₦airaland Forum

gabe:
lol, there is no designer. Unless you're talking about natural selection...

DeSepiero:
Hahaha...of course, the divergent views are the spice of this section.

winner01:
I'm sorry I'm just following common sense as well as the direction where the evidence points.


If theres no way a 5mp Samsung camera can arise by chance, then a 574mp human eye is even out of the question. This eye that is out of the question is just a small part of a more complex machine. That destroys the question.

I know many designers exist in the world but I've never met them, I'm sure however that they exist. I'll like to meet the designer of my gionee android phone someday, more importantly, I'll like to try to know my own designer. This explains why religion has always and will always thrived throughout all generations of humanity. The need to know God.

gabe:
Complexity as evidence for design has been debunked over and over, please google. Natural selection is the only designer with evidence to show for it. Again, google.

winner01:
Very true.
Another advantage is that many Christians will be challenged to pick up books and read.

In this part of the world, many Christians don't bother looking for answers.

winner01:
You debunked it? Or the scientific fraternity of today?

gabe:
*sigh* please read up on natural selection.

winner01:
Just what are the evidences pointing away from a designer?

gabe:
Please check Wikipedia for a 'list of scientific bodies explicitly rejecting intelligent design' for what the scientific community thinks about ID. Take your example. The human eye. Darwin postulated that an incomplete eye designed over time by natural selection confers an evolutionary advantage to its user and such examples should abound in nature. If eyes were perfectly, irreducibly designed, we expect to see only perfectly designed eyes in all organisms with eyes. Darwin was proved right by the presence of primitive eyes and light sensing organs in some organisms. The evolutionary history of the eye has also been traced using comparative genetics.

winner01:
Many reasonable atheists avoided this thread due to obvious reasons. Like I pointed out earlier, a few honest atheists do not share the dogmatic outlook and crusading spirit of your type of atheism, and expectedly you don't agree with their honesty. It goes on to show how open minded you are.





Freedom of speech and association is actually as a result of the socio liberal freedom of christianity as the op rightly pointed out. Compared to several Islamic states today and atheistic states that existed in the past e g atheistic Russia, Cambodia, Albania etc.
In those countries, freedom of speech and association is significantly suppressed as supported by their constitution. You could easily get arrested by speaking against state recognized beliefs and practices just as is happening in China today. Below are some evidences that shows that atheistic countries and their leaders had a dangerous idea of an utopia which suppressed freedom of speech, thought, opinion, association and religious beliefs (in order to spread atheism) just like Islamic countries.


Article 37 of the Albanian Constitution of 1976 stipulated: ‘The State recognizes no religion, and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic outlook in people’

"Party organisations must direct their most serious attention to the improvement of atheist propaganda. Anti-religious propaganda must be more offensive, combatant, more direct. . ." - Mzhavanadze (at the 20th Congress of the Georgian Communist Party), Zarya vostoka, 26 January 1960.

“It is furthermore imperative to put the propaganda of atheism on solid ground. … It is necessary to produce a book on the church's struggle against naturalism.” - Maxim Gorky (Founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist), Letter from Gorky to Stalin, November 29, 1929, on the organization of antireligious propaganda

"We want to sweep away everything that claims to be supernatural and superhuman, and thereby get rid of untruthfulness, for the root of all untruth and Lying is the pretension of the human and the natural to be superhuman and supernatural. For that reason we have once and for all declared war on religion and religious ideas ..."- Friedrich Engels (co- founder of Marxist theory), Review of Thomas Carlyle's Past
and Present, 1844

"The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is guided by the conviction that only conscious and deliberate planning of all the social and economic activities of the masses will cause religious prejudices to die out. The Party strives for the complete dissolution of the ties between the exploiting classes and the organizations of religious propaganda, facilitates the real emancipation of the working masses from religious prejudices and organizes the widest possible scientific educational and anti-religious propaganda."- Political Program of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), adopted March 22, 1919 at the Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, section 13

