₦airaland Forum

eph12:
So social media follow for privacy? Something that you post for the world to see is now invasion of privacy? Weh done sir.

A serious company is not only concerned about your competence. Your personality or character can disrupt your competency if one is not careful.

Of course social media "follow for privacy". Additionally it is obvious that a lot of people put on a person a that is divorced from their real personality so as long as what you are posting does not betray any character flaws, a quirky personality is no crime and is certainly not the business of a potential employer.

Social media is a place where you connect with your friends and acquaintances. You didn't sign up so that some company somewhere can snoop on you!

This is actually an invasion of the guys privacy. Your social media is a reflection of your personality not necessarily your competence or character!

Not impressed.

gemale:
Really? Kindly explain the difference. Wouldn't they still be paid. Isn't it still a pointer that our military is terribly inept? Why do we have the NDA then? If it was the Israeli defense force, mossad, SAS or any nation's intelligence and special operations forces that was training us, it would have been better. Jonathan was even better because he was using it to wage an offensive. Even the US used PMCs in iraq & afghanistan. They could prove useful in certain black ops & gray area situations because they are not as bound to certain rules of engagement as military personnel. Please when have you heard any sensible country employing mercenaries to train her military? To add insult to injury, they are being trained in security of bases. A whole branch of armed forces cannot provide adequate security for its own bases? We are blind to shame in Nigeria.

There is a difference between mercenaries and civilian contractors. What you do not know is that a lot of US forces especially special forces are trained by civilian contractors. So receiving training from civilian contractors is definitely normal and in fact, it is a best practice.

GEJ brought in mercenaries and perhaps some civilian contractors to wage a short term battle against boko haram in order to score political points. Along with the rest of his team, he fantastically mismanaged Nigeria's defence budget for years, and wasted money hiring mercenaries to fight when proper allocation of resources at the right time would have prevented the beast from growing so terrible.

So in one case we have an expensive, short term solution implemented to save someone's political career a d on the other hand we have a long term effort to transfer skills to our own boys at presumably much less cost.

And when you say GEJ was using mercs to wage an offensive you are completely wrong. The US would never deploy foreign contractors on US soil. To do so is to expose your own citizens to rights abuses as well as being a huge political.embarrasment.

anyebedgreat:
I know of a friend from childhood who's wound got healed after his dog licked it. His father had tried everything but it just wouldn't heal until the dog licked it one day. I also know of another with chicken pox who got healed by the same means.
Dogs are love.

Dog saliva contains powerful antiseptic properties...so I dunno wer the op is getting his info from

If the child does not have a passion for the sport its a waste of time.

bilazego:
Mr clever, read the post again The hired Israelis are a private organization[b]

Mr clever, read the post again The hired Israelis are a private organization[/b]


Mr clever, read the post again - The hired Israelis are a private organization

Funny guy. Is that the point or the point is the fact that these guys are doing training and not fighting for us??

denko:
But when Gej used South Africa Mercenary it was a crime APC played a bitter politics when they were in opposition.

Dont be clever by half. There is a gulf of difference in hiring mercenaries to fight your war and inviting state employed Israeli trainers to train your troops.

crazysam001:
Respect champ you gave me one of my greatest victories when you beat the hell out of that ashawo man Samuel Peter. He thought he could fcvk my girlfriend in uyo and go Scott free

This sounds like a great story... come on bro tell us more

Even I its not expressly written in your appointment letter, I'm sure the courts would be willing to imply such terms given Tha it is viewed as being so widely accepted as the norm.

Why couldn't you just do the right thing by giving notice and working the extra month?

Nigerians always trying to pull a fast one on somebody... Doesn't pay bro. One months salary won't kill you.

Such scenes are common even in advanced leagues in Europe...it was just a rainy day.

Nothing to see here.

AgentOfAllah:
No you didn't! What you did do, however, was set out to establish, logically, that there is a god. The clue is in the number of times you mentioned the word "logic" and its derivatives in your post (25 times if you recall). I set out to show that you hardly invoked the principles of logic in the things you attempted to pass as such!


You have failed to provide any new insights, instead, choosing to relapse to your preferred soundbite: The universe couldn't exist without a sourceless source. Forget scientific proof, all you need do is provide logical proof as to why that is the case. Your obstinacy in acknowledging that you have no logical proof for that claim just shows you neither have respect for logic, nor any understanding of it.


You're quite wrong, actually. Patterns may emerge from natural laws, but the laws, themselves, are apparently arbitrary as far as we know. There's no pattern to which radioactive decay of any single nucleon conforms, there is no pattern to which the fundamental forces of nature conform, there is no pattern in the uncertainty principle. See, if you know of any patterns to which natural laws conform, I can guarantee you a Nobel prize in Physics! Natural laws may create localised order, but they are far more ferocious in their creation of pointless, degenerate things too. I asked you to explain the purpose of neutron stars and brown dwarfs because you seem to think there's intelligence in them. Yet again, your ignorance is exposed as your god!


