₦airaland Forum

Islam exist ONLY as an opposition to Judaism and Christianity. Mohamad the founder of the religion and his cronies that later wrote down or complied the Koran after long his death used books from the bible and those other books that were banned from the bible to create a new religion whose main purpose was to oppose that already establish Christian religion which was the religion of the Imperialist Roman empire at that time, He also borrowed the Ideas of ancient Greek philosophers and scientist at that time. There is nothing in the Koran that is original and was not plagiarized from other sources.

Mohamad wanted to create his own movement and then came up with his own idea by using the already extablished religion of the Christians and the Jews to propagate his own propaganda and agenda. He could not destroy the already established religions so he worked through them and went against their basic premise(most especially that of Christianity). The creation stories in the koran were plagiarized from the Book of Adam and Eve a book that did not make it into the christian cannon and was discarded by the catholic church. The fall of Satan story found in the Koran was also plagiarized from the same book. The story about the non crucifiction of Jesus was obtained from other second centuary ananymous writings of others who did not believe in the stories that the Christians were propagating at that time . The scientific passages in the koran was plagiarized from the early greeks, the writers of the koran copied their writings including their mistakes about science and put it there in the koran. You just have to give it up for Mohamed he was really a very clever guy like the founders of all other religions. Moses, Paul, Buddah etc

Kay 17:
aletheia open a thread for this. after you sent your reply whether unicorns exist then i would define your box.

@ aletheia

Do you believe the Hindu beliefs about Krishna?
Do you believe the Theosophist beliefs about The Masters?
Do you believe the Scientologist beliefs about Xenu?

Do I also think that you have to be omini-potent to declear that what is recorded in their books which you disbelieve and discard as false is truly false. Have you searched every where and discovered that Xenu does not exist? Why do you believe that Krishna is a false god? Is it because you were brought up in a culture that accepts that Khirsna is a false god? Do you understand and appreciate the inherently manipulative capacity of belief to shape analysis?

Deep Sight:
Does humanity have a need for any prophets?

Have civilizations with excellent ethics not thrived in this same world without any prophets.

Did the work of the prophets not only lead to division, religious intolerance and war?

Perhaps i am a Prophet who has been sent to a nation called Nairaland

.

DiaisGod:
Psalm 14:1 says the fool has said in his heart there is no God. I didnt call any one fool, but whoever claims to be one, so let it be.

A bigger fool says in his heart that there is a god. I didn't call anybody a fool, but who ever claims to be one, so be it.

For my beloved President. It is only the blind who dont see strides. Almighty God in heaven shall heal our president and to the suprise of those who dont believe in the power in prayer, he will bounce back to office to continue from where he stopped.

What if the preseident dies(I am not wishing him death) or comes back and resigns due to his deteriorating health condition? What then will you come and tell us?

It is an abomination for a fool to do or think right. So christians should not waste time arguing with satan's syndicates as there presence in rooms like this is to divert people from the crux of the matter. Please let us be focused on the issue on hand. Praying for the quick recovery of our dear president.

Since when has pointing out facts become abomination? What the Nigerian president needs right now is for his team of doctors to continue with what they are doing and then for him to resign and rest. Not believe in myths prayers

Nezan:
You are just making repetitive noise, if you are so convinced, why not provide evidence to the contrary?

I didn't make any claim did I? You were the person that made the tall baseless claim not me. This is your reply to what the OP

But today we know very well, that rainbow is due to the refraction of sunlight, with rain or mist. Surely there must have been thousands of rainbows before the time of Noah, peace be upon him. To say it was not there before Noah’s time you have to assume that the law of refraction did not exist - which is unscientific.

This why your reply to the poser you made a very tall claim.

Noah and people living during that period had never seen a rainbow before. Why was refraction not occurring then? Why is it that it was after the flood that Noah and family saw the rainbow? Because God created the rainbow and caused it to appear through refraction, thousands of years before man even knew the phenomenon existed!

Which people are you talking about exactly? The ones that lived in other parts of the world or the ones that were written about in the mythology you now accept as a historical narrative?

aletheia:
@Deep SightI believe you have hit the nail on the head with regards to the views of the atheists on this forum. I wish they would examine the assumptions that underpin their beliefs and compare it with the empiric evidence rather than base it on a rejection of a book which they claim is all fables.

