₦airaland Forum

Proudgorgeousga:
The emboldened part of your comment sounds weird. it is not normal.

Emmanystone:
Why do you say it's not normal?

Proudgorgeousga:
I included the link and screenshot for a reason, read it.

Emmanystone:
Try using your brain for once.
And, i'm certain that if both of us are taken for a Psychiatric evaluation, you'll fall short of that evaluation.

Based on my beliefs, i have accounted for the origin of the Universe and Man, on what are you basing your stance?

And pls, i don't need to be referred to read a link, i need your personal contribution.

Proudgorgeousga:
ok

Proudgorgeousga:
ok

jimmyjenseng:
I've argued with many a theist on God's existence, and I'm pretty sure a lot of you have done same both offline and online, and the most frequently said words after silencing their arguments are: even if there's a proof for god you still won't believe.

And a few other times, they insert the shitty 'absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence' argument/statement.

Emmanystone:
Let me tell you why i believe in the Bible and maybe you shd tell me why i shd believe in what Otem claims afterwards.

The Bible says God created the Universe and in the universe, he put the Sun to give it's light by Day, the Moon and stars to give their lights by night. And their purpose is to cause seasons. And He said, no one can change these course.
Nothing has ever been able to change the course.

When it's day, the sun comes out, and at night the moon and stars. If someone or something else can alter that course, then i'll doubt God.

Secondly, the Bible told me that God created man in his image, and likeness. I lost a friend recently. He slept and didn't wake up. He lived alone so no one knew he had died until 4days. Decomposition had started taking place. His lifeless body was without consciousnesses. It could not longer function and interact with this realm, the real him was gone out of his body.

Considering this, i believe the God who said, When he took clay and moulded it, it was lying on the ground lifeless, until he breath into it, it became the living soul, got up and began to move.

Although, Man had become a living soul, but without a mind, which is his consciousness, he won't be able to take rational and intentional decisions which will enable him represent himself and affect his immediate environment. Hence, God imputed into him His likeness.

I see that only humans have this attributes so, i believe what the Bibles says.

Thirdly. The Bible says, God created all things, Man, Animals and Plants to reproduce according to their kind. And it has been so. As much as we have different species of Mango, one doesn't reproduce the other, so also animals and Man.


God created man, male and female for the purpose of procreation. He commanded them to have kids and fill the earth with their kind. And i am told that Adam knew his wife(Had sex) and she got pregnant and had Cain and Able and Seth down to me, looking like him.

Till today, children are still being brought into the world by taking a part of a woman and that of a man and bring them together. No other way.

Women still go through 9 months gestation period for the baby to mature, not less. Labour pains is still everyone woman's ordeal as Genesis said.

Everything still depart out of this earth by dying according to the Bible. Why shd i wait until God appears standing before me before i believe Him?


Now call Otem up to tell me what his Doctofus says about his beliefs.
I'm waiting up.

DoctorAlien:
It seems you think that you only believe things that have not been proven, and that the presence of proof throws the need for belief out of the window, even though the definition of the word "belief" might suggest otherwise. Anyway, what do you have to say in relation to the spherical shape of the earth about those who, in the face of sufficient proof of the spherical shape of the earth, continue to proclaim that the earth is flat?

jimmyjenseng:
Really?! This is why you believe the bible?

Emmanystone:
Yes, why do you disbelieve the Bible?

budaatum:
Please refer to the definition of belief on wiki. It states the clearly, sense in which I use the word.

I tend to believe things that I have sufficient reason to presume is likely to be so. If I know (as in, if I have sufficient evidence) that those things are exactly as I think they are, I tend not to limit myself to mere belief that it is so since I emphatically know that it is so. I, for instance, tend not to believe it is raining if the clouds darken the sky (baring sun set, or eclipses), thunder roles, and I am getting wet from standing in the rain. I see the clouds have darkened the sky, I hear the thunder, the rain is falling on my head, I am wet and cold. That is sufficient evidence for me to assert that rain is falling. So I would claim so, and not that I believe so. So yes, I [tend] to believe when I am not quite certain but the evidence strongly suggests that it might be so. And yes the presence of conclusive evidence throws the need for belief out of the window, for me. If I were a Christian, I would not claim to believe there is a God, my faith would be such that I will claim to know, and God damn anyone who says otherwise!

With regard to the "spherical shape of the earth and those who, in the face of sufficient proof of the spherical shape of the earth, continue to proclaim that the earth is flat". I would (assuming the earth is truly spherical), conclude that such individuals might have different understanding of the words that denote the things called "earth", "spherical", "is" and so on, such that it is not spherical according to their understanding of the words. Or I might conclude that such individuals have screws loose in their heads, or they are just plain liars. If such an individual took the same attitude regarding crossing a road with fast moving vehicles going by constantly. They would see a car approaching and walk right into its path!