"We must deepen a revolutionary world-outlook, we must fight the religious prejudices in the youth and approach the youth, including those having religious prejudices, with the maximum pedagogical attentiveness of the more educated towards the less educated. We must go to them with the propaganda of atheism, for only this propaganda defines the place of man in the universe and draws out for him a circle of conscious activity here on earth."- Leon Trotsky, The Position of the Republic and the Tasks of Young Workers, 1922

“Communist society will bury forever all mysticism, religion, prejudice and superstition and will give a powerful impetus to the development of all-conquering, scientific knowledge. ... One of the most important tasks of the cultural revolution affecting the wide masses, is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion-the opium of the people. ... the proletarian State ... carries on anti-religious propaganda with all the means at its command and reconstructs the whole of its educational work, on the basis of scientific materialism.” - The Programme of the Communist International. Comintern Sixth Congress 1929

To mention a few, these are writings from the constitution of atheistic countries and the product of the minds of the leaders of atheistic countries. You will surely agree with me that I could have been killed if I was outspoken about my Christianity and at the same time against those forceful atheistic dogmatic quotes, provided I existed in those countries.

There are obvious reasons why we don't have too many outspoken atheists in Islamic countries and why we don't have too many outspoken Christians in countries like China.
Christianity is the reason we have many outspoken atheists in the western world, Christianity is the reason for your freedom, Christianity is the reason you have a voice son, be grateful.

As expected, regurgitated atheist arguments.

"Separation of church and state" was a phrase used by Thomas Jefferson and others expressing an understanding of the intent and function of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

The intent of this clause was to limit the power of the Federal Government in regard to religion thus ensuring "freedom of religion in the United States of America."

In other words, you got this one totally backwards. Separation of church and state wasn’t put in place to protect the state from the church; it was created to protect the church from the state!

The founding fathers came to the country primarily for that very reason – for freedom of religion. They were fleeing a country that was attempting to impose restrictions on their ability to believe or worship freely. Their whole purpose was to make sure that the government of the United States never imposed itself upon a citizen’s right to believe or practice their belief without government interference.

So with that proper understanding and historical context, what does separation of church and state mean today? Or what should it mean?

The founding fathers were clearly not ignorant of what was going on in atheistic countries and many other parts of the world, and majority of them being influenced by their religion, Christianity, they sought to impose freedom of religious worship, thereby protecting their freedom of worship. This freedom contributes to the reason why atheists have a voice in today's western world.

This is as wrong as they come. Naturalism did not give birth to all the scientific processes that drove their scientific achievement. As a matter of fact, many early proponents of science were against naturalistic ideologies.

Legends like Agassiz, Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, Maxwell, Dawson, Virchow, Fabre, Fleming, etc. were against naturalism, darwinian evolution and other pseudoscientific notions.. Even those who lived before Darwin were strong opponents of earlier evolutionary systems, not to mention pantheism, atheism, and other such anti-supernaturalist philosophies, which were every bit as prevalent then as now.

Sir Francis Bacon, is credited with formulating and establishing the scientific method! They seem also to have been able to maintain a proper "scientific attitude," for it was these men (Newton, Linnaeus, Faraday, Pascal, Kepler, etc.) whose researches and analyses led to the very laws and concepts of science which brought about our modern scientific age. The mechanistic scientists of the present are dwarfed in comparison to these intellectual giants of the past. Even the achievements of an Einstein (not to mention Darwin!) are trivial in comparison. The real breakthroughs, the new fields, the most beneficial discoveries of science were certainly not delayed (in fact probably were hastened) by the creationist motivations of these great founders of modern science.

I gave relevant examples in this thread, on how major breakthroughs in science was accomplished by several Christians as well as other religious believers.

Really how has this made the west enviable?
I won't even bother to counter this until any atheist tells me if it is wrong to outlaw the following:

1. Sex between an adult and a consenting minor (paedophilia)
2. A human and a consenting animal (Bestiality). Several animals have different ways of communicating consent.
3. A human and a dead human (provided the dead human consented before death) (Necrophilia)
4. And other sick sexual acts.

If this can be viewd as sick by you and your peers, then you have no moral rights to blame those who view same sex union as sick. That's some double standard.
If one if confused on which gender he/she is, one can simply look inside his/her pants.

