₦airaland Forum

I couldn't read the article seriously, it was just seriously wrong. The physics guy already pointed out a few things I more or less I with already. I couldn't see what the article had to do with the questions you pose at the end though. I skimmed through though so meh. My question is

"Also, things on essential humanity. . . . . any human being [like thehomer] who sees humans as only highly evolved apes is missing something about what it means to be human. "

Why does being human have to have some sort of special qualities or status? If that is what you are impplying ie

I'm sorry op, it being your daughter and all, but your post made me lol. So much so it deserved a like. Sorry. Also, wanted to point out you're demonstrating the reason a few ppl think religion was created all those years ago when various apes aquired abstract thought: to instill fear in children, more or else. That way they'd be easier to control and keep away from harms way, aiding in protecting the species/tribe. Actually, I personally would say that reason popped up later, at first they would have used it to explain stuff like why was everything trying to kill them, what's holding the world up (turtles, all th way to the end), rain, seasons etc. Of course it's still used for that, but note how the list becomes smaller and smaller till eventually...

Cogent: Okay.
Then you're bi. Still not judging.

Don't mistake me, I have no problem with you seeing me as gay. I fail to see how that is insulting. But yeah, I don't see myself as what is the stereotypical 'gay', by most standards I'd qualify as straight. But I'm cooler with bi, I like it more. Oops, why am I discussing this on this thread?

Cogent: You're gay. . . . I'm not judging you though.

DO HO HO Don't particularly see the general worlds obsession with what adults do to themselves in their bedrooms, but as you're not judging, meh. But I don't think of myself as gay. I also do not think there's such a thing as fully straight, everyone's bi, just a matter of degree. I agree with Kereisy(spelling?) on that.

EDIT: oops, twas this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey

Cogent: You like traps?

Hush! It's a secret

^^^^
I kind of like this post, it's sort of appropriate considering the nature of the topic. I really want specifics, like if I convert my daughters do I get extra virgins and maybe some traps? What do pedos get, will they be cured?

Okay, sorry. I'll back off now.

This is called the fermi paradox, no? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox . Also the whole time issue, we've been catching radio signals for what, 100 years? Then relativity and time, space expanding etc, but that's for physicists to figure out (certainly not me). I like michio kaku's take on it. It's something like; if you were in a car on a journey, you wouldn't stop to check every single ant-hill you pass, would you? I hope tis so.

You just wasted 30 seconds of my life, and I should be angry because from the title I thought you wanted real help on a useful topic. Troll. Asides from that though I'm interested in knowing why call the devil 'it' and god 'him'

akthedream: What do stand to gain as an atheist if i may ask?Why are you guys all every thread doing all you can to go against religion and God?..Afterall,those who believe in God and religion have nothing to loose after death according to you.

It's not like you opened this thread with the intent of addressing the irreligious, christian et al

The reply above was actually quite gracious. I just have to ask, is that your reason?

Existential crises imminent.. I'm going to go lie down

Oh, benefit of the doubt here... Thank $deity... You mean why do we bother when there is no personal gain for us?

Oh shit, no. That's not much better... Still getting to the crises level... So you opened this thread because you wanted to score points with god... shutting down....

If you were starting to have doubts, you'd probably find your way to the atheist section, or a general religion section with these debates by yourself. No need to constantly be in your face about religion. In fact, at times despite good intentions, you'll probably throw some silly argument and harm your cause. What do I care what one believes in frankly, I just care when some idiots starts to trample over someone's rights. As it is now one side insists on being reasonable/rational, the other side comes back with the argument "but santa says....". You've pointed it out a million times, you still get the same response, can we just move on pls?

And yes, it really makes the muslims look like they still think the round wheel is cutting edge technology, or at least that backward.

akthedream: The problem with you atheist and non believer of religion,is that you read too much of history books writting by people who have a biased mind towards God religion.Have you ever with all manners of sincerity and fairness study the Quran and The bible to really know if there is God or not to start with?

What does that have to do with anything? Are you also implying you have a problem with critisism from the outside? Where do I quote an external ref? How do you know I've not read those books? Why is the sky blue? What does that have to do with anything?

All this is all nice and good, the amount of detail is particularly impressive. Like others I need a sample before I commit. Lest we be accused of being sexist, I won't support sexist gods, I want to hear more about the options for females. Tbh I'm just worried about my future daughters, as I may need to sell this to them to ensure my own ticket is secure. I'd like it to be attractive as I'd rather not brainwash/force them. My gay friends and family as well, can they finally get some of their preffered action after living a lie their entire lives, or will they be cured from 'teh gay'? Pls pls can I get a (lifelong) sample pls?

Edit: jokes aside op you come across as a decent guy, the reward you want (simply being in its presence) is noble enough for me. If you step out of the bubble though you'd probably notice it sounds like something some 419er would tell you, even without the number 72, and not a good one by modern standards. This 419er would have been cutting edge stuff maybe 1000-1500 yrs ago (look at the well thought out details, it was ahead of its time!). Ppl would still fall for it today, so imagine how tempting it would have been then (also consider his early followers were mostly outcats, ppl without much of a future being junior family members, basically very dissatisfied with their lives and projected destinies). And ppl get stoned to death because of hadiths, it's pretty serious. Moh himself may not have been disingenuous, he may actually have believed his stuff and possibly (very debatabble) helped out a bit, but don't you think its time we moved on?