I am an atheist because I reject the existence of all the gods of man made religions because there is no evidence for them. Their supposed holy books are there for all to read.

Nezan:
^^ My believes are outlined in my posts, so if you disagree, why not provide credible evidence and stop yapping?

This is what you said.

Nezan:
Noah and people living during that period had never seen a rainbow before. Why was refraction not occurring then? Why is it that it was after the flood that Noah and family saw the rainbow? Because God created the rainbow and caused it to appear through refraction, thousands of years before man even knew the phenomenon existed!

The problem here is that I don't think you even answered the question you were trying to answer at all. You made a very tall claim that the people living during Noah's time had never seen tha rainbow, Which people are you refering to? Are the people living in China at that time included in your assertion? Because there were people living in China during that time(4300 years ago), so its up to you to show that light does not refract when it comes in contact with water droplets in the atmosphere 4300years ago(during the alleged global flood) in China.

Nezan:
The Bible did not record any evidence of the rainbow been seen before, you are the one disagreeing with this, so the onus naturally lie on you to provide evidence to the contrary.

The bible is the book of jewish history not world history hope you know that? The ancient jews made a very tall claim like others that lived with them. Some said that the rainbow is the necklace of some goddess the ancient jews decided to tag it as a conenant between them and their god. They said that the rainbow first appeared during a mythical flood they alone recorded. There are other civilazations that predated the time of Noah but they did not experince or recorda any flood that filled the earth. Rinbow is simply a refraction of light against water droplest in the earths atmosphere. Since you believe that it first appeared after the Noah's flood that took place about 4200 years ago according to the bible, you also have to provide evidence that light did not refract when it comes in contact with water droplets from the earths atmosphere about 5000 years ago.

aletheia:
Precisely. You rely on reason, a tool that has its limits. Are you saying there are no limits to what you can know. How does reason explain the paranormal?

All [i]paranormal [/i]exeriences are subjective.

Nezan:
Noah and people living during that period had never seen a rainbow before. Why was refraction not occurring then? Why is it that it was after the flood that Noah and family saw the rainbow? Because God created the rainbow and caused it to appear through refraction, thousands of years before man even knew the phenomenon existed!

Do you have any evidence for this baseless and ridiculous claim? Who told you that the people at that time had never seen a rainbow before? According to the bible the Noah's flood happened about 4200 years ago, There is MORE than enough evidence to show that there are other civilization that were around during that time(4200 years ago) like the Chinese, Indain, Egyptian, and Greeks amongst other civilization. If you have any evidence that those civilizations living at that time had never seen the rainbow about 5000 years ago then go ahead and present it.

NiggerHtr:
[size=60pt]FUCKING NIGGER!!![/size]

Are you still learning how to post?

Kay 17:
at last the elusive aletheia has finally answered. I need to claim omniscience while he needs to adduce a few evidence alright, i admit i'm not omniscient, i rely on reason, but you created an implication that nothing is known except one is omniscient. thus, you need to be omniscient to prove that Zeus and PINK unicorns do not exist. they culd be somewhere. since HE has saved us 2000 years ago, what purpose is there to pray for protection against demons or accidents. why didn't HE destroy the earth after all? if you were in that church, would you have prayed?  i think you can abandon your baby since Jesus has saved her. that sounds like Rev King's sermons.

Deep Sight:
Tornadoes, hurricanes, Tsunamis, and other such natural "disasters" are normal parts of the Earth's balancing process and are necessary and integral for the continuous renewal and maintenance of the Earth's diverse natural systems. You should know this Tony

Did you really say that natural disasters are the way for the earth to balance, renew and maintain its diverse natural system? Are you kidding me? It is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct because of the effect of natural disasters like flood, drought, earth quakes, diseases etc. So how do these disasters help in maintaning the diverse systems of life since most of the species (about 99.9 percent) are now extinct as a result of such disasters?

Man however has developed in a wronmg direction - overly dependent on the physical senses alone. A proper line of development would have seen man able to sense the onset of these events and avoid them. I will elaborate on this further in a later post

Man is always trying to avoid or solve these problems no?

Again this is a balancing process necessary for the health of the ecosystem and also has other effects such as necessary population control.

Only that this process leads to the extinction of some of the species. Population control yes but what about extinction? A lot of animals are now endengered species and are almost about to go into extinction.

