₦airaland Forum

MrPresident1:
All the doctrines in the world from Christianity to Islam to Buddhism to atheism to satanism are all owned by God, and He chooses for each man according to His purpose for that person.

You who deny and say there is no God, the doctrine you have been given is for a purpose. You consider the vast expanse of a still expanding universe, and then ruminate on the mathematical precision and exactitude the universe, then in your most rational sense declare that it is all random? Pray tell, what would happen if your brains begin to give random uncoordinated instructions to your heart, and your liver, and your intestines, what would happen to you? Yet your system works precisely and exactly, yet you declare in your most rational senses that creation is random, that you are only a part of its randomness, no wonder the Bible, no me, declares you a FOOL.

Atheism is as fake to a black man as generosity is second nature to an hyena.

Atheism is mental discombubolation, mental death, and mental colonialism.

Atheism is greed for the profane goods of ESAU.

Atheism is unbridled GREED

Errrr, if they are all owned by God, what makes one right thus invalidating all the others? If he "chooses for each man according to his purpose for that person", how come you're going further down to ridicule what you called God's choice at the beginning of your post?

Lady Gaga - Diamond Hearts
Rihanna - Higher
Twenty One Pilots - Heathens
Beyonce - Freedom

Okay, all I can see is one bridge and the area around it. Or is the name of the bridge Awka?

RealityShot:
When you import goods from. China or even another state in Nigeria..
Is there not always a possibility of loosing all the goods and so your money?

Why are people going into importing?

Stop using that "you might loose all your money" phrase
Just makes you look like a desk jockey who knows nothing about
How the business runs

That's the thing - people are cognizant of the risks of all these businesses. There's a reason importers go to their churches or mosues or shrines to pray for the safe arrival of their goods from wherever they are being imported. The MMM guys (well maybe not the originators but the guiders and others that convinced people to join) sold people a promise that lots of people bought into wholesale and what I'm saying is that it's as risky as anything else. There's no assurance. Ask yourself why lots of Nigerians have not invested the kind of money they put into MMM in other businesses with less returns. It's because they feel like MMM is a sure bet - that they can't lose and that right there is the problem

Damfostopper:
is it your MMM.... is it ur money... but wetin

My post was more about addressing a mentality than addressing the soundness of the MMM system. No need to get so defensive

ugovy:
A lot of people are operating at the level of their income... Even as bad as our economy js, a lot of people are thriving legitimately.
If you are unemployed and poor today, its because you want to be. You think you don't want to be but don't be deceived. Now will you do something for yourselves or will you keep waiting for the economy to improve and favour you?

e-Cooperative is something that puts at least twice ad much money in your pocket as you spend on it. This is something every body should get excited about.... It is one of the solution to the financial situation we find ourselves today.
A lot of people are operating at the level of their income... Even in this economy, a lot of people are thriving legitimately.
It's another opportunity to decide to stop leaving your future and happiness in the hands of the government and the economy

Join this e-cooperative team and raise money for your business or projects with as little as N1000.
I am on whatsapp for further details. 08065788981

This one is looking for trouble.

Anyone with a functional brain (And even those without functional brains sef) and/or an internet connection knows that MMM has been one of the hottest topics in Nigeria in recent days – and for good reason. The peer-to-peer donation scheme is probably the next most mentioned thing besides recession in Nigeria this year. Much debate has been made in attack and defence of MMM since it started gaining traction in Nigeria. This is not one of them.

Since the management of what non-participators know as little more than a ponzi scheme decided to freeze accounts till early next year, the internet has been rife with reactions ranging from the hilarious to the truly spectacular. I’ve sat back and watched, as non-participators call participants greedy and those involved call the other party bad belle ne’er do wells. It’s all been good fun and I refrained from actually reacting till I saw someone’s post online in defence of MMM.

I paraphrase – “….even if MMM doesn’t return, so what? It’s the only thing that has put a smile on the faces of lots of Nigerians this. The government has failed us and does not provide us with our basic necessities for survival. MMM is one of the best things to happen to Nigerians this year….?

At that point I just had to stop and think – really? This was penned by a Nigerian with his fully functional faculties? Sure, I shouldn’t be surprised – we Nigerians are legendary for defending the indefensible. But pray tell, since when did MMM become a substitute for the government?

