₦airaland Forum

larrymoore: God is able!

I'll leave you with Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

qstar: Prayer can never prevent anything from happening, neither can it cause anything to happen.

Having been a Christian most my life, I'd say the effects of prayer are at best no different from those of a placebo pill.

experimentist: Has Jesus started rappin? I know of black Jesus, but white Jesus I don't know.. He woulda make more brain rapper than a man-god, you knw..

Here ya go


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

Like mazaje said above, prayer is quite possibly the biggest illusion in all religion. If you pray for something, and it happens sometime down the line, God did it! And if it doesn't, God says wait, or God knows best.

But why should you even need to pray at all, if God already has a plan for you? We have all been predestined from birth according to the bible right?

Unsurprisingly, all of the studies carried out on the effects of intercessory prayer so far have shown that prayer has absolutely no effects on the recipients.

TheBigUrban2: Genetics abi? You do realise that our genes are result of the environment? Evolution?

You do realise that in theory, if we could tweak our dna we could make every human have specific characteristics that we want.

We all came from the same DNA....the problem is that for thousands of years, we humans moved and lived in different environment and so, there have been minor differences due to adaptation.

For instance, Africans have stronger bones because they live in hotter climates. Winter isnt good for bones

Before we get on with the whole nature vs nurture argument, allow me to point out that this is not the sense of which you spoke in the OP regarding the effects of the environment. You spoke more about interpersonal relationships, education and the affluence of a person's society. You also implied that inequalities are not present at birth. See below.

TheBigUrban2: First of all, science tells us that all humans have the same basic make up, the same basic body parts and we are the same species. The differences in men mostly come from the effects of the environment.
....
The problem is that our environment, our experiences and upbringing are thing the things that make us unique. We were all foolish from the womb as babies. I am yet to see any human being that was intelligent as a baby. The inequality starts with the environment; breastfeeding as a baby, your teachings as a child, the prosperity of your society, the wealth of your parents, guardian etc.

This is all irrelevant in the end though. Nature or nuture, I suppose we can all be glad we weren't Moabites or Amalekites back when God was on his period.

larrymoore: Ur candid world view, if all ar liberal, surely, no religion wll sell but for the. Sake of doubt, we follow.

Expatiate, please?

experimentist: who's young jeezus

This is what I assume Jesus' rap moniker would be

Or Don Jeezy, if he was a naija artist

While I do disagree with the idea that a God is needed for us to hold a belief in the equality of all men, I would also have to disagree with your rebuttals.

First of all, all men [and women] are NOT born equal. It is frankly an absurd position to hold that the only differences that exist between humans only "come from the effects of the environment." On the contrary, genetics accounts for trillions of differences between the human species, each one affecting our eventual capabilities relative to the rest of the population. For example, where the ability to play basketball in the NBA is considered, a male measuring 5 foot and 3 inches is unequal to Shaquille O'Neal. A baby born without limbs is at a significant disadvantage relative to the rest of the world's babies, and this is before the environment even has a chance to "shape" them.

HOWEVER, consider Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

This idea is forged through philosophical reflection, and the notion that equality is one of the ideals that we as humans should aspire to. According to philosophers like Immanuel Kant, what makes human beings different from mere things is that people have dignity based on their ability to choose freely what they will do with their lives, and they have a fundamental moral right to have these choices respected. As with Thomas Jefferson's quote on the same issue in the Declaration of Independence, our equality lies in the rights held, in that everyone should be able to have life, liberty and to pursue their own happiness (among other things, unstated).

experimentist: OP, what abt Tupac? He splits blunts and rolls fat ones daily

Hehe maybe that's what Young Jeezus and his disciples were doing before they got the munchies leading to the last supper.

That would explain why he confused his bread for meat, and wine for blood

Original or copy, you decide.

Who was the Son of the highest God, and the biggest healer in Antiquity? He healed the sick and even raised the dead. Hear and behold: former paralysed walked again, the blind could miraculously see again, and the deaf could listen and the mute speak after the Master's gentle touch! But he did not only heal the body, he also healed the soul. They called him Saviour and Redeemer, and he healed both rich and poor, men and women, young and old, slaves and free men, friends and enemies. In one occasion a paralysed man was brough to him in his bed, and took his bed and left walking after the Saviour had touched him. What was this Saviour's name?

… Asklepios.

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Who was born by a mortal virgin mother and had a divine Father, and was known as the "Saviour of the world"? Before he was born his parents wandered to a bigger town, and prophets had foretold his birth and that he would be a king. This instigated a search for the infant Saviour by a leading figure who wanted to kill him. After growing up the Son of God was shown all the kingdoms of the world from a high mountain. He also walked on water and when he met his end his mother and his favorite disciple stood by him. He then tells his mother: "Do not cry, I'm going to heaven". When he dies he utter: "It is finished" and the earth trembles and darkness cover the land. Then he ascended to heaven, and his greatest achievement was to conquer death.