This is essentially now a debate about your mischaracterisation of fancy as logic! You are right about one thing though, this is certainly not a court of law. The rules in a court of law are subject to the interpretations of the judge or jury, whereas the rules of logic are immutable, and beholden only to themselves. Logic does not deal in extrapolations or probabilities, it deals in decisive, methodical precision. Anything short of this cannot be called logical.

1. What i set out to do, was to establish a chain of thought that follows logic, to establish why there could be a God. These are various excerpts of what i actually said:

"while this may not be scientific proof that God exists, it is a strong pointer to the fact that we, as a species are drawn by our capacity for intelligent thought, to the suggestion that there must be a God.

Logically, there must be a source for everything that we see in existence. Science and philosophy would argue that the source must be something explainable—some sort of scientific concept, which would explain how life and the universe came to be and would also explain the origin of the source itself. As of now, there is no such scientific explanation, but we can all agree that science and religion agree on one point, which is that there is a source from which life came, that is beyond current human understanding.

I personally choose to believe in God because it is hard to imagine any other explanation that, itself, would not raise further questions – "

2. I have explained several times why the universe has to have a source. Everything must have a source. This is a natural law of the universe. The universe itself must have come from a source. But this raises the question of where the source came from. So i put it to you that it is probable that the source itself is not subject to natural laws of the universe. These are logical conjectures. I did not state them as logical facts.

3. "Patterns may emerge from natural laws, but the laws, themselves, are apparently arbitrary as far as we know."

You may not know, but i can suggest that there is nothing arbitrary about natural laws, and they are created by a supreme law-giver. I anticipate that you will ask why the law-giver must be supreme and i will refer you to my previous contribution on why the source must be supreme.

4. "I asked you to explain the purpose of neutron stars and brown dwarfs because you seem to think there's intelligence in them."

Why should i be the one to explain this? Did i ever claim to be the supreme creator? Could i ask you to explain the purpose of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa? There is a point beyond which logical deduction is limited. Yet, even the oddities of life are pointers to an intelligent designer whose creation could likened to a work of both art and science at the same time.

So you might consider a creation pointless, but that is only because you are limited in your knowledge of its purpose.

AgentOfAllah:
All you're basically saying here is that anything you cannot explain results from some entity you choose to call the supreme creator. This seems more like a desperate excuse for intellectual laziness than an explanation. My request was simple enough to understand, and the possible ways to address my request are as follows:

1) Provide evidence that some supreme creator entity exists or
2) Provide evidence that the universe is in need of a supreme creator or
3) Admit your ignorance and accept that this hypotheses is nothing more than your preferred speculation.


Can you point to where I've denied the existence of god?


Natural laws also bring about the existence of things like antimatter, neutron stars and brown dwarfs. Pray tell, what's the intelligence behind the rules that cause these things to exist?


I feel disinclined to respond at this point, since you're just happy to waffle on about your preferred straw man. I never mentioned random coincidence anywhere; and I've in fact, made it quite clear that invoking random coincidence as the counterpoint to your intelligent design hypothesis is another of your false dichotomies.


You can put it to me in as many ways as you want, the fact still remains that you have yet to demonstrate that natural laws can only result from intelligent design. To do this, you have to rule out all other possibilities (remember proof of impossibility?)! Until then, you are simply speculating. I should note also, that aside from speculating, your claim further reinforces the obvious: Your ignorance is simply your god!


If it is a fact that everything must have a source, then surely, your god MUST also have a source?


A speculation is a speculation. It is not fact until proven! I hope you do see that if your reason to believe in god is speculative, any conclusion resulting therefrom is baseless? Certainly, your argument for your particular god could conceivably proceed logically from your set of chosen speculations and conjectures, but the same is true for any argument, no matter how ridiculous! One just needs to invoke the right set of speculations and conjectures, and viola!


Your Ad hominem is noted!

If you will recall, or simply refer back to the first page, the topic of my argument is why i am a Christian. I never set out to establish scientifically, that there is God. You cannot use science to prove the existence of a being who surpasses science, since ostensibly He created created science! You can only make inferences as to His nature from science. I only set out my reasons for why i choose to believe in God in the first place. You are asking questions that answer themselves.

1. Why must there be a supreme creator? Because the universe could not exist without a source but that source must then be without a source. The original source must therefore be thought of as the supreme source from which all life and creation flowed. So if there is a God, He must be supreme.

It's that simple.

2. Natural laws conform to a pattern. Patterns are the product of intelligent design.

The evidence may be largely circumstantial but this is not a court of law and it need not be conclusive, for a rational mind to draw a logical opinion.

It really is all as simple as that.

P.s: ad hominem would be attacking your character or personality in order to discredit your opinion. I did no such thing.

Have you checked that various translations say the same thing?

joshuakdboy:
smart pants, these four cardinal points are set by you, do you need someone else to set his/her own four points that Christianity won't pass?

As long as the points meet logical reasoning sure let them go ahead.