That particular reaction struck me as cowardly, self serving, short sighted and not thought out at all. Cowardly because sure, government has failed on many levels. What do you do when someone fails you – hold the person responsible or run away from the problem? This response shows exactly why we Nigerians are where we are today. Successive governments keep failing us and instead of holding them accountable for their failures, we keep chasing shadows for short term benefits in the name of “survival”. What good is today’s survival if tomorrow’s generations come around to still face the same problem? It is the approach of a coward who does not want to face realities and deal with it. To those whose money is currently frozen in MMM accounts, my heart goes out to you especially if you had made plans for that money for the yuletide celebrations. But if you see MMM as the good president that you’ve never had, better come back to your senses now. MMM may give you a little extra cash to buy food and clothes and spend on some other minor necessities. But MMM won’t provide good roads or clean water or affordable health care or human rights protection or security. The government that is still failing you while you’re chasing MMM should do all that and if you hold your leaders accountable, you won’t need to do MMM in the first place (note that I used the word need. Even if Nigeria’s government was the best in the world, some Nigerians would still do MMM).

That comment was evidently self serving because the writer was only thinking about what he stands to benefit from MMM, failing to look at the larger picture: should MMM fail to return in January, there would probably be more tears than we have recorded in this recession laden year. Besides, should it fail to return, where does all the money go? Who cashes it all out? How different would it then be from our politicians who get into power to enrich themselves off our sweat? Think well.

That comment is evidently short sighted in both directions – past and the future. I’ve not done that much research into the MMM system but it’s evident Nigeria is not the first country it ran in. How did it perform in the previous countries it was operated in and what was it’s eventual result and what was different about the Nigerian version that would have made it more sustainable? The thing is, things may be hard, but nothing beats good old bearing down and making smart investments and multi level marketing schemes are definitely not one of them. Let’s face it, schemes like MMM are like playing sports bet – the only difference being that when you play sports bet you always have it at your mind that there is a very good chance you would lose your money. But schemes like this give you assurances that you’ll make returns no matter what. Trust me, even with the knowledge that loss is a possibility, a sports better still feels pain when they lose money. How much more someone that’s been assured that returns will definitely be made no matter what.

I sincerely hope people can get their money in January, for the sake of the sanity and safety of some people. Above it though, I hope Nigerians learn from this whole saga (though obviously, the writer of that comment has not learnt jack). There is a reason banks don’t offer you 30% returns for your savings in your account – it’s just not sustainable. I’m not saying if MMM returns you shouldn’t participate – by all means do but please, this time, shine your eyes. Keep in mind that it might all crash and you might lose money.

And please, never, ever, ever, ever substitute MMM for your government. MMM came from nowhere and if it goes, you wouldn’t know where it’s gone to. You know your leaders, where they come from and what they do. Hold them responsible for the situation of things in the country and charge them to create a better, more rewarding society, instead of looking for free money that may end up with you losing the little you have.

Merry Christmas in advance.

https://completelytier./2016/12/18/of-all-the-terrible-excuses-in-defence-of-mmm/

C'mon! If you missed the sarcasm in Ali Baba's post then you don't deserve to call yourself a graduate of anything higher than primary school.

muri4mig:
Either you are not in the know about the development as it regard to the saga or you are simply mischievous. The NCC is weighing in on the dispute in the sector where their is price war by the big firms. Just emerging the kind of service provided by glo in terms of speed and connectivity at 21k/MB. Let the price be given, let the quality of the service determine which provider to chose from to allow for fairness. The smiles, spectranet are still coming up, we should not kill them. If we allow them to die, glo and mtn will jack up their prices to maybe 120k/mb

Are you daft? If the new entrants into the telecoms industry didn't do their research before starting out and knowing what they were getting into before starting operations, whose fault is that? Remember, by the time Etisalat came to Nigeria, MTN, Glo and Airtel were already mainstays. Did the NCC ask MTN and the rest to increase call and data rates so Etisalat could survive? No! Yet Etisalat not just survived, they are thriving as one of Nigeria's major telecoms firms. This rationale for increasing data costs is just completely daft and anti-people.

And it's not even as if these so called new entrants are offering cheaper data rates compared to the others. They are more expensive and they actually have their own market sef. You can't ask the average chukwudi, wasiu or abdul on the street to go and buy a 15,000 Smile mifi so this development is to whose benefit?