His name was of course...Hercules.

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We all of course know the Redeemer who was no figure of pagan Greek polytheism. He was the true Saviour who wanted to help and save the sinful humans, by sacrificing himself. But he was willing to do this, out of love, pity and compassion for the humans.

His name:...Prometheus.

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Now, who was the real Son of God, born by a mortal virgin mother, and often presented as the venerated newborn infant, or depicted riding a donkey? He healed the sick and did numerous wonders, among those making fine wine from plain water. He was killed but resurrected from the dead and became immortal. The followers of this God often ate a holy meal in a kind of sacramental union with the deity to achieve immortality after their death. One of this god's finest achievements was his death, his sacrifice, which delivers the whole human kind.

The God was the very popular Dionysos.

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Who is the "Light of the World", the One, the God who defeated death? Born of a virgin mother, considered the first true King by the people. Who rose from the grave and ascended to heaven. He defeated death, and must be considered the single true God.

Of course the Egyptian Osiris!

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Now, the real God often called the "Light of the world", "The good shepherd", "The lamb" and is "…the way, the truth, and the life". Identified with a cross. Who could that be?

Horus, (the son of Osiris).

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The original "Light of the world" was the mediator between God and man and was born on the 25th of December. Local shepherds witnessed his birth and gave him gifts. He had 12 disciples, and when his work was done on earth he gathered together to a last supper, and then ascended to heaven. At doomsday he will return to pass judgment on both the living and the dead. The righteous will go to heaven and the sinful will be killed in a giant fire. Sunday is his holy day, and this religion gave us the seven days of the week. His followers called each other "brothers" and their leaders "fathers". They practiced baptism and established a sacred meal ritual, where flesh and blood was symbolically consumed by initiates. Above earth was heaven, and below the dark hell with demons and the sinners.

The 'Light of the World' is of course the sungod Mithra.

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Wise men were led to his birth by a star, and his conception was miraculous. After his birth the ruler in the area wanted him dead and started a hunt for the child. But his parents were warned by a heavenly messenger who told them to escape over the river with the holy child. Here, he was met by shepherds. The boy grew up and did many great deeds, and was the mediator between God and man.

His name: Krishna.

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The problem for Jesus is that all these deities are much older than him. You don't have to be very bright to see where the authors of the Gospels got their "divine inspiration" when they created the Jewish version of the popular God-Man/ World-Saviour of Antiquity.


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I have too much faith to be a Christian

I don’t think Christians properly understand the process of de-conversion many of us go through. It’s hard for them to fathom how we screwed up. But basically they think it’s an error of logic, we trusted our own thinking too much, got sucked into hubris, doubt, rationalism, and stopped believing. They assume it was probably mostly a social rebellion against our loving family, probably because we were hurt as children somehow. They think Becoming Atheist is a childish play for attention or emotional revenge of some sort; that we do this just to hurt Christians.

But a lot of non-believing friends of mine used to be, like me, very passionate Christians. I was passionately Christian for years. I was very public about it. I prayed publicly. I was an Acolyte. I even studied theology.

The problem was I learned far too much about historical Christianity. I learned that the Church Fathers were mostly ruthless, self-centered assholes who lied, cheated, tricked, stole and betrayed each other, trying to dominate their political agendas through theological maneuvering. I learned the core dogma of today’s Christianity evolved over a thousand years, mostly by accident, and reversed its stance on crucial issues several times.

I learned the Bible is a mashup of philosophy and theology and mythology from dozens of early cultures – a case of plagiarism so obvious that word-for-word passages from Greek plays, mystery cult scripts, and magical papyri can still be found today.

Knowing all of these things, I came up with a new appreciation for the flaws of Christianity.

If God exists, I reasoned, he certainly would have done a better job than this.

I don’t really care whether God exists or whether he doesn’t exist. I think arguing over that precise point holds little value.

I’m not going to prove to a believer that he doesn’t, and they aren’t going to prove to me that he does.

But even if someone could prove to me ontologically, definitely, absolutely, in the existence of God, I could still prove to them – historically – that most of the Bible never happened, that there’s no way an omnipotent and omniscient God could have made such as absolute mess of everything, and still use this shoddy, cobbled together, detestably simple-minded belief system as the final judgment criteria for our eternal souls.

For me, belief in God automatically rules out Christianity. In other words, whether or not God exists, Christianity is bunk.

But IF he exists, he goes against all common definitions of him (Good, Merciful, Forgiving, Wise). If Christianity is true, God is automatically a jerk, a tyrant, a fool, an amateur (which is why the Gnostics called him Demiurge – not the real God at all, just a stupid kid playing god and making a mess). And, since by St. Anselm’s definition, God must be the highest thought that can be thunk, the god of Christianity can not be the real God.

