₦airaland Forum

Obi1kenobi:
You can be "sure" of whatever you please. Doesn't make it true. It's nothing but conjecturing. Einstein openly mocked several religious beliefs, from the concept of a personal god, to the scriptures, to belief in life after death etc, so the notion he agreed with theistic ideology is a patently false claim. As I said, at best, he made pantheistic abstractions about a metaphorical god. He was never close to being a theist in any way.

from the hourse mouth himself, ""manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuits of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort.” You may really want to know where I get these quote ""I got from his book. ""The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your success""

Einesten had been quoted in several interveiw rejecting atheism. Yes Einesten kind of believe is a kind of Spinoza but yes he has been seeing validating the concept of theistic God . It not a must you believe. Evidence are available if you must know.

Allah is supposed to be the same Abrahamic God that Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in, so no one said anything about Christians not believing in Allah's existence. You can do any survey you want here. No Christian really believes that a Thor, or a Zeus, or an Isis exists.

A christain who has the knowledge of Zeus will never reject its non existence, he will only invalidate its authorship. And why are you cherry picking? Most white are novice of sango, it make sense to reject what you have no prior knowledge about. But having the knowledge and rejecting it is pure ignorance, you can only be skeptical about it.

Christian theology is sophistry as far as I'm concerned. It's your prerogative to attach any importance you want to itT

This is your opinion and it does not count as many people of great mind consider it ignorance.

Obi1kenobi:
I still have made no head or tail from this.Fact 1: Buddhism is not a theistic religion. Fact 2: Being Buddhist is not mutually exclusive from being atheist. What is the "it" that I am denying? What am I denying?

it begins to sound like rhymes now, your inability not to make head or tail from it isn't a force on me to make it so. And I will not be doing myself any good repeating this rymes again.

Einstein a few times in his life when lost in poetry expressed pantheistic thoughts. But was quoted calling himself atheist. And another time calling himself agnostic. I'm pretty certain he found nothing rational about theistic belief.

just like it portray the rationality behind atheism absurd. I am sure to Venus, if Einesten were to be given the chance of choosing between theism and atheism, he will choose theism handsdown. He is so much convinced that atheism world veiw is irrational and yes he had being quoted in many interview agreeing with theistic ideology.

Says who? Is that what the Jupiter worshiper told you? I've been a Christian all my life, enough to know how Christians think and get a grasp too of how theists think. Stop kidding yourself

saying it does not make it true as not make it false. we can do the survey here.....no nairaland christain will tell you allah is non existence or sango is not real, they can only come with excuses that he is satanic or not powerful enough..

Thomas Aquinas is one of history's finest sophists. Great prose though, does not necessarily make for great logic.

it will make sense calling him a theologian and a scholastic philosopher rather than just a disguise insult (sophist ) Aquinas had made wonderful contribution to theology and the study of his work is essential for anyone seeking to become a great christain theologian today.

budaatum:
How does "personal decision" relate to "innate" ?

it an emphasis on natural judgement

budaatum:
I would agree if you called it a "reality fallacy". There are sects in Buddhism that acknowledge the existence of deities, and the majority of Buddhists worship those deities even if by doing so they have misunderstood the teachings of the Buddha himself.

A similar misunderstanding occurs when some Christians say God approves of the killing of sinners. A false doctrine I'd say, but one held all the same.

And that change the status quo of the concept of Buddhism, which elites folk has describe to akin with atheism.

budaatum:
You were "demonstrating self will is innate", and also that it was "personal decision"?

I do not think you understand yourself!

self will means a willful adherence to one's own desires or ideas.And It is also akin it to personal decision . What is confusing you here?

Obi1kenobi:
Buddhism is not a theistic religion. Being a Buddhist is not incompatible with being an atheist. What am I denying. I can't make head or tail of what you're saying so maybe you need to provide clarity

You are denying the philosophical backbone of Buddhism, and you denying it does not invalidate those resources written in support of it..

Of course it's irrational to people who have spent their entire lives in irrationality. There is nothing rational about committing oneself to deities you have no personal relationship with.

yes it is irrational for people of higher esteem like Carl saga, Albert Einstein and john lennux ( professor of mathemathics at oxford university)The inability of those who deem it not irrational are those who failed to acknowledge it is not comparable with reasons.

Whether you're a pagan or Christian or whatever, same applies. A lack of belief in gods is no different from a lack of beliefs in fairies and unicorns. Infact, theists by nature are atheists to other deities other than those they worship. A Christian doesn't believe in Thor or Jupiter or Sango. I guess his lack of belief in those things is irrational, right?

Non sequitur fallacy, a worshiper of jupiter is not invalidating the non existence of Sango, he is only invalidating the non authorship of sango. So it depends on the characteristic of what make that faith.