I set these four points based on what I expect everyone can agree that we would want to see from religion. Can you dispute the logic on which they are selected?

No one has been able to do that up until now

TrapHedges:
Think we should end everything right? But am not the type to break up with girls.. I just stop talking to them.. Secondly: she will demand a reason for the sudden break up if I do.. Her friend doesn't want me to ruin their friendship too.. Her friend still don't know ah called her.

So ask her friend. Her friend will surely know who the other guy is.

if you haven't already seen this thread, i think you all should.

Why Christianity is the Only Religion for Me
https://www.nairaland.com/3943480/why-christianity-only-religion-me

AgentOfAllah:
Yes, I am aware that you've defined god as a supreme creator, you just haven't justified your use of such fantastical qualifications, nor have you justified why the universe is in need of a supreme creator. So please justify, or else, you're just speculating!


This is a vague statement, not a logical argument. What's the meaning of "way too ordered and structured"? Have you measured the degree of orderliness in life? If so, at what point of orderliness do you draw a line between what's created by intelligence and what isn't?


You're good at creating false dichotomies. The counterpoint to Intelligent design is not necessarily randomness. Simple natural laws can bring about order without interference from some intelligent entity.

Atoms were neither created nor programmed by anybody. Atoms are mostly manufactured in stars in a process called Nucleosynthesis. Look it up!


Lol...boy, wouldn't that be a convenient way to dismiss my argument!? I now have renewed confidence that my summary of your thought process is apt. I would just add to that, my observation that your ignorance is your god! Your misapprehension of how atoms are synthesised and your credulous misappropriation of their existence to someone's creation and programming is definitive proof that.


Your argument is defeated by your own admission that you came to your conclusion, not through fact, but by conjecture:

Unless you don't know the meaning of conjecture! If you had definitive proof that your religion is the right one, there would be no need for debate. You would simply have shown your proof to me. However, you are working with a lot of speculations and guesses. Well, guess what? All the other religions also have their own speculations and guesses which are just as unfalsifiable as yours. This evens out the probability, meaning my math is correct! Alas, your cognitive bias with a touch of selective amnesia blinds you to this glaring truth!

1. I did explain this in fact, and right from the start. In simple words, a supreme creator is the only explanation that does not raise any further questions. With any other explanation, where the source came from would be a persistent issue. But with a supreme creator, you can have no further questions, since His nature itself would defy our understanding of scientific possibilities.

3. Natural laws? I wonder how you can say such things and deny the existence of God in the same breath! Do laws create themselves? Laws require the application of a conscious process of creating a rule in order to achieve an effect for which uniformity is required. It requires intelligence to determine:

a. what the need for a rule is
b. what rule would deliver the effect
c. how to ensure uniformity

These are without question, beyond the scope of random coincidence since random coincidence cannot think!

2. It is quite simply really. Life displays a level of orderliness and structure that random coincidence has never been able to produce. And it's not as hard as you think it is to measure the orderliness of life. For example, look at how many levels of order it takes for conception to occur.

a. asexual reproduction is possible and occurs with a lot of species. Why not man? for mankind and some other animals, reproduction requires some form of relationship. from an evolutionary perspective, we see how this relationship serves the purpose of protecting the family and ensuring survival of the offspring. but a random coincidental creation event would have no idea of purpose since it cannot think!

b. the man and the woman not have sexual organs that fit perfectly together. This is a function of intelligent design. Random coincidence cannot produce intelligent design since it cannot think!

c. once the human beings have coupled, their sperm and egg have meet at a point. The sperm have to swim in the right direction. The conditions in the vagina have to aid their survival, the egg has to also travel some distance to await the sperm. All these are evidence of operational masterpiece. Random coincidence cannot do this because it cannot think!

d. the baby grows and is ejected into life through the same canal that is tight enough to fit around a moderately sized banana fruit, yet expansive enough to eject a baby the size of a rugby ball. This is an engineering masterpiece. Random coincidence cannot be credited for this, because it cannot think!

This is four basic levels of order or structure, that are required for an even such as childbirth. Random coincidence has never been observed to bring about anything so detailed and so precisely designed, and that is what i mean by "way too ordered and structured".

As for how atoms are formed, your retort is dead on arrival. I would expect you to see the argument if you are not trying to obfuscate the clear pattern in your way of clutching at straws. Nevertheless, i put it to you, that if atoms did not suddenly wake up and appear in the universe, then whatever process by which they are created, and by which they have rules that guide their nature is the product of intelligent design (and very intelligent design at that!).

5. My argument is conjecture based on fact. Don't mislead yourself! Is it not a fact that everything must have a source? That is the central fact from which all conjectures i have made logically flow.

6. Your last paragraph is bizarre. I only made speculations and conjectures in my introductory argument on why i believe in God. I then present four reasons devoid of any speculation for why i believe in Christianity. It does appear that you are now thoroughly confused!

