ancestors understood the climate, weather and meteorology and heuhemerised these knowledge into a personification called Shango identified as the deity of justice and revenge not the erroneous 'God of Thunder' like Thor or Zeus. There are babalawos who still retain that knowledge of invoking rain or holding one.

Check out my post here: https://www.nairaland.com/961735/nigeria-better-off-leaders-swears


it couldnt have all happened out of nothing
If you were born into a stone age era, you'd probably think there's someone or something moving the winds, breeze and air. Elementary science explains that movement of air or wind is as a result of convective factors such as the difference in the rate of rapid evaporation due to massive heat and rainfall. My point been if certain conditions occurs their certainly going to be an effect. It is that conditions in the field of 'origin of human existence' some conveniently chose to reason as a 'the causer'. An good analogy is when certain conditions are established in your anatomy, the result is to fart. Did you cause it? No, the condition did. Yet another weak throw to dislodge atheism.

You made no SENSE.

5. LIFE ON EARTH
I'm sure I have answered this 'absurd question' somewhere up there, which is very similar to the common one asked by many Nigerian religionists whenever they can't debate intelligently, they ignorantly ask me 'who created you?' And I love to answer 'what created me is my dad's sperm and mum's egg'.

Life can NEVER come from any inanimate object
You are right but ONLY if its an object. A virus isn't an object but an organism that is either active or inactive depending on the condition. Go read about bio-genesis and isomorphism. Then again you will have to define 'Life' within religious context.

In conclusion:
I personally do experience lots of synchronicity which up till today still can't make sense of it but I very much know it has to do with my own 'mental evolution' which may be due years of 'mind experiment'. I never for once attributed my ordeals to any religion nor Ifa itself. I'm sure you must have heard about 'placebo effect' before....now take for instance a catholic old woman whose responding positive to a placebo drug may attribute her recovery to a divinity been the foundation make-up of her psyche/mentality.

Next time try attacking deist and pagans, while leaving the atheists to attack you with 'burden of proof'. Finally atheism was not imported to Africa. Our ancestors had divergent views about living (not life), they shared one belief system which is what you love to call 'idolatory'. Please define idolatory if you don't mind.

Your Dads sperm and mum's egg created you, Fine. What/who created the first living person?

ghostofsparta: 1. DREAM
There are three phases of sleep and depending on how exhausted the body is, a dream may occur in between these phases notably during REM. REM? (Rapid Eyes Movement) Take for instance, suppose you were staring at a door-knob, your eyes fixated at the shiny metal knob and suddenly, a wall-gecko brisks by, you involuntarily move the position of your pupils from the door knob line of sight towards the location of the wall-gecko's line of sight. Such act of observation is called 'seeing' or 'watching' which is what goes on during REM because the pupil rapidly moves from one direction to another, seeing visuals, watching <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">moving</a></a> images. The next question is where does these 'visual images' comes from? There's an abstract thing called 'mind' which is responsible for our emotions, logic, intellects, reasoning and ofcourse 'imagination' which is the keypoint here been that when one imagines, one can be said to be visualising one's own thoughts e.g. 'kissing someone' or 'passing an exam' or 'surviving an accident'; kind of like watching one's own imagination. In other words the visual images seen by the eyes is generated from the mind, at this juncture I'm provided with the liberty to define 'dream' as the pre-lucid experience of visualising one's own imagination while 'dreaming' is the visual feedback of residual thoughts ex-imagined on a conscious mind, induced by the sub-conscious self. If the pupils are static, the subject would experience either a drifty or normal or deep sleep (no dream). I have dreamt about <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">events</a></a> that I wished could happen but never did, I have dreamt about nightmares that never transpired. I have had disturbing real life experience I never previously dreamt of, likewise have I had several delightful moments I never dreamt prior to. So no dreams actually come true. Your point of a dream coming true is highly subjective, unless taken metaphorically. You've only made a futile attempt in trying to connect the phenomenon of 'dreaming' to confirm the existence of semitic God (Yaweh/Allah) by claiming they govern a spirit-realm otherwise known as the dream-state. To further crush your 'pillar of dream' I will sincerely tell you that I personally do experience what is called 'phantasmagoria' an experience more weird than 'dejavu' yet never attributed it to any divinity, rather I took time to understand what it is, even before I knew it had a name. In conclusion, most people who think that to dream is an evidence of God's existence should explain why is it that in Yorubaland here, there are mysterious cases of people who after sleeping never wakes up again. Did God allowed Satan the Devil to have a field day? Well, in Yoruba belief system or theology...according to a aspect of Ifa known as Ishegun (craft of ogun) [a repository of various esoteric knowledge and science as thoughts by the 'irunmole' osanyin] contains means where one's dream state can be intruded by.....I won't go into that......and even if I should....it still wouldn't still confirm the existence of Yaweh/Allah but rather ours which is Olodumare and his 400 irunmole/orusha (Olorun is not God but a deity of the sky in Yoruba theology...Olu Orun i.e. Lord of The Sky. Orun is not heaven in Yoruba language, Orun is the blue sky while Ofurufu is the cloud. The concept of heaven and hell was borrowed into the Yoruba etymology from christeo-judaic influence. The Greeks have Atlas in their myths..Note: Mythology is neither true nor false. It is erroneous to relegate the Yoruba pantheon to a mythological status because Irumole/Orisha Ayilala do respond when *contactivated*)