KingEbukaNaija:
Samson was known for his strength and not wisdom - he acted stupidly of course . Delilah tried three times to inveigle Samson to reveal the secret of his strength. And she failed to three times because Samson deceived her with various stories. Samson was just playing games with her as the Spirit of God had left him because he disobeyed God's law by showing intentions to marry a Philistine woman despite the act being a violation of God’s law on intermarriage with pagans . And of course , he was totally in love with her . Love is blind

Anyway , Samson’s hair was not the source of his strength - his unshaven hair was simply the sign that he was obeying God’s command for him to be a Nazarite. The Spirit of God was the source of Samson's strength not his hair .

Judges 16: 17
And he told her all his heart, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.”

According to the dictionary , a Nazirite is an Israelite who was consecrated to the service of God, under vows to abstain from alcohol, let the hair grow, and avoid defilement by contact with dead bodies (Num. 6). So that means the unshaven hair was the symbol of a Nazarite's relationship with God .

You know, I never really considered the op's viewpoint to the Samson story (and I read Judges wella as a child!) so it's been interesting reading his viewpoint and looking to see if any cogent explanation could balance things out. You tried but questions still remain.

Sure, Samson wasn't renown for wisdom but he definitely knew enough not to straight up tell Delilah - "shave my locks and I'm as good as powerless". He also tried to deceive her thrice so that shows some level of smartness (and I'm sure God wouldn't make a completely daft person a judge just because he endowed the person with extraordinary strength - same as it's unlikely that Kanu would be the president of Nigeria just because he was an extraordinary player - and no, I'm not implying that Kanu is daft in any way!). So no matter how blind his love was, he was clearly smart enough to know that woman could get him killed - and yet he still stuck with her.

Also, the biblical story does seem to imply that his strength returned with the growth of his hair (which the Philistines did seem to have criminally overlooked and probably deserved their deaths for, if not anything else).

Interesting thread. I would like to weigh in here with my own human understanding: which is that I don't understand why God would need a hell as punishment when using heaven as a reward serves exactly the same purpose.

I would illustrate with an example: back in secondary, the food prefect always warned that everyone should show up for meals on time. Whoever didn't would forfeit their meal. Of course, there were always those that would flout the rules so, whenever it was mealtime, the food prefect would lock the door to the dining hall, leaving latecomers outside and asking those who were present to take the portion of those who missed out. There weren't any extra punishments for latecomers; no cutting grass, sweeping, kneeling, getting caned etc. Just the torment of watching others eat your food to their satisfaction while your stomach rumbled with hunger was enough punishment. Suffice to say that of all the methods the food prefect employed to get students to show up for meals on time, this was the most successful.

Applying the logic to God and humans, shouldn't the lack of a reward be enough punishment? I mean, isn't hell a bit of overkill. Sure, this stems from that part of me that doesn't like the prospect of eternal turture but not getting a reward is in itself punishment. Is there any real need to still add the whole eternal torment thing too? I mean, back then, if the prefect punished the latecomers (by caning, grass cutting, toilet washing ), he would still let them in to have their meal. If as flawed as we are we could still come up with this pretty balanced system of justice, why would God need overkill to push his point across?

I agree with the six principles of being a surrendered wife except one; the one of relying on your husband to handle the family's finances. That us pure crap. What if the man is careless with money or terrible at managing resources? Would you just hand him control of the family's finances just so you can be a "surrendered" wife, thereby driving the family into poverty and ruin?


No, no, no. Whoever is more capable at managing finances or resources should manage it. It's in the family's best interests.

I'm sorry but.....


That young man's physique and that of the beheaded guy don't match....like, at all. Even their complexions look different.

The young man is slim while the beheaded body there is thick. Abi he added weight after being beheaded?

Not to talk of the haphazard structure of the article that makes it practically impossible to make sense of what exactly the writer is trying to say.

Something just doesn't add up.

John Charles of Leeds and Juventus was never cautioned or sent off throughout his entire career. And no, he wasn't one unknown, he's regarded as one of the greatest British footballers ever.

