₦airaland Forum

Omooba77:
I choose to go with 1A and 2A nko?

That's not reasonable since you know the meaning that is intended by the person who wrote the words.

JESUSBOIY:
Seun are you trying hard to convince religious nairalanders to accept atheism?

No, I want people to accept evidence and reason as the basis for all beliefs. People have been taught that faith is a good thing. I disagree.

Omooba77:
1 a : devotion to duty or a person : LOYALTY b : the quality of keeping one's promises. 2 a : belief and trust in and loyalty to God b : belief in the doctrines of a religion c : firm belief even in the absence of proof d : complete confidence.
Definition of faith - Merriam-Webster's Student ...
www.wordcentral.com › cgi-bin › student

Meaning 2C is what we are going for. Do you have a better word to describe it?

Oladim001:
I thought you said you were gonna change the topic to a less ambiguous one.

I can't find a better word to describe what I'm alluding to, which is a belief that is not based on objective evidence and reason but a decision to believe. I think this is exactly what most people understand by the word "faith" in a religious or biblical context. Belief based on choice.

Iamsynord:
I am of the opinion that most People Confuse Religion with the existence of God ...
... God exists but religion is sham..

According to the Mariam-Webster dictionary, religion is "the belief in a god or in a group of gods" (source). As long as you believe in God, what you're practicing is still religion. What you are against is organized religion and what you're promoting is personal religion, but it's still religion.

God existence is not in all these miracles or religion , it is in the mind.. It is subconscious and reacts with thinking...A part of you cant deny it.. Your mind and soul connects with it.

The God might not be in the line of most religious doctrines but there is a part of it that tells, guides and protect you.... Your subconsciousness..

This is an exercise in semantics: "God is my subconscious. My subconscious exists. Therefore God exists". My rebuttal to this is to say let us stick to the dictionary definition of God: "the perfect and all-powerful spirit or being that is worshipped especially by Christians, Jews, and Muslims as the one who created and rules the universe" (source). If you don't believe in the God in the dictionary, you don't believe in God. Also, I suspect that you have no evidence for the claim that there's a supernatural thing in your subconscious that guides and protects you.

winner01:
Let me pretend to agree with you. Even at 50 million, it still pales in comparison with atheisms over 200 million lives lost within a mere 100 yesrs.

Just as every war fought by a religious person is not a religious war, every war fought by an atheist is not an atheist war. Religious war are wars which are fought with a religious motivation.

However I'm not here to promote atheism as such but to urge people to base their beliefs on evidence and reason. If that leads you to religion, that's fine by me (but it won't).

Hitler's wars were fought to promote an agenda that was very much faith-based. He believed in the superiority of the Aryan race and that Jews ought to be exterminated. There is no rational basis for those beliefs. He was shocked when a man from a race he considered inferior (the black race) dominated the Olympics held in Germany, but that did nothing to change his views. He also claimed to be a Christian (the bible blames Jews for the death of Jesus)

Unlike Hitler, the Soviets were certainly anti-religious, because they considered religion as a threat to their communist ideology. They wanted the state to occupy the position of God - that which is believed in and obeyed and never criticized or questioned - in the minds of their citizens. This is at odds with what I'm advocating on this thread which is to question and criticically examine every belief and its supporting evidence.

buskie13:
Where did u get ur stats from?

All the people killed in religious conflicts in history were killed in the name of God. The genocide of Canaan in the Bible (which probably never happened), the Christian crusades, the various Islamic jihads, radical Islamist terror attacks, etc. I've not heard about any conflict in which people were fighting and killing other people in the name of Satan.

adeaks:
And what happens when they stand up to scrutiny? Would you then believe that God exists?

I would be shocked if that happened, but yes, I would be forced to change my mind based on what the evidence actually proves or strongly suggests. I am not an atheist by wilful unbelief. I am an atheist because the evidence for any God is just not there. The things touted as evidence are fabricated, twisted, exxagerated, misinterpreted, etc. The more you look, the less you see.

vizkiz:
Don't worry bro. God's gonna show you his existence pretty soon

Like an emotional or psychological experience? A lot of people say their faith is based on their personal experience with God and that's what they mean. Those experiences aren't reliable. The human mind is susceptible to various illusions and delusions. Hypnotism and hysteria are real things. That's why even those 'personal' experiences should be critically analyzed in the light of the latest findings in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. If they don't stand up to scrutiny, just toss them aside.

Winner01: Okay, but its probably not so relevant to our discussion of whether belief should require evidence.