Even of at all, theistic God are the same according to Aquinas. because

1. logically prior to multitude there is unity

2. every composition admits of multitude

3. God is logically prior to all things

4. there is no composition in God

budaatum:
No it isn't! Perhaps you don't know the meaning of synonymous!

While the contemplative elite may deny the real existence of gods and demons together with the rest of phenomenal existence, the majority of Buddhists from the earliest times in India, and in other countries where Buddhism has spread, have never neglected indigenous religious beliefs.

You are committing etymological fallacy...

Gods are irrelevant in Buddhism, although some Hindu deities appear in Buddhist scriptures. They are there as frauds in some cases, as ignorant beings subject to the same law of karma as humans, and i am suprised that you being a students and defenders of Buddhism. Still believe in such crap. This tales of religious ritual are later additions to scripture composed in the spirit of upaya, Skill in Means, for the benefit of those still mired in superstition.

johnydon22:
Lack of something is not rational?

On what ground is rationalism based as regards lack or possession of something?

things in this case can be knowledge, belief and faith. And if the branch of philosophy you subscribe to is lacking all these. Will it not make sense to call it ignorance or irrational?

Obi1kenobi:
How the hell is it false? You can be atheist and a Buddhist. They are not mutually exclusive. I can't see the point you're making. Pointing out that atheists don't all have the same belief is like saying not all liberals or conservatives or christians or communists believe the same thing. It's just a pointless assertion really. Of course many atheists differ in how they think because we're humans and not programmed robots. What exactly is your point?

You are now denying that Buddhism can't go along with atheism. Of course I am expecting this, even when the philosophy and thought of Buddhism is synonymous to atheism, more resources out there are pointing that buddism is an atheistic concept, you denying it does not invalidate that decision.


My point is, the philosophy that hold atheism is irrational in all standard and I have gave reasons as regards to that. There's nothing to make sense of. Atheism . It is not a "thing nor believe as some claim . Atheism is a lack of faith in any gods, so if it is anything, it's a lack of a "thing".so how does that sound rational?

Obi1kenobi:
And the common benchmark of all atheists is a lack of belief in supreme deities: whether strong, weak or whatever. Everyone that is atheist has no belief in the supernatural. It's not that complex at all. And I'm not sure why you're making it sound like atheism should have some kind of codified tenets or something. That is for religious people. We don't get to rehearse our beliefs or unbeliefs to get them to rhyme in perfect symphony.

false, There are several rather distinct subgroups of atheists. Buddhists, for example, are very different from western atheist. Making this atheism even more harder to demonstrate. Not all religious follow a codify law, there are both structured and unstructured religion. I am a pagan and my religion is unstructured. These are just some few example..

budaatum:
Here you go again with the 'buda fallacy'!

Please explain to me how what you've said above does not mean "early humans could already walk upright, they just needed to stand up"!

Should we change it to the "vaxx fallacy" perhaps?


There you go again. Are you now claiming empathy is a trait? Well, you at least admit that shaping (education) has to happen to develop that "trait" .

Permit me to ask. Do you lack understanding? Then ask instead of giving a conclusion.

Yes emphaty is a trait find in both human and animal..


Sometimes our brain turn it on without learning......

budaatum:
That is what yours above that I quoted means, though the interpretation you agreed with is what you were trying to say.

See the comment below, which agrees completely with the interpretation you agree with, even though its about something else.



Wishing a thing is innate can’t be your primary way of dealing with the problems of life. If you wish you knew how to swim from birth, you will drown. And if you did it with empathy, you'd be not very good at it.

One may have the potential (the ability to do a thing), and doing that thing may also have a "genetic foundation", but not doing some work to develop that potential, is "wishing" being "your primary way of dealing with the problems of life", and would probably lead to a more lousy life.

i still don't understand what you are trying to prove here. Because that post you quoted was demonstrating a self will which is synonymous to innate. I am talking about personal decision there.

Obi1kenobi:
Every belief system on earth is ambiguous. Ambiguities are the reason for the thousands of Christian denominations. That atheists may have different levels of convictions in their belief is little different from the different levels of convictions Christian groups have to the trinity doctrine, or the veneration of Mary and saints, or the divinity of Christ etc.

The problem here is not about the believe system , it is about the philosophy that hold atheism. As far as it is known, Christianity benchmark is crucifixion of the Christ. No matter your bible understanding, you must subscribe to this concept to be labelled a Christian. And that of Muslim is the five pillar, every Muslim, regarded of their quran interpretation holds this as an articule of faith. But when it comes to atheism, it begins to beg for question, who is weak, strong and moderate ? All sort of confusing. An athiest is ready claim his line of thought is not a believe system which even make it more complex than others faith of religion. You can't hold a position of nothingness as that it a fallacy on its own.

