₦airaland Forum

Omooba77:
When my younger brother died in his sleep; I felt betrayed by God.

That's awful. Sorry about this.

Why do you want to increase your faith in God? How do you hope to benefit from that?

Not believing in God isn't enough; people have to embrace critical thinking too.

Omooba77:
Sometimes it is very difficult to belief God,please how can I increase my faith in God?

Tell us more about the specific circumstances in which you found it difficult to believe God?

bot101:
You must be really ancient to know this fact!

Every culture has its own myths. They are made up to provide a sense of shared identity and to encourage good behaviour.

Austin234:
It not true. Seun Osewa, owner and founder of NL is not an atheist.

The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is an atheist.

In your view, what is the right punishment for a muslim who says, "I don't want to follow Islam anymore. I want to be a Christian (or Atheist)"?

Note: I have never been a muslim. I come from a very devout Christian family, but I left Christianity 15 - 16 years ago. Pls take note, thanks.

polymathic:
And I've come to realize that trying to know so much about the things of GOD makes you a freethinker and then you end up an atheist....

If studying the Christian scriptures very seriously causes people to become atheists and freethinkers rather than better Christians, doesn't that suggest that Christianity is false? If something is true, studying it very seriously will make you believe it even more. Why can't you see this?

Codedrock:
But Seun if you don't mind you've been an atheist for how many years now??

15 - 16 years.

I believe in God and the bible but stopped going to church since January after I realized a lot.

That's the first step. Once you get out of the bubble, it's much easier to think independently. Which church were you attending?

Unlocked.

Resist the urge to replace your faith with other concepts that are equally imaginary.

CAPSLOCKED:
THE TRUTH STILL REMAINS THAT,

THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE THE BIBLE WE'RE HIGH ON THEIR OWN EXCRETA AT THE TIME OF WRITING IT.... YOU CAN'T TELL ME OTHERWISE.

They were just writing tales by moonlight for their kids. They didn't know that a time would come when billions would believe them literally.

karleone:
How does an atheist differentiate good from bad?
You know, when I class something as bad, I base my judgment on societal morals which originates from the fact that someone up there sees my action and frowns at it. And I, as a person, need to live to make Him happy rather than sad. Now I ask, Seun, since an Atheist believes not in God, who we all know is all Good and deserving of our love, on what object does he base his beliefs of an action to be bad?

Keyword: Bad, Atheist, God

Even if you do something that your interpretation of the bible recognizes to be bad, you can just ask God for forgiveness afterwards. The truth is that an invisible loving Daddy who will forgive you of absolutely anything and wash you white as snow if you ask for forgiveness because all the bad things you will ever do have already been paid for by the precious blood of Jesus is a very weak moral motivator.

Other things like your reputation and the way you feel about yourself are the real motivators. Also the possibility of being caught and arrested or lynched.

What is good is what is ethical and fair, what you would accept if someone else did it to you, what would lead to a better society if everyone was doing it, what would make you feel proud of yourself, etc. You may not be conscious of your real moral motivators, but they are there.

KingEbukaNaija:
Wait ... what ?

Here , read :

The secular world has condemned all types of slavery. You cannot take people as slaves after defeating their armies in battle. Debtors cannot be sold into slavery. You can enslave neither fellow citizens nor foreigners. It's unacceptable, period. The secular world's morality is superior to the bible in this case because it recognizes that it is simply unacceptable for human beings to be owned and traded as property. The secular world condemns slavery while the Bible merely regulates it.

winner01:
People who dont believe in God have no real reason to be moral.

This is a common misconception. It's just not true. It deserves a thread. Being moral makes you feel good, makes you feel proud of yourself. It helps to create the kind of society you want to live and raise your children in. It's not unreasonable to imagine that the prospect of being judged after death would make religious people live more morally, but in practice, it doesn't. One reason is because the major religions are based on outdated standards of morality that cannot be updated but only re-interpreted. The Bible and Quran never condemned slavery and are not concerned with the treatment of women, blacks, gays and minorities, which are moral issues. Some of their teachings would lead to social chaos if widely practiced ("don't resist an evil person". Or are just barbaric. Also, after doing evil, Christians can still escape divine punishment by just asking for forgiveness.