That was one long and SENSELESS post.

1. The OP referred to an instance whereby for example Mr A goes to bed and has a dream. In that dream, he,
a. walks into a street called "pity street"
b. is approached by a white man named Kevin
c. Kevin is in a blue suit
d. Kevin spoke to Mr A in a SCOTTISH accent.
e. At the end of that conversation Kevin hands over £20 to Mr A.

Mr A wakes up and realises that he has been dreaming. On a sober reflection of the dream, he also acknowledges that
a. He does not know any street called pity street.
b. He has no friend by the name Kevin who has a Scottish accent.
c. He does not know why anyone would hand over £20 to anyone. Hence, Mr A dismisses this dream.

72 hours later, Mr A finds himself stranded on pity street after his bus (mode of public transport) journey is terminated. <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">London</a> bus drivers are on strike from 6pm. There is no way for him to get home. Out of his predicament, one of the fellow bus riders named Kevin with a scottish accent, gets into a conversation with him. Kevin offers to pay for Mr A's taxi ride back home, Mr A is pleased, hence, £20 is offered and received. Only when he got home did he realize that he had dreamt of this incident 72 hours ago.

The point is
A. The human brain is incapable of conjuring future events. Hence your instance of imagination propelling such dreams is rather POINTLESS.
B. People dying in sleep in yoruba land has nothing to do with the potency of dreams coming to pass. are you educated at all?
C. The dream in the above example is a message, that eventually comes to pass. The message could only have come from someone capable of knowing the future. This is an accurate description of God. In lieu of this, the OP submits that dreams serve as a plausible evidence for the existence of God.

2. DE JAVU
There's no such thing as a real de javu. It's a french term adopted to describe a feeling of reliving a particular event twice or more which is <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">very</a></a> different from 'Phantasmagoria' which is - in my own case involves the conscious partaking or observation of a series of real events that strongly SEEMS familiar, mostly from a dream. So what does that tell you - flashforwarding of one's own consciousness to a future time by an upped mind to be experienced later in reality. DeJavu on the other hand is the effect you feel whenever the mind recalls a repressed memory of event previously relived in a sub-conscious mind-state. It has a lot to do with incoming stream of sensory information overwritten into a SECTOR of the memory lane with SIMILAR make-up. My sister once passed a place where she spotted a red <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">car</a></a> with people passing by as normal, after a year later, she had forgotten (let assign a value to that event: 'FXK2f5y433z18r' which is repressed somewhere in the recesses of her memory bank since it's an insignificant or irrelevant stream of sensory information) but only to be recalled when she passed that same spot seeing either that same red car or a similar one with people passing by as usual, the difference this time around is that the sensory information would read almost the same as: FXL2g5y423z18y. It is the result of this conflict in <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">storage</a></a> location one feels as 'DeJavu. She told me her experience but none of us knew such thing had a name because we were like 9 - 10 years old back then. To her it was indeed very weird. Once again...another cheap attempt to validate the existence of the Abrahamic gods.

