Logicboy, I don't have any need to convince myself about the existence of God. It is a truth I have stopped arguing with and I need you to understand that the bible adequately answers all your arguements. I won't be a Christian if I didn't find the answers I sought.

I remember a professor(of blessed memory) who will tell his students that; "In the university, there is academic freedom which means you can decide to read or not read, attend lectures or not attend lectures, write exams or not write exams...but also remember that it also entail freedom to pass or fail."
I put it to you friends that in life, God has given you the freedom of choice and he is not going to meddle in your choices. However, brace up for the consequences of whatever choices you make.
Let me state for the records that God is and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Think about the difficulty with which men have tried to predict sometimes just 10 years into the future to no avail.
You believe your investments will be profitable, you believe in change, you believe in day and night.
You should know that these happen because God decreed thousands of years ago that; "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." How dare you postulate that a God who made such a decree thousands of years ago and is still at work does not exist?

One day, my younger brother was conversing with our father on the need for reducing salt in-take as one ages. Our father disagreed with him on the basis that our fathers ate salt without restrictions but had a longer life expectancy than we do today. Why will science suddenly come up with such a claim?
My brother then asked him how far he investigated the claim that panadol relieves headaches before he first used it. He had no aswer and we told him the same way believes panadol relieves headaches is the same way he should believe that salt intake should reduce with age as both facts have origins in Science.
You believe one mr. so and so is your father because you were told so. Why is it so difficult for you to believe there is a GOD WHO RULES IN THE AFFAIRS OF MEN?

In an ant's world, the internet is unimaginable that however does not make the internet any less a reality. That we percieve and relate to our physical world through the senses does not make God who is a spirit any less real. Actually, He is much more real than the things we see, smell, taste, hear and feel-for the things we see are temporal, it is the things we do not see that are eternal. Friends, GOD IS REAL!

I have been seriously wondering, how do people become atheists?

Happy new year all

Thanks Homerac7. Noted

What is most important to me is if anyone happens to have information regarding where i can find these components to buy in Makurdi, Jos, Abuja or Lagos. Am talking about assembled arduino motherboards and accessory components. I'll like such information please. Thanks

God has kept alive bringing you over 2012 into 2013 for a reason. Be sure you are crossing over in the hollow of God's hands. Happy new year!

I am currently working on fabricating a machinery that requires a meaningful level of automation. As a result, am working at combining electronic components to build this desired automation and control into the machine.
I came here in the hope i'll find people who have had experience working with electronic components particularly microcontrollers and digital sensors so we could rub minds.
If we need to talk off the forum, my email is goldtraeces@gmail.com.

We are christians if we permit the love life of Jesus christ to find expression through us and that life begins in us if "...you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is your lord and believe in your own heart that God has raised him from the dead,..." (Rom10:9)TLB

Hello people, this is indeed a great thread and thanks to everyone especially T22, Jarus, violent, ajanlekoko, candylips, chamber2 and a host of others for your very enlightening and helpful contributions.
Me and my wife are at a stage when very desperately looking for jobs. Anything from a government job to an investment banking job will do. I have a physics degree and my wife has a social science degree. We are very widely read in business, psychology, systems development, religion, etc. and have had a combined 11 years of experience in private business.
Help from any quater will be very highly appreciated. We can be reached on goldtraeces@gmail.com.
Thanks very much.

Am not a PEACE HOUSE staff neither do I seek her permission to post this invitation here but i believe its okay.
Ministers leadership retreat (MLR) is a christian non-denominational gathering that has held annually for about the last 20 years. I have been priviledge of attending since 2008 and if anyone were to tell my story, I can tell it won't be complete if the effect these meetings has had on my life is left out.
Please join as from wednesday 5th-9th of Dec., 2012 for a fresh experience and touch of God.
Feeding and accommondation is normally free and the venue is BETHANY RESORT, KM 13 GBOKO-ALIEDE RD. BENUE STATE.
See you there.