The reasons I’m not Christian have nothing to do with belief in God; and they have nothing to do with the values and morals or Christianity. (Although, while I used to agree with the humble/Buddhist passive acceptance of everything, I’ve changed for a much more Promethean, Faustian, Puritan work ethic of making lots of great stuff and changing the world).

By Derek Murphy (Source: http://www.holyblasphemy.net/i-dont-have-enough-faith-to-be-an-atheist-but-i-have-too-much-faith-to-be-a-christian/)

How is God good again?

He must have such a twisted sense of humor.

larrymoore: God can't be mocked!

Apparently he can

cococandy, as you can tell already, a huge number of atheists were at previous times in their lives devout Christians. Me personally, it wasn't until I decided to read the bible from cover to cover for better understanding that I began to doubt its veracity and the nature of God. This would eventually lead me to a disbelief in Yahweh himself.

During this period, I would ask so many questions, and would get cliches and rebuke as answers. By far the most popular answer was "Don't question the mind of God"/"We cannot understand the mind of God". Well, why then do we have the bible in the first place?

I don't have the time to go into the core of my experiences at the moment, but this guy sums up some of the bigger questions I had in this post below.

Why the Christian God is Impossible
by Chad Docterman

Source: http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/imposs.htm

Introduction

Christians consider the existence of their God to be an obvious truth that no sane man could deny. I strongly disagree with this assumption not only because evidence for the existence of this presumably ubiquitous yet invisible God is lacking, but because the very nature Christians attribute to this God is self-contradictory.


Proving a universal negative

It is taken for granted by Christians, as well as many atheists, that a universal negative cannot be proven. In this case, that universal negative is the statement that the Christian God does not exist. One would have to have omniscience, they say, in order to prove that anything does not exist. I disagree with this position, however, because omniscience is not needed in order to prove that a thing whose nature is a self-contradiction cannot, and therefore does not exist.

I do not need a complete knowledge of the universe to prove to you that cubic spheres do not exist. Such objects have mutually-exclusive attributes which would render their existence impossible. For example, a cube, by definition, has 8 corners, while a sphere has none. These properties are completely incompatible: they cannot be held simultaneously by the same object. It is my intent to show that the supposed properties of the Christian God Yahweh, like those of a cubic sphere, are incompatible, and by so doing, to show Yahweh's existence to be an impossibility.


Defining YHWH

Before we can discuss the existence of a thing, we must define it. Christians have endowed their God with all of the following attributes: He is eternal, all-powerful, and created everything. He created all the laws of nature and can change anything by an act of will. He is all-good, all-loving, and perfectly just. He is a personal God who experiences all of the emotions a human does. He is all-knowing. He sees everything past and future.

God's creation was originally perfect, but humans, by disobeying him, brought imperfection into the world. Humans are evil and sinful, and must suffer in this world because of their sinfulness. God gives humans the opportunity to accept forgiveness for their sin, and all who do will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven, but while they are on earth, they must suffer for his sake. All humans who choose not to accept this forgiveness must go to hell and be tormented for eternity.

These attributes of God are related by the Bible, which Christians believe to be the perfect and true Word of God.

One verse which Christians are fond of quoting says that atheists are fools. I intend to show that the above concepts of God are completely incompatible and so reveal the impossibility of all of them being true. Who is the fool? The fool is the one who believes impossible things and calls them divine mysteries.


Perfection seeks even more perfection

What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.


Perfection begets imperfection

But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect God did create the universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since they were created in God's image and have the ability to make decisions. However, these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey God.

What!? If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this "perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible.


The Freewill Argument

The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.

Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.

Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.

Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently?

The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.


All-good God knowingly creates future suffering

God is omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings which humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been better for those humans to never have been born (in fact, the Bible says this very thing), and surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of the humans were doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible.


Infinite punishment for finite sins

God is perfectly just, and yet he sentences the imperfect humans he created to infinite suffering in hell for finite sins. Clearly, a limited offense does not warrant unlimited punishment. God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is infinitely more unjust than this punishment. The absurd injustice of this infinite punishment is even greater when we consider that the ultimate source of human imperfection is the God who created them. A perfectly just God who sentences his imperfect creation to infinite punishment for finite sins is impossible.


Belief more important than action

Consider all of the people who live in the remote regions of the world who have never even heard the "gospel" of Jesus Christ. Consider the people who have naturally adhered to the religion of their parents and nation as they had been taught to do since birth. If we are to believe the Christians, all of these people will perish in the eternal fire for not believing in Jesus. It does not matter how just, kind, and generous they have been with their fellow humans during their lifetime: if they do not accept the gospel of Jesus, they are condemned. No just God would ever judge a man by his beliefs rather than his actions.


