₦airaland Forum

arowtop:
Because I have to please my parent . 55% believe in Islam

Since your belief is at 55%, I guess you're not sure your parents are right. Have you thought of learning more about Islam so you can be sure?

I believe that every muslim has unique and personal reasons for believing that Islam is the true religion. Can you share those reasons on this thread, and let's discuss them? This thread is not to insult Islam but to have an enjoyable and educative conversation about why we believe.

247NewsUpdateNG:
Noted.
This might end up as a mistake on my part but if I may, what is the goal of atheism?

Atheism is just a lack of belief in God, so atheists have no common goal. In my case, I just want people to stop believing things that aren't true.

CaptEColeJnr:
[color=#550000]WHY DID GOD KILL THEM?
God made them the scapegoats in order to send a message to the church and to generations of. Christians to come that such grave sin would not be tolerated.

That's really nasty. He could have sent the message without killing anybody.

247NewsUpdateNG:
ADVICE: Never argue with an atheist about the existence of God.
Reason: He/She will get you pissed and might make you curse out, which is the sole aim of atheism and a sin before God.

Hope this was not directed at my last response? I didn't enjoy typing it myself. I forced myself to respond to the stuff I'm usually accused of ignoring, because I thought the thesixthsense wanted me to address each point he raised. Pissing religious people off is certainly not the goal of atheism, I promise.

CaptEColeJnr:
But that happened. In the Old Testament,Lots wife turned into a pillar of. Salt because of the less grace. And enormous sins of mankind. Such a thing can't happen now because JESUS has died,he has shed his blood for ud,now there's abundant Grace and Mercy.

Is that so? What about Ananias and Sapphira? See www.nairaland.com/3265021 for more.

joseph1832:
I believe 'scam' is still against the law, no matter the form.

I agree. I feel that it makes no sense to charge these guys alone, though, since the role they played by itself doesn't constitute a scam. They provided the acting services they were paid for, afterall. The pastors who patronized them should be the main targets of the investigation. These guys should be charged as their accomplices.

I wonder if we actually have any law against this sort of scam.

TheSixthSense:
You never give answers to questions I ask.

Ok, here we go:

TheSixthSense:
First and foremost, Seun how can I change my profile info and picture?

You can change it by uploading another one.

And I said if I had one, I certainly wasn't using it. Denial doesn't disprove anything so I asked God to resurrect my spirit.

Why did you do this? What made you feel you had a spirit and it was dead? What is a spirit, exactly, and what can it be used for?

! believe some people are already on the path to getting their personal Jesus experience using these guidelines, as for you, you are simply afraid of what is going to happen if you encounter Jesus. But believe me just once, It is the best experience you can ever get.

I believe your personal Jesus experience technique can work. When I went to OAU, I was a skeptical Christian, I but turned myself into religious fundamentalist in the same way. I asked God to make me more spiritual, and it worked! Then my life crashed and I became an atheist. Heh.

You seem bothered by the definition of atheism. Maybe you should take up a mission to properly define atheism. Vulnerable, insecure or whatever adjectives you may find appropriate. I was still an atheist.

I never said you were not an atheist, so I'm not sure about why you keep bringing it up. Some atheists believe in silly things like astrology.

Call it whatever you want. I bet you would be more afraid than I could ever be as an atheist more so now as a christian that I am secure. Go read the book yourself. Before you talk about fear. It's not expensive to get one. I got mine on Kindle.

Why would I be afraid of things that don't exist, and lies that can be disproved? Here's what a group of atheists wrote after investigating it.

You guys quickly discredit people's experiences only when it is about God, I know why.
But I know you won't do the same for a little girl who would be crying while talking about a horrible rape ordeal.

We're more sympathetic to rape victims because we know that rape is a thing that actually happens in real life, and it can be verified.

Many people can tell who is sincere or not by looking at them.

Then how come fake miracle pastors and other types of scammers are so successful?

Guilt for harmless 'sin' which sin is harmless?

Premarital safe sex. Mental undressing and other sexy thoughts. Self-pleasuring. Lesbianism. Women teaching and having authority over men. Lying to save your life. A girl who got pregnant after being raped aborting the foetus at an early stage. Criticizing the bible's God character.