If I were a Christian, it would be because I know, conclusively, that there is God, and that his son is Jesus Christ through whom I am saved and shall live eternally, and I would understand what is meant when it is written that I should shake even the dust off when I, not only depart the from non believer's presence, but depart the city they live in. I would of course take this metaphorically, as I sure would not allow some non believing scum to chase me from my place of abode. But I would also have to temper my abhorrence for such individuals with the love it is written that I should have for my enemy - if enemy is the bigoted position I take - with the love I am supposed to have for that, so called, enemy. Who says turning the other cheek is easy, I would claim, in my lofty state of grace and superiority, though I would hide this under some sort of humility so as not to be seen as a pompous prick.

As a Christian, the words of that non believer can not but sound like that fool who saw a car approaching and walks right into its path!

But as an atheist, the car is most definitely in the mind of the believer, for when the atheist sees no car and walks into the road to cross, the proof of no car coming is whether he or she gets safely to the other side of the road, without any car actually being there.

DoctorAlien:
Wikipedia says that "Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty." This definition can be separated into two components viz:

1. "Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty."
2. Belief is also "the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty."

Belief is essentially a state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, just that one can have that state of mind "with or without there being conclusive empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty."

Component 1 above actually proves my argument, which is that belief is something that can be had even "with there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty" i.e. even with there being proof.

I submit then that it is possible(i.e. the probability is not zero) for an atheist to not "have the state of mind in which he thinks it to be the case"(i.e. it is possible for an atheist to not believe) that God exists, even when there is proof that God exists. Ferdinand Magellan achieved a demonstration of the earth's sphericity which Wikipedia called "practical". Yet there are people today who do not have the state of mind in which they think it to be the case(i.e. do not believe) that the earth is spherical.

budaatum:
Thank you for checking wiki. The operative word there is "think". I must think something to be true in order to believe it to be true. Unless I am stupid and believe in all sorts with no reason, including my thought, that a thing is true. But I may think a thing is true, and believe it to be true, but it may be false. I have believed things in the past only to find that it was not so and I believed in error. That is why, for me, believing things is insufficient.

Imagine I think there is not a car coming down that busy road. Imagine I step into the road but my thought was in error, and a car is coming down that road. Would anyone in fact ever cross a road on a thought, a belief, or both? Would anyone rather not seek out empirical evidence that the road is certainly clear before they crossed?

Applying this argument to the existence of God is not as straight forward as road crossing however as both sides of the argument cannot agree on what God is for starts, not to talk of agreeing what evidence to accept for proving God's existence.

If we were standing by the roadside waiting to cross and a car was approaching and I insisted on crossing, because I thought and believed, that a car was not approaching. You would ask me to go ahead and cross, and the splattering of my brains on the road would be evidence that a car was coming. We unfortunately can't perform that experiment for the existence of God, so, it makes sense that a believer believes there is a God. In the expression, the believer however is stating that he or she thinks there may be a God at best and is willing to believe there is a God, but they do not exactly know. The convinced believer ought not be a believer. They ought to be knowers and boldly say "I know God exists", and damn anyone who does not accept their evidence for the God that exists for them.

The same applies to the atheist by the way. I find it odd that atheists say they do not believe that God exists. An atheist would argue that they base their opinion on facts and evidence. So why is it that most would claim not to believe that God exists if all the evidence they have checked proves to them that God does not exist? They either use the expression involving 'belief' because that is the word they know to use perhaps because they learnt it culturally, or because they are not sure conclusively that there is no god, which makes their position agnostic at best. If they knew God does not exist, I guess we'd call them knowers too, but of the atheist sort, as opposed to the Christian knower, I suppose.

Now, the last part of you argument refers to those who refuse to accept a thing to be true despite evidence proving a thing to be true. (please note that I now use the stronger 'know', in place of what I would call, the weak, 'belief'. My crossing the road describes such a person, I am sure brains splattered on the road would prove such a person wrong. However, that is not the case with the existence of God. The atheist - the knowing type as opposed to a believing one - would have checked all the available evidence before coming to the conclusion that there is indeed no gods. So, they are not refusing to accept the evidence for God's existence. They are saying that evidence, as it is, does not prove God's existence.


You may wish to see my counter position on this thread

DoctorAlien:
Wikipedia(and Oxford dictionaries) tells us that to believe something is to think that such a thing is true(whether or not there is proof that it is true.) So the sentence in red above makes no sense, because what you're saying is "I must think something to be true in order to think it to be true."

DoctorAlien:
Component 1 of the definition of belief by Wikipedia states that "Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty." So I don't understand what you mean when you say that belief is insufficient for you.