I'm sure Carl Sagan is a very smart man, but those sophist musings rely on the classic strawman of distorting or inventing a position and arguing against that strawman.

Carl Sagan is some of the few that argue against the unscientific and illogical ground of atheism.

budaatum:
I'm glad you agree that, The predators were there in the early man's environment which the early man adapted to", is the more accurate interpretation of what actually happened, and that to claim "the ability to stand was already there before the need to stand arose" is a fallacy.

You point here is similar to the novice who ask if man are from ape like why are will not seeing human running to apes. Evolution is not magic Buda, there is mechanism already in place that support evolution which is a gradual process, hippo traces her earlier ancestor to whales. we can see it happen now, but there are enough evidence to back it up that it happens .if there is no mechanism to support evolution, evolution will not work. There must be enough sequence of DNA match for scientist to claim one creature evolve from another. The mechanism that support walking is already there (inbuilt on proto human)if not no human will walk . You can't fly a car on air, unless the existing system to fly it is in place. Whatever human will evolve to in the nearest future, there is mechanism for it to take place.


"

Genetic foundation"!? Even reading can be said to have a genetic foundation if one really tried to be obtuse.

whatever Buda, I am not here to flap your ass, like I normally do. i will save it for another day.

I do not agree that empathy is passed through genes. It is not the same as eye colour. Both parents may lack the ability to be empathic, while all their offspring do. This would be rare however, since the offspring are more likely to learn to be unempathic from their parents.

Humans are the diploid organisms which means that there are two copies of each chromosome. One copy comes from mother and other comes from father. So, a child inherits half of its genome from mother and half from father. So empathy depends on 'nature' as well as 'nurture'. We all born with some basic traits but how we are brought up deeply influences us too. Different factors in our surroundings , parenting etc also help in shaping us into what we are.

ADEMOLA144:
nah you are the ignorant one. you dont seem to understand how this universe works and universal laws. you need to seek wisdom knowledge and understanding.

ok.......

ADEMOLA144:
These are well known orishas

i can't continue with you. You seems ignorant and yet not ready to learn. May help if I see the green light.

ADEMOLA144:
you have not heard about orunmila and obatala and sopona and babaluaye ? google

lol ........

ADEMOLA144:
what is isese ?

type it on your Google tab ......

It means primordial Yoruba tradition.

ADEMOLA144:
everything you mentioned is happening because the orisha sopona and babaluaye have dwelled with black people. we await for obatala and orunmila to emerge amongst us. a day to olodumare is like a thousand years to man

This is not isese......

ADEMOLA144:
all powers belong to Olodumare. all the orishas work for Olodumare. They are different aspects of Olodumare. So ultimately it is Olodumare that put you in slavery. Its payment for sins. I think back in those days the sins in the land was immense and slavery was payment.

This is absurd and sound more like church explanation instead of real philosophical thought out. Well , I choose not to argue against it for the sake of argument


Why do nearly all Blacks today still choose to maintain a slave relationship with Europoids rather than establish our own independence.

We Black today not only choses slavery, but seems to love it. Are we still offended by olodumare? And it's our sins yet to be forgiven?

Let me give you a hint?

Nearly all Blacks today--despite the growth of African traditionalism in the last 50 years--will cling to the religion introduced to them by the people who raped and enslaved their ancestors.

Nearly all Black people today slave for low wages and as soon as they can spend some for fun, they run right pass their fellow Black merchant but right to a European or Asian to give to. You could see how China dominate our major economy

Nearly all Blacks suffer from police brutality but do nothing to mobilize strength as a community beyond marching and begging to stop. Special anti robbing squad is there hitting on the innocent youth freely on the guise name of curbing corruption

No one is more obsessed with European luxuries more than black, we seems to measure our standard of development base on western society, is that not enslavement?

Do you mean olodumare is yet to forgive us.

ADEMOLA144:
it is the orishas that enslaved you. all powers work towards one greater purpose

Elucidate sir

Seun:
The strongest ‘argument’ that religious apologists have against atheism is to define atheism as something that it is not. Strong atheism doesn’t mean having no morals. It means holding a belief that there is no God. Weak atheism means not holding a belief in God.

The most extreme atheists are people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. The Communists don’t fight for atheism but for communism.

Seun to be honest, from your writing, you yourself can see the problem with atheism. It is ambiguous ..


This is what Carl Sagan says ""An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.""

OLAADEGBU:
Who is the apostle of evolution, Is it not Darwin?

evolution is not a religion, many naturalist of different faith contribute to it.

Infact Darwin and Alfred Wallace were regarded as the core propounder of natural selection. Darwin works was highly influence from existing work of orther naturalist like Henslow, Sedgewick, and most importantly Charles Lyell....