Hello mods, nice to meet you. Just discovering this place and it is confusing. Muslims have their own section, with islam/muslim in the title, what is the religion section then for? Title is ambigious, a deliberate misnomer? It does not have threads which are deemed 'islamic', it has a lot of atheist and christian threads. For the most part, from what I can see it's battle after battle with most of them being fairly pointless, and definitely repeatative. There seems to be a sizable atheist community so why not have atheist section, a chritian one and a third for debates related to religion in general, as a good chunk of these seem to be about. As it stands now islam is being treated diffrently. While many of them like it that way if I were a muslim I'd be embarrased. Similarly to how some muslims were fairly contrite over the whole wikipedia pictures of mohammed fiasco. By seperating them you are sort of implying they are too sensitive/arrogant/uneducated to join the rest of us. Also, as an atheist, I discovered this place and its atheist community by accident. If it had been tagged 'atheism' or something similar I probably would have found it sooner. I would think many intrested in issues related to atheism/skeptism would have missed it to. Seems I'm not the only confused with the titles as well. I'm assuming this is on purpose, may I know why? Kind regards

she's a northener. Met her in uni ( where I was duly kicked for not attending classes, twice, hence the lack of degree I mentioned earlier ). She hides her powerlevels well though. Half the time she's coming up with the most ridiculous concepts, the other half such piercing insight I'm left wondering wth. Getting her to open up is no easy task, despite that she's so cchhhiilll. Watching I get a sense of how ppl view us

fellis: You're INTP? Holy sh[i]i[/i]t!!! No way dude!!!

Why?? Its not that rare, really lol! I've even dated an intp (yes, we'd actually forget we were going out and not see for months, we never even really broke up ). A female intp is a rare beast though. I might be projecting, but I'm guessing op is too. Questioning (to the point she gets tagged as the philosopher), objective, socially awkward with a 'worldly' view, Ti supplying her the stubborn streak. Even the need to connect, manifesting itself as her feelings (icky word) for the boy and turning her seemingly usually good judgement on its head ( with the marriage thing ) is that infamous trouble maker, our inferior Fe. If not she's most likely an nt anyways, as are most of atheists here. You're an nt as well? From your surprise I'm guessing xNTP?

fellis: There is so much foreign speak in this post. Are you Nigerian?
I loved this write up, specifically the mbti part. Was starting to wonder if others have heard of it. It's usually the mundane and irritating mel san chol phlegm rubbish I hear people talking about.

Sadly, I haven't left this country in over 10 years. I suffer from intp hence the need to know everything (and live on your own planet). Really I'm a bit surprised its not caught on here too. It could be really useful to a lot ppl, easing a lot of pain. What type are you, if I may ask?

No you...
God, from nothing, said "Let there be light", and from there we get here. This was about 6,000 years ago. It was very elaborate, some great conundrums had to be solved just so he could test our faith (which is one of his primary goals), but in the end it was worth it. You see, he was lonely so he did what any good omnipotent would, he built the rock he couldn't pick up while still remaining omnipotent, a lot of times. Eg creating evil but not doing anything about it, free will that is not free will as it is all his will, loneliness he couldn't cure, human stupidity incurable etc etc, to make things interesting for himself. He also made some brilliant discoveries during this period, like determine his omniscience with 100% certainty (and eventually tell us, his special new toys, this with a straight face) thus illustrating how blind faith works by example. Anyways despite this brilliant feat and others, omniscience combined with omnipotence got in the way of his free will and caused a few other worrisome complications which he omnipotently couldn't solve because he wasn't omnipotent, so he chose to forget some stuff, while remembering it at the same time. Then he got to work. He built a galaxy, made billions of stars, figured he still had time and so he built billions of these galaxies as well. He might have just used a few flash bulbs to cut corners, but we'll never know because he then went on troll us by establishing certain physical limits like the speed of light (virtually ensuring we never get there to physically to confirm).

He was careful to put us at the centre of all this so he wouldn't get lost. Then he created dinosaur bones and hid them in the ground. He also created the great apes and confirmed that when the age of the universe was determined by scientists it would say something like 13 billion years ago to test our faith (again). Creating genes and whatnot (his protege google turns this up when I google "evolution proof" http://www.evolutionfaq.com/articles/five-proofs-evolution) and establishing that Occam's razor applies just about everywhere. He then made us, his magnum opus, in his image. Since he knew everything and also didn't know everything, there were a lot of trials and tribulations. He made Adam and Eve in his great nature themed sky resort. He was disappointed that another rock he couldn't lift (Satan, I can't remember when he went about creating him and a few other things, but he did) tried to show them how misguided their creator was and kicked them all out. Some of their descendants looked at him the wrong way so he had to get rid of them a couple of times (they also ate shellfish). He was also a little immature being both infinitely old and young, so sexually he experimented a lot and was said to enjoy watching humans fornicate and stuff (this was before the internet and video, print, etc). There were rumours about him swooning for Satan, who had a bit of a bad boy reputation. To squish these he might have gone overboard with the whole do not lay with another man thing (in his defense, seems like Satan used to brag). But eventually he matured and got things just about right enough to keep him from getting bored without causing too much pain.

So yeah, he still prefers watching us live (being virtually with us) rather than via technology. He considers shows like Big Brother to be amateurish for instance, so he's in all billions of galaxies in every quark at the same time as he doesn't want to miss anything (he's not a fan of string instruments at the moment, if he changes his mind then he'll allow for ways to verify string theory to show up, I just bring this up to show you his relationship with science eg the earth being flat before and such). He just really enjoys testing our faith and trolling as well. Like your average troll, he's just lonely and misunderstood. Being omnipotent he could have just wished his loneliness away but this way we get to him owe him since he didn't have to create us. Do not fall for the lies of science, else he'll send you to the place he sent Satan after their last fallout. He just wants friends who would die, kill, etc for him without question.