DoctorAlien:
Wikipedia says that "Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty."

budaatum:
That is precisely what I am saying. It does not make sense to believe a thing just because it is what I think. When a superior thought appears to one one abandons the old belief and adopts a new one.

Born againism is an example of this process.



You do understood what is meant by the two components! You said it above and in the following:



What one believes may sometimes correspond with the facts but it is not a requirement for believing.

One can believe whatever one wants whether it corresponds to reality or not.

Compare that with the following:

To know a thing is to be is a familiar with, have awareness of, or understanding of that thing, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning.

Don't you wonder why belief hasn't got this definition knowing has? It, I bet, is the sense in which it is meant. I would rather know my God exists than merely believe in its existence.

P.s. I am not advocating that others must have the same relationship I have with my god!

DoctorAlien:
Are you saying that it is insufficient for you to have a state of mind in which you think something to be the case (true), with there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty(i.e. with there being proof)?

DoctorAlien:
You're trying to make this a face off between the words "believe" and "know", which is not what I'm on about. I'm simply trying to show you that the presence of proof does not jettison the need for "belief", because component 1 of the definition of belief by Wikipedia states that "Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty(i.e. with there being proof.)"

DoctorAlien:
Are you saying that it is insufficient for you to have a state of mind in which you think something to be the case (true), with there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty(i.e. with there being proof)

budaatum:
With regard to the "spherical shape of the earth and those who, in the face of sufficient proof of the spherical shape of the earth, continue to proclaim that the earth is flat". I would (assuming the earth is truly spherical), conclude that such individuals might have different understanding of the words that denote the things called "earth", "spherical", "is" and so on, such that it is not spherical according to their understanding of the words. Or I might conclude that such individuals have screws loose in their heads, or they are just plain liars. If such an individual took the same attitude regarding crossing a road with fast moving vehicles going by constantly. They would see a car approaching and walk right into its path!

budaatum:
I tend to believe things that I have sufficient reason to presume is likely to be so. If I know (as in, if I have sufficient evidence) that those things are exactly as I think they are, I tend not to limit myself to mere belief that it is so since I emphatically know that it is so.

hopefulLandlord:
In all honesty, there is not one single Christian argument when put to the rigors of reason and rationality and/or science that is even the slightest bit convincing in any way whatsoever. The whole foundation from start to finish is on sinking sand. It can only be believed by the monumentally naïve or the willfully dishonest or someone who just lacks the capacity to think critically.

Christianity seems to have a way of stunting your ability to think outside the box, but not stunting your ability to rationalize why you're inside the box.

that's the problem, isn't it? Because if there were clear and compelling evidence in support of the notion that there is a god and we understand what it wants from us...well, we wouldn't need any arguments at all.

Instead, what we get is the a la carte menu approach to argumentation. Pick one from each column, continue until you throw up (or convert). Don't like the Ontological Argument? How about the Kalaam? Or the Argument from Design?

The more arguments there are, the less likely it is that god exists. Because each successive one is an attempt to rescue the failures of all the previous arguments. Failure upon failure upon failure.

The problem with those arguments is that they're not relying on empirical evidence that obligately points to the presence/intervention of a supernatural something-or-other.

They're using observations about of the universe and declaring that the only way it could have gotten the way it is is through divine intervention. To which I always reply, "Aliens".

"Evidence" is the fuzzy word here. In order to count as evidence in favor of a deity, it has to both reject the null hypothesis "no god needed/exists" AND it has to also reject alternative hypotheticals (aliens, et al.)

If their "evidence" in favor of the existence of a deity could be used in favor of the existence of universe-building aliens, then it's not "evidence". That's why the KCA, Fine Tuning, Watchmaker, and other arguments of that ilk fail. Because "aliens"

rekinomtla:
That post was plagiarized from this website's comment section. And its not the first time this gentleman has plagiarized someone else's comments.

Proudgorgeousga:
and so? we should fry beans

rekinomtla:
That post was plagiarized from this website's comment section. And its not the first time this gentleman has plagiarized someone else's comments.

budaatum:
Good thing then that I'm agreeing with the comment, regardless.

I've been thinking lately, that we sometimes attack the postings of people rather than engaging with the content of the post. It's why you see people insulting others for their opinions rather than engaging with the sentiments expressed. Saying that though, for some reason, I can't say people attack me for anything, well, not often at least. Must be the Spirit of God expressing in people when those of God, who are more likely to be antagonised by my stance, respond to my posts! I can't but thank you all for that.

Perhaps posters who copy from other sites should mind to show sources. It, perhaps, helps with credibility.

Notwithstanding, let it be known that I still agree with the post, irrelevant of it's source.

rekinomtla:
I'm just against plagiarism. Whether we agree or not with the content shouldn't stop us from calling people out for doing this. One Nairalander even criticized this gentleman for plagiarism even though he agreed with the content of the post.