Its still part of the socio liberal freedom associated with Christianity that created capitalism.

For those who are interested, you can click here to find out how Christianity created capitalism

As explained earlier, you owe your freedom to Christianity. Women in Saudi were recently permitted to drive, they recently gained some level of freedom. Hopefully atheistic China and north Korea can follow suit and stop the clamp down on churches, Christians and online christian materials and watch Christianity grow massively.




"Be sure of this: The wicked will not go unpunished, but those who are righteous will go free". - Proverbs 11:21.

Jesus was simply speaking figuratively on peace and forgiveness. Peter for example, did not fully understand this, thats why he attacked those who came to arrest Jesus. Peace and forgiveness is very important in our world today and many people will agree with this. Peace and forgiveness is the only hope and voice of the repentant criminal and the wrongly convicted. Peace and forgiveness is why many federal government are reconsidering certain punishments such as the death penalty.


Its good that some atheists are not as dogmatic as you are, and its also expected that you won't agree with honest atheists. Its only natural that you guard your "religion of unbelief" with jealousy.

Butterflyleo:
You mean the same Darwin that said and I quote

" The whole idea of something so flawless could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”

Even he had no clue.

Dalamama:
Will you shut up and stop telling lies? When Europe was under the leadershipof the church we all know what happened. The period was referred to as the dark age. You could not go against church at all. If you do you'll be burned alive. The people had to revolt and put and end to it. More people have died in the name of Christianity that Islam, Christians have killed more Jews for example than Muslims will ever do. When Christians had the power they weren'tany diff5from the Muslims or atheist at all. If I were living in the middle ages when Europe was under the control of the church I would have been bred alive for my atheistic views. So shut up. Christianity has lost all its power that today you can NOT name a single Christian nation on earth.

Dalamama:
Separation of church and state is the reason why you can NOT use the bible to make or create any laws. It is the reason why no religion is held above another, and it is also the reason why religious activities and not promoted in public places. All laws are debated on their merits or demerits before they are ratified. Separation of church and state is the reason why gays have their freedoms for example and why no matter what you feel about your christian values you can not promote it over that of others. That I'd what has kept christians in check and emasculated them completely.

Dalamama:
Until you show me any scientific law that is based on supernatural theories and beliefs and not based on naturalism , I will continue to tell that you have none idea of what you are saying. The supernatural laws that guides science can be found in which scientific journal.

Dalamama:
Ogbeni, the west has rejected your christian values and have embraced secularism and it's tenets. They have accepted gay union, cry all you want but they have thrown away your ridiculous morality. Go and fight with yourself.




Stop telling lies, which is capitalism promoted inside the bible? Show me.

Dalamama:
Shut up and stop telling lies. Jesus advocated a very stupid for of pacifism that NO christian in the world will ever enrage or practice because even they themselves know that it is idiotic.

Where in the bible is the right to bear arms promoted? We know if the wild gun culture in the west, where is such promoted inside the bible? The don't forgive people that break the laws in the west, they send them to prison and in the US some are executed. No western country abides by the turn the other cheek nonsense pacifism that Jesus thought. Any country that attacks the west will be crushed brutally, they will never turn the other cheek and they do NOT teach their citizens that nonsense. They teach them to bear arms and defend themselves vigorously.

gabe:
Please check Wikipedia for a 'list of scientific bodies explicitly rejecting intelligent design' for what the scientific community thinks about ID. Take your example. The human eye. Darwin postulated that an incomplete eye designed over time by natural selection confers an evolutionary advantage to its user and such examples should abound in nature. If eyes were perfectly, irreducibly designed, we expect to see only perfectly designed eyes in all organisms with eyes. Darwin was proved right by the presence of primitive eyes and light sensing organs in some organisms. The evolutionary history of the eye has also been traced using comparative genetics.

gabe:
lol. So it wasn't possible for him to change his mind and postulate a theory verified by modern science? Scientists change their minds when faced with superior evidence, unlike some people I know�

winner01:
Similarly, atheist philosopher Michael Ruse believes that “it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard Dawkins claims… ”

Butterflyleo:
You stopped short of saying "most of what he stated are true"

When you say "some of what he stated are not true" then that means most of what he said is true.