Besides slight research will show you that such animals posess powerful anti-pain hormones that kick-in in those situations. Yous see, nature has no vacuum. . .

I will like you to provide link so that I can study them.

And you are well aware that these processes lead to the formation of worlds such as ours!

So what's your point now, Tony?

Disease, earth quakes asteroids all lead to the formation of new worlds such as ours how? Asteroids destroy planets, they do not lead to the creation of new planets, diseases lead to the death old or existing species, what exactly are you trying to say?

[quote author=Abuzola 1 link=topic=360432.msg5035314#msg5035314 date=1259762113]It has been plagarized[/quote]Where is the unplagiaried version? Do you know where it is?

Deep Sight:
^^^ Yes, absoluetly everything! - Save the crappy stuff the WE make ourselves.

Nature itself is balanced and beautiful.

The tsunami that killed over 25000 is what you call beautiful? What about small pox that killed about 400 million people? Drought, mudslides, diseases, Food chain(prey vs game). The excruciting pain animals lower in the food chain suffer in the hands of animals above them because they serve as their food. Have you see the way tiger reap apart a baby gazell? Is that what you call beautiful?

Man's creations are wonky and ugly! And Man's greed and lust leads to more ugly stuff like war and diesease. Then you will have some clown turn around and blame it all on a God you he states does not even exist.

Did man create asteroid? What about the sun whose ultraviolent rays some times causes cancer? Did man create the tectonic places that causes earth quake and tsunamis? What about micro-organisms that cause verious kinds of diseases? What super nova and the endless explosions that occur in outer space? Colliding stars and galaxies? Did man create them?

aletheia:
You don't have to castrate yourself. But I'd already given an answer in one of my earlier posts: "He was present." What did he do about it? I also replied that "He had acted in time about 2000 yrs ago to address the problem of the Rwandan Genocide". Of course you wouldn't agree with my answer because of your belief that God does not exist. You would also probably ask why didn't he act at the point of the tragedy? But that question presupposes that death is the worst thing that could happen to a human. But the Christian Worldview makes it clear that death and all those horrific events of the Genocide is only a consequence of something even worse: sin. And so He acted in time to solve the sin problem once and for all.

I do not believe in the concept of sin because it is only a theological explanation for some of the bad things we see happening around. The problem with your analysis is that the god which you talk about promise to help those who call upon him and protect them the way a father will protect his children if they call upon him in terms of trouble. So many of the innocent tutsis did that but unfortuantely for them your god was no where to be seen even though he promised them to take care of them and answer their prayers. A lot of them went into the churches hide there and prayed to your god and asked him to remember his promise but he was no where to be found. Here is what your god said.

Mark 11:24:
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours

Most of the people who were innocent believers of your god went into the churches asked your god to save them from the rebels, believed that he will do it as he promised in the bible but he was no where to be found because he exist only in their imaginations and no where else.

He didn't need to repeatedly intervene every time an atrocity is committed. Granted a lot of terrible things have been done in the name of religion but this only goes to show that sin is very much present in man.

This is NOT true because nothing like that is written in any part of the bible. You are as usual self projecting yourself as god and saying things that do not even appear in the bible just to rationalize your beliefs. The bible very clearly say that god will always intervene in the lives of those who believe. He even promised them the ability to perform magical feast so that others can see and believe in him.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.  John 14: 12-14

It does not give any condition it says if you believe and you ask it will be done, the victims believed and they asked but nothing happened so where was your god?

I would like to respond to some of what you say above.
1. You said within man's knowledge, thereby admitting that there are limits to human knowledge. The thrust of my arguments has been that given the limits of what we can know, human reason using the empiric method can not prove the non-existence of God. God is a transcendental being. Zeus, Poseidon & PINK unicorns are not transcendental beings.

This assumption is question begging. How do you know that Zeus is not a transcendenal being? The anceient greeks that worshipped him thought he was. Human reasoning using the empirical method can prove the non existence of god. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, There is no empirical evidence for any god and the absence of evidence for any god is evidence that such a god is not there.

You persist in trying to use the wrong tools to determine the existence of what your tools can not measure in the first place. To a man who only has a hammer, the whole world is a nail. A creature placed within a box cannot determine what exists outside of the box.

This analogy is flawed because humans are not placed inside a box. As for the god you are talking about we can measure his alleged existence using his supposed book which is the bible. if some of the stuffs written in the bible can be shown to be false which they have then its clear that the god of the bible is also false.