Depression? Jesus set me free and He will do that for anyone that accepts Him.

Don't make promises you cannot keep. Religion is largely ineffective as a treatment for psychiatric ailments like depression.

I bet you wouldn't go to a war infested zone to do business, but christians that have experienced God would go do the work of God.

Secular organizations like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders do send people to war zones. Not to preach, but to provide real help.

Atheists have peace but it is always fixed on the passing things of the world. Money, mansion, political or social positions, nairaland, family but what happens when they become outdated or gone? You look for peace elsewhere and if you don't find? Crisis. But our peace as believers is based on Christ the rock of our salvation. For Joy and love, the same applies.

Our emotions should reflect the realities around us. Being human mean experiencing a full range of emotions, both positive and negative. A person who experiences peace instead of fear and alertness in a dangerous situation is more likely to get killed. A person who is joyful when someone has died is likely to get slapped in the face, and rightly so. Your peace, love and joy should be based on reality, not self-delusion.

And atheists don't have joy and love, going by the spiteful responses I got here by some of them.

Stop trolling.

Again, you affirm the after-life by your admission. All these you will be reminded.

That's like saying that Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsay Bolton in Game of Thrones are real because people talk about them as if they're real.

With this peace, joy and love, life of victory by the Holy Spirit and dominion? Please! what do the [Islam and other religions] have to offer for me to give these up for?

Have you written a letter to ask Allah to reveal himself to you? It may be that He offers all of these things and maybe more. Ask any muslim!

But if you experience Jesus Christ, you would realise the joy in doing the perfect will of God for your life

What is God's perfect will for your life and how did God communicate it to you?

Good luck using your intelligence for your problems. Mine didn't work for me maybe I am less intelligent than some of you atheists but I know what you don't know and I have tried my best to tell you guys to learn and seek to experience what you doubt.

You don't have to rely on your personal intelligence alone. By making use of science, etc, we can benefit from the intelligence of other people

faceland:
Don't try it, they would make sure you fail and blame your lack of faith. If you have sense, you would keep your unbelief to yourself.

It's a trade-off. On one hand, being outspoken can lead to victimization, but on the other hand, it can make you feel much better and happier.

TheSixthSense:
Tell me about it. Now you want to deny my experience using your logic. smh Why should I use drugs when I got healed for free? would you take drugs to manage the condition instead of getting cured? And tell me the anti-depressant that cures depression? You guys try so hard to deny to deity of Jesus Christ. I have shared my testimony. What's your story?

I'm suspicious of your claim of feeling better, since it might just be a positive confession based on faith rather than reality. Religion doesn't cure serious depression. I have personally read many stories of people who left the faith because they had depression for a long time and their faith didn't cure them. If your depression isn't so serious, the euphoric experiences of conversion might help (its similar to the feeling of getting your first girlfriend) but it wears off over time. Religion, as a treatment for depression, is not free as you said it is. It is more expensive than psychiatric medication since it demands lots of your time, at least 10% of your income, and the imprisonment of your brain.

Codedrock:
Sounds shallow.

Ironically, this is a very shallow critique.

Mosquitoes have advantages too.

Name them.

Malaria&others =if there ain't sicknesses we won't have doctors.

If God exists, he must know that sentencing millions of people to death every year and incapacitating many more just to create more work for a smaller group of people is immoral and illogical. Even as a mere human, I can think of many ways to create jobs without killing anybody.

Predators that live to kill barely kills in this age, everything Is under control not to mention we've been killing them since the beginning.

Lots of people have been killed and maimed by animals historically and it still happens, but that's not the point. The point is that deliberately designing animals that must cause great pain and death to other animals in order to survive is cruel and unnecessary.

The point is, people say the universe around us is so beautiful and thus it must have been designed, but if you look more closely it is not that beautiful. There are lots of nasty things in existence which any designer worthy of our admiration would have left out.

DonaTee:
But all d beautiful things I see on earth couldn't have happened by chance.

What about ugly thing like mosquitoes, malaria, HIV, Ebola and flies that lay their eggs in your eyeballs? What about predators that live to kill? What about African wild dogs that eat their prey alive, subjecting them to long periods of agony before they die? Did God design them too?

