₦airaland Forum

He further accused the government of not allowing the church (RCCG) to continue with its stipulated lifetime 100 per cent salaries to its pensioners.

“For example, when I decided on what will be the pension of our pastors, what I decided is not done anywhere in the world. That somebody will retire and continue to earn full salaries all his lifetime.

“This, I started, but government stepped in and made a law that we should be contributing to pension fund.

“We have to obey and we started doing that. The result is that pastors don’t get as much as they were getting under our own previous arrangement. But, what can we do? We have to obey the law,” he disclosed.

I think Daddy is being economical with the truth here (i did not say daddy is lying), but how does the said law prevent you from the 100% lifetime salaries you propose to pay your pastors? The federal pension law only deals with salaries of working citizens, it does not stipulate how much you must pay your pensioners. You can decide to pay your pensioners 200% of their basic salaries if you want.

The pension law only stipulate you pay at least 5% of basic salary to the pension administrator as pension, to be paid back when the worker retires, so i do not understand paying this 5% would affect the church from still paying pension to its worker.

Speaking further, Adeboye disclosed that other fresh laws had been enacted by the government to ruffle the feathers of the church in the country, with a particularly targeted at the RCCG.

According to him, “Now there are fresh laws. We have a rough idea of what the law is about.

Can daddy please give us a hint of these fresh laws that are particularly targeted at RCCG? Sections and chapters.

Seun:
I'm not happy with this sort of thing. Private organizations should be free to structure themselves in the most efficient way. On the short term it may seem to be beneficial, because some fraudulent church leaders might be exposed, but it's a slippery slope that leads to a bad place imho.

The bolded are the keywords - private organisations. Religious bodies do not register as private organisations, but as non governmental organisations or or charity organisations. In theory all members of a religious body ( charity organisation) are supposed to have an input or at least know how their donations and contributions are utilised. That was the practice in my church when I was growing up. All members were aware of the church finances and what the donations were used for.
Now a days, I hear it is a taboo for a church member to walk up to their pastor or treasurer and demand to know the state of the church finances. The church donations are treated like the private funds of the G.O.

Pidgin2:
Why posting lies? Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, etc were never under the Roman Catholic Church, stop lying. I have posted the history of Christianity in Sudan, take note that the Eastern Orthodox church is not under Roman Catholic

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church


Were we colonized by Portuguese or the British? You dull Sha (no offense)

See arrogance in ignorance. Please which schools did you attend? I need to know to make sure nobody I know sends their children to these schools.
Constantinpole which later became byzantine, was the capital of the Roman Catholic church. It is present day Istanbul.
6th century spain was 100% catholic until it was invaded and taken over by the moors.

The first Europeans to venture into sub Saharan Africa were the Portuguese sailors under the instructions of Henry the navigator. Lagos was named after the main Portuguese slave port, even biafra was named after a Portuguese village. The British were late comers in maritime exploration and thus entered the slave trade, colonisation and evangelization relatively late.
Nigeria was handed over to Britain after the 1884 Berlin conference to prevent the European powers from fighting each other over the newly conquered African countries.

I will stop here. If you do not understand what I am teaching you, I will recommend you go to a special school.

Seun:
The code seems like a bad idea. It shouldn't apply to private companies. Imagine the outcry if the US Gov forced Zuckerberg to leave Facebook.

You cannot compare private profit motivated companies to churches, mosques and other non profit organizations. The law dies not allow a single person to own churches and mosques like a limited liability company, that is why you need at least 5 board members before a religious organization or other non profit organizations can be Registered.
It is criminal and immoral for a religious organization to collect donations in the form of tithes and offering from the general public and have just one man treat the donations as personal funds, spending the money opening businesses and other private ventures.
This is similar to why term limits are given to bank ceos, to prevent owners of banks from treating depositor's money like private money.

Pidgin2:
I said has any predominantly Catholic country been conquered by Islamists before? I mean catholic, like Ireland, Brazil, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Spain, Italy, and so on, I hope you understand what I mean.

It seems you don't know the Catholic Church, try and read Catholic history

As for Yaweh , Christians worship Him, we also believe in the trinity, unfortunately the Jews are still stumbling one day they will know the truth

Lol your ancestors resisted but they were conquered by the superior power of the British (Christian) army.

All the examples I gave were once catholic dominated countries and you are still shouting, " no predominantly catholic country has ever been conquered by Islamists before". Are you sure you are human and not a bot? Because you are repeating the same thing over and over again despite facts given. Byzantium was a 100% catholic country before it was overran by the mohammedians, so also was Spain.
Brazil, Portugal and most of those countries you mentioned had never been invaded by the Muslims, so how can you talk about never being conquered if they had never been invaded.

