₦airaland Forum

Reyginus: He never willed him to be a criminal. He gave us freewill that we may be held responsible for the choices we make. Yes. His having mercy on the criminal is what makes him a merciful judge.But when after the mercy and forgiveness, the same scenerio keeps repeating itself to an extent, his period of grace elapsed. Would it still be unfair to condemn him to hell?

So if God does not know what choices we will make then he is not all-knowing and therefore not all powerful. In any case, 'free will' is only believed by a minority of monotheists. Most believe in predestination.

Reyginus: Would it be fair for a judge to pardon a man who stole, killed many and raped women, all in the name of fairness?

Yes, it would be fair, if that judge was the creator of both the criminal and his victims, and who willed that all of those crimes happen, being all-powerful and having the ability to prevent such events but doing nothing to stop it. But then such a judge would be evil at the same time.

As an atheist, I agree, alcohol in greater than very moderate amounts can be extremely destructive. However, it does not take a holy book from God to make this observation. People have known this since earliest recorded history, and probably before that as well.

If a god created us and he also created hell to put us in unless we know exactly which sect of which religion is the correct belief, then that god is actually evil, especially if he is all powerful and all-knowing. If he created people already knowing which if them is going to hell, then that is a god I want no part of. But if all is forgiven (including my atheism), then I could accept that God is fair.

Uyi Iredia: Atheism is indeed an organised religion particularly in the West. There are atheist organizations which meet regularly and atheist shows which also ask for donations from well-meaning atheists. I can understand an atheist arguing that atheism isn't a religion because it's supposed to fight religion but the irony is this: In fighting religion (in particular Christianity) atheism is becoming a religion.

Atheism is a lack of belief and therefore not a religion. Saying that atheism is a religion is like saying that 'not playing football' is a sport.

diluminati: we cant deny there have been some events we may have termed miracles because they happen out of the ordinary, events we dont understand. Apart from miracles there are also some voodoo and juju events like the infamous odeshi - bulletproof. i'm asking all these miracles, there must be some science behind it, maybe we havent understood it yet or found it out. do you agree?

I can certainly deny all 'miracles' and I do. There are undoubtedly some astonishing coincidences and some amazing occurrences, but there is always a scientific or mathematical explanation. It's funny how I've heard about miracles, but me, being a skeptic, have never actually seen one. Coincidence or miracle?

I can't give an exact number of days, but he died about 30 A.D., so that means that he has been in some unknown grave for about 1,982 years.

Someone saying "You are being deceived by Satan"

In addition, the word 'humanism' is probably less threatening a word than 'atheism'. Atheism is still a pretty shocking word to use in many parts of the world; even many newly-minted atheists have trouble using that word to describe themselves (myself included, back when..). Humanist is somehow a more acceptable word to use in the general population.

Humanist organizations tend to fill the role of an atheist 'mission' or an organization. They don't strictly toe the atheist line but by and large their members are atheist or agnostic, and they do engage in various activities.

It is easy to be fast growing in terms of percentage when the numbers are very low. Going from 1 million people to 2.6 million people is a big jump, but not nearly as big as the number of people who have declared themselves 'not religious' in the US, whose total numbers went from 14 million to 35 million in 18 years (1990-2008).

Non-religion is, in terms of numbers, by far the fastest growing religious belief in the US and that trend looks set to continue. In addition, approximately two-thirds of all converts to Islam leave within 3 years.

k2039: I will be the first to lead the protest,crucify Him,in short I will be the one to drive the Nigerian nails into his hands and feet.

Christians would crucify him long before you had a chance to do so yourself.

I would destroy Satan immediately. (speaking as an atheist, obviously this is just for fun...)

I think the OP should actually study a bit of science before attempting to criticize it.

Reyginus: A creation can never be greater than its creator. Since the universe is the created and God the creator your question is answered.

So a nuclear physicist could not be destroyed by the atomic bomb that he created?

Maybe a God created the universe and then blew himself up during the Big B@ng.

In any case, it would be cool if the universe was greater than God. Then God might himself be subject to karma and find himself placed in the hell that he created for others.

What gets me, is that many religious people talk about how their holy books contain advice for living, including health advice, but not a single one of those ancient holy books recommends that water be boiled before drinking. Can you imagine how much misery and death God could have saved if He had just said 'boil water before you drink, for I am the Lord your God and I want you in good health'. But sadly, no, these holy books ban things like mixing milk and meat products, or eating shrimp, which would hardly impact public health.

I think the biggest forum for atheists in the world has to be www.reddit.com, maybe you already know it. They might have some suggestions.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/ (a bit heavy on pictures and memes, sometimes it is pretty juvenile)
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAtheism/ (much better discussion than /r/atheism)

Mr_Anony: Interesting. . .please what do atheists believe in?

