₦airaland Forum

shadeyinka:
Your argument is just like,
NEWS: "A Boeing 747 plane crashed yesterday in India"
ATHEIST: This is a proof that planes cannot fly.

It's more like this:
Believer: My virgin daughter just got pregnant even though she has never had sex in her life! It's a miracle!
Atheist: A girl can have sex without her parents' knowledge, therefore it's more reasonable to assume that your daughter has had sex.

shadeyinka:
How in this case can you proof that tricks are involved

The burden of proof is on those claiming super powers, but in this case we can clearly see that there is a gap in the blindfold that she can see through.

The girl should win a Nobel Laureate in ACTING for her role in this clip. She sounds and looks effortlessly natural. Tell me its not true.

Actually, many children have won Oscar awards for acting, so it should be easy to believe that this sweet little girl is just a good actress and a competent one trick magician.

Another way to achieve this trick is by using a blindfold made of a material that looks opaque to the audience but which you can still see through. Another way is to wear an ear-piece through which an assistant can describe things that you were unable to see using the other methods. If you combine the three techniques intelligently, you can fool almost anybody into thinking that you have a third eye.

According to wikipedia, many people over the years have claimed to have this ability. All of them have been exposed as fraudsters. Source.

shadeyinka:
Let's assume that is true, a gap in the blindfold. By my estimation, the angle of Accomodation of her sight should be less than 5^o. For an eye that is not covered, the effective angle of Accomodation is greater than 130^o. That means that she will only be able to read those papers when they are placed within that narrow range.
With the way that girl effortlessly read the papers, that is not possible.

All she needs to do is turn her head briefly so that she can see the papers through the gap for a split second. By moving her head in a natural way and only glancing very briefly, she creates the illusion of effortlessness which is what really sells the trick to us and makes it seem real.

Crazyfinedude:
Its called explaining away sir . That's what the topic is about . We need reasonable answers not assumptions. Anyone can assume to remain obdurate about his opinion on a particular subject .

It's reasonable to assume that it's a magic trick. Magicians have done more impressive tricks without any supernatural powers whatsoever. David Copperfield made the statue of liberty disappear and it was merely a trick. People who know a little about magic won't be fooled.

Another child with the same so-called power tried to win a million dollars by proving her super power to a magician (James Randi) and she failed after the magician figured out and blocked her trick:

Ashen-faced and weeping, ten-year-old Natalia Lulova sat dejectedly in a Manhattan law office last week while her mother stroked her hair, consoling her. Natalia, who with her family emigrated from Russia three years ago and now lives in Brooklyn, had just failed to win a million dollar prize offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal, supernatural or occult power. It was still another of the seemingly endless setbacks to purveyors of the paranormal.

Natalia's claim, put forth by her lawyer, was that she could both read and discern colors while blindfolded. How? By sheer mental perception. She had willingly submitted to the Million Dollar Challenge, a test proposed by investigator James Randi and agreed to by her lawyer and by her coach, Mark Komissarov, a Russian chemical engineer and expatriate who now specializes in teaching pupils to develop what he considers to be their innate paranormal powers.

Full story: http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,199773,00.html

A Youtube commenter already explained it. He said "Her nose creates a gap in the blindfold. She can see anything that's below her head. Is this a joke?" I blindfolded myself in the same way the girl was blindfolded and indeed, I could see through the gaps on the left and right of my nose.

Rilwon:
All through the OT , God requires offerings for atonement of sins. Elaborate temples have to be built to very specific detail and for every sin that is committed , an animal has to be killed, bled and burnt . Or was God just a convenient explanation for grilling meat ? Maybe grilled lamb was really savory and funding was impossible unless it was a religious ritual ? I have to ask because the bible never explains why the smell of burnt meat is a satisfactory offering to receive his forgiveness.

[ Read more in the bible. ]

Clearly , the death of Jesus made up for the sacrificing of all the animals. If God required the scent of burnt offerings for atonement in the OT , why wasn't Jesus body charred for the smoke to go up to the air for God to smell? Maybe the explanation for that is that was because it was God himself . So, then, how is God satisfied with his own death ? Was it the smell of his own dying body ? Did the curiosity of being killed finally satisfy him? If so, why?

