₦airaland Forum

Smallville10:
Mr Seun u are clearly ignorant of a true relationship with God;

You're right. I'm ignorant of a true relationship with God. So are you. And everybody else. A relationship with an imaginary being can't be true.

may i ask... Do u believe in evil?

I believe in evil. To me, evil is any unnecessary and unjust suffering. Bad people are those who cause others to suffer unnecessarily and unjustly. If by evil you mean Satan, demons, witches, wizards, mermaids, blood sucking spirits, ghosts, etc, I don't believe in such nonsense.

If yes why or how do u come to terms with the existence of evil how does d good balance the evil.

Factors responsible for the existence of evil include lack of empathy, desperation, ignorance, poor communication, tribalism, and carelessness.

Do u believe in grace? I want answers...

It depends. Is she intelligent, inquisitive, creative, rational, honest, and kind?

obiZEAL:
As for me, I love Mumsy die and im not about to break her heart...so I will just remain in the closet till when ever...

This may be the right decision for you, but I don't think it helps your mum. The most depressing truth is better than the most comforting lie.

my siblings and friends are religious and I can't lose them because of a non existing god...

What if your siblings and friends are also secret atheists but they are also afraid of telling you because they think they will lose you if they do?

AvsGot007:
OK...I believe there is God but I don't believe in religions or churches
pls what do you guys call that
I'm sure I ain't agnostic!

You're a Deist. What are your reasons for believing there is a God? Does this belief come from the religion you rejected?

Wow, the rates are ridiculous. Unbelievable. But how can we be sure they won't default? They have done a lot of unthinkable things...

I don't know what's going on. Can each person with this complaint send a message to the mods stating their network, device, browser, and the exact issues they face?

yazach:
If you had reduced nairaland links page to crime, religion and politics, nairaland would have done much better. The burden of having to check many sections/pages of nairaland is just too much

You are not required to check the sections. If we made it compulsory to check every section daily, that would have been too much, of course.

OliviaPope:
In the course of my research, I ran into an old friend, a Muslim, we exchanged numbers and got talking... He knew about my stance on religion so he brought it up.. Usually I would change the topic but i just thought " well fvck it"..

It's not advisable to convert to Islam for romantic reasons. The prescribed punishment for changing your mind after accepting Islam is death.

He started teaching me about Islam

There is a sharp difference between the Islam that muslims present to prospective converts and the Islam that is actually practiced in reality.

As a Christian, I had to go on blind faith, but in Islam, there's room for logic. Islam welcomes doubts and questions that I could never ask as a Christian....

I have 3 things to say about that:
1) "O ye who believe! Ask not questions about things which if made plain to you, may cause you trouble. Some people before you did ask such questions, and on that account lost their faith." (Surah 5:101-102).
2) "The Holy Prophet himself forbade people to ask questions ...so do not try to probe into such things." (The Meaning of the Qur'an, Maududi, vol. III, pgs. 76-77)
3) "The prophet was asked about things which he did not like, and when the questioner insisted, the Prophet got angry. (vol. 1, no. 92) The Prophet got angry and his cheeks or his face became red. (vol. 1, no. 91) "Allah has hated you...[for] asking too many questions." (vol. 2, no. 555; and vol. 3, no. 591, Bukhari's Hadith commenting on Prophet Muhammad's reaction to hostile questioners.)
Source: http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-questions.htm (the rest of the page is interesting. it provides a different point of view)

The Quranic description of a creator was much more different and the appeal to rationality and reason...So, after a long spiritual journey and a lot of learning, of course, I accepted Islam...

You appear to be a person who values reason, yet you are unwilling to accept what your brain is telling you about the existence of God.

18 Nigerians dead. This is really awful.

His major problem is depression. All the other things are just symptoms. His life is not as bad as he feels. If it was that bad he would be single.

kowalsky:
He said he doesn't haf money. Did you read the post

All right I'll give him money. Happy? I guess that will solve all his problems. But it won't. Depression is a disease that ruins a person's life.