2. I do not have to be omniscient to say that God exists. All I need is credible evidence that he exists. Hence my analogy involving Dark Matter. "Science" discovered Dark Matter not by direct observation but by inference from its interaction with visible matter. In the same way, I can infer the existence of God by his interaction with us. Philip Pullman in his fictional trilogy: "His Dark Materials" indicates that Dark Matter is the host of Angels. I make no such or any similar claim, only presented an analogy involving Dark Matter.

How does your god interect with humans? Please tell me. You brought the issue of god interecting with humans. I will like you to explain and give empiricall examples as to how your god interects with humans so that we can examine it as see if it is true because the world as we see and know it functions exactly in a way you would expect it to function if there were no god or gods interacting with humans.

4. God is perfect. God is love. Love greater than that which I have for my baby. [b]Love so great as to include even men like Hitler and Stalin. [/b]Most of you atheists objections in this thread is hinged on that attribute of God. But you forget that God is also Holy, requiring perfect justice

This are just words or attributes you asign to your god but these attributes have no basis in the reality we see around us at all. You claim your god is love and the bible says that he will protect his children(those that believe in him) and love them just as a way a father will protect and love his children but yet there is no evidence of that. In the case of the victims of the ruwandan genocide he refused to protect them and show the kind of love and protection a father will display towards his children. Will you as a loving father allow others to come and maul your children in your presence even when your children are desperately crying and calling and begging your to come and protect them? Did your god not promise to protect those that believe in him and love them with the love a father has for his children? Where was he when the victims of the genocide where calling on him? Again what do you mean by god is love? Love is love and the god talked about in the bible does not come anything near to what love means. Read the OT and tell me if there is any justice in killing innocent children. You guys just attribute virtues unto your god like love, kindness and justice but when we read your bible we see god telling people to sacrifice other people as burnt offering to him, encouraging slavery, encouraging racism and sagregation, condeming people and doing all sought of evil vices we all abhor greatly as humans.

If you atheists can give me a better answer than this: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved, I will become an atheist.

Saved from what exactly? What did humans do that they need to be saved? Can you tell us what humans did that they need to be saved? Saved from what exactly? As for the bible verse you quoted  how do you know that Jesus really said those words? The only available primary evidence for Jesus is theology and polemic writting that were writting about him decades after he allegely died. These Christians that wrote about him were using Jesus as their mouthpiece to express what they believed about Jesus. How can you trust these type of writings to contain anything authentic about the man? Jesus is a sockpuppet. How do you determine whether Jesus actually said He alone is the way to god or that him and his father are one? Did Jesus say that? Or did some gentile Christian who hated Jews make Jesus say that? Jesus did not leave any writting of his for people to read no? I have said it before and will say it again I am tired of having people like you constantly trying to come up with excuses for god and mysterious ways he works, it does nothing but tell me it is all made up because if he did exist, there is no way he is that stupid.

[quote author=Abu-Safwan link=topic=360432.msg5034525#msg5034525 date=1259754545]Qur’an says in Surah Rad, Ch. 13, Verse. 38, that… ‘We have given several Revelations.’  But name, only 4 are mentioned (and we the Muslims believe in the all on profound conviction)- The Torah, the Zaboor, the Injeel (Gospel) and the Qur’an. The Torah is the ‘Wahi’ the ‘Revelation’, which was given to Prophet Moses, peace be upon him. The Zaboor  is the ‘Wahi’, which was given to David, peace be upon him. The Injeel is the ‘Wahi’, the ‘Revelation’ which was given to Jesus, peace be upon him. And Qur’an is the last and final Revelation, which was given to the last and final Messenger Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. Let me make it very clear to every one, that this Bible which the Christians believe to be the word of God, is not the ‘Injeel’ which we Muslims believe, was revealed to Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him. This Bible according to us, it may contain the words of God - But it also contains words of Prophets, words of historians, it contains absurdities, obscenity, as well as innumerable scientific errors[/quote]Let me play davidylan for a moment and ask you a simple question. Where Is allah's original injeel since you believe that the christian new testament is corrupted. Can you produce the one allah "revealed"?

muhsin:
Thats why when non-Muslims during his lifetime were accusing him of writing the glorious Qur'an by himself, his being unlettered notwithstanding, the Owner of the book challenge them to produce a single chapter like chapters of the Qur'an. Ever since the
Qur’an was revealed, fourteen centuries ago, until this day, no one has been able to meet this challenge, even though the smallest chapter in the Qur’an (Chapter 108) is only ten words.