It seems nobody read anything Teebillz wrote. Address what he has written and leave his motives to him. Why do you guys like living someone else's life for them?

adeboladmni:
Yabatech admission list is now accessible on Yabatech website, you can go ahead and check/confirm your admission status as seen on JAMB site. Any Aspirants whose name is not on the admitted list names should contact Mr adebola, sch admn Admission help to switch you to another course that suit your score now before is late.

Remind me why this a*shole hasn't been banned again?

ALMUSTAQIM:
'LAUGH IS THE SAME' WHETHER HOME OR ABROAD.

ACCORDING TO OBASANJO (1979) " HE WHO FAILS TO AGREE THAT BREAD & AKARA IS A KIND OF SANDWICH IS A RACIST "

Loool, true this

This thread has fulfilled the basic point of the shoot, IMO. It has provoked a discussion.

Or several arguments.

And a few insults.

But mainly a discussion.

toocoded:
America is actually the Revelation's mystery Babylon and Barack Obama the 10th Antichrist.......so i learnt. Watch out for coup, third world war and Putin's secret war hammer.

Sooooo......there are 10 antichrists and not one? I won't lie, you guys are making Christianity more confusing by the second.

So tonight, I was already getting bored of surfing the web (I mean, there’s only so much Facebook, Twitter, Nairaland and Instagram you can take before you want to shut down your account and move to the Himalayas) so I decided to do something I sometimes do when I’m online and bored and don’t want to go to bed just yet – read online news.

No, not the Nigerian version – Nigerian online news writers are terrible; just like


Nigerian football commentators. They don’t give any details, they’re completely vague and it’s obvious they would rather be doing something else. Instead I read the CNNs, the BBCs, the MSN News. At least that’s where you can find news that’s more than 700 words long and isn’t littered all over with unnamed sources and “allegedly”.

So while surfing MSN news tonight, I came across this pretty interesting headline that lead me to an article about he-who-has-been-named-too-much-it-has-gotten-really-annoying (Donald Trump, who else?). It was a post about Trump’s proposed cabinet members and their net worth and how they are apparently all rich fat cats and what-nots (you can read it yourself here: pretty interesting read for any side of the divide that isn’t “The Indifferent”). But that’s not what caught my attention though. So what did?

Skip on all the way down to the comments section. You’ll find accusations, counter accusations, conspiracy theorists, sore losers, terrible winner, whingers, people trying to tell you how to make $1 billion in two weeks…… Now what does all this remind me particularly of?

Oh yes, a little Nigerian site called Nairaland!

I looked through the comments and, aswerigad, the endless bickering and accusations with a good helping of unfounded statistics got me hooked for hours. I mean, who thought Americans could be so Nigerian? I used to think we were the ones that had this whole useless political online arguments with baseless facts and hoping the election winner fails thing as our personal property. Now I realise we’re learners. Seriously, take a look at the comments section of that article and if it doesn’t remind you about Nairaland post-election (and even Nairaland now), then you need to look again. I mean you’ll even find those guys that feel they can’t type ANYTHING if isn’t all in caps or emboldened any other format that can cause brain injury. Mheeen, finally I think I’ve found something we might actually be able to catch up with Americans on – pointless arguments online. This really could be our thing, people.

Oh, yes, before I forget, there were no FTCs (first to comment), people. We might need to drop that.

https://completelytier./2016/12/02/americans-are-as-crazy-as-nigerians-who-knew/

BATTERS PUNCH REPORTER

Nice string of words! Am I the only one that saw that?

jose556:
How much does it cost to get pro business plan writers

To be honest, I'm not sure. I don't think there's even a fixed price for those. Still I did a bit of Googling and came up with the following links:

https://www.liveplan.com/business-plan-consulting

http://www.business-plans.com/

http://www.businessontop.com.ng/business-plan-proposals-lagos-nigeria/

The first two are foreign while the last one is Nigerian based. Of course, I cannot vouch for any of them so if you would like to use them you would have to be careful.

Also, before you use pro business plan writers, you have to:
1) Be clear about what your business is about and what you want it to achieve.
2) Be able to transmit those ideas to whoever will be writing your plan for you.

You can look up online for draft business plans and use them to come up with a sort of rough sketch of what your eventual business plan will be so it can guide whoever would do the actual work. Don't just give the business plan writer a vague idea of what your business is about and expect him/her to come up with one magical, detailed document. Give projected stats, dates and timelines, essential references and any other thing that would help the person do a good job for you. You're not just helping them do their job; you're helping yourself in the long run.

