₦airaland Forum

I'd toss out the 'god' part, but great story. I hope there are no permanent long term effects he will suffer as a result? Like does he now require a special diet? And the doctor, what of him? He sounds like someone that just maybe shouldn't be a doctor, depending on his other cases of course.

@strik

Don't abuse the term 'theory', as in scientific theory. Or don't confuse yourself. It's rather simple

"A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated
explanation of some aspect of the natural world,
based on a body of facts that have been
repeatedly confirmed through observation and
experiment." Scientists create scientific
theories from hypotheses that have been
corroborated through the scientific method, then
gather evidence to test their accuracy. As with all
forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories
are inductive in nature and do not make apodictic
propositions; instead, they aim for predictive and
explanatory force.
The strength of a scientific theory is related to the
diversity of phenomena it can explain, which is
measured by its ability to make falsifiable
predictions with respect to those phenomena.
Theories are improved as more evidence is
gathered, so that accuracy in prediction improves
over time. Scientists use theories as a foundation
to gain further scientific knowledge, as well as to
accomplish goals such as inventing technology or
curing disease.
Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous,
and comprehensive form of scientific
knowledge. This is significantly different from
the word "theory" in common usage, which implies
that something is unproven or speculative."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory



You may have problems with the concept of "effective theories". Quoting lisa randall, a physicist

"It’s funny. In some respects the concept of an
“effective theory” is one of the most intuitive ones
you can imagine. If something is too small to matter, you can operate quite well. You can turn on a radio without knowing all its inner workings. The “effective theory” concentrates on the particles and forces that have “effects” at the distances in question. Rather than delineating particles and interactions that describe more fundamental behavior, we formulate our theories, equations, and observations in terms of the things that are actually relevant to the scales we might detect.
You can predict where a ball will land when you throw it based on Newton’s Laws. You don’t need to use quantum mechanics. Even if you did, the difference in prediction would be far too minuscule to matter. And as a practical matter, the calculation would be far too complex. So you can use the effective theory, because it works sufficiently well.
The reason this concept is so important is that it
helps us better understand how science advances, at least once it has developed to the state of
contemporary physics. Newton’s Laws aren’t wrong – they are an approximation. Similarly, if and when we find new underlying structure at the LHC, it won’t invalidate the so-called Standard Model of particle physics that describes matter’s most basic elements and their interactions as we understand it today. It will improve on what we know.
Science proceeds with uncertainty at the edges, but it is advancing methodically overall. The wisdom and methods we acquired in the past survive. But theories evolve as we better understand a larger range of distances and energies."
http://m.samharris.org/blog/item/welcome-to-the-machine



If you doubt general relativity, or newton's theory which is less accurate, feel free to jump off a cliff to test either. Some of the details to these theories might be still sketchy, but science is always very glad to own up to that and work toward attaining more accuracy. Unlike religion which usually attributes anything it does not understand to supernatural causes, that is a cop out. I need not list the long line of things which gods were responsible for that have now been settled by science, yes? This list includes, for the catholic church, both evolution and big bang (initially championed by a priest), yes?

Evolution is simple common sense, and among the at least many thousands of fossils found, not one fossil has ever been found in a region that would invalidate evolution. Big bang has lots of evidence, facts, etc, to back it up. And it is disingenuous or just plain silly to use the 'we've not seen it in a lab' excuse. The main agents of evolution; natural selection and mutation, have been observed everywhere. The effects of evolution, the myriad species, shared ancestry, dna analysis etc are observed everywhere as well. The same for the big bang. You know how rivers formed from looking at the evidence, yes? Would you like to sit in a lab for a few thousand, or million years to watch one form? Read up on both theories before portraying them as flawed.

As for a design, no. Do you understand just how big this universe is, and do you understand how hostile it is to life as we know it? Do you know just how inefficient our design is (ie assuming we agreed there were a positive purpose, and for just about any such purpose we could conceive), and do you know just how long and haphazard the journey to homo sapiens was? Read up on the antrophic principle.



As for op, as has already been mentioned, there are 'uncaused causes' to be considered, and the nature of time, and many other things. For instance, is there really such a thing as infinity in the physical universe? Your god would be classified as an uncaused cause, it would seemingly have been in existence for eternity (if eternity exists ie), or came into being without anything having created it per se. But science most definitely does not require conscious 'gods' as uncaused causes, or for anything else for that matter. 'Gods' greatly complicates things. You may have accidentally realized, thus your cognitive dissonance, if 'god' can be self-existant, why not something much simpler, like a basic form energy?


