₦airaland Forum

davidylan:
1) "That looks cute." - No problem with this . . . the macho man wont admit he secretly wishes she would use it a bit more often.

2) "We need to talk." - Oh no, not again! This is code for "you're in serious trouble".

3) "It's just a game." - No its not! If Nadal loses this game today i'll be in deep depression for the next 2 hrs and in no mood to talk to you.

4) "Nothing's wrong." - Oh yeah sure. Just say whatever is wrong so i don't have to beg you to do so.

5) "I sound like my mom." - No big deal, so long as your mom knows how to cook, clean, house, be faithful, trusting, submissive . . .

6) "I just want to be friends." - Just tell me you like someone else.

7) "Size doesn't matter." - Be honest, you've met someone bigger right?

8 ) "What are you wearing?" - Got a better idea?

9) "Do you think she's pretty?" - If i say no, you think i'm dishonest; if i say yes, you sulk then go back to "nothing's wrong" mode. Why even bother to ask? I'm with you not her . . . that shld tell you all you need to know.

10) "Which outfit do you like better?" - Oh sure, i'm always glad to help you pick one that matches your figure.

stillwater:
And number 4. Hate it when people nudge, pry and question continuously. Aarrrggghhhhh.

TOH:
men tend to do #4 alot actually. because they want you to grovel and beg at their feet asking what the hell is their problem and when girls don't, they get angry. Nowadays there's hardly a difference between the two sexes. Both grudge holding whiny babies with severe communication problems

I tend to ask #10 to guys who I know have  agood eye. If not I ask my sister or female friends. Dont know why girls feel the need to force an answer from a dude

Just want to be friends, yea sometimes it's because you want the perosn to stop bothering you but alot of times you just think the person is better to you as a friend, unfortunately some dudes are "it's either we're together or nothing"{ and for that I say, bite me.

as for cute, I don't use that word much anyway. It's meant for midgets or babies.

People have some very basic psychological, physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional needs that they feel compelled to fulfill. Our current (and past) societies have very rarely been able to fully satisfy the basic needs of the individual.

Simply stated, religion offers people the opportunity to fulfill some of these basic needs. These ultra hardcore religious experiences offer the fulfillment of these basic needs in dramatic fashion; thus greatly enhancing their emotional appeal in the search for identity, security, love and so forth.

The psychological techniques used to sway peoples beliefs are, indeed, very effective as we see this phenomenon continue to grow in popularity and influence. The question is, how do we effectively deal with this disconcerting trend?

It seems to me that there are 4 basic strategies which must be simultaneously employed in order to deal with this phenomenon before it's influence irreparably harms the prospects for creating a sustainable, peaceful and just world.

1) Prevention - People who are drawn to fanatical cults are those people who have no or very little hope of finding security and acceptance elsewhere. These are people who are experiencing varying degrees of desperation. We need to reduce the conditions which create desperation, locally and globally. Less desperate people = less desperate situations. What is it that each one of us can do in our daily lives to reduce or eliminate desperate conditions?

2) Alternatives - Wouldn't it make sense that if there were other organizations and resources that were as emotionally and spiritually engaging to desperate people as these cults are, then there is a chance that desperate populations could gravitate towards those as well? Where are these great organizations, concepts, events, activities and the like?

3) Understanding - One thing that we really could use is a basic set of rational and objective guidelines to what our most basic needs are as human beings and how these needs can be balanced to achieve a humane lifestyle. If we could decode the "human nature influenced by human nurture to determine human behavior" code, it might go a long way fix fixing a lot of the problems we have here on earth.

4) Fight the Power - The mechanisms of manipulation and domination take many forms. If you are not part of the solution then you are not part of fixing the problem. Its up to everyone who wants to see a better world to actively stand up for what they believe in, point out and speak up against those who seek to manipulate and dominate to their own egoistic ends. Repetition, repetition, repetition,

donnie:
@poster,

The bible said, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. From what i understand from your long post, you went to church simply out of curiosity and not to seek Jesus for he hath said seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, ask and you shall recieve.