Perfection's imperfect revelation

The Bible is supposedly God's perfect Word. It contains instructions to humankind for avoiding the eternal fires of hell. How wonderful and kind of this God to provide us with this means of overcoming the problems for which he is ultimately responsible! The all-powerful God could have, by a mere act of will, eliminated all of the problems we humans must endure, but instead, in his infinite wisdom, he has opted to offer this indecipherable amalgam of books which is the Bible as a means for avoiding the hell which he has prepared for us. The perfect God has decided to reveal his wishes in this imperfect work, written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man. No two men will ever agree what this perfect word of God is supposed to mean, since much of it is either self- contradictory, or obscured by enigmatic symbols. And yet the perfect God expects us imperfect humans to understand this paradoxical riddle using the imperfect minds with which he has equipped us. Surely the all-wise and all-powerful God would have known that it would have been better to reveal his perfect will directly to each of us, rather than to allow it to be debased and perverted by the imperfect language and botched interpretations of man.


Contradictory justice

One need look to no source other than the Bible to discover its imperfections, for it contradicts itself and thus exposes its own imperfection. It contradicts itself on matters of justice, for the same just God who assures his people that sons shall not be punished for the sins of their fathers turns around and destroys an entire household for the sin of one man (he had stolen some of Yahweh's war loot). It was this same Yahweh who afflicted thousands of his innocent people with plague and death to punish their evil king David for taking a census (?!). It was this same Yahweh who allowed the humans to slaughter his son because the perfect Yahweh had botched his own creation. Consider how many have been stoned, burned, slaughtered, Molested, and enslaved because of Yahweh's skewed sense of justice. The blood of innocent babies is on the perfect, just, compassionate hands of Yahweh.


Contradictory history

The Bible contradicts itself on matters of history. A person who reads and compares the contents of the Bible will be confused about exactly who Esau's wives were, whether Timnah was a concubine or a son, and whether Jesus' earthly lineage is through Solomon or his brother Nathan. These are but a few of hundreds of documented historical contradictions. If the Bible cannot confirm itself in mundane earthly matters, how are we to trust it on moral and spiritual matters?


Unfulfilled prophecy

The Bible misinterprets its own prophecies. Read Isaiah 7 and compare it to Matthew 1 to find but one of many misinterpreted prophecies of which Christians are either passively or willfully ignorant. The fulfillment of prophecy in the Bible is cited as proof of its divine inspiration, and yet here is but one major example of a prophecy whose intended meaning has been and continues to be twisted to support subsequent absurd and false doctrines. There are no ends to which the credulous will not go to support their feeble beliefs in the face of compelling evidence against them.

The Bible is imperfect. It only takes one imperfection to destroy the supposed perfection of this alleged Word of God. Many have been found. A perfect God who reveals his perfect will in an imperfect book is impossible.


The Omniscient changes the future

A God who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient God who is all-powerful and freewilled is impossible.


The Omniscient is surprised

A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness. We humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. A man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. In contrast, the omniscient God is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may emotively react.

We humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we cannot fix. The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix anything. Humans experience longing for things we lack. The perfect God lacks nothing. An omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who experiences emotion is impossible.


The conclusion of the matter

I have offered arguments for the impossibility, and thus the non- existence, of the Christian God Yahweh. No reasonable and freethinking individual can accept the existence of a being whose nature is so contradictory as that of Yahweh, the "perfect" creator of our imperfect universe. The existence of Yahweh is as impossible as the existence of cubic spheres or invisible pink unicorns.

Should any Christian who reads this persist in defending these impossibilities through means of "divine transcendence" and "faith," and should any Christian continue to call me an atheist fool, I will be forced to invoke the wrath of the Invisible Pink Unicorn:

"You are a fool for denying the existence of the IPU. You have rejected true faith and have relied on your feeble powers of human reason and thus arrogantly denied the existence of Her Divine Transcendence, and so are you condemned."

If such arguments are good enough for Yahweh, they are good enough for Her Invisible Pinkness.

As for me and my house, we shall choose reality.

I still don't know how to feel about this whole data loss thing mehn. I never thought anything I posted here was of any material importance to me, but somehow it feels like losing a personal journal. Anyhow sha, some silver linings (?)

- Uyi Iredia is still pretending to be atheist

- Out with the new, in with the old. Joshthefirst is back, TomiGodson? That guy don die.

- All those DeepSight rants? Nope. Nope. Never happened.

- Anony is still AWOL. I hope his absence has nothing to do with a disbelief in the creator of Nairaland

- aManfrommars and Logicboy? The bestestest of friends! Hmmm but I see a rift in your futures o, and some alleged Judas-ing

- Who knows what Logicboy's name is at this moment anyway?

Anyways, time to rebuild fellas

Hey everyone, I'm a returning student, currently in Nigeria and slated for the interview in two days, Problem is my passport is due to expire in about 10 months (not even close to the required 2 years and six months ) and I just couldn't get another one what with the NLC strike. I would like to know how that may affect the reinstation of my F1 visa status??