I can name many contemporary terrorists and mass murderers who are Christians or Muslims, and many of them were motivated by their religion. It would be hard to find one who is an atheist, and I certainly don't think anyone has ever said, "I don't believe in God, so I must kill".

KingEbukaNaija:
So I wonder why you conspicuously denied , in a prestigious forum like this , that communism and atheism are inseparable when it is apparent that the originators affirmed to it .

Ok, I see what you're doing. You're taking the fact that the communists were atheists and framing it in a way that makes it seem as if it is also true that atheists are communists, like a 2 way relationship. It's more honest to say you cannot separate atheism from communism, because communism certainly isn't part of atheism. Atheism simply means not believing in any God. There's nothing more to it than that. Atheists can be good or bad, just as muslims can be good or bad (ISIS), and Christians can be good or bad (KKK). Atheism doesn't make you a good person.

lordnicklaus:
Hey guys I am officially starting a thread to call all theists and atheists together for a peaceful debate. It is important to note that insults are not allowed but to atheists, skepticisms/refutations/criticism is allowed. To theists, take time to explain and not aggresively. Also, scare tactics and threats are not allowed on the part of theists. Unnecessary rantings and flare-ups are not allowed.

We have a forum for peaceful discussions, with rules against insults. It's called the Religion Section Of Nairaland: [url]nairaland.com/religion[/url]

I understand that you feel that the rules of nairaland are not being enforced, but the solution is not to create a single disorganized megathread.

KingEbukaNaija:
Communism and atheism are inseparable

That's a profoundly stupid thing to say for two reasons:
- Early Christians lived like communists. They shared all their possessions with each other. A couple was actually killed by God because they lied in order to keep some of their money to themselves. That's a communist frame of mind.
- All the richest capitalists in the world are non-religious. Certainly they are not communists.

winner01:
And what is the meaning of supermanist?

People who believe Superman is real and worship him. They have rightly pointed out that you cannot prove that Superman isn't real.

KingEbukaNaija:
Who sees the irony in this ?

You think people who don't believe in God don't have morals? That's wrong. Morality is just a tool to make the kind of world we want to live in.

This is a dishonest thread, which is wrong, but it doesn't even matter. I am an aSupermanist. I believe that Superman isn't real. Most Nairalanders are aSupermanists. Stalin was also an aSupermanist. That doesn't mean that Stalin's conduct says anything about Nairalanders.

sonofthunder:
.he knows what he's saying you are clearly lost. we don't need a prophet to reveal that

Don't you think it is hypocritical to disobey the very book that you are trying to defend?

sonofthunder:
"almost certainly"..... all you put there about the woman is your mere speculation from your bedroom.

This is a valid criticism. Why am I "almost certain" that this woman I've never met is a trickster? I guess it's because I have watched so many documentaries about "miracles" that turned out to not be miracles at all on close examination. I didn't think this case would be the exception.

you didn't even put your feet in his shoes talk less walking in them.

I didn't understand this part. Are you saying that it's cruel to tell him the truth about an experience that brought him comfort?

sonofthunder:
You seem to know the bible well... so what happened along the line?

I studied it too much? The best way to keep your faith is to read only the bible verses your pastor and daily devotionals direct you to read.

You missed the number one reason for atheism: the lack of any objective evidence of the existence of any God.

Basalt:
He even told me that I masturbated before coming to crusade which was so true.

Perhaps you didn't clean up properly and he could smell your manly secretions?

The evidence suggests that man came to be via the process of evolution from lower life forms.
There is no objective evidence to the effect that man was created by a person who wants to be worshipped.

malvisguy212:
you don't know what you are saying, you're lost.