Well, actually this is just my opinion. I'll edit for clarity eventually

Not sure if troll actually. I can't remember 15, but I sure as hell wasn't clear-minded as you appear to be, neither were most of the 15 yr olds. Also, this line; "I have suffered through depression and didn’t know exactly what was making me feel that way around late 2011. They thought it was a chemical imbalance. I thought I was stressed from my bad grades at school. But now I know that it was the fear of Hell that was burning away my spirit." I actually lol'd.

Okay, serious stuff now. Assuming not troll, part of what you are experiencing may be teenage drama, but just the love part. I'd ignore it, but my heart is made of stone when it comes to those issues. The rest is not so regular. Here is the key part, SCHOOL. Financial freedom is key, and it is much more easily attained with degrees. If asked, I don't lie about my position on religion, much to my detriment actually, and I don't have a degree. I can tell you it's been hell and I definitely would have arrived where I'm at in life at the moment much sooner had I cared. I cannot stress this enough, financial freedom is key. Now I don't have to put up with holier than thou crap among many other things.

"You have to realize that the parents control over their children diminishes in time. It reaches to a stage that the balance of powers will be totally reversed and the parents will become dependent on the children. In about ten years, when you have your own career and earn your own living, you and your parents reach equilibrium of powers. By then they can’t boss you around. From there on, every day, you gain more power while they lose. This hierarchy of powers that at this moment seems so oppressive to you will be reversed. Give time a chance. In a decade, none of these problems that today seem so daunting will exist. They will melt gradually, like a mountain of ice under the sun.

Another strange phenomenon is that the younger you are the longer time seems to last. For older people time passes quickly, when for younger people it seems to be very slow. But ten years is not much when you compare it with the rest of your life.

There is a time for everything. For you, this is the time to study. All other things come next. Plan your life correctly and you will have a very happy life. Don’t study just for the diploma, but for the knowledge. Your diploma will not find you a job, your expertise will."

Also, are you in Nigeria or abroad. Poster above knows his/her stuff (why was it posted with your account, are you trolling?). The last bit though requires balance. Learning for fun projects vs learning for financial reasons. Or basically, try to avoid becoming a dilettante. I add that because I suspect you are the kind who spends all day on wiki for fun.

Speaking of personality, have you heard of the mbti? Some of your issues sound like typical N vs S issues. If you aren't familiar with mbti you wouldn't know what I mean of course. I highly recommend you take the test though

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

If I had known this stuff ten years ago my life would have been completely different (just like the say in many adverts while you roll your eyes). It helped me understand what caused the apparent schism between me and most of the world. But bear in mind, this is not exact science, do not take it too seriously. It is a tool which can help you understand others motivations, and shed some light who you really are as well. As an N (or iNtuitive, I'm assuming you're one from various clues), you are more concerned with abstract issues (what you called worldly) then with immediate practical issues unlike an S (or Sensor). S's heavily outnumber N's population-wise, and SJ's (commonly called traditionalists by the mbti community, you know the type, always on time, zero imagination, risk-averse, follow the rules blindly, collect a huge chunk of facts without actually caring about how stuff works, etc etc), who seem to have an axe in store for every xNTP they meet, keep life's engine running on the micro level. It's not uncommon for N's, particularly NT's to think they are aliens while growing up. But fear not, if you look at list of probable (remember, this is not exact science) N's most people will agree that the N-list is by far and away more impressive.

Who do you think will go on to impact the world more, the girl who's worrying about makeup and what so and so boy did with so and so girl and who wore what and what kind of car was blah driving (u get d point, inane s@$t) or the 16 yr old who starts to wonder if one could ever catch up to a light beam and hold it his hands? He then sets off on a dogged journey, with a teacher calling him a lazy dog and another telling him he would never amount to much, struggling with rote learning and some authority figures, etc, which takes him roughly 10 yrs. All the while he's acquiring tools necessary to figure out his projects, which he uses to radically change the way we view the universe (in the most insouciant way even). The last hurdle done while working as a civil servant, a job where he was passed off for promotion. Now most of us certainly do not have the kind of intuition Einstein (usually regarded as the quintessential INTP in the mbti community) had, but it's nice to know that people I admire (Newton,Shakespeare,Lincon are all usually typed as N's, among many others) were actually quite similar to you. Despite what they may have told you elsewhere, there is nothing wrong with you.


random note: age and time is usually attributed to older people having more memories to mull over and compare with current situations than younger ones. like money, if you have lots when you are given more you won't notice it as much as a poorer person will when given the same amount... random random note: sj's come at me, despite one of my best buds and my bro who has a ridiculously big heart being sj, I still hate you guys so, so much

Ihedinobi: I used the analogy of JAMB regulating entry into Nigerian institutions of higher learning to illustrate my point about His laws thus. I said that JAMB as a regulatory body is not in any manner subject to the rules it lays down for entry into Nigerian universities, polytechnics, monotechnics, colleges of education etc. Does that make it an immoral institution? By no means. The same with God. If God commands men to do such-and-such and not such-and-such, He is not obliged to do or refrain as He commands them.