In the Psychology class I'm taking this semester, there's this feature on the Blackboard website that lets you send emails to the entire class of like 300 students; so many students accordingly just spam the rest of us with reasons why they couldn't bring their lazy a$$e$ to class and how we should send them our notes out of compassion. So yesterday, with less than two days to finals, some student, who is either just hilarious like that or had way too much time on his hands, spammed us with the following;


----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Christopher Middle Last  <emailremovedbecauseof@awonboys.edu>
Sent: Tue, December 14, 2010 8:12:19 PM
Subject: 201008_PSYC100_kmurnane: 201008_PSYC100_kmurnane

Hey everyone,

So I know how annoying/obnoxious all these emails are but I haven't gone to lecture once since the beginning of the semester due to the following reasons (other than the obvious one that I was just too lazy),

August 31: I was too afraid to meet new people so I stayed home
September 2: I broke my leg
September 7: I broke my other leg
September 9: My roommate broke his leg
September 14: I pooped my pants and I was too embarrassed to come to class
September 16: Decided to go looking for the 6 foot black man with jeans and a dark t-shirt who keeps mugging people on campus in the Crime Alerts
September 21: The Raven's lost to the Bengals and I was too distraught to study psych
September 23: My psychic told me to stay home
September 28: Watched an entire season of Desperate Housewives and lost track of time
September 30: Got hit by a bus. But it was a "hit and run" so I missed the bus.
October 5: First day of Jelly Fishing season
October 7: Had to sacrifice a goat to my pagan god so I could get an A on the test, subsequently missed the test
October 12: Thought about going to class today until Dr. Murnane cancelled it
October 14: My fish died
October 19: My dog died
October 21: Got a new dog today. It ran out in the street and got hit by a car.
October 26: My rabbit died
October 28: My snake died
November 2: I tried to get into bed late at night and ended up sitting on my cat cause I wasn't using my rods
November 4: My cat died
November 9: I had to go to all the funerals
November 11: Tried to celebrate Veterans Day and ended up getting stabbed at Turtle
November 16: My friend Charlie bit my finger, had to get stitches
November 18: Harry Potter was coming out the next day so I had to spend the day practicing spells
November 23: Hurt my neck trying to whip my hair back and forth
November 25: I showed up to class but for some reason no one was there,
November 30: Ended up getting mugged by a 6 foot black guy with jeans and a dark t-shirt. I reported the incident right away!
December 2: My alarm noise didn't break my Absolute Threshold
December 7: Someone tried to steal my Lucky Charms. Spent the whole day trying to lose them.
December 9: Couldn't remember where the classroom was

Yea, so I was just wondering if someone could just type and send me all there notes from the very beginning of class and then maybe go on Thursday and take my Final for me, if its not too much trouble of course. Thanks!

Chris

P.S. Good luck on finals everybody!

Mudley313:
Tower of Babel, was conceptual-bliss. God used it in a few ways, I think, primarily to smote those who had nerve to lose faith and to question his presence with the audacity to think they could build a tower, reaching him.

think about it. . .he could have very well let them continue to build until they reached a height where they couldn't breath properly, featuring an unstable tower that God's laws of physics would've soon caused to fall and injure or killed many humans. . .not including those who had already died (meaninglessly) building it, up to the point.

But God did something much greater, instead, he used that Tower-incident to create, nationalities. Languages. Beauty-in-Tongues.

[size=18pt]Isn't our God, a great God?!!![/size]




https://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt69/hollow_shinji312/sarcasm_1.jpg

seriously tho, people built something very high. It collapsed, they believed it was god who collapsed it (that is, assuming this particular babel story even ever occurred).history has documented cases of statues or buildings crumbling due to faulty engineering (even ships sinking, ala titanic) being placed in the "The Gods must be upset with us" category. Tower of babel has to be one of the better fairytale stories of the bible yet silly in its own way. It tries to explain that all languages were the same at the time which is foolish

atleast, yahweh and his arabian counterpart allah got sumthing in common here; crashing down buildings 9/11 style

Pretty interesting


I want some answers from theistic points of view too though

Jenwitemi:
I am sure the story is a metaphor for something much more spiritual. A parable about what once happened to mankind eons ago. If you read mythological tales of other cultures, especially african ones, you will get the same elements. The one language referred to in the tower of babel tale could be the language of telepathy, which is referred to repeatedly in many african myths that mankind once used to communicate.

The writer uses the word 'speech', so I would assume the people of said time actually had to produce audible sounds with their mouths? Is there any evidence showing that humans once communicated telepathically?

Jenwitemi:
I am sure the story is a metaphor for something much more spiritual. A parable about what once happened to mankind eons ago. If you read mythological tales of other cultures, especially african ones, you will get the same elements. The one language referred to in the tower of babel tale could be the language of telepathy, which is referred to repeatedly in many african myths that mankind once used to communicate.