Una well done o

Truly, life for the natural man whose interests are confined to the unstable & vanishing pleasures of just existing "under the sun" is meaningless. Ask backslidden King Solomon, author of eccl. who also came to the same conclussion.
Life only takes on meaning if live in the conciousness of the company, favor & 'ope for everlasting reward of him who is above all-Christ Jesus the Lord.
Make him ur lord now & see what difference he brings about.

rhymz:
I realy do not understand what your true intentions are when you dropped your unsolicited e-mail but you defeated that purpose the moment you tried to sound condescending and "all knowing" like the other Christian egomaniacs.
So typical of you religious zealots to comment about your deities with so much empty braggadocio and blind arrogance, arrogating to yourselves some divine esoteric knowledge unknown to people who do not share your christian beliefs or ideologies.
You will do well to comment on things you can actually defend with concrete proof and evidence and not some over-borrowed sound bites used by 21st centuries Pastors to humanize and exaggerate what they call "God".
If you have got anything to say to the contrary, please do, I am ever ready to intelligently defend my stance and beliefs on this issue. If all you have got is to throw up childish temper tantrums at comments you do not agree with then knock yourself out, you have the entire cyberspace to yourself, be my guest!

Rhymz i actually dropped my email cos i didn't want to join you to derail this thread which is certainly not about the existence or non existence of God and also cos i actually felt a compelling need to help someone get a paradigm shift. Now I'll like you to note that it is the last time i will be responding to you or anyone else about the existence or non-existence of God on this thread. I'll be your guest if you open a separate thread or link me up via my email.
Now to the issue of discussion, Whether or not you believe God is does not change what the fact is. In Jn4:24, The bile says, "God is a Spirit..." and if you are as widely read as am thinking you are, then you should know that an essential characteristic of spirits is that they are incorporeal, that is without material form or substance. Now you talk about "defending the existence of God with concrete proof and evidence", Even though neither myself, nor God, nor anyone for that matter owes you this. I will nonetheless do you the favour of asking you to pause for a moment and consider the earth in which you live, the eyes with which you're reading this (You might want to know that of all the tens of thousands of connection the eyes have to the brain, Science has only been able to explain only about a hundred). Consider The universe of which the earth is only a minute almost infinitesimal part. Some of the stars you see at night are by far bigger than the whole earth yet even science with all of its borrowed precision has not been able to quantify them. Think about how a hen Lays its eggs and hatches them almost effortlessly, try to reproduce that process and lets have your results. Look at the organization and orderliness in nature and then tell me there is no divine hand behind all of that then I will tell you the bible was speaking of you about five thousand years ago when the holy spirit inspired the Psalmist to write what he wrote in Psalms 14:1,10:4.
Even in the physical domain, There are a number of things that we can't see, feel or touch but we believe sometimes know they exist e.g. Electrons and Witches. Why then will you allow your mind under any guise to subject the God of all the earth to the primitive level of the human Intellect. I fail to see how doubting the existence of God makes you intelligent really.
Also be informed that there is a scientific law known as Newton's second law of motion and it states that, "A body continues in its state of rest or uniform acceleration UNLESS acted upon by an external force." In other words, nothing just happens, something beyond it has to make it happen. Though you don't believe in God, I know you believe science. What science is saying is that for you to hold this view, their is a force beyond you that is compelling you to reason and think like you're doing and vice versa. Since that also agrees wholesale with the word of God, I buy it wholesale.
Pls read:



1 Cor 1:18-25

18 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. 19 It's written,

I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

20 So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? 21 Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb — preaching, of all things! — to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

22 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, 23 we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle — and Greeks pass it off as absurd. 24 But to us who are personally called by God himself — both Jews and Greeks — Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. 25 Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."
(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)


Friend, do yourself a favour, Get in the way of salvation more so because;
Heb 11:6
6 It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him
(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Like i said, we can only continue this discussion only on another thread or from goldtraeces@gmail.com. Thanks my friend.