Good luck!

Seeing the volume of small businesses and start-ups that surface in Nigeria almost on a daily basis, it’s pretty surprising even to the casual observer that there are not a lot of Nigerian small businesses that make the transition into truly successful businesses. Let’s look around us at most of the biggest firms in Nigeria. Most of them are foreign or owned by foreigners. No matter how many Nigerians work in those firms, it doesn’t change the fact that most of the big players in the Nigerian corporate sector are foreign owned.

So what’s the problem? Is it that we don’t own businesses? Is it that Nigerians aren’t interested in starting up and running successful businesses? Or that there just isn’t enough capital for the businesses to flourish. Or is the government stifling the growth of businesses in the country?

Well, notwithstanding the fact that the last two are real concerns, the fact is that there are Nigerians with enough capital, in niches that are favoured by the government and are interested in actually running something bigger than corner shop stores. So how come almost none of them make the break from small business to established conglomerate?

Well one major reason is this: Lack Of A Business Plan. Here’s the thing. Most Nigerian entrepreneurs, startup-owners and business owners tend to run their businesses like small traders. Most of them don’t look at the bigger picture, choosing instead to focus on immediate costs and returns and failing to plan how to take their business to the next level.

Thing is, it’s not enough to say you want to be the next Bill Gates or Aliko Dangote or Mark Zuckerberg (or Nsukabag as I like to think of him now, hehe) and dream of your business becoming the next big thing in the corporate world. That’s just an end point. What will you do to get your business from the start point where it’s all brand new and not yet a success to that point you have in your imagination? That’s what your business plan does for you.

Growing a business into a success is a step-by-step process. Forget all those start-ups that seem to have become overnight successes. Ask the owners how much work it took before they got their business to where it is. It’s a level at a time and your business plan is what details what levels your business wants to attain on the way to becoming a success and what you as the owner and your staff have to do to get the business to achieve each milestone.

A detailed business plan doesn’t just say what. It also says how. It’s like a blueprint for your future successful business. And here’s another benefit of having a business plan: it helps you determine what levels your business has reached and what milestones you’ve reached. One problem a lot of people have is that their business may be making progress but because they don’t have a business plan, they can’t see this progress. So lots of people give up on their business, even though it’s slowly gaining traction. Think of it. If your business plan says “By the end of 2016, we should be making at least 10 sales everyday”, then at the end of the year, you could look at the stats on ground and figure out if you’ve reached that benchmark and, if you have, tells you your business is on it’s way to the next checkpoint or if you’ve not reached it, tells you you need to make changes. But if you don’t have a business plan, at the end of the year, you may look at your 12 sales per day and feel it’s not enough and given up even if it would have been a mark of success if you had had a plan. That’s the thing about business plans – they help you encourage yourself when things go according to plans and help you figure out that you need to do things differently if they don’t.

Which brings me to another point: your business plan is not something set in stone and can’t be changed. The realities of the corporate and entrepreneurial scene change on a daily basis. Your business plan should change to reflect changing realities. If your business plan is no longer feasible for whatever eventualities come up, do change them. Don’t just create on business plan, then pour wet cement on it and forget about it. Keep assessing how social, economic and political realities affect the present and future of your business and modify your plan so your business still stays feasible regardless.

Here’s another thing: you don’t necessarily have to be the only one to come up with a plan for your business. Not everyone comes up with great plans and you shouldn’t be ashamed to admit you don’t know everything. If you can’t come up with a cogent plan for your business by yourself, you might need to engage someone that knows how to. Sometimes, even if you can come up with a good plan, you might not be able to properly weigh the risks and liabilities that might come up. Which is why even if you draft your plan yourself, try to get one or two people, usually people who run/have run successful businesses to take a look at it. They might see something you’ve overlooked and that might might be extremely important down the line

So, Nigerian businessman/entrepreneur, it’s time to get planning. Good luck!

https://completelytier./2016/11/30/nigerian-small-businesses-and-the-no-plan-plan/

tempem:
This is his point, if there is no God, what's the purpose of being on earth?

Lemme play the devil's advocate here.