Empiricism, basically. Show me the goods. Life is here and now.

-Bible
-Quran
-juju
-afterlife
-heaven
-hell

If Jesus came back today Christians would not recognize him because they would be expecting something else.

davidylan: Bro puhlease... enough with the fake outrage. Rather than foaming in the mouth... why dont you EXPLAIN to us what you mean by this statement - Furthermore, humans become or give birth to more evolved humans and monkeys become more evolved monkeys.

Please where are the "more evolved" humans abeg. Thank you.

I saw your empty bluster up there too... we are "losing" our wisdom teeth? How hilariously untrue. Go ask dentists who have to remove thousands of wisdom teeth every year.

I have no wisdom teeth. I was born without them. This is not uncommon.

The 'more evolved' humans are ourselves. We are the latest and most intelligent species of hominid. Since we cannot view the future, we cannot say how evolutionary forces will shape homo sapiens. But it will be so slow that people will not recognize it as it happens.

cyrexx: I once heard someone say that when a single person displays his delusion, we call it madness. When a large group of people displays their delusion, we call it religion.

I also heard it said: What is the difference between a cult and a religion? In a cult, the founder is still alive.

The truth of the matter is that the growth of non-belief (atheism, agnosticism), is accelerating in the US. In the last 20 years this has gone from about 8% of the population to 16%.

In Europe, people who attend religious services is now less than 10%. Even among Muslims, the strong tendency in Europe (for European-born Muslims) is not to practice the religion (in Belgium, for example, only about 10% of Muslims practice religion).

After studying the Bible and Quran, I've concluded that a god played no role in those books, and that he (if he exists) never sent any prophets. The Old Testament, in particular, is full of evil things that God has done, and the Quran is boring, poorly written, and repetitive. Neither book represents anything Godly to me.

Martian: lol, the atheists on reddit won't believe the arguments on this board. they would think the religious people are just trolls.There is too much collectivist thought on that site though. The hivemind.
Lately, the things being posted on this board have been flat out outrageous.

someone said, "abrogate reason and perpetrate faith"...................I don't think it can get lower than that.

The religion subreddits along with the atheism subreddit are circlejerks to a great extent, but there is good discussion on the debate religion subreddit with a lot of opposing viewpoints. But at least there are a lot of atheists with whom to debate instead of two or three like here.

Edit: it's amusing to see that 'circlejerk' made it past the filter here, whereas 'b-ang' will not.

The best advice I can give to those who want to debate religion (or lack thereof), is to go to a website called reddit.com. There is a section called "debateReligion" and there are a lot of people who will debate any topic of any religion. It's a completely free website. There are a lot of other sections dealing with other topics, including Atheism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism...etc.

www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/

I'm an atheist and here's how I'd respond to your challenge.

1) Mohammed did not write the Quran. It was written down years after his death. In fact at one time there were 6 different versions of the Quran until one of the Caliphs had the 'official' version prepared by a group of literate scholars who polished the grammar and essentially created written Arabic.

2) The numbers you gave are not a miracle, they are a coincidence. Given the amount of time that people have devoted to studying the Quran looking for miracles or signs, finding a mathematical coincidence actually becomes rather likely. There are virtually an unlimited number of ways you can search for mathematical coincidences. As such the odds are actually very good that you will find such a coincidence in any book if you look hard enough.

Well, I'm not an 'evangelical atheist' however I would absolutely defend the right of such evangelical atheists to try to 'convert' others to atheism as long as Christians and Muslims are allowed to try to convert others as well. If Christians can do it, so can atheists. I think it would be inappropriate for a religious discussion among Christians to be interrupted by atheists who were not a part of the conversation, however the opposite would also be inappropriate.

Mr_Anony: To this I say "fair enough as long as you don't turn around and say God does not exist as this will mean that you are sure that he doesn't and you'll have to tell how you are so sure"

Again fine as long as you don't make it your point of duty to always tell golfers that golf is a crap game and should never be played. If you do this you'll have to explain exactly why golf should never be played and be prepared to take reprisals from angry golfers

But would not the reverse also be true? Should atheists always be subjected to Christians saying they are going to hell?

Mr_Anony: Again fair enough but if you don't believe in God why should His prophets be of any importance to you? Why should you be bothered at all about whether there is a true religion or not?

Many atheists were raised in a religion and often know the religion very well as a result of indoctrination. I would be one of those. Remember, many atheists actually studied religion looking for proof and found it lacking. Plus, as a result of proselytizing by various religions, atheists often have to be prepared to debate, and successful debating requires a fair amount of knowledge of the religion.