TheSixthSense:
Also to fight depression, I would use alcohol, but being moody and down was never far away. One unsuccessful application email away. Sometimes, I would use zen meditation to relax. So there wasn’t much to cheer about in my life.

Depression is a medical condition. It makes everything in your life look bleak. I hope your new found faith which you think is giving you joy doesn't stop you from getting the right treatment for your depression. There are drugs that will make you feel alright. Depression isn't spiritual.

TheSixthSense:
Anyway, having read and seen all that, I realised I had no spirit in me and may have been living in denial all along, without even knowing.

And you were just fine.

And oh how vulnerable I was to the whims of the wicked.

The only wickedness you need to worry about is the wickedness of human beings. There's enough of that to keep us busy. No need for myths.

It became obvious that living in denial does not disprove anything but rather keeps one uninformed - but I love being informed- and unprepared if/when one encounters the phenomenon being denied and in the case of these demonic spirits, vulnerable.

You did not encounter this "phenomenon" during your time as a "vulnerable" atheist, so why do you believe that it's worth worrying about?

Now, I have read quite a number of books in my life, but for some reason I kept having a strong gut feeling, for the first time in decades, that it wasn’t a coincidence that I was reading the book at the time.

By gut feeling, I guess you mean an irrational fear of imaginary spirits stoked by your reading of nonsensical stories from a questionable book.

But for some reason Psalm 51 crossed my mind. And behold what I saw:

Psalm 51 crossed your mind because you had read it before and kinda knew what was there. You presented it as if it came from nowhere.

Then, I went on youtube and saw a video about a man, John Ramires I think, who was so deep in the occult that later got saved by Jesus Christ. You know youtube, so I watched a series of dead-people-coming-back-to-life videos, but one striking one was that of Ian McCormack (a former atheist who repented at the point of death) died went to heaven, saw the glory of Jesus, and returned to life in the morgue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I11L71PD3Lw
Really? You believed this obvious nonsense as an atheist? Most Christians I know wouldn't believe this crap. Read the youtube comments.

Prior to this, I never knew a lot of people had died and returned (NDEs, you may call it) from many countries. If you doubt someone’s experience in Australia maybe you should try Nigeria.

If they were all telling the truth, their stories would be the same. There'd be no contradictions between them. Is this the case? The basis for this NDE nonsense is that God allowed people to experience the afterlife before they fully died. Didn't God know that they would be revived?

Atheists, muslims, pagans all tell of Jesus, hell and heaven. They are not all crazy I would believe.

I doubt this claim. I'd like to know where you got it from. It's a pity that the foundation of your new-found faith is so flimsy.

Note, I am not endorsing my church, saying that it is better than any other, maybe God led me there because of how suitable it would be for my spiritual growth. But I am only saying Jesus is calling those who want an experience with Him. I follow Jesus not my pastor - he also follows jesus - or my church, but my pastor and church provide encouragement, even by seeing the way they live for Jesus, and there I hear the word of God.

You're clearly endorsing your church. Christians should learn to be honest.

What do I have to lose if I die and find that there is no God?

You would have wasted your life (time) and your money, and helped other people to waste their lives and money. You'd have sacrificed many things that would have made your life better. You'd have subjected yourself to years of continuous brainwashing by pastors who are just ordinary human beings like you, paid for by your tithes and generous offerings. You'd have experienced years of guilt for harmless "sins", while doing harmful things like discriminating against minorities because a book or your pastor said that God doesn't like them. You wouldn't lose anything extra if you died. In fact, you'd never find out that there's no God, but you'd already have lost so much during your life.

Ridiculous, but let’s assume atheists are right for a second. I certainly wouldn't miss out on anything if I don’t worship idols, get oppressed or tormented by demons, get a divorce, live in bondage by anything under heaven, live in depression, live in fear, feel alone, look for love in people (Jesus is love, we have so much to share), live without peace or joy or love, live without bitterness, hate, anger

Do you really think that atheists worship idols? That they get tormented by your imaginary demons? Do you really think that Christians don't experience depression? That Christians don't experience fear but atheists do? Do you think Christians don't feel alone, particularly when their imaginary daddy fails to answer their prayers when they need it most? That Christians don't need the love of people? That Atheists don't have peace, joy and love? That Christians have no bitterness, hate and anger? You need to wake up to the real world urgently, bro.

