₦airaland Forum

CeoMYN:
Words can't tell how angry I am right now for haven believed in God , I'm mad at myself for believing a lie for almost two decades till this year.
Right now I want a sane environment! I'm fvcking looking for the slightest chance to tell my parents who Clinton is. I'm a teen and that's going to be hard because they have become more religious recently.
I'm getting mad! No one to share my feelings with! I'm hiding it!
I don't want to die with depression and loneliness! I need a sane place!
To all those evangelists out there TFU!

Welcome to the word of reasonable people. Feel free to friend fellow atheists and send them private messages. Hiding it offline is often needed.

klassykute:
bross I dn tink m b4 oo na court wedding em dey do

Yep.

naijadeyhia:
http://grammarist.com/usage/agnostic-atheist/

I disagree with that source. Don't you think a dictionary would be a better source for finding out what a word means than some random website?

naijadeyhia:
An atheist lacks faith in God, believes there is no god, or lacks awareness of gods. An agnostic either believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a god or is noncommittal on the issue. The difference may seem small, but atheism and agnosticism are actually vastly different worldviews.

This is the true description of Atheism and Agnosticism. So which are you?

From what authoritative source did you get this "true description"? Waiting for your answer...

HardMirror:
It has never been on front page.

Yep. This thread got so many views that I surprised and impressed when I discovered that it had never made the home page.

AnonyNymous:
I feel like there are many agnostic theists as well. A lot of them make their way to churches and just sit down but they don't really believe in what's being preached. They're just scared of being wrong to not believe in god. There are many here on Nairaland as well. I don't believe that there are up to 200+ atheists on here, yet, when a religious topic was moved to the front page, one atheist asked a thought provoking question that got 200+ likes which are most likely from people who voice their approval but want to remain anonymous because they're not entirely sure, and one voice in their head is still telling them that the god of their religion exists and is the correct one.

Yes, but if you ask them, they will tell you that they are sure that God exists (by faith, I guess). I think this claim makes them gnostic theists.

naijadeyhia:
Read seuns comment again for clearer understanding. He said in essence that a true Atheist uses agnosticism to be accepted into the society even though they are not agnostic.

No, that's not what I said.

naijadeyhia:
Seun says Steven Hawkins is agnostic and you are contradicting that.

No, I didn't say that.

AnonyNymous:
Actually, its more like this:

Gnostic Theist: A god exists and I know a god exists!

Agnostic Theist: I believe a god exists but I don't know for sure.

Pure Agnostic: I don't know if a god exists and I believe that whether or not a god exists can't be known for sure.

Agnostic Atheist: I don't believe a god exists, but I can't say for sure that no god exists.

Gnostic Atheist: There is no god and I'm absolutely sure of that!

This is a very neat terminology but I don't think it will ever catch on, because only 2 of those 5 groups are popular in real life.

KingEbukasBlog:
If you are an "agnostic atheist" you are saying that though you don't believe in the existence of God, His existence is unknowable in principle and currently unknown in fact.

You changed an "or" from the definition to an "and", which totally changes the meaning. Why did you do that?

If you want the truth here it is: "agnostic" is what atheists call themselves when they want religious people to like them. For example, let's say I meet a Christian lady tomorrow and I wish to get into her skirts. When she asks me about my beliefs, my best bet is to say "agnostic". The word "atheist" conjures an image of someone that is vehemently opposed to religion in their minds. The word "agnostic" sounds more friendly. You can also call yourself a "pantheist", which allows you to claim to believe in God by asserting that everything around us is God. What a neat trick.

Why is everyone assuming that pastors wives don't have any training? My own answer is that it's morally right, but biblically wrong.

The modern definition of atheism is a lack of belief in any God. If you ask any atheist to define her beliefs, that's what she will tell you. The distinction between atheists and the agnostics is nonexistent in reality because almost all atheists are agnostic. Even Richard Dawkins.

How is this different from paying tithes from your loot after robbing a bank? MMM is an unethical business; I'm proud to say that as an atheist.

She should just drop religion, drop the ministry, and go back to school to study something that is more useful to humanity.

Dongreat:
After studying abroad, I have said to me self that my children and future generations will never study in Nigeria. A 4 years course abroad is 6years here coupled with endless strike, male kids have to sort financially and females have to open yanśh to graduate. Even if money nor dey I go do anything for my kids to study abroad, after all one Kidney and one Scrotum is enough for me

Just send them to a private university. My brother was not yet 20 years old when he graduated first class from Covenant University.