How's your weekend going, btw?
I wouldn't say this is a good analogy as the actual conditions in each scenario are rather different, maybe even more favorable for your argument. God supposedly has a lot more power than JAMB does in going about its business. JAMB is held accountable, they have to explain their actions to various government committees and such. Decisions made by JAMB aren't done by a single person. Despite this if something goes wrong in such an organization some scapegoat/actually guilty person(s) will be held culpable. There are checks and balances, if criticism is found to be valid changes are made and its officers must adhere to certain rules. While they may make the rules, they can't make any drastic changes or pull some sort of disingenuous stunt without expecting any backlash. Substitute JAMB with FIFA to get a sense of what I mean. Sure FIFA makes all the rules etc, but as recent events have shown they can't just do as they please. FIFA is considered by most observers (notably in the West though, here we see moral relativity in action, sort of) as being corrupt and of questionable morals. So yes, JAMB can be seen as a morally bad institution, it could even be scrapped based on reasons related to morality alone. Bear in mind though of course, the whole moral relativity issue comes into play here.

Ihedinobi: As to His adherents, it was one of my points to say that true Christians have the distinguishing mark of Yahweh upon them. So, a true Christian will not be found doing things that contradict Yahweh's Moral Character. I am addressing this because of the terrorist example you gave which only parallels examples of alleged genocide in the Bible. Yahweh is not bound by any laws that He gave to men to regulate their conduct of life, but He is bound by His Moral Character to act in certain ways and not in others. Therefore, He is not a God of whims. There is propriety in His doings. These are the Christian's claims. If these claims are accepted as propositions at least, then the next logical thing to do is to find out what Yahweh's moral character is so that He can be judged by it.
What I'm saying by this section is that while certainly God is above every law of man including those ten commandments He gave at Mount Sinai, He is still a God bound to a Moral Code.

I've actually gone the extra mile with the last section. The pursuit of debate does not necessitate my giving you any of that information. It's just that I'm striving for more than just intellectual triumph.

And you may have wasted your time because I don't understand it . I appreciate the effort though. The "The Spirit of God... Spirits" mini-tirade of mine earlier resulted from me assuming "The Spirit of God" is some sort of mental state. I then go on to state I don't need such 'states', though I can understand if some people need that to function (well, some are just idiots, and keeping with my central issue which you nicely marked out, "if you accept god is above the law you give bad/[EDIT]stupid people an excuse to do bad things" I try to show how one who unquestionably believes s/he is one of these states jumps to becoming a full time bigot or having a view of this world which is skewed, but I didn't do that too well. Then again, and I've harped about this enough, it is their $deity given right, my problem is with the ones who assume these 'states' give them some sort of rights over us).
[EDIT] I assume now though that this "Spirit of God" is something else to you, and I can't see it that way as I'd prefer something that could be objectively ascertained, not open to so many interpretations. You start seeing goalposts shifting and no true Scotsmen with these. It still more or else registers in my opinion as some frame of mind.

Sleeping awake here. Await reply if you will, whenever you see fit of course. I'm interested in seeing how you deal with the parts you marked out.

Excuse my selfishness, answering when I see fit. I have time now but bb keyboard (ugh). I don't expect a reply but I'll just leave here..

You can skip this part actually, as it's just contextm
I didn't actually butt in to debate specifics really, I just wanted to point this out: if you accept god is above the law, you give bad/stupid poeple an excuse to do bad things. It's a free world, obviously we're all free to believe in whatever we choose to believe in, but if the average theist believes this or sends out this message then it's easy to see where a lot of the problems in this world come from. So for practical reasons I'd much rather ppl didn't go haphazardly making statements like these. I'll just leave it at that for now as I've said plenty on that already. Of course, freedom of speech. Onwards to your arguments, I'll not to derail or bring in too much 'big picture'-contect yes (a struggle for my feeble yet wondering mind, ugh x2).

Ihedinobi: The point we are debating, that is, that Yahweh is rejected on grounds of immorality because He destroyed human lives among other things contrary to laws and requirements He gave to man, assumes that God exists. So any argument that takes us back to proving His existence is tangential to the issue. I'm making a case for God's morality assuming that He exists.

My answer in defence of God's morality is this: that God as God is like the owner/builder of a house. By virtue of His rights of ownership, He can choose to build it any way He pleases, or to pull down a part of it or the whole of it. There is no entity that has the right to question what an owner does with his property. Period. Assuming God exists (I have to say this to forestall any running around on the issue again), then your sentience and your ability to love and receive love would be credited to Him. If this is so, then God can do with you whatever pleases Him. He can choose to kill you or leave you, to preserve you and kill your family off before your eyes. He can do pretty much whatever He wants and you cannot rightly question Him, because He owns you, pure and simple.
I used the analogy of JAMB regulating entry into Nigerian institutions of higher learning to illustrate my point about His laws thus. I said that JAMB as a regulatory body is not in any manner subject to the rules it lays down for entry into Nigerian universities, polytechnics, monotechnics, colleges of education etc. Does that make it an immoral institution? By no means. The same with God. If God commands men to do such-and-such and not such-and-such, He is not obliged to do or refrain as He commands them.

I'm no philosopher, I can armchair good enough though so meh. To keep it short and simpple, assuming god is real, this question depends on if you believe morality is absolute or relative, making this highly subjective (see why mathmaticians in particular stay away from topics like these, also god cannot just decide that morality is either absolute or relative for you, among other things, your supposed free will and some basic logic). Ancient roman households for instance, the patriarch could do as he pleased. In essence, everything in the house, including ppl, were his property, he could more or else do whatever he wantd with them. We've all heard of slavery, still in existence today. If morals are relative, these laws, rules etc can be deemed morally good. Not just these actually, any moral code/behaviour can be justified, even things like the holocaust.