So you are now claiming you know the Jewish god more than the Jews themselves, which characters constitute more than 95% of the bible. That is what I call arrogance in ignorance.

The west Africans never resisted at all the invasion of our lands. They allowed the Portuguese missionaries and slave merchants free access to our lands. Before we realized it, it was already too late.

Pidgin2:
Lol let me ask you, has Islamists ever been able to conquer a Country with majority of Catholics, has it happened before? You think Muslims don't know where to draw the line with their aggression

Yes, the Islamists have conquered numerous counties with Christian or catholic majority. Turkey was once a almost 100% Christian country, in fact it was in Turkey antioch that Christians were first called Christians, but today turkey is almost 100% Islamists country. Same goes for Syria, Egypt and most of Palestine outside Israel.
Even Spain was conquered and occupied by Muslims for more than 2 centuries.

FYI we serve the same God with the Jews so why should we fight them?

False. The Jews serve one God, Yahweh, meanwhile you Christians serve a 3 in 1 god of Jesus, Yahweh and a holy spirit. It is blasphemy to Jews to say they serve the same God (s) with Christians.[/quote]Your ancestors cannot withstand the GOD of Christians that's why they are easily conquered.[/quote]My ancestors were easy conquered because they were naive and too docile, and the Christians had superior weapons. If my people had been aggressive like the Zulus, they would have put up more resistance to being conquered and enslaved.

All your points are inaccurate.
US and EU would care because they promote democracy in Africa and the rest of the world, so allowing Jammeh to stay in power after losing an election without any response from US, UK and UN would embolden sit tight leaders all over the world to disregard elections as a means of power transfer.

AU and ECOWAS would care because Africa is notorious for sit tight leaders, and if Jammeh is allowed to stand, then there would be no justification for upholding the sanctity of elections hence forth, which will drag most African countries into needless and bloody power struggles. Buhari can simply refuse to hold elections in 2019 or refuse to leave if he losses the elections or if his tenure expires.

Nigeria has to care because ECOWAS, AU and UN would look up to Nigeria to uphold democracy in West Africa and Buhari can use Gambia to gain influence and respect on the international stage.

Let the end of January reach and jammeh decide to hold unto power illegally, then you will see those that care.

Pidgin2:
This is why I love the Catholic Church, we've always been against paganism; bringing down their strong holds, converting their celebrations and destroying them totally

If the pagan god has power let him or her challenge the Catholic Church, that will be another squashing as we've been doing for centuries, we will surely do it again

You are boasting here simply because paganism is a minority religion and is non violent, you know they will not retaliate. Try it against Islam or Judaism or even against the Sikhs, they will remove your heads from your shoulders.

Sometimes, i wish our ancestors were as aggressive as the Christians and Muslims, when they brought foreign Gods to our lands, by now we would not be worshiping and bowing down before white Gods.

emmanuel596:
Keep your belives and ignorance to yourself

Is it possible for you to keep your beliefs and ignorance to yourself?

emmanuel596:
I want to say something about the spirituality debate. You don't believe in God? That's ok, but why is it so important for many of you to mock those of us that do? If we're wrong, what have we lost when we die? Nothing! How does our faith in Jesus Christ bring you any harm? You think it makes me stupid? Gullible? Ignorant? That's ok too. How does that affect you? If you're wrong your consequence is far worse. I would rather live my life believing in God and serving Him, and find out I was right, than not believe in Him and not serve Him, and find out I was wrong. Then it's too late.Ain't no shame in my game! I believe in Jesus Christ. He said deny me in front of your friends & I will deny you in front of my Father.

We mock you people because you people have mocked other's for centuries without any reaction. You people have desecrated other peoples religions without remorse. You people have shoved (sometimes forcefully) your stupid belief of a dying god or is it a dead but resurrected god down our throats. So naturally people who are tired and sick of you guys will respond.

When you die believing in a white man's fable, you lose a lot. You lose your life, because you submit your life to your pastor, who does what he wants with your life. You lose materially and financially as you are forced ( cajoled ) to share your money and materials with your pastor. And you lose what makes you human, the curiosity instinct to ask questions and seek answers to everything. You die in ignorance and still believe mental illness is caused by demons.

3Ceagle:
Majority of the youths on Nairaland and indeed Nigeria lack objective reasoning and that is why Nigeria is the way it is today. No matter how we blame the leadership, we fail to understand , it's the product of our believes, actions or inaction . That was a crusade organised by some business men in which some individual must have willingly submitted their worship items for destruction. It is sensational for any one mention shrine and worship places. No matter how you dislike the other persons religion, atleast be objective in commenting on what relates to the religion.