Are you implying that the story was adopted from some culture Christianity came into contact with in its early stages or some time when this part of the Bible was being written?

Also if we take this as a just a metaphor, what other stories in the bible should we also qualify as metaphors and not actual events? David vs Goliath? Joshua's victory at Aijalon?The parting of the Red sea? The Egyptians and the Ten Plagues? Moses' conversations with God on Mt Sinai and the acquisition of Tablet of commandments?
Wouldn't it would seem as if adherents to Bible teachings just decide to find some deep spiritual meaning within some Bible story they find unbelievable?

Edit: My point is, in a world when we can't even decide on the exact age of the earth as scientists and the bible adherents have different opinions, you (or we as humans) don't have enough concrete historical evidence to entirely determine if the writers of some story in the Bible intended it as an actual story/myth or as a metaphor. Well, except in cases such as this where some form of mutual exclusivity exists between two claims in the story and in other parts of the Bible respectively (the nature of God in this case).

Thanks for your reply tho

“And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. God came down to see what they did and said: "They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do." So God said, "Come, let us go down and confound their speech." And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, and they left off building the city, which was called Babel "because God there confounded the language of all the Earth."”(Genesis 11:5-.

Ok I have a few questions I’d love answers to:


First off, if the word “God” had been replaced with “a spiritual being”, I believe we would most likely all, after considering the actions of this ‘being’, conclude that said ‘spiritual being’ is the Devil [and/or Lucifer] himself as his actions are clearly ‘evil’. Isn’t it crazy to think that our all powerful, all good God caused the present disharmony among his people because they existed in harmony and could succeed in all endeavors?

I mean, what made God, the infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, so scared and wary of the peace and unity among his finite, weak, mostly spiritually illiterate people who simply sook to see his face? If he did not want his people disrupting the peace in his place of abode, was the evocation of disharmony between the people, an action which sounds absolutely sadistic to me, the most sensible containment measure for employment by an all-powerful God?


The passage states that the humans were building the tower towards heaven. I believe we can safely assume that they (the people) began building the tower on the same earth we exist on now; where then is heaven? In the clouds directly above us? If so, why doesn’t God destroy the spaceships and shuttles that have eventually found their way into and past those ‘heavens’?


The bible also claims the builders were all that existed on earth at the time and their disbanding brought about the diversity of languages. Agreed. What then brought about the diversity of races?


Or are we to take this story as a metaphor? If so, what then is its existential significance? Harmony and peace are values that can help us grow immensely as a people, but we must not strive to achieve them as God would thwart whatever plans we make thereafter? Or spiritual things are irrelevant (seeking God’s face), and we should only be concerned with matters in our immediate world (he didn't stop them from building the city)?

He was at my former uni about two years ago to lecture at some three-day workshop he organized himself-- which I happened to attend. This guy by every means is the greatest Nigerian I ever met. He's so down to earth and patriotism oozes out of his speech and actions. Although almost everyone present including lecturers at my uni, kinda worshiped him for holding the number of degrees he did, he took the time to speak to every body individually and respectfully. My roommate at the time also loved him simply for the fact that even though he had spent a relatively long amount of time in the West, he hadn't changed his igbo accent any bit (maybe the igbo accent is just too thick to be dropped jk). He made me, and hopefully everyone that also attended the workshop, believe we could do or be anything we wanted to. Greatest man I ever met.

Tudór:
Is this NEW marriage really necessary?

Can someone tell me why this man didn't raise his wife from the dead? Or better, heal her when she was sick and dying of cancer like a chicken?

Charity begins at home. These foolish men preach "healing", "faith" and "miracles" yet you see them wearing corrective lens and dying of sicknesses like christmas goats.

I dont know why Nigerians are so gullible and stoopid to follow these criminals called pastors.

Psalm 118:17-18Is this not the promise of the Lord?
Obviously the Lord is a Liar and an incompetent 'braggadon', as the Late Mrs Kumuyi will tell you. He "chastened" her with painful and degenerative cancer then "gave her unto death" so pastor Kumuyi can scherzo with a new wife. Thank you Jesus.

LMAO

The new wife looks like a very ugly gay man too.

tunde300us:
Am still waiting for someone to help me with this question. What fashion is there in sagging? (Maybe eldee can help out here)

What fashion is there in female low-rise jeans? What fashion is there in suspenders? What fashion is there in shoulder pads? What fashion is there in tattered jeans? What fashion is there in flared pants? What fashion is there in spiked-out leather jackets? What fashion is there in male body-hug shirts? What fashion is there in male platform shoes? What fashion is there in baggy jeans? Fashion fads come and go. Deal with it.