Edits

Sweetnecta: By the way, as an atheist, you have done a poor job because you have not convinced anyone to leave any religion to follow your religion, which you call "no religion". You have not convinced me or anyone who believes the existence of God that there is no God.

Not me this is directed at, I know, but I'll just point something out for the sake of clarity (and it irks me a fair bit tbh). This again....

This isn't some competition. I wouldn't go around assuming atheists are trying to convert you, or anyone else for that matter. Why should we care? Whatever belief or disbeliefs you harbor about allah, or Pikkiwoki, or whatever, that's your business, not ours. We'd like for you to reciprocate, that's it. Don't introduce religion into say politics, or your working environments, laws etc. Try not to be a bigot, be tolerant, etc. You are not the only people on this planet, and your claims to some sort of superiority are usually risibly tenuous. Either ways, regardless of the validity of your claims, you are not justified in any way or form to dictate how another man lives his life so long as he is not infringing on your rights. That's what I assume most atheists care about.

Mr_Anony: Yes. Do you?

Yes.
You clearly don't. But we'd have to determine a definition for 'logic'

Mr_Anony: Lmao, spoken as if you can understand logic in the first place

You do?

Bélla3: erm thanx. Always 'semi vexing'? Am sure it has a name in english. Lol

Be careful. You need to tone it down else people would start thinking you're an english professor, or simply pretentious

What surprises me a bit is that quite a few don't know abdulsleek. Does that suggest very few people bother to even skim through /islam? I rarely do, but I've know about His Sleekness for a while now. This indicates others spend even less time there than I do

Bélla3: no vex! Didnt intend to 'troll'

Never you worry about that good madam. I'm always semi-vexing, or at least pretending to

Bélla3: SIR, ARE YOU A PROFESSOR? ENGLISH OR LAW?

Hmmm, not sure if troll, but no. I'm a simple neckbeard that more or else lives on his own planet...

^^

8 children without 20000 in the bank? They should be arrested, or at least neutered. That case is solely their fault. Who tf do they think they are? Or are they breeding slaves? That's me saying what I think of that couple, kindly.

Good luck with your work on family planning, @deity knows we need it. Hopefully you educate some eediots.

Btw, husband no get atm? Wife no get clinic she dey go during pregnancy?

Anyways, harsh as it may seem, the bottom line is doctors paying out of their pocket is not a sustainable model. It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Well actually, it has happened before, many, many times. Her bad luck. And this will continue to happen unless a sustainable model which at the very least ensures basic emergency treatment for all is attained. Rather than knee-jerk reactions this should probably be the focus.

Her sad death could at least spark some debates which might lead to 'change' due to the media coverage it seems to be getting, unlike myriad other cases swept under the rug. Change that may save a lot of lives. I remember circa 2002 a gateman dying because he couldn't raise 10000, and his case was not even an emergency per se. He had some time to raise the money, like a month or two. We all have horror stories of this nature. A permanent solution should be found.

Also, we as a society are as guilty as the doctors are, we perpetuate the nonsense that is nigeria. If we don't pay bills, what do we expect?

Societal problem, not the doctors per se. Nigerians, you get what you deserve

stallion_: this reason join why oyibo people dey call africans blacks monkeys.

It's not the only reason, there are many more. For instance if this was a lesbian couple, or some needy teen, some here would be praising the staff. Others see the need to turn this topic into a tribal issue, etc, etc. But yes, our valuation of human life, and unparalleled and shortsighted greed, are stellar examples of why we're often a disgrace to humanity.

vedaxcool: messy messy

Thank you, you are too kind bros. I pointed out how there's more cement than gray matter in your skull, limiting your abilities for independent thought thereby explaining your need to copy from even your critics, then you copy/pasted my whole post. Genius. You ceaselessly go out of your way to prove your detractors right, how thoughtful.

You at least deserve some nice doggie treats from the west, another nice thing from the hated kaffirs I'm sure you enjoy.

Good boy! That's a good boy! No, stop humping my leg! Bad doggie! Who's the worstestest troll in the world? That's right you are! We didn't even need to practice before you accomplished that feat! Come here let me rub your belly

I'll leave you alone, for now bros. It's never ending folly with you...

vedaxcool: The wiwi grab story



And truly because of the above I rarely deal with overdosed, puny sized, unregulated paraplegics whose entire life is not worth more than a crumbs of bread!