You are IGNORANT. For you to say that there is no such thing as Deja vu, you simply killed the argument with your intellectual incapacity. Go do some further reading and then come back.

3. UNIVERSAL ORDER
What a gimmick! You even shot yourself with a Russian Roulette. Are you aware that your analysis up there about planetary order, microbes, etc were all knowable thanks to science - the enemy of Abrahamic faiths. Talking about order...then tell me why is Uranus not obeying that order in it clock-wise orbit round the sun? Science explores and understand how things <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#"><a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">work</a></a>, using that knowledge to the benefit or detriment of mankind. If anyone really want to know how everything began...I recommend the study of Yoruba Theology as espoused in Ifa. It had long provided answers to the tough debate that the Chicken came before the Egg. Genesis of Earthling.

This is quite MISLEADING and exposes a deep rooted ignorance in you. Abrahamic faiths (Christianity in particular) does not negate science, unless of course you dont know the meaning of science.

4. CAUSE AND EFFECT
To quote you:

for every cause there is definitely an effect.
Ofcourse we already know that as a scientific axiom whose origin isn't from any of the revealed books. Please refer to the First Law of Motion to be further cleared in that.

there is life on earth and the universe is well balanced
Have you explored the whole universe for you to assert the whole universe is 'well balanced'? Define balance within the context of your usage, How do you know there isn't chaos happening somewhere in another galaxy gazillion of <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">light</a> years away right now? How are you or the bible so sure Earth is the only planet that has life form? How would you describe as exploding over-densed gas also known as 'star'...Chaotic? Orderly?

something (or someone) must have caused it
Something - YES (science of Evolution and Big Bang Theory)
Someone - NO (not an omni-potent God who after creating the heavenly bodies still needs to REST on the seventh day) Have you heard about the omni-potent paradox before? Can an god be so omnipotent that it would create a stone so heavy that it can never carry? Duh!.......even in Yoruba theology...Olodunare whom Ifa never address it as neither a he nor a she wasn't credited as the creator of the universe. It just says it is 'awamaridi' i.e. It that is searched but never found....Olodumare isn't the same with the Jewish 'Yaweh/Jeovah' nor the Arabic 'Allah' because their characteristics completely differs. The Christian God (Yaweh/Jeovah) has an adversary known as Satan the Devil. The Yorubas Olodumare has no adversary, though there's a passage in deep Ifa that says 'Owo ni kan lo wo oju Olodumare' i.e. (Out of the 400 irunmoles/oruishas sent to ile-aiye (earth), it is only the irunmole called 'Owo' (money) that challenged Olodumare as saying 'he/she has become more popular and famous than Olodumare their Master, and so Olodumare laid 'ge-gun fun' (pronounced a curse on it) that 'won ma ma wa e kiri gbo gbo ojo ile aiye, iwo na ama wa won' meaning everyone would be searching for the proud and famous irunmole/orisha called 'Owo' and vice versa....this is 'deism'. Our ancestors understood the climate, weather and meteorology and heuhemerised these knowledge into a personification called Shango identified as the deity of justice and revenge not the erroneous 'God of Thunder' like Thor or Zeus. There are babalawos who still retain that knowledge of invoking rain or holding one.

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it couldnt have all happened out of nothing
If you were born into a stone age era, you'd probably think there's someone or something moving the winds, breeze and air. Elementary science explains that movement of air or wind is as a result of convective factors such as the difference in the rate of rapid evaporation due to massive heat and rainfall. My point been if certain conditions occurs their certainly going to be an effect. It is that conditions in the field of 'origin of human existence' some conveniently chose to reason as a 'the causer'. An good analogy is when certain conditions are established in your anatomy, the result is to fart. Did you cause it? No, the condition did. Yet another weak throw to dislodge atheism.

You made no SENSE.