--

joseph1832:
Isn't it obvious he owns the businesses mentioned? If not, why should he pump church funds into a business he doesn't own or profit from?

We are dealing with claims made without evidence, so we cannot assume that anything is true. We have to ask probing questions.

Empiree:
Besides, 5 daily prayer may also be performed on the go, in sitting, on the plane, train, car. You can even pray by moving your head and eyes if you are in unconducive environment.

Interesting. Can you provide the scriptural backing for this view? It seems other muslims I've spoken to aren't aware of this.

talkingtruth:
What if it remains 50 times as Allah originally intended?

Then this section wouldn't even exist.

MuttleyLaff:
Predominantly because it is a cash cow

Cash cows generally generate lots of money, so pumping money into them wouldn't be warranted.

I will try to understand your points and respond to them later. I appreciate the time you've spent thinking about these issues and writing this.

The separation of religion from politics is important. Many great countries hold that principle very steadfastly. That's probably no coincidence.

Does Pastor Chris own any part of the business? If not, why does he pump money into it. Please educate us. This stuff is very interesting.

[s]Atheists are people who don't believe in any god. Usually it's as a result of the lack of any good evidence for the existence of any god. Only a small minority of atheists would say that they are 100% sure that there is no god. Your thread is founded on a misunderstanding of atheism.[/s]
(Just repeating what others have already said. )

joseph1832:
Aren't you a programmer? I find it hard to believe that a creator don't even understand the thing he created.

Of course I understand the thing I created 11 years ago, but I don't understand what the networks are doing to it. If I understood it then in all likelihood the problem would have been solved. I would urge you to refrain from commenting on this thread if you have nothing helpful to say.

The problem isn't nairaland but the networks. I will offer a bounty to anyone who can figure out what's causing all these weird issues.

On my browser when I can't open the home page, I hit Ctrl+Shift+R and it works, but when i return to the page again, I see the same error.

It makes no sense at all.

Efewestern:
Seun The rate at which MMM member use this platform to promote there scheme Is alarming,.. Nairaland is home to most Nigerians.. Please try making policy to checkmate These scammers.

dominique .. pls respond to this. this is your entire job.

The ISPs are using weird proxies and I don't know how they work. Maybe I should offer a bounty to anyone who can figure out what's going on.

Beckyblanca:
Fornication and debauchery thrive in the church today. some pastors even claim it is necessary to TEST before marriage. why is it not frowned upon if they are truly representing Christ? hedonism is a norm and no one cares about what the Bible says about it. men come to the church to select girls for their hedonistic orgies and girls do the same. when will the church authority ever rise up and cleanse the church off this filthiness?

Which church are you talking about? Hope they also teach proper contraceptive and condom use? If so, then I support their doctrines 100%.

Perhaps:
1. In the early morning.

2. Afternoon.

3. In the evening.

4. When night falls in.

5. Deep at night.

At least 2 - 3 of those prayers fall within working hours. And muslim prayers are so elaborate; they require special rooms with prayer mats and kettles of water for cleaning. That means employed muslims must be given permission to leave their offices 2 - 3 times daily just to pray.

Try it again. I changed something this afternoon that may have helped...

If they had reduced it to 1 or 2 daily prayers, Islam would have done much better. The burden of having to pray 5 times a day is just too much.

Empiree:
"Sheik" Oluwa Seun. You be Alfa now?. Ohh you now believe in soul?. Thought you dont believe in all that

Soul searching means "deep and anxious consideration of one's emotions and motives or of the correctness of a course of action." Source

Anyways, you wrote sensibly though

Thanks!

And you advised him to REPENT?. That's strange of you though. Repent to who?

obowunmi:
I don't know. Repent to who?

If you must repent to someone, it should be the person who was harmed by your behaviour, of course. Repentance exists outside religion.

adjoviomole:
Scientists evolved the wild silver fox into a dog, is that evolution or the fox was tamed?