Now there are ppl that believe we should draw the line somewhere and have an absolute set of values, strive to achieve something 'fair' and so arbritarily put together (like sam harris, I'm sure there are other philosophers that share this view as well). It will probably be something similar to the golden rule, without its loopholes. You could say this is an important raison d'etre for movements like the rennaisance, american revolution etc. Generally speaking, heavily related to: human rights ( I and many others take this further to say sentient rights, but we're still too barbaric to popularly acknowledge we are not that special). Most proponents of an absolute set of rules for morality in our species can agree on one thing, sentient lives are no shape or form, in any language, property. That strikes me personally as such a conspicuously bad position, but that just my pov, I'm not to judge (well subtly maybe ). For instance, from where I see things, if I have a kid, there's this important thing I'd have at the back of my head: s/he didn't ask me to born him/her. That was my decision. Now I've brought a being that can think, feel pain, love and understand certain abstract concepts into this universe, that's a lot o responsibility. Said child/sentient, is in no form, my property, her life is her own. I could have built the sentient from the ground up in a lab, once I've giving it the ability to reason etc, then there is a great list of things I cannot do to it. It is part of my responsibility for creating said sentient. I created it, now it is my job to take care of it. (Personal op: Assuming god existed, and he did not follow this basic premise that many of us mere mortals follow, then what is the point of worshiping it? Hell, if I had the power ascribed to it (impossible as it is) why would I need to be worshipped anyhoo?).

I'll have to leave it here for now, time etc (not to mention my beloved spell-check, pedants everywhere these days). I'll edit this and complete it hopefully, but basically there is a lot of subjectivity involved in your postulate, among other things. I'll address other issues, like yes it makes It whimsical and no, judges are not above the law. The spirit thing is just.. Think cul... Gloves off if you like, I won't take it personally

omo_to_dun: Common sense tells me that a perfect God can only create a perfect world. That our world is imperfect says a lot about its putative creator.

For thousands of years, your ancestors lived in Africa without the knowledge of Jesus, so I guess, they are all bound for hell, according to you and as per the indoctrinations melded into your heart as a child.

It really is a shame that Christians must use fear to try to persuade non-Christians to convert.

I'd rather die an atheist than end up an hateful person as you are.

Relevant?

cyrexx: @ wiegraf,
where have you been hiding all these while,

we need more intelligent, irreligious minds like you as our wingman in helping to upload some rational thinking into the very hard drive of our religious brothers in nigeria.

Religious dogma has held us down for so long. But it doesn't need to be forever.


Welcome to show, bro.
Welldone.

Thanks bro. Brofist! But you guys seem to be doing very well without me, though I realize this isn't some sort of competition. Hopefully positives are being gained from these debates.

Oga Ihe, my bad as well. I might not be clear enough for you (I get that response in all manner of stuff sadly, frequently). I never aim to obfuscate actually, only simplify. I also like to present as much as I can of the data I deem relevant, which is not very practical. Then when I do attempt to simplify, I usually get this look from whoever I'm talking to which says "does he think I'm a child?". I'll attempt to link it, but there's just so much I cannot have enough time to cover. Even now, I can only do this at night, at the expense of other things.

Someone was answering your points, and he states he does not buy the idea that god is above the law. I add that while religious may think it harmless to have this kind of thought, them assuming god can do no wrong and whatever it says/does is in their best interest, this is a particularly dangerous thought to spread around. Firstly, you have not even proven this god exists, your belief is based on faith. Somehow ppl seem to have forgotten what the word means, from dictionary.com

1.
confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2.
belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3.
belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4.
belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5.
a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.

There is no physical proof of a god, non, so the first does not apply. I cannot trust a thing which exists wholly in your mind. It is also rather arrogant to expect others to accept it based on faith. If it works for you that doesn't mean it should work for everyone else, or do you really think you are that superior? So much so that you can just make an arbitrary comment, without backing it up, then expect us to just follow you blindly? Have you heard of the teapot?

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot[/url]

Sometimes religious find it hard to understand this concept despite the fact they do the same to every other religion they are not members of. As Dawkins (I think) puts it, next to monotheists, we just believe in one less god. Also, arguments from authority will not work with most atheists either, and they really shouldn't with anyone. You should be able to understand how things work, frameworks behind these things, and make informed decisions on your own. If whoever is your authority figure makes a valid point, then excellent!! Else, follow the beggar you sometimes pity and give the odd n50 if he makes more sense (and you are not infringing on someone's rights, of course). Not to mention when people are removed from responsibility, things like these sometimes happen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
But I could go on and on about how most theists seem to miss just how fallacious the arguments they frame usually are, right from the premise, so we'll just move on...

The other definitions speak for themselves. Religion boils down to this: it makes you happy/safe, comforts you, etc. But it is not a fact that there is a god, far from it. It may be a fact to you, based on: faith. It is not even supposed to make sense, hence the word "faith" used to describe these things. Back to the idea that god is above the law (assuming god was real) is such a dangerous thought to have. When terrorist A blows himself up, it's because some god, who is above the law and too lazy to do his own smiting told him he will be rewarded in the afterlife. Told him, in an unfalsifiable way even (EDIT, he can only verify after his death, and no other person can verify he has actually collected as well, as we can't see this process, nor can he contact us being as he's dead and all, how convenient). So what are the rest of us left with, ppl, with potential, other sentient beings loved by someone and loving others, dead. A lot of the time because gullible terrorist wanted his virgins (how noble of him, and of god too to think of such a worthy reward), or even more alarmingly, because said terrorist genuinely believes his actions are righteous, seeing as his imaginary friend is always right. If the word religion was not attached to the terrorist, ppl would just call him mad. A quote from a famous physicist which somewhat applies: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.". Real world issues should be what concern us. With the terrorist situation, real ppl, tangible that I can see talk, laugh etc have been extinguished because someone thought his imaginary friend was more important than actual human lives. So obviously no, I don't think god is above the law, and I don't think it's a particularly good message to go spreading around. Real people are a lot more important. The examples I listed (mostly from the quran) were of the more egregious thought processes this kind of thinking often leads to.