What are you saying here? How is the Koran the greatest book? What do you mean when you say that nobody has been able to produce a single chapter like that of the koran?

The Ordinary level Physics text book \i used in High school contains information about the forces of nature and how they function much much more that the koran can never and will ever contain. In fact how has the koran helped man in understanding science or how the forces of nature operate. Is  it not the same koran that says that meteorites are allah's spears thrown at demons who go to paradise to eavesdrop? Is that true?

Kay 17:
Man has gone a long way in understanding his world, through science, he has been able to subdue and manipulate the earth for his use. Man's knowledge is so vast, that we can explain any phenomena around us. we have created objects that fly, we have burst out earth into space, we conquered diseases, confined our large world into a global village, we have been able to count the planets, stars, galaxies, landed on other planets. Meanwhile, religion was a mechanism in man's past to understand his environment and to satisfy man's inherent curiosity. The fault is the lack of objectivity and the prejudice of benefactor. thats why rivers, the sun, the moon; are worshipped because the influence on them. Like Nile was worshipped because it irrigated their crops, the aztecs worshipped the sun because of the effect on plants and had their weird explantaion that the sun devoured by a demon and the next day, it arises, bla, bla, bla, then the Greeks and Romans added a myriad list gods and associated with every sphere of their culture,while Jews and Muslims accumulated all the attributes of all gods into a SuperGod. within man's knowledge, we know that the aztecs story isn't true and that its is as a result of the earth's revolution around the sun, that Zeus,Poseidon and PINK unicorns do not exist, that there is no God above us according to Yuri Gagarin, even though Jesus ascended there. that there are no demons of malaria or headache or pregnancy. thus, aletheia has to be omniscient to say God exists in spite of all the facts to the contrary and he dismisses all the scientific knowledge as false OR is based on belief like the aztecs since belief is ignorance of facts. @ trust me, if God loves you so much, would he allow tribalists like the hutus to butcher you and all your family. culd you love your baby so much and yet abandon it. God's love is stronger than man's notion of love. REMEMBER, that dark matter was discovered by science and not religion. also were you implying your God was dark matter?

Perfect summary.

aletheia:
You so quick off the mark to prove your point that you do not care to consider the flaws in what you write. Your contention is that God spoke in the past to people. He doesn't at present address people through public speech? How do you know? All that you can be certain of is that he has not addressed you toneyb through public speech. A cursory reading of newspapers will reveal several individuals that make such claims. So the bible, which you discount anyway, and newspapers which you read everyday record similar stories.

News papers record that there ıs a god that goes around addressıng people through public speech as written in the bible where the hebrew god addresses all the people living in Israel through a public speech? I will like to see such "newspapers".

Hmmm. Are you rejecting the God of the bible or the existence of God(s)? Some emotionally charged words there:
1. morally reprehensible - what morals? The one that atheism revealed to you? Or ones applicable in all human societies based on the belief in God(s).

The one humanity has thought me. All moral laws were made by man even though some choose to ascribe it to their various deities. You don't have any evidence of any god passing moral instructions to people, all you have are people writing down different moral laws according to their various cultures and ascribing them to their various deities.

2. killing of innocent children - Innocence? This word last time I checked meant not being guilty of a crime or  freedom from sin and evil. See you cannot even argue about the existence of God without using words that imply his existence. Where did you get your idea of innocence from? Was it from atheism? BTW, the bible doesn't refer to the Canaanites as innocent. If you are going to argue from the bible, at least acquaint yourself with it.Yes, I believe them. They were reliable eyewitness accounts.

The Canaanites were guilty because the Jews wrote that they were guilty not because they were guilty of anything. Did you read the story from the perspective of the Canaanites? It is wrong to kill innocent children according to today's moral laws which has evolved from the time the very primitive writers of the bible were recording their myths. What do you mean that there were reliable eye witness accounts? Archeology has shown that most of the conquest recorded in the bible were non historical. Actually the way most of the stories were passed down from one generation to another through Oral tradition and were later written by other people who ascribed the tittle to their earlier forebears.