But what do you(non-believer) have to lose if I am right about God?

We get to find out why God didn't provide any good evidence for his existence. Why he planted the fossils and only gave his power to liars.

There's a 3rd option you didn't mention. What if we are both wrong and Islam or some other religion is right? You're still "at risk!"

Experience supersedes logic or argument any day. So, just before you dissect and critique my testimony. You may want to first ask yourself why you may be always so quick to rebut someone else’s experience before you ask the question.

This is clearly false, at best. People experience dreams, false memories, and hallucinations. They often see patterns where there are none. Most people understand that it is incredibly unwise to believe experiences that don't make sense. Religion is the only exception, and it shouldn't be.

Another thing, I have been an atheist, and to be honest, there’s nothing to it other than you look intelligent to other dissidents, but it is hollow, something missing, there is a void, you may not know now until you switch to the Lord’s side.

You may feel this way only if you haven't chosen a meaningful mission for your life. One of the things religion does is that it gives you a false mission for your life, (go ye into the world, etc) which makes you feel important and useful, but doesn't actually help humanity at all.

Also, when you get faced with challenges and storms of life it is your spirit that fights, not your intelligence.

I have experienced problems as a Christian, and as an atheist, and I've found that human intelligence is the best tool for solving problems. Spirituality is completely useless when it comes to solving the problems of life. You should face the facts, use your brain, and lean on friends.

Aww. Happy married life.

ikupakuti:
SEUN! SEUN!! SEUN!!!

Fear GOD!

Fear GOD!!

Fear GOD!!!

Meaning??

I'm not as agile as I used to be. We now know exactly what's happening, but the fix is still cooking.

oodo:
I had this experience which seems like a trance, I notice a shadow figure of a person standing in front of me but when I try I get up to confront that shadow I discovered I just couldn't even sit up after several attempt. While I was struggling to get up that shadow let out a wicked laughter and I discovered I was dealing with a woman. At that point I started calling out the name of Jesus but at first my voice was weak as I could hardly make any audible pronunciation of the name Jesus but when my voice started becoming clearer, the shadow left. I woke up check the time again it was 2:25am. At that point I stood up and prayed and plead the blood of Jesus over my life.

I have had a similar experience. It seemed as if some guy I knew appeared in my room laughing, so I tried to command him to go away in Jesus name. Initially I couldn't speak but after some effort, I said the words and the guy disappeared. But I had been bedridden with malaria for some time when this happened. Malaria used to be a big deal for me because I would lose my appetite and become too weak to get out of bed.

Later, when I became an atheist, I realized that what I experienced was just a hallucination associated with my malaria. It was either caused by the malaria itself or the drug I was taking to fight it, which I don't remember. Check out this story of a guy driven "mad" by a malaria drug.

Thanks for informing me. Next time please send a report to the supermods.

Hello.

cloudgoddess: Thank for writing this.

Apologies. Working on it.

Touchnot01:
Some people want to go about on a killing spree because it makes them happy, who are atheists to tell these ones what to do.

Religion hasn't stopped people like Osama Bin Laden, Shekau, ISIS, etc from going about on killing sprees. It motivates the suicide aspect.

cloudgoddess:
Those are what are called psychopaths/sociopaths and they are an obvious danger to society. Which is why developed, secular countries have mental institutions to keep them from causing harm and even attempt to help them.

Yep. And prisons.

TheSixthSense:
I couldn’t bear all the madness anymore, better to use my time for sleeping than pray to this god that doesn’t help anyone except these preachers. So I quit and became an atheist, but remained informed about my decision.

It seems your decision to become an atheist was driven by the disgust you felt for those obviously fake preachers. It wasn't based on the lack of any good evidence for the existence of God. You were an emotional atheist, not a rational one, and so could be reconverted through emotions.

TheSixthSense:
I also opened up to a lot of mystical beliefs, there had to be a bit of truth in everything other than christianity, Zodiac, psychic reading, law of attraction, New age positive thinking, and zen relaxation.

So even as an atheist, you still believed in all sorts of nonsense for which the evidence is just as poor as the evidence for the existence of God.