On to the spirit bit, I've already pointed out a few reasons this makes little sense to me. I don't believe in spirits in the first place so how do you expect me to follow? I'll give you a simple example, I tried installing linux just to see what the fanbois were raving about, maybe learn a few things etc. After installing, which wasn't pain free but not too bad, I tried listening to basic mp3 files, but it tells me I need to connect to the internet before it would let me do even that. Ok, good, I stick my modem in, one of the mobile ones, it has a linux folder in it which I assume has installs for it. Try this and that, then it tells me I have to go to the internet. So basically, I have to connect to the internet in order to connect to the internet. Why gee, thanks! This is a rather poor example, because I could still find a LAN cable and use that to find drivers for the modem. In your case I couldn't get the Spirit of God because spirits.don't.exist. Heck, god doesn't exist. You want me to use a mythical concept to test a hypothesis about said mythical construct. Why gee, thanks! I also elaborate on why some ppl may choose to believe in God, some of my opinions, and point out that most importantly it is their right, or any other sentience's, to believe in xxxx-whatever, so long as they don't infringe on the rights of another sentient. But, as I've gone through pains to elaborate, giving a concept like god precedence over real human beings is a very dangerous idea to sell.

Second bit, the reconciliation bit, in response to your post, I believe is rather clear. Whatever the case may be, so long as its omnipotent (impossible, not just for the reason I point out) then there was no need to create, kill, then damn those ppl and all the others who've died under similar circumstances through history. Non whatsoever, unless you want to change the meaning of terms like benevolent and good.

And I've really run out of time, so I'm off. I'd love to elaborate further, but alas.. Hope it makes my positions clearer though.

Mr_Anony: @wiegraf, if you agree I could butt in and give you a response.........unfortunately though it won't be tonight, I need to catch some sleep for now.

Why not bro, it is a forum for such discussions no? I'm pretty sure we'll end up agreeing to disagree though And I tend to be late with my replies, I have no right to be nit-picky about that

I vote for an atheist only board. Or is there one already? My google-fu fails.

Ihedinobi: If you have drawn all of this from the Bible (as I think that you have), you still come under my answer: unless you have the Spirit of the God of the Bible inside you, you can never make sense of the Bible.
I'll take the "burn the infidels/apostates" (lol) thing first. Why does a God Who in the Old Testament is all (apparently) for destroying unbelieving nations go dying for the same nations in the New Testament? Another contradiction huh, since He is said to be unchanging, right? The Christian tells you there is no contradiction. You just don't have what it takes to see the reconciliation of the two actions. I think that in the course of the discussion, this particular example (given the average atheist's/skeptic's addiction to it) will be explained.

The Spirit of God... Spirits don't exist, nor God/s (wait, did he/it/her/them etc show up on CNN yet?). So that is a waste of time, from my pov. Are you referring to a state of mind? Then by all means, enjoy yourself. I certainly do not need to convince myself such things exist, and function fine without them. I'm not trying to convince you to see my way either. There are ppl who would be born say in the Premier's? house in China, raised under the strictest and oppressive version of atheism and they would still make up a god to believe in. That's fine. A few might be afraid of death, or form such strong emotional bonds they'd like to believe in afterlife so loved ones are taken care of, that's fine as well. There are others that have just been indoctrinated, have zero imagination and are only concerned with self-preservation, what they can see in their immediate environment only. Their only concern is they were born in the here and now, and so they must follow all the rules and play the game without questioning or even applying common sense to the often ridiculous rules in society. Do you think it's a coincidence that most African countries are considered backwards? Lots of little issues come into play, for instance we praise anyone that has money. How did he get the money, did he provide quality service for that? Irrelevant. Just wear a suit, look serious, don't stand out, wait for your chance, chop, repeat etc. Be loud and inconsiderate, etc. These ones I loathe. But my personal feelings are also irrelevant. It is their right to worship whoever/whatever they want, or behave/live however they wish. So long as they don't violate another persons human rights/freedoms, I have no right to impose my will on them. More often than not religious people seem to have missed the memo there, and operate under the assumption that they are superior because they believe in certain fairy tales. Then apply really broken, dangerous logic into the real world, like the examples I list. They are mostly from the quran (except my favorite, the kill ppl who work on sabbath is old skool testament).

