₦airaland Forum

technophile:
also if you said that the Alpha and the Omega is not worthy to be worshiped, then who is?

No one.

Skako:
Tired of vague prophecies which can be
interpreted in 1000 ways?


Reference: Prophet Muhammad, as narrated by
Ali ibn abi Talib, in the collection Kitaab Al Fitan
by Nu’am bin Hammad, Hadith # 557

I had actually never heard of this book before. I went and found it online and read some of it. It appears that the people carrying the black flag will come from the east (Persia, essentially), which would disqualify ISIS as being the people talked about.

Further research showed that scholars consider the book to be either weak hadiths or outright fabrications.

In any case, another prophecy in the book says that the Mahdi will come 6 years after the arrival of this black-flag army, which means that in about 4 years at most the Mahdi will come. This, I suppose, will be the ultimate test of the prophecy.

Obviously I don't believe any of this (am atheist), and there are some really crazy predictions that made me laugh, but it least what I read was interesting and plan to continue reading it to see what other 'predictions' there are.

You are right, though, these predictions are very precise and give actual names and places where events will occur, and so they should be easy to verify.

winner01:
I made no otherwise claim, You might need to re-read what i wrote on Einstein.
Its obvious you just can't bear the reality of a Creator. You made yourself one hell of a god dude.

Religion may be man-made and ill love to agree with you. But its dishonest when you make this same claim about God.
The fact that religious belief of some sort is found in every culture implies that its hard-wired into us, psychologically or socially or both. It's true many people (especially in Europe) seem to get on fine without it, but even in Europe and other parts of the world, there are millions of believers who find their faith gives shape and meaning to their lives.

It's possible to explain religion in terms of its social usefulness (it helps bind communities together) or as a means of social control (priests act as reinforcers of government power) or as a way of making hard lives more bearable (it is "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions", as Karl Marx put it). And none of those things are wrong.

But the christian claim is that Christianity has developed to be what it is because it corresponds to something real, because we are responding to something which has been given to us ('revealed'), in Christian terms. Our belief that God, in some mysterious but profound way, 'looks like' Jesus comes from our sense that He is too far beyond us for us to be able to imagine him in any other way than as a human being.

There's something like this thought in the Old Testament, in the prophet Isaiah's great tirade against idol-worship (only, of course, without Jesus). He imagines a craftsman chopping down a tree, cooking his meal and keeping himself warm with part of it and making a god with the rest. "Shall I bow down to a block of wood?" he asks (44:29).

It's tremendous stuff. He senses God is more than any human representation of him can encompass and calls people to a deeper understanding. What he doesn't acknowledge, though, is that the idol-maker, too, has his spiritual urges. He isn't doing religion well, but he's trying, as all people of faith try. And you can either see all religion as just people carving gods out of bits of wood, or you can go with St Augustine, who said: "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you."

The former atheist, C.S Lewis summarizes my thoughts: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”


Personally, I have one conviction. Jesus Christ lived. And like Swami Vivekananda puts it: If Jesus Christ was not perfect, then the religion bearing his name falls to the ground

Bless you.

ref: http://izquotes.com/quote/111533

This is only relevant to people who have faith. I have no faith. And, no, I am not a god. If you make an extraordinary claim then I want extraordinary evidence.

Whether or not people all over the world find comfort in religion is not important to me, because to me religion is no different than any other empty claim (like all religions).

Nostradamus also had lots of 'prophecies' come true, including the prediction of ISIS, but you don't consider him a prophet, do you?

winner01:
I love puma. It would be irrational and dishonest for me to deny the existence of puma because of fuma.
Its something to acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Creator, Its another thing to know Who this Supreme Creator is. Take it one step at a time my friend.

Einstein, by the way, was more into Spinoza's vision of a god, in other words the universe as god itself. I can't really argue with that as it does not imply that god is some evil scientist as he is portrayed in the Abrahamic texts, a view that I categorically reject.

And even if there was a creator, there is know way to know if this creator is even aware of us (maybe we are a by-product of some experiment and we are in the rubbish bin), or if this creator is dead. Maybe he died during the big bang.

I remain agnostic with regard to knowledge of any god (though my lack of belief classifies me as atheist), but adamant that religion is man-made.

Sigh. Look up the original banana and see how it was shaped and how many seeds were in it, before artificial selection by humans turned it into the banana we see today.

And, as always, how can you be sure that this creator is the one you worship? Maybe it is Zeus or Sango or Krishna.

Annunaki:
Brilliant post especially coming from an atheist. Onetrack, ifeness, plaetton come and read what an atheist who has more sense than you lot wrote.

not sure why you bring me into this. I am a regular and harsh critic of Islam. I just can't respond to every post. Take a look at my post history--lots of criticism of Islam.

asalimpo:
Notice that to make their points about how God is an unfit character,
Atheists point to verses in the old testaments that depict God in a negative light.
They draw attention to these examples and emphasize them.