Another sweeping statement by one whose grasp of history is tenuous. There are many things that modern man has achieved. But there are also things that the Ancient societies accomplished that modern man finds astounding and difficult to replicate. Examples abound. Advice to you:

The modern man is far more intelligent and has acheieved far more than the ancient men had ever achieved and that is a fact.

1. Go buy a dictionary
2. Look up the meanings of transcendent and immanent
3. Then read your bible again. You will find your answers there.

Typical when you have no sound argument you throw they god works in mysterious ways card. Does your bible not say that there is a part of this god called the holy spirit that is meant to teach and explain things to those that believe? Why do you guys then keep throwing the god works in mysterious ways card?

Classic. Accusing one who defends his views of playing the victim card. Why would I do that? To invoke your sympathy? And you are dishonest. I say some atheist are "angry" at God. But as usual your revisionist tendencies cannot but manifest. You replace angry with "hate" in quotes to make it seem as if I said atheists hate God.
If you are going to be an atheist at least learn to present a logical defense of your creed, not playing to the emotional gallery.

Nobody needs your sympathy at lest not me. Some atheist are angry at god you say but how can an atheist who does not believe in god be angry at something he does not believe in? Atheist being "angry" at god is just a way for you guys to strengthen your beliefs because you will like to believe that does that disagree with you guys and point to the flaws in your hypothesis are "angry" at your god.

BTW you have not responded to this:  An atheist, to be consistently assured that his belief is accurate, must also claim to be omniscient, for there always exists the possibility of the existence of God outside his knowledge

We are discussing about the existence of the god of the bible, It seems you have forgotten that all the evidence and case made for the existence for such a god is found in the bible in forms of various stories. If such evidence can be shown to be false, then the god talked about is false no? If you have any arguments for the existence of the god you believe in outside the pages of the bible, you are free to go ahead and present them so that the atheist can see and examine them.

JeSoul:
a christian and an atheist agreeing?    what is this world coming to? 

The world is coming to an end

I'm not trying to defend David (or maybe just a little), but I will say he's sometimes brash and harsh mostly here in the Religion section because of the constant recycled assault on christianity and honestly sometimes I share his anger and frustration. He's very direct and sometimes sarcastic but he's also shown he has a fantastic sense of humor. I recall he's promised in the past to try to do better

See where the problem lies, You agree with him when he assults islam and moslems but when the same is done to you its a problem. Davidylan is not only brash and harsh on the religious section alone, He is every where even on the political front. There was a time a video of Jamaican woman whose grand child was stolen by a Nigerian doctor was put there in one of the other sections and his only comment was that the woman looks and talks like a monkey. I am only trying to show you what a very poor personality he has.

 

He is very intelligent though . . . I have butted heads with him in the politics section but I still like him a lot and I hope he does better in future exchanges he may have with you and others in here.

Not that I care about his very poor personality, I have since learn to talk to him in the only language he understands as others like mazaje have noted.

JeSoul:
I feel you jare, just take it easy 

No problem I will take it really easy, easy like sunday morning

I already know say you be correct boy 

This is very true

On that you are right. Personally I love Noetic, David, Osisi and others and I wish they would tone it down several notches sometimes. But honestly the most horrible of languages I have witnessed has come from a few atheists.
I wouldn't say insulted but oftentimes the tone and vile quality of the language used in the discussion was enough to make me exit. But you're right, we can all do a better job of being civil towards each other.

This is another correct statement.

. . . but the thing is NL is more 'fun' and sees more traffic when we're all fighting against each other. Abi no be so? lol

There is no lie in this statement

Deep Sight:
Should a Rejection of Myths and Superstitition lead any one to look around at the world and universe around him and conclude that it needed no cause or creative agent, to exist? Surely these are two distinct and unrelated issues? If the atheist believes that the gods of religion are myths only: that should only drive him more desperately to find, define and articulate what factors caused the universe to exist?

Did the universe truly began to exist? Scientist talk about the universe beginning to expand at the beginning of the big bang they I don't think they said that it began to exist did they?

From wikipedia

The term Big Bang generally refers[b] to the idea that the Universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past (currently estimated to have been approximately 13.7 billion years ago, and continues to expand to this day[/b].

No where does it talk about a beginning it only talks about expansion from an already existing body. What if the universe is eternal and keeps on changing from one form to another?

JeSoul:
^Toneyb my dude! how hast thou been?

Thou hast been fine, Thou hast been very busy lately.