I had these same thoughts after reading Genesis recently. The first murder according to Genesis was caused by this issue of suya/BBQ. Cain, a farmer, offered what he had - his grains - to God, and yet God was displeased. Abel, a shepherd, offered sheep BBQ and God loved it. God didn't tell Cain the reason why his offering was not accepted, otherwise he would've stolen/bought Abel's sheep for BBQ instead of killing him.

Thanks for your responses. Can we talk more about the solutions?

Understanding why the trinity doctrine was created, it seems pointless to argue about whether it makes sense. It wasn't meant to make sense. It was meant to harmonize two clearly incompatible things - the Jewish doctrine of one God, and Christians' worship of Jesus, and it succeeded.

What can be done about the Wahhabi school of Islam, which is being funded by Saudi Arabians? Is terrorism here to stay until their oil is gone?

How can you call it 'praying in tongues' when you don't even know the meaning of the words coming out of your mouth?

The early church was faced with a serious problem: How to justify worshipping Jesus without violating the Old Testament, which clearly says there is only one God and only that God should be worshipped. They could not say Jesus was just God in human form because clearly he was not exactly God: He referred to God as his father and prayed to God. They could not say that he was simply a lesser divine being either because that would mean that Christians worship more than one god, which is heretical to Jews. So they came up with this deviously clever doctrine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywkCrEBcoww this video about life for women in Saudi Arabia is trending in social media.

Millerz:
Hi,

Seasons greetings to every one that reads this. This is actually the very first time I'm creating a thread

So, I want to use this medium to openly renounce my Christian faith. I've been a Christian since the day I was born. Maybe not fully devoted, but I spend quality time praying, fasting and reading the bible on my own. For the past 3yrs, i've experienced unimaginable pain, nothing has worked out for me, and my life seems to be going in circles. I've been praying to God, but havnt got results. Nothing appeals to me anymore. All I think about is suicide and I already got poison. My parents are the reason I haven't taken my life. They would be devastated cause I'm the last child. Money isn't the problem cuz I've tasted money that some working class people have never seen.

Before I joined NL, I never doubted God, but seeing all the hate and negative comments from NL atheists has made me question God. The pain in my heart is too much and I wonder why an omnipotent God would let me or anyone suffer. I dont know why God remembers everyone else but ignores me. For the past one week, I've not prayed because I figured why pray when it won't be answered. So yeah, I've officially dropped Christianity today.

Thanks for your time!!

If this is true you are merely suffering from medical Depression. Go to a Psychiatrist and they will give you drugs that will help. It's just a treatable medical condition. Truly religion will not cure it, but medicine can treat it. It goes beyond mere sadness.

Changed title to "Why Did God Create Disease-Causing Bacteria?"

In light of the tragedy in France, which claimed 84 lives, I'd like to ask Nairaland muslims a very important question:

Is there something in Islam that makes it very easy for bad men to convince young muslim men to take part in evil terrorist attacks?

If so, what is it? And what should be done to permanently end the perpetration of terrorist acts by people who claim to be muslims?

I have no doubt that this video is some kind of devious trick, but assuming that it's true, that means the prayers didn't work?

uracocksucker:
So Jesus had 12 disciples and they were all Jews .......

And male.

Engrobiorah:
"what" put the first living creature in this universe? Its came to be on its own?

Yep. The first 'living' creature is believed to be a simple self-replicating molecule, which slowly evolved into the first primitive bacteria.

It's just satire. Trying to point out the injustice of using unfairly harsh sentences to deter crimes when the problem is lack of enforcement.

UyiIredia:
Just goes to show how evolution involves wishful thinking.

Cloudgoddess is here now. Bye.

naijadeyhia:
If you say apes have small sized brains and can link brain formation to DNA and yet evolution rejects the claim that one specie can evolve to become a totally new and different specie like from DOG to CAT even though they share the same four legs so how come the apes DNA that gave it a smaller brain suddenly transformed on DNA level to give man a bigger brain?

It's unlikely that a dog would give birth to a cat, but suppose you dumped some dogs on an island full of mice and small birds; nothing else. The dogs might start changing in ways that will make them similar to cats. Over a long period of time, they will become smaller and more agile. By chance, a puppy might be born with slightly retractable claws which would make it much easier to catch mice. That trait would spread quickly because it's enormously advantageous. Night vision will gradually improve because mice are nocturnal. Eventually you'll end up with an island full of dogs that are, essentially, cat-dogs. If the island remained isolated long enough, a time would come when if you mated them with normal dogs, there would be puppies but the puppies would be sterile, like tigers x lions. A time will come when the differences between them would be so great that, like cats, it'd be impossible to cross breed the cat-dogs with regular dogs. That's how evolution gives rise to new species.

robosky02:
Seun
I want to know in one word
are you saying man evolved from animal?

just yes or no?