rhymz: I will like to quote James Baldwin;
“If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”
To be honest, I got rid of him a long time ago when I discovered that the whole concept of some entity residing nowhere up was man's perfect invention to answer questions he could not logically explain. God is a man-made mental creation, a figmentation of a conditioned mind. Life events have taught us over and over again that if there is any God in existence, it is the one people like Oyedepo and his ilks created to decieve, manipulate and control people en mass into submission and obidience.
The kind of God whose justice system is so flawed that the likes of Oyedepo have a feel time swindling their fellow humans without fear of any repacussions. The kind of God whose egomaniac story of sending his only begotten son to be murdered by humans -whom it is claimed have wronged him- just so his wrath towards the human race is appeased, is appalling and beats common sense. What kind of entity demand for the death of his son just for him to be appeased, of course the one created by the human mind and myth. At times I sit back in thought of the injustices meted out to innocent people who willingly would have wanted to serve this entity if realy he exists, and all I say to myself is, why are people not asking logical questions as to the real concept of the entity called God. Why is he so powerless when he should be powerful and needlessly powerful when he should show power restraints. How many of us have been able to genuinely come to terms with our beliefs after asking these following questions about the person of god:
1. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
2. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
3. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
4. Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? Until we can genuinely ask and make effort to get answers from these "MOGs" milking their flocks dry, they will never stop to take the likes of stagga, chiefpriest and the other faithful slowpokes for granted, they will continue to commit pius fraud without fear and go scot free. Unfortunately, they understand very well the premise of my argument, Oyedepo knows the only God that exists is the one he creates and recreates depending on the prevalent situation and have been kept alive by his very docile congregation who has been mind programmed not to think but just accept and believe.

I imagine you must think of yourself as very intelligent & well read. I really don't know about that but my heart goes out to You.
Although i usually don't involve in this kind of talk but i feel a very strong need to offer you & others like u a paradigm shift hence this reply.
First of all, God is neither a concept nor a creation of anybodies' imagination. God is a very real person that myself & countless others have had the privilege of walking & talking with. I feel him far more intimately than i feel anything in this physical world...
I've got so much more for you but lets continue from goldtraeces@gmail.com.
Thanks

debrief08:
My Dear what baffles me most is that most of them will go and do IVF and come and stand and give the glory to thier pastor, not even a mention of the Doctor who went through all the stress and listened to their stories and tears oh. Worse off are the ones who actually buy babies and come and shout "Daddy Said" We lie and pretend too much jare

Am sure u haven't heard of someone who went 2ru IVF 7 times without a baby to show, Giving glory to a pastor instead of God is definitely wrong but we must always thank God cos every good & perfect gift comes from him.

Madam, i sincerely sympatize wit u & pray God to give you the grace, strength & wisdom to triumphantly survive this ordeal.
One thing I however won't do is judge or defend your husband. I ask instead that you grasp that you're much more powerful even in that condition than you realize.
Safe delivery.

@ pendo89, Just from ur opinions here, I know you're beautiful-almost as beautiful as my wife. Stay beautiful ok?

Well I used to think like most people here until I began to experience the reality God is when I began to hear his voice, see his acts in response to my petitions, experience his wondrous glory & touch & generally enjoy his presence. Then I understood what the psalmist meant when he wrote in Ps 84:10 "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness" Friends, what God has prepared for those who love him beats the Imagination & you'd better be preparing for it.

Psalms 42:11

recruitmnt:

True, faith would have been truncated but please note that the first time, I listened to the doctors (they know more than us and they are there to help us). I only held on to my faith the second time because I was 100% sure that God had spoken to me.

I really don't know how to explain this. I don't want to send a wrong message saying we should always ignore our doctors advice, yet I want to say Gods word is true.. Someone should help me pass my message in the right way

I am completely in agreement wit u on d need to listen to d experts. At d same time i commend for believing God enuf to disregard doctors' opinions.