Actually, most of us find our purpose on earth without putting God into consideration. We are born, we learn, we grow up, we become a part of a system and we leave legacies behind. The fact is that most of us only remember God on worship days, when we are going through difficult periods and close to the end of our lives. Show of hands, how many people wake up each day with the thought; "i'm going to live today for God and do his will". Most of us wake up thinking "hustle and how to get to the next level". Society and civilization have been structured in a way that we figure out our place in it and our intended destination without any express revelation from God. You find out that the most hopeless people are those who have lost hope in their place and future in society as against their hope in God.

ScienceWatch:
IT IS WRITTEN ! “FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD.”
Pastors don’t be alarmed. The reason real pastors can’t and will not accept same sex relations are because Jesus the Messiah brought a final solution to this spiritual problem, which is DELIVERANCE. There are mind-blowing solutions to terminal disease that is beyond medical science.

Now there is substantial evidence that can be scientifically verified that GAYS are not what medical science has previously believed it to be. It can now be proven that it is spirit attacks that make a man incapable of having natural attraction for woman - correctly termed (Spirit of man). A woman won’t have natural attraction for a man - correctly termed (Spirit of woman) As a result, because a woman is possessed by a female spirit, that spirit will only allow affection toward woman and the opposite is also true.

Men and woman with this spiritual problem are coming from around the world to the Holy Scoan Church Nigeria (Synagogue Church of All Nations) for instant deliverance from spirit attacks on their precious lives. See the evidence and live testimonies on Emmanuel TV and youtube.com 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Today most churches are simply glorified motivational centres that offer nice sounding words without the Resurrection Power needed to save a suffering person. The sincere suffering masses never get what Jesus commanded them to have, FREE HEALING, FREE DELIVERANCE and FREE BLESSING.

The time is now, where in every true church, regardless of their religion, will experience mind-blowing evidence of the Father’s LOVE with miracles, signs and wonders as seen in the Scoan Church Nigeria will be freely available to the suffering masses for all that come to the Messiah.

Like really? You need to advertise your church on Nairaland and look for ways to rope every topic to asking people to come to your church? You know Nairaland has adboards, right? I'm sure Seun would give you a discount.

masonkz:
Smh

Look who's here! Thought you had given up in this forum.

LaClicKLaBenDin:
Really? Life is choice, bro. That you're alive today is by choice.

You still didn't answer the question in any case.

Wrong! At least, partially. You may not have commited suicide but your very life was not your choice at all. Leaving God out of it, If your parents were sterile or your mother decided to abort you or your parents chose not to have children, you wouldn't be alive. So it was their choice that you're here at all, not yours. It's your choice that you continue to be here.

Roping it into the gay argument, it was not their choice to be gay. It's their choice to express their homosexuality though.

Emma Powerful....

Really??

7Alexander:
Whenever I see Obiano, I don't know why, but I have this feeling that he is a serious cultist.

Most of our politicians too

Lol, he Does have that Nollywood cultist face. Kind of like the late Ashley Nwosu. Unlike late Nwosu tho, Seems Obiano doesn't smile all that much. He always has this serious demeanor. I think that's one of the reasons you think he's a cultist. If he were like, say, Ambode that smiles a lot, you might not think that.

Weah96:
A father is already a motherfucker. Didn't you know that?

Do you know any of the patients that were healed?

I just logged in to say

Nice one!

abiambo:
Lol, hope "Kodak" gets popular soon
To comment is not by force stop falling ur hand in public

Lol ikr. Someone doesn't know Kodak

DeepSight:
An atheist such as Plaetton (and many other atheists) would readily then agree that God exists - as a mental construct of the human mind.

The mere existence of any abstraction as a thought is not what is being discussed here.

In a way it is part of what is being discussed. Existence in the absolute sense comprises of physical, metaphysical and/or ideological parts. As it stands, all things fall into the categories of being in existence or not in existence including the future and the unknown. Plainly put, in my opinion, God exists (regardless of what side of the religious divide you are on). Existence is a property. Nothing can be existence. Even If you say all existence is contained within God, then you are are using "all existence" as a noun to make it correct, not a verb which would be illogical. Like someone gave an example above, I'll give a different one. Usain Bolt may be the fastest man on earth but you can't say Bolt is speed because speed is intangible. Saying God is existence makes God intangible, meaning he doesn't have any actual attributes.