But they're also equally numerous examples that put God in a good light.
I never see any atheist mention those. Never.
So how objective are their analyses about the character of God?

Being biased while trying to come off as not is nothing but hypocrisy.

This makes me doubt the sincerity of the atheists here.

Well if you claim to be perfect and all powerful, I am going to try to show you why you are not. This is all that atheists are doing with this god. If god said, 'hey I'm not perfect and occasionally I do evil stuff', then we probably wouldn't be laughing at all the awful things he does in the Bible.

I invite you to go to Senegal. There the Muslim religious leaders (called marabouts) have huge estates and whose followers who give them money and even work their fields for them for free. I have personally witnessed this. One of them even has his 'soldiers' run alongside his car whenever he goes somewhere.

Can you provide any reliable news source? I do not think this is true in any sense.

angiography:
Tolerance is is respecting other people's believe.

No it isn't. Tolerance is accepting that other people have certain beliefs that we might not like, but that we need to allow them to hold those beliefs. I tolerate other beliefs very well, but I don't necessarily respect other people's beliefs. If you tell me that you wish to engage in human sacrifice, I will certainly not respect that belief.

And while people have rights, beliefs and opinions do not.

I've found out that Atheists are the most intolerant peeps o'er here. Something I put down to 'insecurity'

We are very tolerant. We are not demanding that Christians be censored or blocked from criticising the atheist position. Go ahead and criticise and even mock us. We will responds, but I doubt you will find atheists demanding that such posts be banned.

There are certainly people who convert to Islam as with any other religion, as well as people who leave it. Me personally, I know more people who have left Islam (6) than people who have converted to it (2). Of course, knowing a lot of atheists explains why that is.

I wonder if anyone has such statistics on people quitting and joining the various religions.

I kind of wonder why genocide is celebrated in the Old Testament as well.

Demmzy15:
Palestinians are not cowards who would just stand by and watch some group of immigrants to take over their lands while killing, maiming, raping them in the process.

I'm just saying that Israel's response is to be expected, that's all, especially when they control their own holiest city. I don't see them giving it up easily. I don't personally subscribe to the religious argument; I subscribe to the fact that Israel is established as a country and that is the basis for their existence.

I don't know what you mean by Arab confiscated their lands, please explain better. When this Jews were sent out of Spain by Christians, they were all admitted into Muslim lands, Muslims protected and accepted them.

When Israel was created in 1948, many (not all) Arab nations responded by driving out their Jews. Some waited until 1967 to evict their Jews. Those Jews had to go somewhere--so they went to Israel.

You see the problem, no one says Jews don't have any right to stay in Palestine. This is not the position of Muslims, look throughout history Muslims have protected Jews, in fact Christians are the ones who have persecuted the Jews the most. But what cannot be accepted is a case whereby, you come and forcefully evict someone from his home. This is what Israel is doing, they're killing the Palestinians and taking over their lands, this are lands they own for generations and centuries.

Muslims historically treated Jews better than Christians, but there were certainly periods where Muslims did not treat Jews very well at all--the 20th century has been one of those periods. If I were Jewish, I would be nervous living in Muslim lands just based on what the Quran says about Jews--there is evident dislike for them and Muslim rulers, if they wish, can always quote those verses if they wish. Fortunately Jews have ways of making themselves very valuable and so the various rulers had use for them. The same has been true in Christian-ruled areas.

I don't dispute that Israel has treated Palestinians unfairly quite a bit of the time, and I don't buy the religious argument from either Muslims or Jews. I have little sympathy for Gaza because they have freely elected a political party which vows to destroy Israel, I'm not surprised that Israel acts to keep them weak and unequipped.

But remember that about half the Jews in Israel are actually Middle Eastern Jews, not European Jews, many of whom were forced out of their countries by Arabs who then confiscated their land. They have nowhere to return to since they would be subject to harsh discrimination were they to go back to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc. They are right where they need to be.

In any case, I have little doubt that if the Arab states made a serious attempt to attack Israel, the US would come in on the side of Israel. And if that failed and the existence of Israel was in serious jeopardy, I believe the Israelis would make sure to launch nuclear missiles against a couple of very important cities in Saudi Arabia (and I'm sure the Saudis know this and this is why they generally keep quiet with regard to Israel).

Adultery doesn't seem to get much attention either. Or keeping the Sabbath holy. Or coveting your neighbor's goods or wife....

You can start your own website and do with it what you want.

Or you can just accept the fact that the internet was not made to cater to your personal beliefs. If you see something you don't like, just keep scrolling. Very easy.

Whether any god exists or not is irrelevant to me, because any god who created this earth is not worthy of worship.