Mujtahida:
Don't you ever say that Judaism and Christianity(as it is called revolve around Christ). You know nada about Judaism. Who do you think the Jewish Messiah is? Judaism revolves around none other than the Jewish people and their quest to rule over the world. The Messiah they are looking up to is their own age long messianic hope fulfilled in the tribe's long for desire to rule the world. Christ came and attempted to spoil that dream. They nailed him to the cross. Who told you that they are looking forward to your Christ? Hahahaha hahahaha. Kai! I pity Christians. Read this:

1879 letter from Baruch Levy to Karl Marx:
The Jewish people as a whole will be its own messiah. It will attain world dominion by the dissolution of other races, by the abolition of frontiers, the annihilation of monarchy, and by the establishment of a world republic in which the Jews will everywhere exercise the privilege of citizenship. In this new world order the children of Israel will furnish all the leaders without encountering opposition. The governments of the different peoples forming the world republic will fall without difficulty into the hands of the Jews. It will then be possible for the Jewish rulers to abolish private property, and everywhere to make use of the resources of the state. Thus will the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, in which it is said that when the messianic time is come, the Jews will have all the property of the whole world in their hands.

You are rapping ignorantly about Judaism revolving around Jesus. Do you know that the Talmud says that Christ was born of fornication by Mary a hairdresser from her illicit liason with a Roman soldier named Pantera and that he (Jesus) in a boiling cauldron in hell?

Get it into your head today that Christianity based on the Gospel and Judaism are not the same. You look at the old testament and reach those conclusions but boy you are so deceived. Judaism relies more on the Talmud than the torah!

Your ignorance is understandable. The Christ is a title, not a name. The Jews have always awaited the coming of the messiah, called the Christ, which means the anointed one. Even in my post to which you made reference, i clearly said the Jews do not accept Jesus as The Christ.

Clearly you are not very well educated except perhaps in the arabic language, so stay out of things that are beyond your grasp.

Benita27:
I've come to the realisation that when there're issues between parents, the "Mother" usually gets sympathy from the kids. There's no smoke without fire. That you haven't caught your mum cheating doesn't mean she may not have cheated on your dad ever. I don't support the domestic violence but this isn't your call but elders. It's disrespectful calling his bluff for him. Let an older person with more wisdom handle this issue, your actions could aggravate things.

The first paragraph of your letter shows you took your mother's side and your dad would see it that way. Why not write him another letter, telling him of the good times you all shared together as a family, and stating why you would love him to change and make things work between him and your mum. Do this then invite the elders to talk to them both.

Most marriages go through this phase over time 'cause "Love" isn't enough. What they need to live with is wisdom.

Very wise approach.

malificent:
Both of them are scum, speedy is the bigger scum for exposing such confidentiality, he could have just declined and let it slide.

Well now she's got the beef she wanted!

Amazing to think i almost believed this...but it was too fishy.

Nigerians are generally not great writers so wy would the real dailypost open and account to recruit on nairaland?

Seun!! Protect your users instead of sending fraudulent rubbish to the frontpage to ensare the gullible and the naive amongst us.

So I should put catering and tailoring on my cv when applying to Gtb?

Amazing.

Wilgrea7:
there are different concepts of God... so first you need to identity the concept you're dealing with.. also, spirituality is what connects to God.. not religion.. but I'll still welcome any explanation as to how religion is COMPULSORILY needed to connect to God


i understand... the books claim that the origin of the human race is from the garden of Eden.. but there are also contrary claims..



i understand you have the right to choose whatever you want.. i was just pointing out some premises that were seemingly biased

How do you differentiate between religion and spirituality?

Any contrary claims about the origin of life are limited ab initio, because the fact that the skull of the oldest human yet discovered was found in Africa, does not mean that this skull belonged to the first living man.

AgentOfAllah:
Okay


Wild speculation 1: How do you know the universe has a supreme creator?


Wild speculation 2:
(1) Life isn't way too ordered and structured. There's a lot of disorder in life.
(2) Even if it were, there is no clear evidence that ordered things need be designed. I've seen the TEM images of too many naturally forming crystal lattices that are perfectly ordered just by the electronic interactions between participating atoms. This shows that order does not require intelligence!


Wild speculation 3: Unsupported!



Nonsense! Ignorance should never force anybody to take a position on anything!


Again, nonsense! You're not obliged to be open to any belief that doesn't quell your skepticisms.


Nonsense!


In all, you have provided no sound arguments. Instead, you have speculated about the existence of a supreme creator; incorrectly stated that life is wholly ordered; speculated, incorrectly, that orderliness can only come from intelligence; and then proposed that our ignorance should compel us to accept as strong, the possibility of a god. It is baffling how you don't see the monumental weakness in your "line of thought". I'm not even sure you put any thought into that at all.