The difference between a man and a chimpanzee is smaller than the difference between a horse and a cow. We are still animals. We dominate the other animals because of our superior intelligence (language, tools, science), just as killer whales dominate the other animals in the sea.

naijadeyhia:
If Obasanjo dies and his skull is observed would it look more human than ape or it would be in between?

First of all, President Obasanjo's skull would not be found inside rocks that are millions of years old. Secondly, his brain is of a normal size for a human. Apes have small brains. Thirdly, he walks perfectly upright. Fourthly, even if you think he is ugly, his skull is far from that of an ape.

Assuming same specimen had a spinal chord issue so could not stand up straight same way we have the elderly today all bent over due to spinal issues and you put both such a skull with such a skeleton what would you get?

If that was true, we would expect to find normal undeformed human bones in ancient rocks along with the 'deformed' ones. That's not the case.

naijadeyhia:
I want real evidence that would be held up in any court of law.

If someone was accused of committing a murder, you would not have to show a video or pictures of the person committing the murder to prove it, but you would be required to show evidence such as the murder weapon with the victim's and suspect's DNA on it, the motive, the opportunity, the suspect's violent character, previous threats in which the suspect promised to kill the victim, etc. When you put together all the evidence pointing in the same direction, and there is no reason to suspect that someone else did it, the judge must convict the suspect. In the same way, we can't provide a video showing how an ape turned into a man because it took place over millions of years, and no one lives that long, but we have the bones of apes that were in the process of turning into humans. And after putting them back together, we can see how their brains grew larger gradually and their backs grew straighter until they were walking upright. Through science we have determined how old the bones are and we've observed that the oldest bones are more ape-like while the newest bones are human. And we have similar stories for other animals whose bones have been found buried in ancient rocks. The overwhelmingly abundant evidence compels us to accept evolution.

The first picture shows what a show German Shepherd Dog used to look like. The 2nd one shows what it looks like now. That's evolution.

The first picture shows what a bull terrier used to look like. The second picture shows what a bull terrier looks like now. That's evolution.

JMAN05:
Criticism is in order but outright disingenuousness is sickening. You just displayed that.

Where did I go wrong, in your view? I honestly do believe everything I've said here. The evidence for the resurrection is objectively very weak.

opineflu:
repent from your blasphemy..and accept JESUS as ur lord and Saviour...carry ur cross with no shame.This is a warning, you wont say u were never told, cause JESUS Has mark today.Your intelligence would not save u on the last day if you refuse

Apologies for offending you. I'd rather not offend people if I can help it. But not at the expense of telling the truth.

Image123:
Jesus told the world about His message Himself for about three years, with mighty signs and wonders even. They ended up hating Him and ultimately crucifying Him. What is that thing, they say about doing the same thing and expecting something different again? Be a good adviser mr man.

Do you honestly believe that Jesus in his revived body wouldn't have preached the gospel far more effectively than his disciples with their tale?

robosky02:
I don't agree with your statement here
that he was doing nothing
check this
Luke 2: 51 - 52
51Then He went down to Nazareth with them and was subject to them. But His mother treasured up all these things in her heart.
52And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
this doesn't sound like doing nothing

"Growing in stature" and wisdom when you are supposed to be the Eternal Son of God who knows all things is very close to doing nothing.

favouryemmy:
Seun, I understand that you may have gone through some things that made you not to want to believe in God any longer. What many of us do sometimes when things we expect don't happen is that we are fast to blame God. I used to do that before but I realized God is never to blame and I stopped doing so. Jesus will reveal Himself to you again. Even if I don't say it, it will happen. Just remember, you once believed and you can believe again. Just have an open mind when He comes back to do so. Jesus loves you even in your current unbelief.

I know this is meant as a message of goodwill, and I accept it, but believing something that is not true is likely to have bad consequences.