And the Bible is proof that men can write books saying that there is a god. Nothing more.

Is it any surprise that we see more and more atheists and non-religious types?

As an atheist, I don't agree with OLAADEGBU on very much, but this claim about al-Fatiha being angry with the Jews and the Christians being lost is true.

I refer anyone to the Tafsir Ibn-Kathir, one of the most distinguished of the Sunni tafsirs (exegesis of the Quran). About halfway down the page on the link I've provided it clearly explains this.

"(Not (the way) of those who earned Your anger, nor of those who went astray) meaning guide us to the straight path, the path of those upon whom you have bestowed Your grace, that is, the people of guidance, sincerity and obedience to Allah and His Messengers. They are the people who adhere to Allah's commandments and refrain from committing what He has prohibited. But, help us to avoid the path of those whom Allah is angry with, whose intentions are corrupt, who know the truth, yet deviate from it. Also, help us avoid the path of those who were led astray, who lost the true knowledge and, as a result, are wandering in misguidance, unable to find the correct path. Allah asserted that the two paths He described here are both misguided when He repeated the negation `not'. These two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them. The path of the believers is knowledge of the truth and abiding by it. In comparison, the Jews abandoned practicing the religion, while the Christians lost the true knowledge. This is why `anger' descended upon the Jews, while being described as `led astray' is more appropriate of the Christians. Those who know, but avoid implementing the truth, deserve the anger, unlike those who are ignorant. The Christians want to seek the true knowledge, but are unable to find it because they did not seek it from its proper resources.

This is why they were led astray. We should also mention that both the Christians and the Jews have earned the anger and are led astray, but the anger is one of the attributes more particular of the Jews."

http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=35

Brown47:
And if this supernatural being happens to be one of those gods painted by religion( e.g yahwe, allah, etc. Would you summit to him?

Absolutely, if that is required, but if he is a god then I don't see why he would need me to submit.

A being with clear supernatural powers must visit me directly and prove that he can break the laws of physics (such as making time stop or creating a live animal from nothing). I would also need a fellow atheist friend with me who witnesses the same thing so that I know I'm not hallucinating.

That would make me a believer. Don't give me a book and say these things already happened according to this book.

I don't remember the last time I prayed either, but it was certainly in my childhood. The Bible explains perfectly why I stopped praying:

1 Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."

I'll do the same that that you will do when the Flying Spaghetti Monster appears and takes all the pastafarians off to the land of the beer volcano.

tempem:
What's your level of education?

Here is a Prof who was formally an Atheist. You could read what later made him changed his view.

I'm well-educated and work in academia.
In any case, for every professor you can uncover who becomes religious, there are many more who do just the opposite. This is not meant to be an appeal to numbers to make my case, just saying that he is rather unusual, and his experience certainly does not reflect mine.

Later, in the lobby, I asked the professor if he was serious
about the Bible. In essence, he replied: “Simple bacteria can
divide about every 20 minutes and have many hundreds of
different proteins, each containing 20 types of amino acids
arranged in chains that might be several hundred long. For
bacteria to evolve by beneficial mutations one at a time would
take much, much longer than three or four billion years, the
time that many scientists believe life has existed on earth.”
The Bible book of Genesis, he felt, made much more sense.
How did the professor’s comments affect you?

Simple bacteria can experience beneficial mutations within a few years, not billions. Look at the drug-resistant tuberculosis and malaria diseases which have evolved in only a few decades.

tempem:
Faith


WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS “Without faith it is impossible to
please God well, for whoever approaches God must believe
that he is and that he becomes the rewarder of those
earnestly seeking him.”— Hebrews 11:6 .

Even if god existed, I would have no desire to please him. In any case the Bible is not proof of any god, rather it is proof that people can write books claiming that there is a god.

KingEbukasBlog:
how ?

Devoid of substance and mildly humorous.

This thread made me smile.

bxcode:
What is that which is claimed without evidence if I may ask?

Show me evidence that 'deep down [atheists] know that god exists'

SirWere:
Meh, I think Buddhism is part crap, and the other half hinges on "meditations"

Yeah I basically agree. While there are some real gems in the teachings of Buddha, Buddhism itself has plenty of superstitions and mystical beliefs like all the other major religions.

bxcode:
because the truth is that they know deep down that God exist

That which is claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Speechless3:
In other words, only few people have been able to determine what is logical and the rest can go to hell? So why bother explaining to people your belief since they are wired to be illogical? If your standard of judging things is not universal how is it not an opinion? Are logical laws found only in atheism?

I'm not saying that only a few people can determine what is logic; however, without an education, some logic will not be easily understood.

Math is pure logic. Math can be demonstrated in any number of empirical ways. Therefore, logic exists--as an intellectual construct.