This is a most bizarre interpretation of probabilities. Of course the choices are either right or wrong for everyone! The real question is: What are the chances you are right? Now, there are thousands of possible options out there, you've choose 1 and somehow think your odds are great? Let me do the Math for you. Let's say there are 5,000 religions(let's assume, for the sake of this discussion, that atheism is also one), each having their own supporting conjectures as to why they are the right one. Now, you choose one along with its set of supporting conjectures. That leaves a possible 4,999 others which could be right, but which you believe are wrong. Given the numbers, the probability that you're correct is 1/5000 = 0.02%. This is the odds you'll have a blissful hereafter, using the wager. This means there's a 99.98% chance you'll probably end up in someone else's hell fire, or that you'll simply vanish from existence, if the set of conjectures you chose were the wrong ones.
I hope you grasp the math, because if you don't, I'm not sure how you're so confident in your capacity for logical thinking?

1. That was my definition of who God is. As you noted in your first reply, we need a definition. Are you recanting from that position now? This definition is the subject of the postulations beneath it.
2. What do you mean “life isn’t way too ordered and structured”. It seems like you’ve not understood almost the entirety of this post. What I said or implied was life is way too ordered and structured to have happened randomly. I never said life is wholly ordered and structured. You have inserted that into my comments to make your argument easier.

I would have thought it obvious what I meant by the orderliness and structure of life, but I see an explanation is needed. Well, life is ordered and structured in terms of how everything can be grouped into living or non-living, genus, specie, family, class, gender etc. These phenomena are way too complicated to have been random occurrences. They bear the hallmarks of intelligent design.

It requires more than chance for the contraption of conception to work the way it does. It is way too complicated to have simply just happened.

3. This is a truly odd claim. Surely the fact that atoms interact on the basis on their electrical charges is itself evidence of intelligent design! Someone created those atoms with electrical charges, and programmed them to behave the way they do! Your assertion here is akin to that of a village man who arrives at an ATM and believes bankers are useless because the ATM’s can dispense money on their own.

4. I never said you should take a position. I said you should remain open-minded!

Your conclusion, quoted below, on the first part of my previous reply is completely off point since it is entirely based off a series of misunderstandings and mis-readings.

“In all, you have provided no sound arguments. Instead, you have speculated about the existence of a supreme creator; incorrectly stated that life is wholly ordered; speculated, incorrectly, that orderliness can only come from intelligence; and then proposed that our ignorance should compel us to accept as strong, the possibility of a god. It is baffling how you don't see the monumental weakness in your "line of thought". I'm not even sure you put any thought into that at all.”

On the second part, you need to take your time and read me well. First of all, your mathematical calculations do not take into account the possibility of one religion being true. If one religion is absolutely true, then all probability calculations are meaningless.

You speak of probability as though we are tossing a fair die here. But we are not. It is fairly easy to examine different religions to sift out those that are less likely to be true. It is like a football match between Man utd and Enyimba. Mathematically, the probability of either side winning is 0.5, yet if you go to bookmakers, the odds will be stacked entirely in Man Utd’s favor. Paper maths is of no use here.

If there are 5000 permutations, each of which is contradictory then we know that only one is right, and its truth is a reality that is unaffected by some abstract misapplied probablities. Your probability calculations only apply if I were to pick any one of the options at random. Hope you understand the premise of probability??

And if you find the right religion (or choose the religion most likely to be true), then it means even if religion is wrong, you are still going to win either way. You cannot dispute this with a straight face!

For the atheist however, there is no win-win solution.

lol.

If not for blindness.

That lady is holding an ice pack of light blue color. Probably applying it to his groin.

Have fun and poke fun at the pic tho...as long as you know in reality that this is a optical illusion.

Wilgrea7:
hello.. how did you arrive at the conclusion that a “religion" is needed as a way to connect with God?


following your “true way" analogy.. would you agree with me that any religion that traces its origin to a false beginning of humanity is also “false"?


two things
1. Judaism didn't start from Adam and eve..
2. origin of humanity is believed to be from Africa.. not the middle east



different religions have different focal points.. so the perfection needs to be in the way or view or scope of the religion.. also, many religions today were not founded by their central figures but were founded around the lives of those figures.. although a some had a little touch from outside works.. i said many.. not all.. also, different religions have different views of God.. so what the God in one religion might deem perfect is different from what the God in another might deem perfect


please refer to points above



what makes the above qualities conditions or prerequisites for a central figure of the “true religion"

The authenticity of the testimony of the earliest witnesses of Christianity is the fourth reason why I am compelled to believe in Christianity.. This is why Christianity is the only religion for me.

i am not in any way trying to oppose your right to be a Christian or believe in Christianity.. I'm just showing you some premises which seem to be out of place in determining the “true religion"

I defined religion, or if you prefer - religious belief, in the broader sense as the relationship between God and man. So there's no argument of needing religion to connect with God.

Lol!

Regarding point 1, I must admit that if i were sitting at the opposite end of the table from myself, that would have been my first argument. I would not have a defense against such an argument, yes.

With regards to this: two things
1. Judaism didn't start from Adam and eve..
2. origin of humanity is believed to be from Africa.. not the middle east

I suppose my communication was not very clear. What i meant to make reference to was Jewish and christian belief that starts with the five books of Moses, ie Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (not necessarily in the right order).