"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Luke 6:37

Basalt:
Please can you explain to me the phenomena behind
These things

(1) If there is no Deity, what scientific phenomena explains the situation where men of God see vision about somebody they have not met before?
Example TB Joshua will tell you everything about you and all the things done against you.
If there is no spirit directing the prophet, how can he see something that was done in his absence.
Is there any logic that can explain a situation where humans have the power to see things that happened in their absence without any link to spiritualism?

Cold reading and hot reading. See my full answer to that here: https://www.nairaland.com/3176325/salvation-plan/2#46753773

(2)second question is this, if there is no spirit, how can somebody (man of God) raise the dead or heal the sick without any medication?

They can't. But they can create the impression that they are raising the dead and healing the sick. Here's Benny Hinn's case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlNTALOChRc

How do magicians perform some magic?

Clever tricks.

(3) **** Who created the Proconsul, Kenyapithcus, Homoerectus and honosapians?

Evolution and natural selection.

DuchessLily:
At the bolded - in an alternate realilty the man didn't answer in that way ... If he had, the story would have ended there I'm sure.... But in the man's egocentricity (as it is with men usually ) he said " ...... its the woman U gave me...... "

Another alternate reality:

And [God] said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

"It's my fault", said the Lord God. "I shouldn't have given the serpent the power of speech. And for what purpose did I even create that tree?"

WarRLaY:
I went to ekiti state with my dad, then we met a prophetess .. immediately she did her prayer stuff which I didn't even replied with amen, she told us the reason we came and how my dad enemy wanted to kill him 3yrs ago, ( actually 3yrs ago, my dad told us while he was sleeping he felt something strange like a sharp object in his body and immediately he woke up , he had pissed on his body, then he was building a structure in his hometown - he was not okay for like 3 months so he prayed and fasted and he was okay ) so the prophetess said a close relative fired an arrow to him spiritually that "is he the only 1 that will be building houses" .. so after she closed my dad chapter , she told me about not close to God and stuff like that.. my atheism was already fading away ...

The prophetess is almost certainly a professional magician/fraudster. Magicians can use a combination of two techniques to give you the impression that God told them things about you: cold reading and hot reading.

Cold reading involves saying things that are likely to be true based on their observation of how you talk, what you're wearing, tribe/gender, what you said earlier, etc, reading your body language to confirm the ones that happen to be right and then leading you to supply the details yourself without realising it. Then they use those details you supplied to come up with more related 'revelations' using the same process.

The prophetess said your dad's "enemy" tried to kill him 3 years ago, then your dad filled in the details, "it must have been the time I was constructing a building and I fell sick for 3 months". Then on the basis of your dad's information, she came up with the believable explanation that the reason your dad's enemy tried to kill him is because the enemy was jealous of your dad's house. It's quite easy to fool people.

How did the prophetess know that you are not close to God? Well, you said that you didn't even say amen to her prayers. That's how.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlGBXCpGgns

Hot reading involves doing some research on you. Asking other people about you, etc. Then they feed the information to you as a revelation.

then she held a bible and a big key (not modern keys) , and inserted the key at the middle of the bible in a way that the key head is outside the bible , then she will hold the key at the top, (the reviewing part outside) and ask questions just like the normal oracle stuff.. she tells the bible to rotate to the right if something is true.. I was shocked .. I kept looking at her hand if she was not the 1 rotating it herself .. she give bible to my dad to hold, and ask questions about the future, in a way like (example : if seun's gf is his real wife , rotate right then she will command it to rotate left again "in Yoruba language" ) and the bible will rotate ... I just kept looking at the bible ..my knowledge in physics could not rescue or tell my why the bible was rotating, I kept my eyes close to it , anytime it's rotate

That's a cheap magic trick. I've seen more impressive tricks on Youtube. Did you really think Almighty God was rotating a bible for her??

gj22:
Jon snow is just a regular human being after all.

The Blackfish is a regular human being too, yet he was smart enough not to surrender his castle when his nephew's life was threatened. Sansa is a regular human being too, yet she was smart enough to understand that Rickon was already dead. Jon has already died once for naively doing what he thought was right without considering the risks, so he should have learned his lesson by now. When will he know something?