Thank you for, as always, doing your best to prove my points. Very imaginative yet lucid, it's brilliant. You even borrowed the term 'rabid dog' which I've used to aptly describe you before. Expected, as your ability to think for yourself is so poor you seem to require uncle moh to hold your pipi for you while you take a piss

That aside, anyone not sharing your delusions would point out to you that your typical islam thread is something like:

Sheeple 1: assalam, I had goat milk for breakfast. How can we attribute this to allah's greatness

Sheeple 2: in surah Bleep, allah said he is great

Sheeple 3: I know right! Allah is truly great. Who else could have come up with goat milk?

Sheeple 2: the koran is the awesomest book in the universe. Islam is just the bestestest. Let's look at this beautiful hadith again, it shows you how to properly beat your wives. The poetry, grammar, the logic, all are ingenious. Just reading the koran probably made the hadith writers smarter

All sheeple: wow! So a-meeeeehhh-zing. It's one of my favorite parts. Hit them a bit like they do in those por.nos we stockpile for research. Truly wise!

Sheeple 2: I know right? It gets even better after you die! We even get eternal er.ections (ps: some noted scholar actually asserted this)! Remember, don't let the infidels with their world conquering agenda get to you. Oppress them first and play the victim whenever you get the chance. Also, always pretend to be happy. If you have problems doing that do what you always do, don't think and just read the koran. Or take it out on your wives and kaffirs. See y'all next month. Sallam

All sheeple: allah akbar. We are soooo awesome

Well, not all are like this. Most are even worse, filled with guilt, silly 'what to do?' questions, internecine battles, etc. All the while, sickly polite, as if these are the most natural things in the world. I shall leave you to your folly, I don't need a book to tell me there's no compulsion

Obligatory vedax Buhahahahahahhahaha *ugh*

vedaxcool: I think Mac is a great reformer of the undisciplined and one who has made people more polite and less uncouth when discussing. NLanders need to adjust to the reforms,reforms are painful but they are well needed no people can hold sane discussion when trolls and uncouth people rule such places! Those possesed with demons are those who get serially banned!

You're an expert on polite? Beyonce said I was the best she ever had.

I like it when you stray out for just 2/3 posts, as you always seem intent on proving your naysayers right, with distinction even. But after ~3 posts even my gleeful shadenfreude gives way to something. I'm not sure what it is, but I'd say it's akin to pure disgust. Your bigotry is contagious and it's spreading to me. Can't you keep it in the hills, along with your goats, eediocy, schizophrenia etc?


And ffs demons? Wtf?

Yeah, it's a bit like burying your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away. To be fair, the islam/religion section has staggered along for years now, despite the blatant inequalities in the system. Abi na suffering and smiling again?

salt 1: Thanks. I really have no reason not to tell the truth. The info here is common knowledge and verifiable. Bless you!

Don't take it personally oga, you know how it is in these here parts. My thanks to you and your church for you hard work!

@op, why aren't you in an asylum? Did you escape? Either ways, you need to up your medication. I'm serious

Reyginus: *Takes the front sit, to seep a little of obadiah's red wine*

You get liver. I mean literally, your liver strong. I don't think that $hit was meant for us mortals, it would render the average liver useless. Maybe the 144000, but not the rest of us

@okey come back here, after reading a few posts elsewhere I have to say, I am quite disappoint, at least about the taxing. I cannot see in which way not taxing them is justifiable in a secular society, so long as the money isn't used for charity

It seems to me most give selfish reasons for giving to a church (like the 'reapers' in this thread www.nairaland.com/1117870/240-100-blessings-matthew-ashimolowo, even if not specifically for tithing); rewards of a material sort, maybe even immediate. Of course pointing out how silly that is is futile. Lots of reapers in 9ja on less than 2$ a day for instance, while bill gates and the vast majority of china's one million millionaires didn't sow/reap to goms. Rather than leaving things to god I believe they actually put some work in. And in the case of gates and probably others they are doing what they can to make sure other people can succeed in this life, an existence which is objectively verifiable by us all I would think.

There's also the whole giving your ca$h to unctuous god of men (again, at the expense of bettering conditions in this world) because you want to get to heaven, not because it's the good thing to do. It seems goms need to explicitly tell their flock to give to a proper charity, as it doesn't occur to sheeple that that would probably be a more decent thing to do. Rather than donating to their goms personal bombardier funds of course, ie, if indeed their aim is to help other people.