As to your last statement, are you asking why i chose the particular four values i chose?

AgentOfAllah:
Yes you did! In fact, your actual argument is inexorably dependent on your wildly speculative prelude.

I agree that we must be cautious, but elevating speculations to the status of facts is the exact opposite of that!


What life after death? This is just a rehashing of the oft invoked Pascal's wager. Pascal's wager is a probability function that proposes which of the two choices between your version of the afterlife and the lack of belief in one would lead to the best possible outcome. Of course, the wager would make eminent sense if these were indeed the only two options. However, by pitting your version of the afterlife against the lack of belief in the afterlife, Pascal's wager creates a false dichotomy that presumes wrong, every other version of the afterlife story; and by extension, their requirements for success. This is a real dilemma for you, since as you've "freely admitted", your conclusions are based on conjectures. There are thousands of other conjectures that equally support the thousands of other religions that exist or have ever existed. Therefore, the real probability you have to contend with isn't your proposition vs the absence of one, but your one proposition divided by the thousands of others in existence. Correct your wager this way, and you'll see how vanishingly small the chance of you being correct really is! Your chance of a blissful afterlife is almost as insignificant as mine, so rejecting your proposition doesn't give me extra worries, but, you, on the other hand, should be very worried about this terrible gamble!

Religion only enriches the lives of those who are made restless by a perfectly natural phenomenon called ignorance. There are those who are comfortable in the knowledge of their own ignorance, because they know that ignorance does not preclude intelligence. In many ways, admitting one's own ignorance enhances intelligence, for it is only in this state of admission that one is given to reasonable arguments.

There was nothing "wildly speculative" about my prelude.

Follow this train of thought and show me where the wild speculation is:

a. Life must have had a source. The source is either God or something else currently unidentified.

b. God is identified as the supreme creator of the universe who was not created but exists of Himself. That implies that God:

i. is the source of life
ii. has no source Himself
iii. is intelligent

b. Life is the product of evident design. If life came forth arbitrarily, it stands to reason that life itself would continue to exhibit arbitrary traits. But life is way too ordered and structured right down to the minutest detail to be considered arbitrary or coincidental.

What we observe of life, is that inanimate things are incapable of intelligent design, and all orderly things are the creation of an intelligent being capable of intelligent design. This suggests that intelligent and ordered life must be the product of an intelligent creator.

c. We must have, therefore, as the source of life, a source which can have no source, and which is intelligent.

d. This surpasses our currently understanding of the realms of possibility. We are forced to believe in what might be thought of as being scientifically improbable.

e. This means we must be open to beliefs which you may ordinarily consider to sound unscientifc

d. You must therefore accept the possibility, strongly of their being a God.

That is where my prelude ends, as i move on to my main argument, on how to identify the true religion.

On your elucidation of Pascals Wager, you see, you have missed the point again. For an atheist, you know that you are either right or wrong. To be wrong means you are in deep trouble, since you will face the punishment for missing out on God.

For the religious person the choices are also i am either right or wrong but for one set of religious people, whether they are right or wrong, they have a win-win solution. If i am right about my religion, then i will win in the afterlife. The only way to choose the right religion and lose is if all religion is wrong. But if i am wrong about all religion, then i will still win in the afterlife.

So the logical goal of any rational person, should be to seek out the right religion, with the knowledge that if i am right i win, and if i am wrong i still win.

My essay, in the opening post of this thread, is a guide as to how to tell the right religion from all others.

LiberaDeus:
Please show me how your god handed over christianity during the creation at genesis. Even judaism didnt exist then.
Were adam, eve, cain and abel jews or christians. I am honestly tired of your lies and deceit.

Your religion claims to be connected to the creator god and mithraism also claims that, so please whats the difference.
You are just twisting and turning. Please show me any place in genesis chapter 1 to chapter 5 that talks about christianity or judaism.
Mithraism never died out just like the asatru religion it just lost numbers and influence. Even the greek religions never died out, they just lost influence. So stop twisting this. Mithraism meets your pathetic 4 conditions

I had said it over and over again that hinduism meets those conditions, when you claimed christianity met your conditions, did you provide links or proof? No. At least you assumed that we were smart enough to have read the bible at some point to confirm that it meets those pathetic conditions. Because you are ignorant about other religions doesnt mean you should continue wallowing in perpetual ignorance. I will list how hinduism meets your conditions and i wont do you the favor of providing links for you to read. If you cant find them then thats your business but any learned person that has studied religion will agree with this;

1. Hinduism allegedly starts at creation by Brahman as stated in their hindu vedas.
2.Hindu central characters are the avatars of Brahman e.g Lord Krishna. if we are to believe their book the way you believe your bible then they were all perfect.
3. Hinduism surpasses a set of rules as it also focuses on meditations, visions and a relationship with their gods
4.Early hindus faced persecution from their foes the northern indians

I am not responding to you again because you have shown yourself to be a typical christian apologist, shifting the bar when it suits you and using lies and deceit tactics.
Bye

You do not belong in any intellectual forum. If you ask me for a source for any religious claim that i have made, i will not hesitate to provide it. Your only proof of your assertions is "any learned person that has studied religion will agree with this". Pure comedy!