Scholar8200:
Indeed! However, there are true beliefs which have caused (and is still causing) people to make good decisions and the society has been better of for it. A good example is how whole communities were transformed during revivals. Transformed insomuch that the police confessed of having no crimes to fight!

https://onecanhappen./2013/03/08/effects-of-the-welsh-revival-1904-05-whole-communities-were-radically-changed-from-depravity-to-glorious-goodness-the-crime-rate-dropped-often-to-nothing-the-underground-mines-echoed-with-the-soun/

Religious testimonies are not trustworthy. Perfectly ordinary stories become supernatural and fantastic as they are retold and repeatedly spiced up by eager believers.

winner01:
Do you believe that science owes its origin to religion. Christianity especially.?

How?

shineforthmedia:
it is much more difficult to proove there is no God either.

You don't need to prove that there is no God, just as you don't need to prove that Superman is not a real person. You should withold belief until you have a rational reason to believe.

there are milliions of questions science and logic can't answer

That has always been and will always be the case. If science could answer every question, scientists would have no more work to do. But that doesn't mean that religion has the answers. Religion has an abysmal track record when it comes to answering questions about reality. Whenever science and religion disagree, science wins.

haibe:
U have a point tho.. but u dont realise we all have faith in one thing or the other.

I think you're referring to a different definition of faith. I'll make the title less ambiguous.

Acidosis:
- being optimistic?

I believe in being realistic. Sometimes optimism is warranted. Sometimes caution is more appropriate.

- positive confessions (using the case Muhammad Ali)?

It may make you feel better, I guess, but I don't think it has any material effect. There are better things to do.

Omooba77:
Even the athiest too have FAITH there is no God.

No. The evidence for the existence of God is extremely poor and so for that reason don't believe it. Just as you dont believe in Superman. Also the Gods that are popular these days - omnipotent and omnibenevolent - can't logically exist because of the problem of evil.

ettaetta:
Faith in God or faith in the devil? Be specific becos not all religion are from God

Faith in anything that is not true is bad. More people have been killed in the name of God than in the name of the devil.

Many people feel society should let people believe whatever they want to believe and not bother them as long as they are not imposing their beliefs on others. I disagree. All beliefs should be fair game for criticism, mockery and objective testing so that they can be abandoned if they are shown to be wrong. There should be no sacred cows because every wrong belief can cause harm.

One if the issues with religion is that it promotes the idea of believing something not because you have been convinced by rational arguments and objective evidence that it is true, but because you want to believe it and choose to believe it.

When beliefs are based on reason and evidence, they are very likely to be true or at least close to the truth. When they are not, they are very likely to be false and far from the truth. False beliefs cause people to make bad decisions which lead to worse outcomes for them and for society.

When most people in society base their beliefs on objective evidence and reason, their beliefs tend to converge towards a single consistent view of reality. This enables them to cooperate massively and achieve great things for all to enjoy e.g. in science. In faith based societies and institutions, differences of opinion are hard to resolve, because people dogmatically hold on to their conflicting beliefs, leading to chronic conflicts that often erupt into violence.

Ifeann:
Apparently you don't know much about how biology works.

And clearly you don't know how religion or satire works.

The plagiarist should be disqualified in my view.

If they are truly floating it, why is the system so complicated? It makes my head hurt. It looks as if the primary dealers are the new CBNs.

irunooboo:
They must make biafra agitations and any form of secession a crime punishable by death penalty. No group of people must be allowed to break away from Nigeria.

That's a bad idea. People should be legally permitted to express themselves as long as they are not doing or promoting violent acts. The government should work hard to make all sections of the country feel included so that no reasonable person will be interested in secession.

Wow, this is art!!

Someone sent me this:
https://www.zenithbank.com/images/Suspension-Intl-Card.jpg

Apart from Diamond Bank and Zenith Bank, which other banks have taken this step?

Vickyydera:
I was plainly depressed watching it. No action at all .

What about the "I choose violence" scene and it's aftermath?

Pls post a link to the page you copied this from

bluaero:
Seun, you are ****for having this kind of **** opinionated mod in your team!!!

Sorry

When you are banned, check your profile. The reason is always there. That's why your profile link turns bold when you are banned.

InesQor:
Not so "modern" actually.

Barely a decade after this, Peter Popoff (healer and televangelist) was caught by Randi and an electronics technician receiving divine revelations using radio communication from his wife Elizabeth backstage - who was reading out people's names and issues to him.

If that happened in 1987 I wonder what might be going on now, with our modern technology.

This however does not necessarily mean all are fakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y