5. LIFE ON EARTH
I'm sure I have answered this 'absurd question' somewhere up there, which is very similar to the common one asked by many Nigerian religionists whenever they can't debate intelligently, they ignorantly ask me 'who created you?' And I love to answer 'what created me is my dad's sperm and mum's egg'.

Life can NEVER come from any inanimate object
You are right but ONLY if its an object. A virus isn't an object but an organism that is either active or inactive depending on the condition. Go read about bio-genesis and isomorphism. Then again you will have to define 'Life' within religious context.

In conclusion:
I personally do experience lots of synchronicity which up till today still can't make sense of it but I very much know it has to do with my own 'mental evolution' which may be due years of 'mind experiment'. I never for once attributed my ordeals to any religion nor Ifa itself. I'm sure you must have heard about 'placebo effect' before....now take for instance a catholic old woman whose responding positive to a placebo drug may attribute her recovery to a divinity been the foundation make-up of her psyche/mentality.

Next time try attacking deist and pagans, while leaving the atheists to attack you with 'burden of proof'. Finally atheism was not imported to Africa. Our ancestors had divergent views about living (not life), they shared one belief system which is what you love to call 'idolatory'. Please define idolatory if you don't mind.

Your Dads sperm and mum's egg created you, Fine. What/who created the first living person?

MacDaddy01: After being exposed for ignorance on slf-fulfilling prophecies, you are now trying to say that you exposed me? LMAO. Self-fulfilling prophecies first came as a sociological term to describe an aspect of human behaviour. It is not spiritual.

Thanks, you just made my day

As for creationism, it is not scientific and has no evidence.

really? is evolution scientific? and what is the credible evidence that supports the first chemical reactions proposed in the evolution theory. You are more stupid than ignorant.

MacDaddy01: In trying to illogically debunk me, you debunk yourself. You do not know what a self fulfilling prophecy is. The terms of the prophecy must be related to the fulfilling action. If in my example, the prophecy came to pass because someone else gave the guy money, as you said, then it is not a self fulfilling prophecy.

I simply exposed your folly. The person received the monetary gift without any hesitation, hence, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. is this rocket science?

Who said that memory creates future? What I said was that de ja vu is memory based. The explanation; you experience de ja vu because you have a memory of experiencing a situation in the past.

really

There is no evidence for God. No one knows the full picture of the origin of life. Anyone who claims to know is a liar. Anyone who claims to know that God did it is a liar or deluded. There is no evidence for God. None. That is why it is called "faith". Belief without evidence.

This is the height ignorance and a lack of basic education. How can u open your mouth to say the above? The fact that you dont subscribe to creationism or intelligent design does not in any way make them less credible.

I laugh in french

MacDaddy01: Dumbazz, do you know what a self-fulfilling prophecy is? There is nothing spiritual about it. It just means that it is a prophecy that comes true only because one acted on it. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be avoided. You are really ignorant. If I tell someone that he will be rich and he believes this and he <a class="inlineAdmedialink" href="#">works</a> hard to be rich, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. He could have been poor by not doing anything

Quite Idiotic. Instead of going on in circles, perhaps a little bit of education on the ability of humans would help. In your example above, have you considered the possibility that the person you told the prophecy might simply receive a buoyant financial from another person that makes them rich and fulfil the prophecy. Are you so STUPID, you never thought of the passive possibility of dreams coming to fulfilment without human efforts?

De ja vu is memory based. Nothing spiritual. If there are drugs that can increase chances of experiencing de ja vu, it is not spiritual.

Says who? Idiot. How can the memory create a future? who taught you science?

I already said that evolution does not explain how the first organisms came. Just because we dont fully know everything about the origin of life deosnt meant that we should attribute it to God. If scientists thought like this, we would still be believing that the sun moves around the from the bible.

This is quite SILLY. What is your explanation for the origin of life? That you dont know or accept it or does not dismiss the possibility of God creating it.

Big Bang?

really?

MacDaddy01: 1) We all know that people dream. A dream coming true is either a self-fulfilling prophecy, a false awakening or a coincidence, nothing spiritual.