I came late to this thread

mhizesther:
Hello everyone,i joined nairaland in september and ive been observing for a while....im an atheist and i look forward to making new friends....i would love to have christian friends too but pls dont tell me about ur jesus...im not interested in that jesus stuff...im a nice person and i really have a lot of questions for christians....

Welcome! Can you share your reasons for deconverting?

Monogamy:
Whisky cos of cold weather.

Where do you live? What do you think about exercise as an alternative way to heat up?

On average of 2 times weekly..Mostly at night. Stupor is only once in a blue moon. Boredom motivates the drinking. I work from home. I probably give myself an excuse of having a time out and end up drinking

In this case, there's hope. Yay. What happens when you don't have any whisky at home and you feel the urge? Have you tried that before?

So it's an award for musicians within the church.

PDBonline:
Both. He is not just real. He is Father to me. Now, that's different from just saying He is my Father, which is also true. It's a description of my relationship with Him and experience of Him.. which takes you back to the definition of reality and idea.
Since we are from different paradigms, you won't understand what I just said except you are willing to understand. Arguing it doesn't change MY EXPERIENCE.

Tell us what you discussed with your father during your last chat.

It looks to me like you're trying to cover up the secret.

mrking3:
Dude just zip up!!!! I dated my girl friend (now wife) for 4 years without Sex!!! You can do it!! It's really the true test of Love.

It's better for them to have sex. You don't prepare for a lifetime of sex by abstaining from sex.

Ok, enough of the attacks. If you have questions, ask them now. If not, please be quiet.

hoodboy:
In an entire lineage, none of the family could give birth to more than 3 boys, a situation that was based on a covenant my forebears made with their deities, there was no limit to the number of girl child, but none of the families had more than three sons.

Now the point is not about over populating the world with kids, but knowing that you are limited because of some agreement your ancestors had is not something that one should take lightly, the larger implications of that covenant i do not know, but i am sure glad that agreement has been broken.

You sit there on your high horse making insulting assumptions and who told you my brother wasn't eating, mind you he never for once went hungry, he just didn't like canned baby food, and like i said we tried all the various brands and the only one he would eat as a baby was ogi, how does that become him not having appetite for food that needed medical intervention? He was a very healthy baby, chubby and well looked after, and all that "warfare" ended when he was born.

I know some people here like to over rationalise issues and doubt the reality of the spiritual, but that to me is just intelligent ignorance.

Sorry. It was not my intention to upset you. Sometimes I can't help myself. So your evidence for the covenant your forebears made with the deities is that none of the men in the family that you know about had more than 3 sons. So if we found someone in your family who had more than 3 sons before the curse was broken by your dad, you would no longer believe that there was an ancestral curse on your family?

Kidspirit:
Does it feel natural?

It doesn't really matter at this point because you don't know what natural feels like.

You could just use condoms. Since you're both virgins, you won't know what you're missing anyway.

hoodboy:
In my family lineage, no person gave birth to more than three boys, this dates back to my great grand fathers, My grand father had two brothers, and each of them gave birth to only 3 sons, and each of the three sons gave birth to only 3 sons as well (i was among the 3 sons of my dad).

How many sons do you think other people have? If you have 6 children, which is far too much, the expectation is that 3 of them will be boys.

On quick glance, you might not think much of the situation, my dad had 4 children, 3 boys and a girl, quite perfect family size.

It's not perfect. There's only one girl. Could there be an "ancestral curse" limiting the number of girls in your family too? Don't girls matter?

But on a faithful day in church, a guest minister was praying against ancestral curses and asked anyone who felt he had such ties to come out for prayers, at first my dad didn't come out, but when he realised "the 3 son issue" he quickly jumped out, was about the last person to come out (his own account). He prayed for that curse to be broken, and later that year my mum got pregnant, 8 years after she had hung her boots.

What led the father to believe there was a curse limiting the number of boys in the family. I mean 3 boys every generation is a lot. It's as ridiculous as if Dangote thought he had an ancestral curse preventing the men in his family from being worth more than 20 billion dollars.

The warfare that surrounded that pregnancy wasn't funny, things became very tight financially so hard that when my mum was due for delivery, we weren't even able to buy any of the required things.