 

Entirely false Toney? common now, I know you know that ain't true.

I retract that statement .

 

Now that being said, there is a very fine line between what you stated above and the extremely acidic, caustic, vitriolic and downright deplorable nature of the posts of most NL atheists towards religion and in particular christianity. Not all, but most. For instance I don't recall seeing any posts from[b] Bawo [/b] that have been provocative in nature, which is why I will jump at any chance to engage with him, but others seem to be locked in a tight competition with each other, seeing who can post the most vile in quality and frequency.

The same could be said of the Christians judging from their post on the Islamic section, Moslems see it only as vitriolic, bitter and pure angry towards them and their religion. A simple question of who wrote the koran might generate a lot of passions from the moslems. The Christians equally post vile and vitriolic comments here. Example davidylan and neotic there others also. The blame goes both ways. Noetic even acknowledge the pure spiteful and vile nature of his post against the atheist and moslems and apologized.


 

I have no issue with anyone who is anti-religion, what is unfortunate is the bitterness and  they seem to carry around and spew at any and every opportunity.

This is where we will disagree. Has any atheist ever insulted you here on NL? I bet the only persons atheist insult are davidylan and neotic ever asked yourself why? The "bitterness" is being spewed on all sides.

VALIDATOR:
The bold part in your post is the reason why there is so much hatred in the world. Every faction thinks only he knows the truth. He makes every frantic effort to correct tell others how stupid they are without seeing the flaws in his own faith.

Yes I agree with you to an extent but the problem is the victim card you guys love to display all the time when your beliefs are put under the radar. You asked why debate a god that doesn't exits at all and I said that is the more reason why it should be debated. People choose to live their lives and try to influence the lives of others around them based on their beliefs and that is a fact. If every body will just hold unto his beliefs without trying to force it on others I don't think there will be any atheist on any of these boards.

Au contraire. [b]On NL atheism is unquestionably and undeniably defined as being in a state of anger with God, [/b]christianity, islam, and any and every thing religous/spiritual.

Jesoul this assumption is entirely false. Moslems believe all the Christains that visit the Islamic religion forum completely hate allah and mohammed, but Christians do not see it that way, Christians go there to point out the flaws in the moslem hypothesis by mocking allah, mohammed and pointing out the obvious flaws of the moslem beliefs but the moslems do not see it that way at all. all they see is that any body that questions their belief is "hating" them, their god and their way of life which is not necessarily the case. This is the same thing that you the Christian do all the time, when atheist mock your own beliefs and point out the ridiculous assertions you bandy as truths. Let me use a quote from Richard Dawkins book the god delusion. Here is what he says in the book about the Old testament god.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

This will sounds pretty hateful to the believer since his beliefs and life revolves around believing in the hypothesis that the god of the bible is loving and kind, but expressing a hateful point of view isn't the intent. He uses that particular phrase and phraseology to humorously point out that the Christian god isn't strictly peace and love but the idea of the christian god comes from a somewhat less benign tradition and culture. This is very true because the expressed nature of the god of the Old Testament is indeed demonstrably similar to the way he characterizes him by means of a simple reading of the book. That doesn't mean that saying such things demonstrates hatred at all even though you believers have been wired and conditioned to believe that who ever questions your belief or points out to the flaws of your hypothesis hates your god and you guys in general, but that is NOT the case at all. I know you guys will all love to believe that atheist hate your god because that belief it self gives you guys some sense of comfort. Go visit the middle east most of the moslems there believe that christians hate them and their god because of the way christains are constantly criticizing them and their way of life.

aletheia:
Again you are being disingenuous. Can't you respond without dragging out red herrings all the time.
1. God had conversations with Moses. That he hasn't had a conversation with you, does not prove his non-existence

The bible talks about god appearing to moses and addressing the entire jewish people times without number through public speech, The point he is trying to make is this, why do we only get to read about this stories from primitive and ancient cultures? Why are we always talking about the god of the past and how he dealt with people? Why don't we see this god addressing people through public speech in the world we live in?

2. God fought battles with the Israelites. Yes, so what if he did?

The problem is that if you read the bible the god of the bible fought morally reprehensible wars and urged his people to commit a lot of war crimes like rape, looting and killing of innocent children that do not even know what was going on. You don't see anything wrong with that but you see everything wrong with it as far as its been done by allah or any other god that people worship out there.