Any where you go in the world, you will be ridiculed, in the company of intellectuals, for making such a ludicrous claim. As a matter of fact, if this was a discussion between only the two of us, i would immediately stop talking to you right there. However this is a forum so for the sake of the silent participants in this debate, i will suffer your unscientific and highly illogical approach.

1. You seem to be deliberately obtuse. I have pointed out to you repeatedly, that the name Christianity, came from men (Acts 11:26: The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.) yet you ask this[b] "Please show me any place in genesis chapter 1 to chapter 5 that talks about christianity or judaism"[/b]; Have you no ability to understand?

Religion, which i defined since the beginning of my thesis, is a set of rules for worship. In Genesis 2:15, God gives Adam and Eve the first set of instructions for worship. He continues to relate with man from that point on, through to Mathew, where He sends His son Jesus. This is the same God from Genesis to Revelation. There is nothing to argue about.

2. I should not argue your points on Hinduism since i have checked multiple sources and found nothing of what you said. I posted one of the sources for you. I then asked you for sources but you cannot provide even one. You are clearly not very well exposed to scientific methods. However, for the benefits of others, i will suffer your ways.

3. Even a surface perusal of your claims reveals how farcical your entire rejoinder is. "Early hindus faced persecution from their foes the northern indians". What a joke. Hinduism is defined everywhere i have searched, as not a particular religion, but the religious beliefs of the people of India as a whole. To claim that Hindus were persecuted by the people of Northern India is proof that you are either completely ignorant, or a typical half-baked self-imagined intellectual, a fraud at best. You think me saying i don't know much about Hinduism means i don't know anything about it, and you can therefore get a way with what you think are unnoticeable lies?

If anything at all, the invasion of the Northern Indians in the time period you make reference to, is what created the amalgamation of beliefs known as Hinduism today. What a fraud you are. I guess that is why you cannot offer any sources for your claims.

As for Mithraism:

Mithraism disappeared from overt practice after the Theodosian decree of 391 banned all pagan rites, and it apparently became extinct thereafter.

https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/link-suggestion/wpcd_2008-09_augmented/wp/m/Mithraic_Mysteries.htm

When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire about 330 bce, the old structure of society appears to have broken down completely, and about the worship of Mithra in Persia no more is heard.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mithraism

It is difficult to trace when the cult of Mithras came to an end. Beck states that "Quite early in the [fourth] century the religion was as good as dead throughout the empire."10 Inscriptions from the 4th century are few. Clauss states that inscriptions show Mithras as one of the cults listed on inscriptions by pagan senators in Rome as part of the "pagan revival" among the elite.11 There is no evidence that the cult still existed in the 5th century.12

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=main

LiberaDeus:
Very funny. There are people who still worship Thor and Odin and they are called Asatru heathens. its the same way there are still followers of Mithra no matter how few they are. When did the number of adherents start to matter to you? I thought it was just the 4 conditions you cared about? A religion meets the four conditions and you start talking about the number of adherents. There are more than 10,000 mithra followers in the world and even if its just 1 person, according to you if it meets the 4 conditions then it is true. SO why are you looking for escape routes or copouts.

Secondly, you posted a link about basic tenets of hinduism. Why dont you perform a research on Hinduism based on the four conditions you named and see whether it doesnt meet it.

Its good you admitted you dont have much knowledge about religion other than christianity and islam. So please do yourself a favor and read or should i say IQRA. Learn about other belief systems and enlighten yourself that you are not alone in your special delusion.

My condition number 1 has implicit conditions attached to it. You just never really understood it that's why I haven't specifically invoked it in the mithraism discussion. Mithraism has a creation story, however the religion itself has no links through to the beginning of time. There is no link that shoes how the mithraic god handed the religion in to "his creation". That is a violation of condition 1. Furthermore, implicit in the condition of having existed as a religion from the origin of life un its own historical narration, is the condition that it must continue to exist. Mithraism completely died out at some point in history. So does that mean the mithraic god stopped caring about humanity?

Now about Hinduism, you made assertions and the onus is on you to provide sources to prove them. You say Hinduism meets the four conditions. What is your source?

LiberaDeus:
Why are we going around in circles? did you bother to read the site at all?

Let me give you a glimpse of some of the content

Is a solitary Mithraist still a Mithraist?

Our answer is yes, provided that those who practice a modern path of Mithraism out of necessity do not confuse such practice with ancient Mithraism. Many pagan religious paths have been revived in the modern world over the past few decades. Experience has shown that real problems occur only when accurate history is lost, and modern adaptations are confused with ancient tradition.