That's what happens when you have too many children. It's what happens when you want to have 4 boys even though you can barely take care of the 3 boys and a girl that you already have. It's what happens when families make bad financial decisions. Nothing spiritual about it.

Just as if he knew he came during trying times, the boy would never ever cried for food for one day, secondly he didn't ever eat up to one bowl of cereal or any of the baby foods, we tried everything but he just couldn't eat it, the only thing that would go in and stay in was 'Ogi baba' and that is what he was weaned on.

What did the doctor say when you took him to the hospital to complain about his lack of appetite? Oh wait, of course you didn't.

Ancestral curses, agreement, bondage are real.

How can you not be satisfied with 3 boys? That's not a curse, it's a blessing that many married couples would pay anything for.

accountbalance:
Goodluck to you on re-orientation of these gullible people's mindset. This is actually where most of the problem we have in Nigeria stems from. Everyday I see people living their lives based on archaic superstitions and believes.

For instance, my educated aunt almost lost her life while giving birth in a church because she thought some evil spirit in the family were after her unborn child so she refused to go for antenatal. Of course, the poor foetus died due to unhealthy delivery.

Sory about this. I'm glad that your aunt survived, and I expect that she's wiser now. This is why we hate superstitious beliefs so much.

I really love the way you are trying to open people's mind to critical thinking but I just don't know if it's possible to correct so many people's thought. People's mind have been really messed up in this part of the world, no thanks to our pastors and prophets.

Tnx. It's difficult to correct many people, but I think we will prevail if we all come out of the closet and fight the battle one person at a time.

bebe2:
u lucky ur aunt survived. same thing happened to my brother in laws wife.

she had a lot of complication with her first child, had her premature, the husband who lived in germany sent down loads of money to make sure both mother and child survived, which they did.

then she got pregnant again , and decided to go to JESUS WOMEN CHURCH for spiritual care because she didn't want the evil spirit to make her have caesarean again, her feet were swollen but she didnt go to hospital she was using anointing oil on it.

long story cut short, one morning she woke up, blacked out, she was rushed to different hospital no one cud help, until they got to st philomena, by then the child was already dead, she herself never recovered, she died few days later.

lesson learnt. person also need apply common sense in alot of situations.

That's very sad. Sorry about this. I hope people are reading this and learning from it. Faith healing teachings are a public health hazard.

SirWere:
This thread will wobble back and forth; each side holding these facts in light of his personal conviction..

No, I think we've answered the OP's question very well. He wasn't prepared for the good answers that we gave him. He's still processing them.

mathew247:
I will never wish this case on my worst enemy. I remember vividly what etuketu did to my father.

What's Etuketu in English?

after getting well at the hospital, the disease came back within days he left the hospital,

What were your dad's symptoms? What was the doctor's diagnosis? What was the treatment that they gave your dad, and for how long?

we went back to dat hospital and they said we can't be admitted again they then prescribe a more costly medicine to us,under 2 days, it came back

What was the name of the more costly medication that they described? What was their reason for refusing to admit you again? Did your dad stat taking the more costly medication immediately. For how long? How long after he started did he start to feel better before he relapsed?

we diverted to yoruba medicine,it will cool but after some hours it will start again

What Yoruba medicine specifically? Did your dad's symptoms disappear whenever he took the medicine? Did you divert to it due to cost?

then someone directed us to a pastor that said its ancestral curse...the pastor gave us igbo medicine with prayers,fasting and midnight prayers... I swear since we started that prayer owls started crying every night on our roof. My father didnt die and he was healed permanently.

If your dad's problems were caused by an ancestral curse, why was the new igbo medicine needed? What was it made of? How long after you started praying did your dad's symptoms disappear again? What do you think the owls were trying to achieve by crying on your roof?

if I tell you what ancestral curse did to my family u wont believe.

Please tell us!

Someone here said ''they can make brilliant children not finish school'' there's truth in that and many more cases.

Brilliant students not finishing school is not unheard of. It happens. The fact that it rarely happens doesn't mean it must be supernatural.

If u need a pastor that can free ur family from ancestral curses. Check the number on my profile to contact me so I can link you to him, he stays in onitsha,anambra state.

How can we trust your story above knowing that you're trying to promote a pastor who deals in "ancestral curses". Perhaps you made it up?