I bet it was shame that made you leave that obvious part out.

I am surprised you did not present your usual lenghty rebuttal as you always do. Could it be because it was an atheist who stood here for Christianity?

MuttleyLaff:
Two years ago, on Facebook, when queried that, isnt he an atheist,
Mark Zuckerberg's response was:
"No.
I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things,
but now I believe religion is very important"

budaatum:
What op is actually extolling applies to all religions actually. Their purpose is after all to promote social cohesion. Pity he is only aware of the religion around him that he has experience of.

winner01:
I'd like you to open a thread highlighting the contributions of any religion of choice to western development, like I did here. Many people will learn from it too.

budaatum:
Where does one start? With the immense contributions of paganism, those of Islam, or those of atheists or Christians? Unless one wishes to raise one ideology above others, one would understand that they are all human influences in the end.

But I will consider.

AnonyNymous:
I'm non religious but not an atheist, and I wholly agree with some aspects of what he was saying, for example the new testament has some very good lessons on morality, though I find some of the levels of pacifism to be too extreme to function in modern society (turn the other cheek when slapped). Since the new testament is where Christians base their faith on, it's fine. I realized this later on and some of my moral guidelines do come from the new testament as with other religious books.

But saying that forming moral guidelines needs to come from religion is something I disagree with, because even modern Christians also leave out some portions of the bible when choosing what their moral guidelines need to be, its this common sense that makes them know that murder is not an appropriate punishment for rude children as we see in the bible. I think moral guidelines can come from anything that the two parties involved consent too, and which doesn't affect any other human being negatively. If we look at the ten commandments, all of them fit in with this rule. Historically humans have had one form of push for human rights, law, and order or the other even before Christianity. Though some laws in the past were primitive but they've evolved over time.

On the other hand, the old testament has so many negative lessons and horrid atrocities committed in the name of the god they believe in- leaving you wondering if it really is the same deity that was being worshipped in both parts of the bible.

Still on morality, he mentioned that the vast majority of people would be lost without religion, and I agree with that. Religion teaches community, relationships, etc and so it helps people understand why they should want to do things that wouldn't harm their fellow man. Without religion, a guy working a job with long days and long nights with no time to even talk to anyone might lose sight of the reason why he needs to live in a way that's beneficial or at the very least, tolerable by his fellow man. I think its less about the 'moral compass' because if we take Muslims as a case study, there's so much supported violence in their religion and yet, a lot of them are peaceful- they've learned the value of community simply by meeting together and congregating regularly and the friendships and loved ones they meet along the way is enough reason to behave properly.

Another part from that message that made sense was where he said Judeo-Christian religion held western civilization together, which is very true. Though its a movie and not 100% historically accurate, from DaVinci's Demons we could see how historically warring Italian city-states all agreed to unite to defend themselves from the onslaught of Muslims from Eastern Europe who were looking to pillage and cause destruction in the name of their prophet.

But a grouse I have with the op is his constant idea of picking out achievements done by Christians and attributing it to Christianity, which is ridiculous. Its no different from the retards in the politics section who look for successful people of their ethnic group and attribute their success to their origin.
Religion doesn't even teach logical reasoning, it teaches faith, and the scientific process has little or nothing to do with faith (little because at times scientists make guesses and hope they're right, but then again these are educated guesses from verifiable data).

Religion also does provide stability to people's lives because at the very least it gives them somewhere to tick when they fill out employment forms, lol . And less strange looks from people. Its also a reason why I'm considering becoming a Quaker because they are legally recognized as Christians but they have so many denominations including the non-theist Quakers who place emphasis on morality and being useful to community, which is a great idea. The last time I was in the United States I attended a Quaker fellowship (the people I stayed with were Quakers) and the 'service' was simply a two hour silence and reflecting on how you've been able to add positive values to people's lives during the week, thinking about the things you've done wrong, etc. Then after service everyone could meet with each other for help, from hard tasks to simple tasks like assistance with fixing bicycles. Everyone also brought food they could afford for the less privileged to have something to eat, and it was then I realized the immense value of community in developing morality. And I realized I needed to do more in terms of being a positive member of society.