Harvard13:
d romans hated that Jesus was king so there is no chance they would have collected bribe to let go of christs body as it would have supported d disciples claim

The Romans didn't hate Jesus. They thought he was crazy.

third, the women wouldnt have known if the soldiers would open the tomb. naturally u dont expect dem to willingly open d tomb so its no coincidence that dey were worried.

If that was the case, Mark would have said, "the women were worried that the soldiers might not help them to roll away the stone".

kingcity:
so you believed that the disciple stole the body of someone u didn't believe exist?

If we assume that the biblical Jesus was based on a real person, it's far more likely that the body was stolen than that he rose from the dead.

favouryemmy:
Seun, you said no one has refuted your claims. Read this with an open mind http://www.bible.ca/d-resurrection-evidence-Josh-McDowell.htm

Why open mind and not critical mind? I was entirely unconvinced by that. It's not objective at all. Explaining how would take too long.

4everGod1:
Yes! He cannot be termed a proud Atheist if even his name is in contradiction.

Atheists are not obligated to have secular names.

Love Machine:
Old pix

Also, one wonders why the other soldiers who are not defusing the bomb are standing so close. A completely unnecessary risk, in my view.

Harvard13:
If you read your bible well, you will know that he was with the father initially. he only took human body for a purpose (to suffer and die for mankind) and after he had done that, he went back

According to the bible, Jesus was on earth for 33 years before he went to suffer and die for mankind, which you say was his purpose. Spending a few more years preaching openly with his resurrected body to convert the whole world seems like a no-brainer. What has he been doing in heaven for 2000 years that is more important than converting the whole world?

4evergod2:
They have even tried applying their favourite escape route " QUANTUM THEORY" and that also has failed. Rather what it did was create a whole new branch of science called BIOCENTRICS but ironically the same biocentrics has proven the existence of consciousness outside the body as you cannot link the mind to the brain.

Biocentrics is not a branch of science. It's a hypothesis by a medical doctor (not a real scientist) for which I can find no evidence.

You say science can still prove consciousness? They have been trying to do since pre 1930 and have been unable to.

Scientists have learnt a lot about consciousness. We've learnt how various chemicals and parts of the brain affect our conscious feelings, etc. That's why we now have effective treatments for depression, schizophrenia, etc. What we don't understand is self-awareness specifically. What makes us different from robots? What makes us feel that we are "real" while a computer program is just code no matter how smart it is? The point is that there is always something that science can't explain, but you can't say "therefore God" because science may figure it out tomorrow.

UyiIredia:
It's actually one of the arguments I posted earlier on this thread

https://www.nairaland.com/2353987/three-arguments-gods-existence

The argument from consciousness: Consciousness is not a physical thing. It's also called awareness and that's not physical. It's not a physical thing that you can observe and measure but is the means by which you observe and measure. It's critical to my argument that consciousness be understood as something immaterial, which it actually is, going by its definition. If you think about it all knowledge stems from consciousness because to truly know anything you must be aware of it. You cannot know what you are not aware of.

Now if atheists are right then there should be no consciousness at all. In a purely physical world consciousness would be the anathema, something strange. But there is consciousness and therefore the atheist is not correct. Consciousness being immaterial cannot be explained by physical means. It did not evolve since evolution applies to physical beings. It does not spontaenously emerge because emergence typically deals with how complex PHYSICAL systems arise from simpler precursors. Atheism being materialistic in nature has nothing to offer to explain mental awareness. But the theist believing in an eternal conscious God has a means to explain consciousness. And that my friends wraps up my argument.

Cc thehomer Seun cloudgoddess Blaqsmith dalaman ichommy HardMirror johnydon22 onetrack joseph1013 Kay17 plaetton Davien ValentineMary lepasharon reallest freecocoa K9blunt Amusaopeyemi

It is true that consciousness isn't well understood by science at this time. We can make robots that behave like conscious beings, but we do not believe they have the same sense of self-awareness that animals and people seem to have. This is absolutely true.

But the inability of science to explain something doesn't prove the existence of God. There was a time when we could not explain how life came to be, thunder & lightning, how birds fly, how bats navigate without light, rainbows, etc. People took our inability to explain those things as a sign of the existence of God, but now we understand them through science. We may eventually understand consciousness through science.

Your speculations about the nature of consciousness are just speculations. There's no evidence that they are correct. I could come up with mine, and they would be equally useless. You can't just make things up and act as if they are true.