As i read through ur story, I realised afresh d power of God's word and so much more its integrity when faith handles it. I bet d story would've been different if u agreed wit d doctors(d most sensible thing given d circumstance) but faith would've been truncated & we would've been getting wrong notions of God & word. Thanks for demonstrating to us how to do it. God bless u & ur family.

Hi all,

adaybayor: @OP ...go create christianland or anything you like, dis is nairaland...simple

"Christianland", now dat's an idea! BTW, I feel so much compassion for logic mind. It's difficult for me to relate to how he missed it dis far. he believes d doctor, lawyer, mechanic, parents,...,but not God. I wonder ow people dat deal wit d void Godlessness creates.

OP, since u said Jesus lives in u, i'll like to base wateva i am going to tell u on his word.
First, d notion; "fall in love" is actually an abberation. Wat d bible says is Love! D world makes it look as if it isn't in ur power to love, as if it is an emotion dat just happens but no, it is something we decide to or not to do. Gal 5:22 (nlt) "but when d holy spirit controls our lives, he will produce dis kind of fruit in us: LOVE,..." Dear, let him his work in u. U'll soon learn dat love expresses itself in been patient, kind, humble, courteous, yielding, forgiving,...(1cor. thirteen-four). Den you concentrate on wats needful.
Know dis, for as long as u let d devil, he'll continue to steal from u ur joy & happiness in marriage so decide wat u want. I believe u can make it work if u mean to. God bless u.

Do we have challenges? yes. Do we atimes disagree? yes. Is she a perfect person? no & neither am i. All of that not witstanding, i realize she's neither a mistake from d past nor trouble in my life but God's blessing, gift & help to me & I find dat d forces at work for us are by far greater dan those against us so yes, i'll marry her again & again if i had to.

maclatunji: OP, you have been given sound advice by some of the usual 'suspects'. Let me just add a little more: It is obviously a difficult thing when one is fired from a job because it implies rejection (no one likes being rejected, dropped or dismissed) and a loss of means of livelihood. Now, you as his wife and mother of his kids are quite edgy and apprehensive about the whole thing, nothing wrong there- it is the appropriate reaction for such a situation as you find yourself.

BUT! You must:

1. Talk less and act more: Purchase the daily family needs of the house if you can with your own money for the meantime. Allow the kids to continue the way it used to be with their dad before he lost his job. However, educate them on the need to be reasonable- now is not the time to ask daddy for Apple iPad 3!

2. Gauge the mood of your husband, respond positively when he wants to engage you in discussion and avoid discussing the issue of the loss of his job/his future plans if he does not bring-it-up (for now).

3. Make time to go the extra mile for him, try to close from work early, cook if he is one who will not do it. I don't know how your home was before he lost his job but take time out to be in charge of family meals as much as possible. This will do two things for you:

a. Get your husband to want to get back to work soon because it would be embarrassing to him for his wife to go to work, come back to cook elaborate family meals whilst he is there just sitting at home (you wouldn't have said a word but a great message would have been passed across to him this way).

b. It will show him that you still cherish and respect him as the head of your home.

4. Avoid discussing the loss of his job with the numerous "well-wishers" within your kith and kin. Your default reply to their messages of condolence should be: "It is God's will, we have accepted it and I trust my husband to take the right decision for us." (No more, no less).

5. Monitor how he is coping- it is quite possible he may want to lag into alcoholism, gambling and/or profilgate spending. Once you know these danger signs, intervene strongly. At this point he is weak, you have to be strong. If you can't handle this, get somebody he respects to talk some sense into him preferably by "accident".

6. EVENTUALLY, when your husband brings-up his "come-back" plan. Look at it critically and tell him maturely wherever you find loopholes that he can improve on the idea and make your own well-researched suggestions. You need him to succeed, so help him with it.

7. Be prayerful, tell God you want this setback to be a stepping stone to a happier family and greater things for you all individually and collectively.

8. Good luck!

U, CC are sm of d pple i've come to respect a gr8 deal. God bless u.