The goal of Modern Mithraism is to keep Mithraism alive, not to replace the ancient Mysteries with something new. If individuals can keep themselves involved and make Mithraism interesting to others - it will make a reconstruction of the organized Mithraic Mysteries that much more possible.

Modern vs. Ancient Practice

As an organization, Mithraeum hopes both to encourage Modern Mithraism, and ensure that modern rites do not interfere with a rebirth of the ancient Mysteries as accurately as possible. In our view is a Modern Mithraic practice necessary for the survival of Mithraism as a path? Yes. In our view, is Modern Mithraic practice "just as important" as the ancient Mysteries? No, but that doesn't mean that modern rites are completely invalid either. If you seek Mithras with a sincere heart and a desire for knowledge, you will find him even if alone.

It is our great hope that Modern Mithraism will become a valuable tool for the rebuilding of accurate Mithraic Mysteries, not a watered-down modern replacement for them. Our goal is to make Mithras and his Light more available to the modern individual - even as we instill a desire for accurate scholarship and reconstruction.

The key to making Modern Mithraism a useful aid to rebuilding the Mysteries is clear labeling. Modern rites, rituals, festivals, prayers, ideas and writings should be clearly labeled as such. We must not confuse modern efforts with history today if we hope to rebuild something that is historically accurate in the future.

Hinduism has much more to offer than just rules. You have a very narrow unflattering view of any of your other religious brethren. Is it because you see all of them as worshipping the devil or demons?
Hinduism offers meditation, spiritual practices, prayers, fasting and most importantly a personal relationship with their gods and its avatars(Shiva, Krishna, Brahman etc). So i say once again Hinduism meets all those conditions you mentioned.
So ask yourself smartypants, why arent you a Hindu?

Everything you quoted about mithraism paints the clear picture of people trying to revive a dead religion. If the religion could die, and requires someone to start if up again, it is a mere contrivance. More importantly, it is not even established, they are still trying to build it up. Its a waste of time discussing it.

To tell you the truth, i have not studied many religions in detail other than Christianity and Islam, I won't pretend to be an expert of Hinduism.

However, my research into Hinduism does not corroborate any of your claims:

http://www.hinduismfacts.org/basic-beliefs-of-hinduism/

So where are your assertions sourced from?

mmsen:
What forefront are you talking about? The US is the world's biggest bully, waging war ever so often to fuel it's economy. In a similar fashion the UK did likewise in the 18th and 19th centuries. Where was their religion when they were invading Iraq under false pretenses?

Besides, the UK is largely an agnostic society, same for most of Europe.

The nations with the largest church attendance are the most unruly, most unequal and most dangerous. The US is certainly amongst that number, as is Brazil, South Africa, Jamaica, Bahamas and Nigeria. People hide behind religion when they feel like that they cannot trust their neighbor or their state institutions.

Also, religious observance tends to decrease with higher education and exposure to a wider variety of ideas and texts. Only the most traumatized of educated people cling to religion, Nigerian society is full of such people.

Hehehe.

This is what you originally said:

"In fact the most religious nations are typically the ones most beset by social issues and institutional failure. Africa is full of xtians, in what way is it better than the other continents?"

Is largely, Christian North America not better than other continents? Christianity may be on the decline in North America today, but it stands incontrovertible that countries like America were built largely by Christians.

So also in Europe, today, Christianity may be less popular but it is incontrovertible that it was built by Christians. As atheism and other belief systems take root, we can see that America and Europe are experiencing higher rates of suicide in young people, higher rates of divorce, higher rates of drug abuse, etc. These great civilizations are heading down hill just as fast as they are turning away from God.

And you would have us believe that these countries - Brazil, South Africa, Jamaica, Bahamas and Nigeria- are more unruly and dangerous than Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen etc? Amazing...please tell me more! Or rather, let me tell you more!

Brazil is at the forefront of South America, in all indices you can think of.

South Africa is at the forefront of Africa in every index you can think of, from number of milionaires to healthcare.

Nigeria has the continent's largest economy.

LiberaDeus:
Mithraism is still practised today. The link below shows that

http://www.mithraeum.info/mithraismtoday.htm

- Who are you to say hinduism is based around rules and conduct. Christianity has more rules than central hinduism.


If you feel there is no reason for cow worship please tell me the reason there is for believing in virgin births. You havent read about the cow worship and you are already believing there is no reason. Please tell me the reason and need for a trinity.

And while you are at it, please read the following link and tell me if hindus actually worship cows( at least its from the horses mouth)

https://www.nhsf.org.uk/2007/05/why-do-hindus-worship-the-cow/

This is the tagline of the site you sent me:

"Modern explorations into the worship of Mithras, that make no claim to be the ancient Mithraic Mysteries."

Again, ab initio, not worth looking into.

I am not against rules of good conduct, however a religion has to offer more than that. That's the point. We already have our own rules of good conduct, and every religion has rules of good conduct. So religion must offer a unique connection with God. The Buddhists offer mediation for example, (though i disqualify them based on my other points).