The second point, I do not see a reconciliation. Bottom line, your god once thought it was cool flood the world (and that's just one of the many things he did I would consider a major crime). With his creations in it, no less. Supposedly being omniscient meaning while he was creating them he knew what they were going to do.. in fact he created them specifically to do those acts, it is his will after all, the drowned them, then burns them in hell... forever... or does the burning start after the day of judgment? That is God-level trollin' right there. Why did he do that to them, because he loves them? Let's not forget omnipotent is an oxymoron, it would imply he/it (I'll call it "it" from now on) knows what is going happen, but cannot change it. If it changed what's going to happen then that would mean it didn't know what was going to happen in the first place. That isn't very omnipotent/scient-like now, is it? There are so many things wrong with the basic one true, benovelent, omnixxxx etc god that Thor et al make a hell of a lot more sense (and apparently yahweh had a waifu, and kids, but after getting their asses handed to them in some war they made it so there was only one god, therefore his will was still done). Unless you can show me 1 + 1 != 2 these points will always, objectively, stand. You can choose to ignore them, that is your right and I fully respect that. I do hope you have the sense to not impose your/its will on others, that is really annoying.

Also, there should be a different section atheists, shouldn't there?

Ihedinobi: - Yahweh is an immoral God because He commanded the extermination of the Amalelites among other things. I have found this argument established with the fact that Yahweh had given as one of His commandments, Thou shalt not kill. As it is said, is the lawgiver not greater than the law? Does God commit an immorality when He Himself "breaks" a law under which He is not bound? I think not. The law was given to men by God not the other way around. And God is not at all obliged to bind Himself to requirements He lays upon men.

Well, yeah, so many failed arguments... Not addressed to me, but I'll add to what has already been said about this point. I really do wish people did not have turn to an imaginery? friend on issues of morality, especially when it's so egregious. Sooo, he's (why he in the first place, and he supposedly looks like a bearded Italian, in the sky, but that's another topic) the absolute law, yes? And he's also above it (among many other things), correct? Ok, so what happens when he says burn the infidels/apostates? Or when he declares that women are more or less half as valuable as men, and should behave like sheep and accept when the husband gives them a good beating to keep them in line (I support that ). Do you think it's a good idea to go about killing people who work on sabbath?

Insidious effects like this are the reason atheists in recent times have been relatively vocal about how horrible religion can be (especially after 9/11). What might have been tolerated by them before has now reached the point where many have snapped. I mean really, in today's world we still need this? You might be thinking overreacting but as another insidious effect, I've met (extremely kind when not being zombies) women who won't let their children play with the neighbors kids because said neighbors believe in a different god. You think that's no big deal? Think again, but clearly, on how things like these profoundly affect society. If the average person can't see this then our species probably will die out sooner rather than later.. /rant

No vex oga, I don't know how to use this forum-thingie yet. And aforementioned laziness gets in the way

frosbel: The flying spaghetti catches my eye, appears that's what our nairaland atheists believe in

Don't you dare make fun of his noodlines... Well, actually you can. Pastaferians are rather chill.. For those who haven't seen the light: http://www.venganza.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster. How to embed links?

frosbel: Hmmm, Okay , splendid observation !!


Wrong !!

I wish atheists on Nairaland will perform more research, then I remembered the word you mentioned, Laziness


Question: "What is deism? What do deists believe?"

Answer: Deism is essentially the view that God exists, but that He is not directly involved in the world. Deism pictures God as the great “clockmaker” who created the clock, wound it up, and let it go. A deist believes that God exists and created the world, but does not interfere with His creation.

Source

Why do you think the first bit, about missing out on some popular theists, was splendid? Is it because they are from a more recent era? I ask because that is why I mention them, though my meaning may not have been clear. My point being that most of the people in the theist list, save for maybe Max Planck, come from an era that was relatively ignorant of how the world works. Not to mention rather hostile towards atheists. There were atheists around of course, but unless you were really good at what you did odds are you would be massively ostracized, persecuted against, discriminated etc, etc. Not to mention considering family and friends, eg Chomsky, who says (allegedly, can't seem to find the source at the moment, so this is debatable. I remember reading this clearly though) that he didn't come out publicly with his atheism until after his parents death out of consideration to them. And Chomsky is still alive, so imagine what it would have been like 200-300 years. Actually just go outside, tell random people you are an atheist (if they even know what it means) and watch their reactions. So generally, I would give more weight to atheist from more modern epochs as they would have a lot less trouble with being openly atheist but still choose to be theists. They would probably have received less indoctrination than their for-bearers, but have thought this out (for themselves, by themselves) and still chose to stick with religion for whatever reasons, which is cool.

So, onto deism, and where we are at. Consider Jefferson, a deist more or else. Rewrote the bible, removing references to miracles (and lighning striking ppl.. ok, maybe thats not in the bible, just 9ja villages, but the bible has its fair share of jazz, resurrections, water into wine (awesome), Moses etc etc). Publicly supporting atheism, and not making it more palatable to the random person, was comparable to attempting suicide. This guy is a great example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine .

So basically, when I say "Being deist back in the day probably equated to being agnostic/atheist, but that's another argument.", this is what I mean; it was much more acceptable socially to be a deist than an atheist, so if you had doubts it would be prudent to use the term deist. They had families to feed, loved ones to take care and it's difficult to support them when you are being heavily persecuted. I also state that this is another argument though, not to pertinent to the issue (non-issue?) at hand. Not to mention they aren't alive at the moment to objectively justify my claims, but maybe you can see what I'm getting at.

Why would you think I didn't know what deism meant?

frosbel: No dilemma at all.

Not for you, but for some christian groups, it is

http://i.imgur.com/b5uCn.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYEOCBOMnc8&feature=youtu.be

And many more examples of patent hypocrisy by fundamentalists (moderates, keep these people in check for the love of $deity/s). Like the recent call to boycott the hobbit because Jackson is an atheist. Also, apparently rings' movie trilogy altered the themes of the novels to make it less religious. I couldn't make this up. Let's not even go into some of their more serious, life affecting demands they make on anyone who doesn't believe in their version of petty tyrant/s in the sky. Blatant human rights abuses, but once labeled religion, it gets a pass. Without any proof. They are called faith based for a reason /rant

frosbel: Microsoft provides applications and tools which can be used for either good or bad, what Microsoft as an organisation does in supporting gay rights etc is besides the point.