3. He spoke for all to hear during the baptism of Jesus. Those were there heard Him. You weren't there.

You weren't there either, you just happen to believe the story.

4. "then ALL OF A SUDDEN when mankind became smarter and abandoned primitivity and myths then God disappeared and became shy." So what you are saying is essentially God demonstrated his presence in the past. Since he does not do so in similar ways in the present, he cannot exist. Poor logic. Modern man is still grappling to understand the sophistication of Ancient civilizations like the Maya, Egypt, Babylon, China. The Greeks were quite intelligent philosophers. All these societies believed in god. You are a poor student of history.

The mordern man has done what the ancient man can never do. The greeks, egyptians maya etc all had their various gods and they all believed that their mythical gods were greater than the god you believe in. So what if all societies believe in god? All ancient societies also believed in slavery and war crimes like rape and theft does that make it right or true?

5. Again, the non-existence of God cannot be proven by the means at your disposal, considering the limits of what you can know.
6. That Christians claim that God is transcendent is a valid point which atheists cannot disprove.

The bible does not say that god is transcendent and can not be proven, read the bible once again, the god of the bible clearly says who he is, how he operates and how people can see him in action, the problem is no body sees any of it even those that believe in the story.

7. How can we know the existence of a transcendent being. Only if He chooses to interact with us, hence my analogy involving Dark Matter, which some of you obviously do not get since you try to twist my words to mean that I proffer the existence of Dark Matter as a proof for God.

How does god interact with people?

8. All that comes out in your posts here is anger and rejection of God, not a well reasoned or articulated defence of your hypothesis.

Its you who has not presented a well thought out and articulated defence of your hypothesis. Saying that people who question your premise and god hypothesis "hate" your god is just a way for you to console yourself by claiming the victim card. Tudor does not hate god as you have been wired to believe that any body that mocks your premise "hates" your god. He does not believe in god so he can not hate what he does not believe in. I know you need to feel that people that do not believe in your god "hate" your god because it gives you some sense of comfort that is the fact.

Eaglebabe:
Jesus did not die a premature death and God cannot author premature death but he allows it,cos anything he does not allow cannot happen.But when u try to question his existence and authority l pity u.

Why do you "pity" those that question the stories that you believe in?

Banom you left Christianity because your father died? Is that a reason for leaving a religion?

VALIDATOR:
Well, u guys should get one thing straight. A person says there is no God and he spends a lot of time posting stuffs in the religion section of a forum.

This assumption is question begging, and flawed for so many reasons, Why debate about what doesn't exist you say, So if someone is prancing around claiming the characters from Lord of the rings all exist and influence the world we live in, you think another shouldn't pull them aside and correct them? Most especially if they use it to hate others around them. Look at the NL religious section. Moslems using their beliefs to castigate Christians, Christians using their beliefs to castigate moslems. Christians against atheist, atheist against Christians, Atheist against moslems and vice-versa.

IMO deeply,he thinks there is God. He only needs better and more rational explanation than what he was used to.

I KNOW that all the gods talked about by man made religions are not true, I just want to know why people believe in such stories and go around calling others names when they have no evidence of what they are all talking about, Its not even about lack of evidence, the problem is the proponents of the god hypothesis are yet to come together and agree on what this thing called god is, I assume you are a christian, Hope you know that Christians do not even agree on the basic nature of who their god is.

If he really thinks there is no God, then he will never bother wasting his time on anything affiliated to religion.

Why bother with any thing affiliated with religion you say? I return the question to any Christian who debates on the moslem section of NL or any evolutionist site on the internet. If you don't believe in evolution, or if you believe that Islam is false then why go there? I imagine your reasons will be similar to my own.

ednut1:
Atheists i am feeling ya, prayers cant wrk 4 our dullard preso he wil die this yr. Prayers does nt wrk i had first class in skul without ever praying while those fellowship freaks where battling carry overs. I heard pastor bimbo lead passengers in prayer in dat plane and god did d opposite, or hw pastor okotie prayed and fasted afta god told him he wil rule 9ja. Or u neva heard hw okosun rejected his ailment saying unles god told him, god just left him 2 die like a fowl. Prayer is rubbish

As mazaje has already pointed out the Nigerian president knows that the only prayer that will save him is the actions of the doctors that are trying to save his life not some washed up imaginary wishes.