I've come across a few non-Nigerians with Nigerian names before. There was this family I lived close to early this year that gave all their daughters Yoruba names, although the parents are 5th generation Americans. There was also this one Guyanan girl with an Ibo name. She claims her dad's not Nigerian, he just Googles for names for his kids (she's black tho, so I cant tell for sure that that's the truth).

davidylan:
and what is the empirical proof of this "discovery"? nothing of course . . . just lazy noise making.

and exactly what "facts" did you examine?

apples to oranges. Your dad isnt keeping you as a disenfranchised slave. Merely trying to make you a more responsible adult.

Nope, they are simply telling you to continue what you grew up with.

obviously to many of you, your idea of a "genuine christian" is one who rolls on his back and pathetically grins at you even when you call him a fool for his beliefs. I dont blame you, its the prevalent pseudo-christianity gaining hold in the world today. A "christianity" that is more about being nice and giving to charity than it is about the bible itself.

You know what I think? I think it’s really pointless arguing with you. You have picked out the mostly irrelevant little sidenotes in my arguments to argue about (instead of reconstructing your previous arguments to counter mine and prove to me that your position might be the right one).

You’re not really trying to make an argument, you're simply out to win a flame war – at least that’s what it looks like to me.

For all I know, you could be a fat guy with masochistic tendencies sitting behind his 20 year old computer with his dic(k) hanging out, jerking off to each reply directed at him.
I already got enough opinions to ruminate over though, so I won’t be feeding you anymore; put the dic(k) back in its holster.

For the part in bold though what happened to "follow peace with all men" or "turn the other cheek?"(you don't need to reply)

hmmm for starters, no genuine christian believes in santa claus, i knew he didnt exist way before i was even 5 yrs old. Santa claus is a secular invention that has nothing to do with christianity. That you didnt know this is appalling and quite telling of your level of maturity. What really do you know?

Isn't Christmas itself a secular invention? However, I am yet to see a Christian that doesn't celebrate christmas (not counting Jehovah's Witnesses). "Genuine christians" must be one in a gazillion. BTW where did I say I actually ever believed Santa was real or that orange trees could grow out your belly? I believe I was comparing a person's discovery that God was nonexistent to a child's discovery that the fairy tales he was made to believe in were lies

isnt this hypocritical coming from a slowpoke weeping here about his parents "intolerance"? Why are you pushing atheism down our throats while whinning about your parents pushing church down yours? And pls bury this absurd idea that those who believe in christianity are "fools" and "close-minded" for not seeing the "truth".

For starters . . . what is the "truth"? where is your definitive empirical proof that God doesnt exist? Simply latching on to Chris Hitchens doesnt make you smart.

I didnt also say atheism was the truth and Christians were close-minded. I said most atheists (new atheists particularly) feel they have found out 'the truth' and thus might look on people who haven't also seen this 'truth' as fools and close-minded.
I don't latch on to anybody else's beliefs. Most of what I believe now, I arrived at by examining 'facts' and personal reflection.

which planet is this slowpoke from? The religion section contains so many atheists that your idea they are "quite rare" beggars belief.

what is the ratio of atheists to christians on NL?

Keep quite you immature little ungrateful child. So it has become "gross inconvenience" that your father (without whom you'd be nothing anyway) insists you obey his rules?

Grow up, have your own children then come and tell us this story again.

look at it this way. Slaves were taken from Africa to America to basically slave and die away. In a way, their transition from Africa to America was some sort of privilege as America turned out to become a better, more developed place than Africa afterall. Now, were the slaves ungrateful to ask for their freedom from the 'gross inconvenience' of slavery but still live on American soil?

1. You're a cowardly slowpoke . . . take that to the bank. Normal sane children sit their father down and have a discussion on their goals and aspirations not whine on a public forum that daddy wants them to study mech engineering. My father wanted me to be a journalist . . . i had to sit him down and tell him i wanted the freedom to choose what i wanted. I didnt say it rudely, i simply pointed out my strengths, ambitions and the need for him to support me - and he did . . . today he's a proud father. I was only 14 by the way.

2. No one expects you to be a mindless zombie, the only problem you have is that you are an immature person whose father isnt confident enough to allow to handle his own affairs.

I didn't also say I haven't told him I wanted to be something other than a mech engineer. I was only asking a question for you to apply your own logic to. However, we're diverging from the question I posed in the post originally. I said my parents were uptight about religious matters and are really pushing it on me. I plan to talk to them about it, but the results might harm both my parents and I (since they're OBVIOUSLY uptight about such matters). I weighed my options and decided to get some other people's opinions or experiences that might help me make a decision. Simple!

BTW are you a christian? Just curious
I don't see how a 'genuine christian', professional (or soon to be professional) 'journalist' could harbor so much anger at a stranger and resort to so much name-calling. Sit back and read all your posts on this topic, you sound really angry and sadistic; its appalling.[quote][/quote]

put up with what

tpia@:
i dont believe anyone should get a medal for being an atheist or whatever, and i'm constantly surprised at how some nlers constantly beat their chests and congratulate themselves over the same.

what the heck?

what exactly is the point, and did you split an atom or something, or what's the celebration about?