You shot yourself in the foot. If a dream is a self-fulfilling prophecy does that not connote spiritualism or a realm outside of the material? For a fact we know that the brain is incapable of graphically describing future events as done in dreams. Hence, meaningfully-prophesying dreams are from a different realm.

2) De ja vus happen. Just because it is complex, subjective and strange doesnt mean that it is spiritual. There are drugs that can increase the chances of De ja vu and also theories regarding de ja vu. There is no mention of de ja vu in the bible or quran or talmud It is funny how religionists jump at anything that is hard to explain as "spiritual"

Whats your point? Do you actually know what Deja vu means?

3) Evolution. Heard of it? As for the first life forms, evolution does not explain how they came about but evolution explains how other organisms evolved into humans. Just because we dont know some things about the origin of life doesnt mean that we should lump it up to god. God of the gaps

Evolution does not explain the origin of life. What are the components of the first chemical reaction as claimed by evolution? What are the chemical components of the big-bang? Perhaps you refer to biogenesis, even that does a very bad job at explaining the origin of life.

4. Your assertion assumes that there was a point in time where NOTHING existed. What is the basis of this assumption?

Delafruita: first,what is atheism?in the broad context,it is a disbelief in the idea of God as been spread by religionist.modern day atheist have streamlined it into disbelief in the god of christianity,islam and judaism i.e. the unseen god.it is a misconception to assume atheists dont believe in anything.they only choose what they believe in.some choose to transfer their believe to science,others music,sport,art etc.
looking at it from that contet,our forefathers were indeed atheists because they willingly chose the object of their belief.over the years,christianity and islam were imported and the belief system of our ancestors were relegated to the backseat.
as for your five points that KILLED atheism,i'd respond chronologically:
1. the coccurence of dreams has a scientific explanation,the fact that the dreams come true does not.moreso because there is no evidence to prove that the events that occured had actually been dreamt.even if iit has,the proportion is so infinitessimal and would often happen in cases of anticipation or fear
2. this is obviously an attempt at been jocular
3. like i said earlier,atheism is basically about disbelief in the idea of God been propagated by islam and christianity.however,the question of how the universe came to be is one that scientists have battled to find an answer to.the theory of evolution definitely doesnt hold water anymore so it all came down to finding the higgs-boson which has supposedly been discovered.
4. if we were to begin the "what ifs",the internet would crash.just a few of them:
what if every just happened randomly?
what if the world has eisted for billions of years?
what if man is the god of himself?
5. when you ask about the source of life,you must realise its not just humans.there wildlife,aves,amphibians,reptiles,vegetation etc.all these are living things just like man.the bible says God passed his breath into the nostrils of adam to give him life,was the same done to all other animals?afterall the fact we dont understand the lifestyle of animals doesnt mean they are not just as coordinated as man

1.What is the scientific explanation for humans having dreams about future events in graphic details such that the components of the dream had not been encountered by the human, up until the time of the dream and its subsequent manifestation in reality? Hiding your ignorance behind science is quite dumb. One phenomenal fact that we are incapable of assimilating is the ability of dreams to come to reality, on its own it serves as no evidence for anything, but it buttresses the notion that there is a place or realm that is beyond the present limitations of our material world. This realm is a very strong evidence for the existence of God. Hence, I agree with the OP that the essence of dreams attaining reality is a valid argument or evidence for the existence of God.

2. Do you any scientific explanation for Deja vu feelings? To add to the OP, perhaps you should relate the context of deja vu to destiny. Destiny presupposes human limitations in many facets of life including where, how and when we are born and also many other events that happen to us in life. Thus IMO, deja vu is a spiritual phenomenum that correlates with a spiritual realm, hence, a valid submission for the existence of God.

3. Honestly, religious aside, how can you not be fascinated with the universe and the beauty of our existence? What are the chances that humans who have only lived a few decades would have answers to potent question with regards to the origins of the universe? Why do you think that this piece of intelligence could not have been the product of a super-intelligent being?

4. I agree with the OP's argument here, you have not said anything worth pondering over that counters this argument.

5. Have you got any explanation for the origin of life?