I think using the term evolution isn't helping us. Evolution in the wild is a product of two things: spontaneous mutations and natural selection. Domestication is an accelerated form of evolution that is conducted by human beings. It consists of spontaneous mutation and artificial selection. Domestication is different from tameness. Domestication requires a change in the character of the animal. It becomes naturally friendly with human beings, and far less aggressive. If you take a wild carnivore at a young age and raise it, it will be tame, but not domesticated. You'll still have to be very careful around the animal. All it would take for the animal to kill you is one mistake. You cannot compare a tame wolf with a dog, or a tame zebra with a horse. You can't keep tamed boars in pens like pigs. They behave very differently.

Spontaneous Mutation
What are spontaneous mutations? The process of reproduction is very complex, and sometimes error do occur, which leads to genetic abnormalities in the offspring. A child might be born with 12 toes. A cat might be born without any fur. A wolf pup might be unusually friendly with human beings. More often than not, these mutations are bad. Things like Sickle Cell Anemia. Albinism. But sometimes they are good.

Natural Selection
Most animals produce more offspring than can possibly survive. An animal might give birth to dozens of offspring during its life whereas on the long run, the environment can only sustain two offspring to replace each pair of parents. Thus the offspring are thrown into a tremendously competitive environment that only a few of them can survive. In this harsh and intense environment, if an animal is born with a spontaneous mutation that enables any animal possessing it to survive better, this mutation will spread through the population rapidly. Thus, it evolves. For example, the cheetah is fast because historically, fast cheetahs have survived better than slow cheetahs. Over time they all became fast.

Artificial Selection
Artificial selection is simply when humans interfere in the process and pick which animals get to survive based on traits they value. It allows for much faster evolution. To domesticate the silver fox, the scientists started with normal foxes, bred them with each other and selected the friendliest puppies while the ones that were not friendly were killed. Note that they were not tamed at all. They were raised in cages and not socialised at all. So the increase in friendliness could only have come from spontaneous mutations. As new mutations arose that made the foxes even more friendly, foxes that didn't have those mutations couldn't "survive" while those that did "survived" and had many offspring.

Charles Darwin made a lot of references to domestication because after seeing artificial selection working, it's easy to accept natural selection.

obowunmi:
She appeared to me in a dream and threatened to kill me. It is not her first time.

Dreams are not real. When you wake up, you should just forget about them. To call someone a witch on the basis of a dream is very wrong.

I was close to several Pastors for prayers but they keep asking me for money. So I stopped calling them.

They keep asking for money because they know "a fool and his money are easily parted". The fear of dreams is a sign of foolishness (sorry!)

She won't stop threatening my life.

Dreams are not real. What happened in your dream is a result of your hatred for the poor woman. Search your soul and repent of your hatred.

This is a woman who never married or bore children. She has given her womb to the witches society.

The following women never married or bore children: Oprah Winfrey, Paris Hilton, Bimbo Akintola, Rita Dominic. Are they witches too? It is very wrong of you to try to compound the problems of a woman dealing with the stigma of spinsterhood by calling her a witch.

adjoviomole:
We have been hearing tales of how species evolved by the wise men. How long does it take for a specie to evolve?

It depends. Through intensive artificial selection, scientists evolved the wild silver fox into a domestic animal that behaves like a dog within 50 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Domesticated_Red_Fox. It normally takes much longer.

Are we still going to evolve as humans? to what? And when? Or are we humans the peak of evolution?

Due to advances in healthcare and social welfare most humans are no longer subject to natural selection. In fact humans that are arguably less fit (less intelligent, less rational) are more likely to reproduce. This has led some people to worry that we are evolving in the wrong direction: more stupid and less healthy. Evolution isn't something that happens at one moment, it's an ongoing process. Mankind, like other animals, is always evolving very very slowly.