Either ways, both reasons are business based. Boils down to personal gain. Ironically, a lot of these people would be first in line to criticize those who cut off heads for jazz money. It's the same thing simply being done by members of another 'church', except of course that they are explicitly violent. The same sort of thinking leads the blood money seekers to thinking human sacrifice somehow reaps rewards.

Their prerogative, so long as no one is being harmed. But if it's not non-profit why isn't it taxed or regulated? To the rest of the world god is a figment of their imagination, even to other denominations of xtianity who think this practice is not 'xtian', they'll tell you it's the 'devils work' or something similar. Heck, maybe to even members of their own churches who suspect something is amiss. And even if your god existed, why should we care? We don't subscribe to it. If he really existed and despite his omnipotency still needed the money in some gom's account surely he could come down and tell us in non 'mysterious' ways, no? It sounds a bit like how god was unable to repel men because they were in iron chariots (among many other absurdities his omnipotence couldn't handle). If he can't prove its for charity, then we'd tax him/it as well, governments are not run on faith or spiritual money.

Either ways, all we see is money shifting hands, not for charitable reasons, so why shouldn't it be taxed? 'Spiritual' or no, some nice, chunky service tax should be imposed.

obadiah777: A CASE OF THE BLIND FOLLOWING THE BLIND

I like logic, it can't be helped

advocate666: It is simple.

Either

1- Daniel was allergic to cats. In those days, their native doctors used to prescribe cat repellent ointments for them to put aound their houses and on themselves so cats don't come near them. So when Daniel was thrown in the den, the ointment on his body kept the cats away.

Or

2- Daniel was one of the guards of the lions and had bonded with them previously. As one of the guards, he used to bring them food. So they associated Daniel with a caring figure who brings them food. Unlike humans, lions don't bite the hands that feed them.

Or

3- As the lions were domesticated in a den, they have lost the ability to kill in order to feed as their food is always brought to them in form of dead cut up meat. So Daniel didn't look like food.

Or.

4- doG in heaven did it.

Oddly enough, while not likely, 2 and 3 are possible. But I prefer 4

salt 1: But my view is simply Christians should champion the cause of openness and transparency and compel their churches to put everything out in the open.

A lot of the people on this forum are Christians, many are workers in church and many are pastors etc with a nairaland alter ego.

So lets get the real information.

This is the real info abt Apostolic Faith Church
1. There is no collection plate passed in any of the 600+ branches in Nig nor any branch in the world
2. There is tithe/offering box located at entrances to churches where people can go secretly and at their convenience to drop their support
3. The church has very few fulltime pastors and pastors don't have access to offering boxes but treasurers have
4. The money is shared according to percentages depending on need: running the church(fueling gensets and gospel buses, paying the drivers, charity) etc
5.On 31 Dec night, the leader gives a financial report to all members. External auditors also go through the church accounts
6. The church organises periodic charity days where new and used-but-still-good items donated by members are put on display and anybody can pick
7.The Nig church has leadership role for 22 African countries and some of those countries are dirt poor so food,clothes and money contributed by members are sent to these countries. Missionaries are sent to them and they also send their folks to Nig to learn Music and mission work
8. The church visits hospitals, prisons, blind centres and schools every week. Church vehicles are used for these visits.
9. AFC runs several secondary schools and has Crawford University. 80% of staff are church members and many members children are on full or partial scholarship in these fledgling schools.

Can our District Superintendent buy a jet from our tithes?
Absolutely No. We need money to buy cane guides and Braille boards for the blind people we visit. We want to give it to them as Xmas gift. How do I know this? I am in that team that visits them!

If all this is true then at the very least y'all hearts in the right place. Bravo and $deityspeed

It is my understanding that their earthly overlord, aka mac the mod-erer, is under orders to ban every single post by anyone who doesn't share their particular delusion, favorable to their cause or not. Assuming this is true, rather than strictly follow the mandate he likely lets all the posts sympathetic to his cause through while of course filtering the ones that are particularly critical out. He can then claim he wasn't supposed to let you in in the first place, he just pitied you because of his infinite mercy.

Either ways the problem isn't him but the one that gave him the mandate, seun. If there really is a ban on non muslims posting in there then all posts from kaffirs, good or bad, should be blocked out. Seun should be demanding he follows the law, or he should change said laws. As it stands it's a pretty sorry state imo

Jazzgreen: But pls , people lik prophet tb JOSHUA shud nt pay tax na. Cos he's using his money to help people and nt buy jet. If u force him to pay tax.dat wud be reducin money mapped out to help d helpless masses which d govt itself cant be able to help dem. Dat wud mean more stomach wil hav to go to bed empty. Pls dnt task Tb JOSHUA.