Mr_Anony: If you came across a religion whose creed was this golden rule, will it be the true religion for you?The question of morality is not whether there is a golden rule or not but why should the golden rule be adhered to i.e why should anyone care about the golden rule?

Everyone can understand the Golden Rule because everyone knows what it is like to have someone hurt them. In fact, virtually all religions and philosophies prescribe the Golden Rule. So maybe all religions are true, except that they can't agree on the theology of who are the prophets or god(s).

Mr_Anony: This is exactly what we people of faith claim: that God has revealed Himself to us. Now if God can reveal himself to us, what stops Him from doing the same to people in a desert 1000+ years ago?

That's not good enough for us. We want to witness God/miracles for ourselves, not read about it in a book. Empirical, indisputable evidence.

Mr_Anony: Now you see what my problem is with evangelist atheists is this; if you say God is meaningless to you, why bother about Him. Why do you go about seeking believers to offend?
Is this because they actually believe in God but are trying hard to deny it to themselves or is it because it just gives them some sadistic pleasure that they can't let go of.

Some atheists can be offensive in sticking their nose in religious discussions, but the reverse can just as often be true in the preaching that goes on both here and elsewhere. Certainly Christians trying to persuade atheists are not also sadistic?

I haven't read all of the posts in this topic because there are too many. However, I am an atheist (an agnostic atheist), and I'll make several quick points.
1) Most atheists do not say that God cannot exist, they just say that the existence of an all powerful, all knowing God has not been scientifically established. Who knows, maybe the being that created the universe killed himself in the Big Bang.
2) Atheism is not a religion. Absence of firm belief does not count. Just like it doesn't make sense for me to say that "not golfing" is one of my hobbies.
3) Even if God exists there is no proof that God sent any prophets, children, etc. Even if one supposes that there is a living Creator does not automatically mean that YOUR religion is the one true faith sent by God. To me, all religions read like mythology.
4) Do atheists have morality? Sure. The one rule that virtually all people understand is the Golden Rule: Don't do to others what you do not want done to yourself. That is necessary to establish a sense of reciprocity and trust and security for all. Don't confuse atheism with nihilism.
5) If God revealed himself to me in a fashion that could not be explained by science, and that I could witness along with several fellow atheists who saw the same thing (just so I'm not hallucinating), then I would convert to whatever belief system he demanded. But he hasn't done that. God (or angels) allegedly talking to people in the desert more than 1000+ years ago does not count.

Wasn't Franck Ribery in trouble for something last year involving prostitutes?

In any case I live in a Muslim country and have for quite some time, and it is probably that which made me convinced that religion is largely a hoax. Basically religion is just a different form of superstition. Nothing can be proved in religion and yet you are expected to believe it all without question.

I wonder if religion is actually a form of Stockholm Syndrome.

I've had a long-term interest in studying religions and have spent a lot of time thinking and reading about them. The thing is, the more I read and learn about the origins of the religions, the more I am convinced that they are all man-made. In order to be honest with myself I have had to admit that I don't believe in any 'prophets' or 'sons of god'. Whether God exists or not is a separate issue, and a question that I will not be able to answer in this lifetime. I absolutely reject the idea of Satan or Hell--a truly good God would not allow either to exist.

However, if I had to pick the 'best' religions in my opinion, I would say Buddhism (more of a philosophy), or Baha'i (which is basically a modern update on Christianity and Islam). I also admire Quakers, a very liberal Christian group.

IF anyone becomes a Muslim or Christian and it causes them to be good people, then there is nothing wrong with that; however, if they make somebody arrogant, violent, misogynist, then they should not continue. What I do object to most about Islam in particular is that many of the majority Muslim countries oppress non-Muslims, and forbid their own Muslim citizens from leaving Islam. How could a country pass a law requiring someone to believe in a religion (recognizing that Catholic countries once did this a few hundred years ago as well.

LagosShia:
Inspite of a record found newly in Turkey which predates the birth of Muhammad (sa) himself,you will even deny Muhammad (sa) was prophesied by Jesus (as) even if Jesus (as) himself speaks to you.

This has not been scientifically proven in any way.   They need to test the age of the material and examine the writing both to style and content.   I believe the book will be shown to be false.  Other,  existing books of Barnabas have shown that they incorporate things unknown to people in the time of Jesus.  And there are actually different versions of Barnabas which say very different things.

I have studied religion for a long time and I am completely convinced that all religion is man-made,  so ultimately to me any religious argument won't amount to anything.  However,  I do think it is very important to examine documents to find their origins so that history may be better understood.