Remember when you found out there was actually no Santa Claus all along, and you just wanted to tell it to all the kids who still believed in Santa Claus on the playground? OK in more Nigerian terms , remember when you found out an orange seed couldn't actually become a tree in your belly and you went to your dilapidated excuse for a school the next day wanting to shout it to all the kids that were still scared to ingest orange seeds?

Yeah, I think that's the thing with most atheists (mostly new ones I think). When you find out some thing that every or most people around you believed in is a big a$$ bag of deceit, you are bound to want to push it in their faces to show them they are either fools or close-minded chaps for not seeing the truth that laid in front of them all along. Also since such people that think the same way as you are quite rare, you tend to feel some sort of elation(?) when you by chance meet one of them. Just what I think though

davidylan:
pls tell him. He has parents who care enough to send him to the best schools where he isnt paying a dime, they care enough to call him constantly and all he frowns about is their insistence that he goes to church? lol

Seriously man, why are you so butt-hurt (or sounding like you are)?

Some people struggle to get what they have, some people don't. However, the fact that one person doesn't struggle for the luxuries he gets doesn't mean he should adore and not complain about any gross inconveniences that might accompany the luxuries (even though he appreciates and tries not to pervert the luxuries).

I'm greatly bothered by their constant nagging and just want it to stop. What's the problem with that? My dad also wants me to study mech engineering, so I can "take over his business", do you also suggest I do that just for the fact that he pays my school fees? Does the fact that he pays my school fees makes me a mindless zombie that answers only to the sound of his voice?

Inked_Nerd:
Oooooh, nice discussion. I'd like to see more responses from people though. timmy2409, I think you might be my new favorite member on NL.

Haha I'm flattered.

kokoye:
this is a duplicate thread - there's a longer one on the front page.

Yeah true. My bad.
thread continues here https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-538221.0.html

Yield:
You’re at that age now where you’re wanting to question things and figure out who you are, what your beliefs are, etc. I’m not going to tell you whether you not believing in God’s right or wrong. That’s up to you to decide. Your choice. But, it's an important one and you really ought to think about it, thoroughly. At 18, you’re an adult and you’ve the right to hold your own beliefs. Your parents really do not have any right to tell you what to do now. Still, they're your parents and you do have to respect them. And since your Dad’s sponsoring you and you’re an international student, I would probably wait until I’m older, have finished School, have my own career, have settled down and can stand on my own two feet before telling them I do not believe in God. Did you once believe and just no longer do, for some reason? Why? Or have you never believed in God, since you were in Nigeria?. . .So this isn't something that happened when you got to the U.S. Just curious. And waiting to tell them when you’ve finished with School will give you the time to allow you yourself to have a better understanding of why you don’t believe/no longer believe and you'll be able to communicate that to them. Or maybe something’ll happen from now and then and your faith’ll be renewed/restored. Who knows? So I wouldn’t be so quick to tell them now, especially if you know it may cause your parents to send you back to Nigeria and you don’t want that. You want to make sure you finish your studies first.

Thanks a lot for the advice.

For the sentence(s) in bold font: Although my parents are extremely religious and always made us (my siblings and I) act religious, I really never believed on a personal ground -- until two years ago that is, when I decided to 'give Jesus a chance'. After spending a few months as a 'born again' christian, really paying attention to every sermon in church, in-depth studying of the bible, I came to realize how totally silly the whole christian-god-bible thing was.

There are so many questions I asked and just couldn't get straight answers to from anyone -- most people preferring to take the "God will help us sha" route. When i asked why the book of Leviticus was always overlooked and most of its laws disobeyed? The answer was "Those rules were for people in the old times before Jesus", then why do we obey The Ten Commandments and some other laws in Exodus?? Just seems to me that people decide to believe ONLY what they like and would benefit from,

I was taught that God is all-knowing. If he is, doesn't that mean he already knows who'll go to heaven and who won't?
"God is All-good. If he provides food for the sparrow, how much more you?" Then why are people suffering and dying out of hunger and various diseases everyday? Why would there even be a 'hell'?

I remember one time I had this bad cough in church and the pastor made THE WHOLE CHURCH pray for me. Needless to say, I didn't get any better, my condition deteriorated until I dropped the faith thingy and ingested some medication. Even though I'm very sure I had a whole lotta faith in those prayers, lets assume I didn't. But at least one member in that congregation had to have faith, then why wasn't my cough healed? Thinking about it made me conclude prayers were another way of leaving situations to chance.

Don't even get me started on the impossibility of various stories and claims in the bible,

Maybe I talked too much but there you have it. That's why I don't believe ANYMORE