If he really has nothing to hide, then you shouldn't be worried. The whole point is too weed out those that do have something to hide

chrisj2000: but these congregants will not give you a dime of their money if you succeed in convincing them not to pay tithe. i think this is a losing battle. lol

Heh heh...black man...and we sometimes wonder what the problem is. Is it greedy to want to enter heaven at any cost, like say heavily damaging this world? Black man doesn't thinks so. Again, really, why does god need your money? Lol.

All this "let god judge how they use the money" is really, really worrisome as well. All I need do is for instance say he asked me to buy the jet in a dream, prove me wrong..meh

Creators of perl and ruby are pretty hardcore xtians, well, one is mormon. Japanese mormon. Perl is one of the 3 big P's on the web (others being PHP, Python) but its time to shine seems to have passed. Ruby is still rather relevant because of Ruby on Rails, still fairly popular, it powered the original version of twitter for instance. Both these guys are bestowed the grand title of 'benevolent dictator for life'. Ok, it's nothing too major, it's just speak to indicate that they have final say on what the language can and cannot do, what features will be added and what's left out, even though they are both open source projects. I doubt say Linus Torvalds has that sort of power over the Linux kernel, but of course the nature of the projects are very different.

There is also this piece of work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Lamo

Widely hailed as one of the best hackers ever, also widely reviled as the guy who 'sold out' Bradley Manning, the wikileaks informant. Staunch, crazy, aspie, xtian.


Anyways, there is a pattern with natural coders, they think for themselves. Following the crowd is definitely not as important as it is to others. Have you ever heard of a japanese mormon? A side effect being they can be fairly quirky, see the @pastorwaccing or the @advocate for fairly unusual ideas.


For those familiar with MBTI, most of these programmers with a bent towards religion are probably INxP, most programmers in general are NT. Most of d really badazz, the true mastah race, are INTP (Linus Torvalds being the poster boy), but I'll concede we have healthy competition from INTJs (like zuckenberg) and ENTPs (like maybe steve woz, but most ppl have him as INTP actually, I'm not too sure). Mathematicians too tend to be of these sorts too

From the top of my head don't know any muslim alpha programmers bigo...op. Anyways, most are (sometimes unusually curious) critical thinkers who generally must try things for themselves. Thus they sometimes may harbor ideas others find unusual

And here are prices, though they maybe need verification. And are they all brand new?

www.nairaland.com/1059437/top-ten-private-jets-owned


This is not only pastors though. Anyways, cheapest there is 2.1 billion naira, most expensive is 6.4 billion. The others are cheaper. It would take a lot of tithing to generate that cash in a year or two.

On another note, think of the jobs that could be generated with this ca$h, but meh, free world. Still, if not npo they should be taxed.

jammyng: I know that some churches actually make huge money on tithes but the truth is that the pastors who own PJs could have got it without church funds. In some churches, a member or group can afford to buy it for the pastor. Also, some pastors have their own business(which may have been started with church funds) and can afford it.

I'm still keeping an open mind (or cowardly refusing to commit) on the question of if tithes alone would suffice. I would still say it would work out more this way, though they still make an obscene killing from tithes alone. Surely there are checks on how official tithe money is spent? Abeg tell me so.. Anybody? Or am I being naïve again? *sigh*

Anyways, I suppose you could think of tithes as salary, the rest as the contracts and 'runs', where the real peppeh rest. No vex xtians, I admit feel a little dirty putting it that way lol.


I'm sure most would say no, but would you support taxing churches if they fail to confirm their npo status? Okey's already stated no I believe. I'm sure this has been often tackled before, it would be needless for those who've already stated their positions elsewhere to do so again of course.





@serialoga, no offense to many of your bros.. actually many offense to them.. you're one of the few that deserve to bear the sword if it indeed stands for decency (notice I use the word 'if' though )

lekibraky: What is not part of islam can never live for long let's watch and see fruit it will bear we Muslims will never take crap from anybody they either name their religion other thing than Islam or face the wrath of Muslims world wide

How peaceful, for a barbarian. I understand, there's no compulsion, among many other things

musKeeto: Troll Princess Is Available

Dohohoho

To prove she's not a troll she decided to troll. Genius.

Not to mention one so poorly executed that it's embarrassing, maybe because it's motivated by blind hate and frustration. She genuinely needs a shoulder to cry on, or at least a hug

Oh, off topic. Ignore this