Anyway, my road to redemption started after I watched the movie 'The Conjuring’ not that I am a movie person but what sparked my interest was that it was based on a true story.

Due to your lack of a skeptical system of thinking, it didn't occur to you that the "true story" that it was based on could be a lie. The people who told the story are "paranormal investigators" who have every reason to lie about their experiences as those lying pastors you despised.

So I got the book about the protagonists in the movie 'The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Loraine Warren.’

Of course you did.

I found that they keep an occult museum where they display paraphernalia such as photos, recordings, and objects from every case, for exhibition. ‘Some of the objects and amulets stored are so negatively ‘charged’ that just by holding one of the items it is possible to provoke the original spirit to manifest or cause possession to occur instantly’

Obviously, if a person who believes this nonsense holds the items, he will feel something (his own irrational fear manifesting as goosebumps).

‘there is the long black spike a satanic witch used long ago to murder her newborn infant as a sacrifice to the devil'

How did they find out what the spike was used for? Did they find blood on the spike? Did they test the DNA and find it to match the story? If objective authorities thought that this story could be true, would they not have confiscated the spike as evidence and arrested the witch?

also skulls as chalices for drinking blood etc were being kept in the museum.

Whose blood were they drinking and why haven't the blood drinkers been arrested for the murders of the people the blood came from?

Now, I didn’t need to go to the museum to find out if they were true or not, I was just utterly disgusted by even reading about them.

See? Your decisions about the nature of reality are based on your emotional reactions rather than any objective examination of the evidence.

In fact, if you get to that point in the book, you would have gotten a vivid picture of the wickedness and darkness people get involved with.

There is no more evidence for the existence of the supernatural in any 'occult' book then there is in Harry Potter and Game of Thrones.

How people can in the convenience of their bedroom summon/invoke all the evil in the world by simple rituals or simply attract them in ignorance by their actions. So that when you hear a christian say God said ‘The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ you cannot help but agree in your unbelief.

"The mind of man is gullible above all things" is a more appropriate saying. What actual evidence of these "evil powers" do you have?

Initially I didn't believe that it'd be possible to put two legs in one trouser leg, but I tried it some minutes ago and the second leg went in almost half-way. It's not clear that it can happen by accident, though, since it required some effort.

The compassionate atheist in me wonders if death is a just punishment for opposing the dedication of a church. He probably had a wife & kids.

I also find the qualities of the government official to be a bit unrealistic, because the story is set in a "great nation". Can one man be all that?

I'll definitely think about it. Thanks!

I was listening to the June 2016 Holy Ghost service by Pastor Adeboye, whose communication style I really love, when I heard this story:

In one of the great nations of the world, powerful nations of the world; my children sent to me and said "Daddy, we have completed our church building, we want you to please come and dedicate it." I said "okay"; and then we agreed on a date; and they began to advertise.

And then one very Senior Government Official, I don’t want to give his title so you don’t begin to guess, heard about it. For one reason or the other, he got angry. He said, he had read about The Redeemed Christian Church of God that we said we want a church within five minute distance of one another; he said "this church will not stand in my vicinity". He said the church will not be dedicated! He said over his dead body.

So, my children contacted me and said what do we do? Shall we postpone the date while we think of what to do - I mean this man is very powerful; very rich, very influential? I said: "we do nothing". Haa! We are thinking of fasting and praying; some of them were suggesting we take him to court that if the court rules against him…; This man has so much influence, he would silence the Judge. So, "what are we going to do?" I said: "nothing". "Do we postpone the day of dedication?" I said, "no; the day stands".

A week before the date of dedication, he was getting ready to go and attend a meeting where they will decide not to ever open our church. He got up in the morning to dress; he put his left leg in the left section of the trouser; and for one reason or the other, he put the right leg also in the same trouser. And while he was struggling to free himself he fell and hit his head against something. By the time he arrived in the hospital bed, the right leg was still with the left leg in the same trouser section.

Somebody say Daddy you killed him I said: "me! no ooo! I didn’t even pray. I did nothing". Stand on your feet; and say: Father, fight my battles for me.

Can we fact check this story? Let's try to figure out the great and powerful nation where it happened, the name of the rich government official in question, who had the power to silence judges, and why he was so opposed to the dedication of the church after he allowed them to build it.