That's all I have to say.

pressplay411:
Do you not see? That you're only running away from the obvious truth?
It's like saying a computer doesn't exist but you appreciate it's softwares that help you accomplish your tasks.
Perhaps because your computer disappointed you once or twice.

I pray you receive the Grace to behold God's glory.

AnonyNymous:
Your response shows that you barely understand my post and that's OK. Its not meant for everybody.

pressplay411:
"I'm non religious but not an atheist, and I wholly agree with some aspects of what he was saying, for example the new testament has some very good lessons on morality, though I find some of the levels of pacifism to be too extreme to function in modern society (turn the other cheek when slapped). Since the new testament is where Christians base their faith on, it's fine. I realized this later on and some of my moral guidelines do come from the new testament as with other religious books."

Did you post that? This summarises your personage. You're an eclectic who lives his life from a mishmash of the good aspects of different religions and philosophies, Christianity inclusive.
But the truth remains, it's a denial of God while living on some moral conducts and standards. But good as it may, it's foundation is not solid enough if it's not in Christ. And there in lies it's Achilles heel.

My intent is not to attack or impose, but rather to exhort.

winner01:
can you name the christian countries that have ever existed?
Is there any other historically literate human reading this who thinks the dark ages had anything to do with the church?

Just to be sure you deserve my refutation cos this is the stupidest thing I've ever read.

Lol even after efficiently refuting this, you still come up with something this stupid? Ehn dalaman?

Thomas Jefferson simply wrote a letter to the Danbury baptists assuring them of their religious freedom. Freedom from government interference. This is where the word "separation of church and state" was paraphrased from.

Even Jefferson was echoing the language of the founder of the first Baptist church in America, Roger Williams who had written in 1644,

"A hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world."

Can't you think by yourself for once? Must you regurgitate stale lines always?

You must be stupid if you think I'll refute this after my initial point.

I'm sure one or two people learnt from my initial reply. You're on your own if you're this dull.

Peter, a disciple of Jesus, while with Jesus, bore arms. He struck one of the men who came to arrest Jesus, we all see how Jesus responded.

But really dalaman, you really are bitter, unintelligent and willfully dishonest too. You should chill out, this is too much stupidity.

winner01:
No, Seun, dalaman, hopefullandlord, superhumanist, cutemadridsta and other " famous" social media influencers seem to be of the opinion that religion must be outlawed totally if we must seek a better society.

Dalamama:
England. The king of England King Henry VIII used to be supreme head of the Church of England. Again, when the Europe was under the leadership of the church the period was regarded as the dark age.



Separation of church and state is a constitutional duty in most western countrie, it is the reason why Christianity has been separated completely from their state affairs and it is the reason that the church can not impose it's morals on the people in any way. Separation of church and state is the reason why Christians are constantly crying of persecution because they've been denied and refused to have their ways by providing a level playing fieldfor everybody.




Why are you pained? You made no point. Show me one scientific research or procedure that relies on the supernatural. So far all scientific theories and procedures rely solely on naturalism. The supernatural has NO role to play in ALL scientific processes. The scientific method and process is purely naturalistic and relies only on naturalism. The supernatural has NO role in it. So just ship up you liar.




Jesus in his show of stupid pasificm restored the guys ears according to the tale. The west does NOT believe in that kind of nonsense pacifism, the western nations were founded on a very violent culture, they still believe in serving instant justice to wrong doers and greatly encourage their citizens to defend themselves against their enemies and not to follow Jesus's stupid pacifism. A teaching so stupid that even you yourself will never abide by it.



Mirror, mirror on the wall. You just decribed yourself.

GoodMuyis:
bump

Butterflyleo:
You mean the same Darwin that said and I quote

" The whole idea of something so flawless could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”

Even he had no clue.