OLAADEGBU:
Evolution is the reason for racism

One of the reasons racism existed and people thought blacks were not human was because of the teachings of evolution. ~ Issac

Source:https://www.facebook.com/EvolutionIsALie/ 27 September, 2017

No, evolution rather unify us. It provide evidence that white men ancestors originate from Africa that shouldn't sound well to the white racist at all.

budaatum:
The predators were there in the early man's environment which the early man adapted to.

our ability to communicate danger and well evolve brain make it easier for early man.

Though, that isn't quite what you've said here, which sounds more like, "[i]The trait was there because predators appeared![

budaatum fallacy. Spotted. You will have to provide where i say something of such.

Let me know how I misunderstand please.

it is one of those budaatum fallacy.

So, early quadripeds, seeing they needed to stand taller so they could "see above the grass and look down from a better vantage point" at their stalkers, started standing, and over time, their bodies, including their hips, adapted to standing

As i said earlier we can not say for certain what causes evolution of anything at all. The proto human were not quadrupled,.The evidence is that they were brachiators whose forelimbs were adapted more to swinging from trees than walking on level ground. So bipedal human ancestors evolved from creatures that were already bipedal some of the time (as monkeys and apes are). The evolution was not to make walking possible but to make it more perfected because the ability to walk was there already.
.

Yes, many more. The knowledge about it is very patchy. Besides, we are working from "the gods done it". A position of great influence that distorts the ability to observe reality, not to talk of understand what is observed.

I understand the credibility of science research and likewise i am also aware of its limitations. Science as a tool does not claim to know how the present man has evolved on earth(primordial era) Except you Buda knows. What we can understand is from the skeletal evidences of several intermediary forms, that appear to fill the blanks between apes and the present man. These have been discovered primarily from Africa and Asia, which tells a story of man’s possibly evolutionary link — that before the present form, there were species at different time periods and they are the forms the present Man has passed through in evolutionary time scale (millions of years ago). But we are ignorance as to what causes evolution of anything at all, as is still shrouded in mystery.

The four leg bad two leg good idea occurs in the giraffe with its neck, the elephant's trunk, and the kangaroos marsupium, to mention a few.

I am not hearing this for the first time.

That may well be. But we got way much to sort out on here so why add "hypothesis" ? Or don't you see yet that though we are speaking about "empathy", what we say may apply to anger, frustration, happiness, joy, depression, and maybe, stupidity, ignorance, and such likes?

whatever ways, it does apply.... I thought you were denying the possibility earlier, not until I show you how it might be possible using scientific method.

It will be ignorance to talk about emphaty without acknowledging it has a genetic foundation even if it can be learned.

budaatum:
Yet, we know bipedalism was inextant and gradually evolved into being, right? And we can study fossils to see how the ability to walk upright, and the hips that made it easier, evolved over time, right?

Do you seriously think upright walking species were given the ability to walk upright and therefore began to walk upright?

it was an evolutionary trait that is built in the early man to spot predators easier. Back then, there was just a lot of grassland in alot of places we now find homes and concrete. If we were quadripeds we would easily be stalked. Once upright, it is easy to see above the grass and look down from a better vantage point. Im sure there are more reasons but i believe this to be the "backbone" of it.

And this was the same hypothesis I have with regards to the crawling baby, with enough evolutionary advantage, baby may stand up right one day.

budaatum:
And there was me thinking you were capable of reasoning!

Kindly accept my most profound apologies for the mistake.

ad hominem 1....am not surprised.

budaatum:
How did the first bipedals become bipedal. Did bipedalism not evolve into being? Did it not involve the gradual adaptation of the hip to improve bipedal efficiency?

we cannot say with certainity what causes evolution of anything. That answer is mystery


The oldest species where fossils are complete enough to know the species was bipedal is Orrorin tugenensis at 6 million years ago......

Read on bro....http://efossils.org/book/step-step-evolution-bipedalism...

budaatum:
So, the atheists you know totally reject the honouring of their parents, and they murder, steal, and lie?

Have you handed your account on here to that ape friend of yours?

The voice of the weak athiest according to the op...

In general , there is problem with atheism itself. Not just being moderate alone. Atheism totally reject all the moral value and the ethical considerations of theism .The hierarchy in which it was established , the purpose and meaning in life, the claimed benefits and justice etc. and replaces them with precisely…. nothing........

Bumb

budaatum:
No they werent! The hip adapted to humans walking upright and got better adapted over time.

humans have always been a upright standing and bipedal (walking on two feet) species..

even our pre-human, ape like ancestors like Australipithicus afarensis were bipedal millions of years before the first Homo species evolved.

We know this from both fossil footprints and from the anatomy of hip and foot bones.

""The pair of tracks below show an adult and child bipedal walking from three hundered thousands years ago in Eastern Africa""

So if they can, so do we as human baby.