Alan turning's recognition as the father of computing is subject to controversy, in fact Charles Babbage is more likely accorded with the respect and honour for this invention , he is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs , and guess what , he was not only a theist he was a Christian .

That Babbage identified that Designer as the God of the Bible is clear, because he fully accepted the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ. Tiner says that “While a student at Cambridge, Charles Babbage met with others who were Christians. They resolved to dedicate their lives to God.”

Source

If you think Babbage is afforded more respect (very debatable, especially "modern" computing, I'm no computer scientist but I understand a lot of seminal work in the mathematical framework for computing was put together by turing) that's fine, but this "Microsoft provides applications and tools which can be used for either good or bad, what Microsoft as an organization does in supporting gay rights etc is besides the point", renders that point useless (like you point out later, actually). So there was no real reason to bring it up. They could rape babies as a favorite hobby, so long as their work offers the best value (objectively) it should be used. Of course not everyone agrees, it may depend on the situation etc.

frosbel: On a more serious note , the title of my article was intentionally sarcastic , because of a recent 'brain dead' topic on why Christians use Facebook ,since it's founder is atheist.

Again facebook is a tool which can be used for good or bad, depends on the workman.


Me thinks ,just like you do, that people can choose perverse life styles and at the same time provide inventions that are of benefit to man , materially speaking.

Do ho ho. What in the hell in the logic?! But I suppose he was thinking in the context of idiot groups like the one I listed above. We agree on the SCIENCE bit.

I really should get to my real work atm..Nice meeting you btw

EDIT: grammar, a few links, rant... still don't think it's very readable

There are atheists, in nigeria.. Well, I live in a village, maybe why I've never noticed. Pick a god people, be it yah'weh?, thor, pikiwokki, the intangible/invisible pink unicorn,flying spaghetti; pick anyone.
Back to the discussion at hand, I lol'd when I saw 'topic', for like a minute. I admit I've not read the whole thread, time, concentration and lazyness, I'm sure you understand. I did notice a list of theists, mostly of people who lived in a diffrent world, frankly. You should feel bad for even bringing most of them up (pascal's wager is one of the most disingenous things I've ever heard, brilliant man though), and you missed some I'd consider better (maxwell, goddel, heisenberg showed up in church, dyson, others I can't remember). Being deist back in the day probably equated to being agnostic/atheist, but that's another argument. I'm reminded of a thread I saw elsewhere where some ppl where wondering if fundamentalists were going to abandon google because it has now taken a very public pro-gay stance, even in countries where such views aren't popular. Maybe bimg will profit? Finally microsoft making money from its notoriously unprofitable web business? Well, no, microsoft has been supporting gay rights for a very long time. Ok then, apple! Despite not being known for being exactly charitable (ostensibly) since jobs' return tim cook is apparently gay.. A dilemma it seems... Even the man generally regarded as being the father of computing, alan turing, was gay. Some of the engineers responsible for creating critical bits of the internet, gay. What to do? Did you even look at the list of atheist nobel prize winners. Let me point that this is not an argument against the op. The op (statement, not you bro) is so silly I cannot express just how wrong it is without impairing brain fuction. I'm not eloquent enough either. This is 'just sayin...'. Kind regards

ritchboy,

I'm pretty sure you can downgrade with hardware

Here's a long video showing how with e3


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHNw2E4tU6c&feature=related

A simple overview what you can/cannot do with different OFW versions as far as jailbreaking is concerned, from wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS3_Jailbreak

Here's another, more techie article. Maybe someone with can make sense of it

http://www.ps3devwiki.com/index.php?title=Hardware_flashing

I know progskeet is about $60, while e3 is about $100 (it has more hardware). Either ways, no one seems to have it locally. Oh well, at least I have PSN. Maybe some brave soul could import one of these : they are reusable, and I'm guessing they can't be more harmful than the chips we used to/still use for other platforms.

Thanks for trying brah

Hello good ppl. I usually stay as far away as possible from Nairaland and it's considerable amounts of dross but this thread gives me hope (and a friend recommended this community, oddly enough). If you could, I know once you're above 3.55 you cannot install CFW. You can, however, downgrade the FW to a lower version with hardware hacks

http://progskeet.com/ <- most popular, it seems
http://www.e3-tech.net/ <- rather popular as well

I know e3 does not require soldering, I think the same applies to progskeet. And a nice bonus is if you are wary of having hardware from who knows where in your system, you can always uninstall it after you have downgraded the OS (simply downgrade, remove the thing, then go about installing CFW). I know e3 supports dual booting though, so you can actually have both the latest FW as well as CFW running from the same console.

All this is good and nice, but is there anyone who's done this locally before? Do you know anyone who sells these flashers? Better yet, anyone who could apply this hack for me? (I don't trust myself with hardware much, I'll do it myself I suppose, if I have to)

Thanks

Btw, for any morons out there, do not attempt any of this, brick, then somehow think it my fault. And randomly for those who do not know: there is a software hack in the works, but the developer has specifically indicated that it will not support backups (and may not be capable of supporting CFW, ever). So even if he does release it in the next month or two, it will still take a couple of more months after that for other hackers to make a CFW capable of running backup - if it is doable ie