Pastor AIO:
I apologise for causing offence. Of course all churches, nay all religions, are cults. But there is a different way in which the word cult is used in commonly. It is usually used to refer to smaller groups whose mindset is quite a way removed from the larger societies and as such may actually serve to undermine the larger society. I admit that my use of the word was dumb, even callous. Sorry about that.
I personally would frown on the use of psychological bullying in order to draw people back to church. I totally accept questioning and criticism as a valid part of religious growth. I will engage with anyone from all religions and atheists too and I will encourage others to do the same. But there are reservations because I do know the value of keeping right fellowship too.

My criticism was not about the fact that they were trying to get you back to church but also about the manner and the judgmental attitudes with which they did so.

ps. Perhaps I am pretentious enough to call myself Pastor.

It sounds to me like your family are members of a Cult.

So you see, to say Psychology does not play a role in spirituality is not completely right. How can you explain how people can be led into believing to cutting themselves off from a friend who has stopped coming to church, is right?

huxley:
Is it possible for an human cognitive experience to not be psychological? What is the difference between a spiritual and a psychological experience?

Pastor AIO:
@Sisikill

But what you highlighted above is not a spiritual effect but a psychological one.  You'll get the same if you joined the army and observed yourself slowly become a soldier.  The same if you went to a new school.  The changing of identity is slow and scary if you think about it. It makes a sensitive person think about what the identity actually is.  Who are you?  What are you?

Here I have a confession to make. It's not something that's easy to explain, but here goes. After two days of nearly constant religious instruction, songs, worship and praise -- two days that for me meant an unending regimen of forced and fake responses -- a funny thing started to happen to my head. There is a transformational quality in these external demonstrations of faith and belief. The more you shout out praising the Lord, singing along to those awful acoustic tunes, telling people how blessed you feel and so on, the more a sort of mechanical Christian skin starts to grow all over your real self. Even if you're a degenerate Rolling Stone reporter inwardly chuckling and busting on the whole scene -- even if you're intellectually enraged by the ignorance and arrogant prejudice flowing from the mouth of a terminal-ambition case like Phil Fortenberry -- outwardly you're swaying to the gospel and singing and praising and acting the part, and those outward ministrations assume a kind of sincerity in themselves. And at the same time, that "inner you" begins to get tired of the whole spectacle and sometimes forgets to protest -- in my case checking out into baseball reveries and other daydreams while the outer me did the "work" of singing and praising. At any given moment, which one is the real you?

You may think you know the answer, but by my third day I began to notice how effortlessly my soft-spoken Matt-mannequin was going through his robotic motions of praise, and I was shocked. For a brief, fleeting moment I could see how under different circumstances it would be easy enough to bury your "sinful" self far under the skin of your outer Christian and to just travel through life this way. So long as you go through all the motions, no one will care who you really are underneath. And besides, so long as you are going through all the motions, never breaking the facade, who are you really? It was an incomplete thought, but it was a scary one; it was the very first time I worried that the experience of entering this world might prove to be anything more than an unusually tiring assignment. I feared for my normal.

Gamine:
I blame the women that follow such men.

I blame ONLY the Women.

@Poster,
abeg next time, write your topic well eh, abeg.

TOH:
weird to me.

Only time couples are known for doing that IMO is when they are fighting with each other.

kokoye:
are we talking space for a few days , or 1yr?? please!!!

that's a bunch of Hogwash!!

kokoye:
Well, people have different reasons.

The things that matter to you as young couples really might not matter to the old folks anymore, theyve been there, done that.

t[b]ake my parents for example, married over 40yrs. my mom wants to pray for her husband, children and grandkids in the middle of the night when there's dead silence but my dad wants to sleep - so they sleep in different rooms most of the time. This works perfectly for them because they are now like brother and sister, after being together for that long. [/b]

so, it's up to them as long as it works. But i am not recommending that for young ones though.

doyin13:
Please tell me this was tongue in cheek