And you have objective reasoning? You are supporting the desecration of other religions by your own religious priests and you are here talking about objective reasoning. If it was recently converted atheist or Muslims that gathered Christian sacred objects like bibles, crucifixes, roseries, crosses, etc, and burn them publicly, you would not be talking of objective reasoning. Try burning the Koran, praying beads, photos of mecca and other Muslim sacred objects and see if you would live to talk about objective reasoning.

Junia:
.

.
I personally agree with u though
We are no longer under the law
And the early Christians never taught about tithe

Thanks for agreeing to presented facts instead of arguing unreasonably like a lot of other Christians here on nairaland. I admire your type of Christianity who does not dogmatically follow their pastors sheepishly against all logic.

New age Christianity has made Christianity and salvation all about tithes and offerings. Without tithes and offerings, these pastors would close their churches and look for other businesses to do. Tithes has been elevated to the most important (if not the only) road to salvation.

Junia:
“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe
mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice
and the love of God. These you ought to have
done, without neglecting the others”
( Luke 11:42 )
Actually Jesus didnt want them to neglect the tithe
But Paul or any other apostle taught about tithing
Now .. we are to give willingly and cheerfully
Its in your hands to choose whether u will tithe or not
Bkos though the apostles didnt teach about the tithe .. they actually didnt teach against it

Well .. we need to seek guidance from the Holy Spirit concerning the issue of tithing

Notice that jesus defined what tithe should consist of. It is definitely not a 10th of your salary.

About the apostles teaching about tithes, that is a lie, willing and cheerful given is very different from modern day tithe, which is compulsorily giving your church or pastor 10% of all your earnings.

Junia:
What i mean is .. Moses wasnt a Christian ..
Ofkos u need to pay tithe .. to show God that He was the One who provided for u

And when did Jesus command his disciplines to pay tithe in order to show God that he was the one that provided for them.
Where was tithes made mandatory by paul or anywhere in the new testament.

Junia:
.

The scripture had nothing to do with Christianity
This was the teaching of Moses
And as Christians .. we are not followers of Moses but Jesus
Jesus taught us to love everybody including our enemies
Don't be deceived .. you need to understand the Bible

The teaching of Moses had nothing to do with Christianity? and you people with not let us hear word with Malachi 3:10.

ProphetJetolu:
Point of correction, I said "Paul being a disciple of Jesus" and NOT "Paul being one of the 12 disciples of Jesus"

Who is a disciple?
Definition of disciple: one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another: as a : one of the twelve in the inner circle of Christ's followers according to the Gospel accounts b : a convinced adherent of a school or individual.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disciple

See logical gymnastics. You claimed Paul must have known what Jesus looked like because he was a disciple. I pointed out that Paul was never a disciple of Jesus and would never have known what he looked like ( even the Roman and Jewish authorities did not know what he looked like). You then went on a logical expedition of ovestretching the meaning of disciple and calling anyone that believes or follows the teaching of another is a disciple. In that case all Christians are disciples of Jesus.

Although 13 of the books of the New Testament are traditionally ascribed to Paul, modern scholars think that he only wrote 8 of them. Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, and 1 Thessalonians.

Who amongst the "12 disciples" wrote more books in the New Testament and has been more influential in the teachings of Jesus Christ than Paul?

So? It does not matter how many books letters Paul wrote, people write books all the time, in fact Chris oyakhilome has written more books than Paul. What mattered was the books the books that the catholic church decided to canonize in their various councils which was finalized in AD346. There were hundreds ( if not thousands) of books by numerous authors, the Catholic authorities only chose those that promoted their agenda and branded all others as heretical.

Ask yourself this question, would Paul have written that much of Jesus Christ if it were just "claims" of his encounter(just as you pointed out) and NOT actual encounter with Jesus Christ and become an influencer of christianity?

How is Paul less of a disciple? Someone that has a first hand encounter with Jesus Christ.

Paul's encounter was only a claim because it was written by him and there were no other collaborating witnesses to validate the claim.

Paul never had any physical encounter with Jesus, he only claimed he say a vision. In fact he claimed no one else on the journey saw the vision of Jesus.
There had been various claims of vision of jesus since his death by many people. Even today people ( including many Nigerians) claim to see visions of Jesus ( with encounters), why should Paul's vision be more valid?
Many people have even had visions and encounters with virgin Mary and saints.

We tend to be quick to look for flaws even when we have the truth right in front of us,

God is NOT an author of confusion.

May God help us.

You guys tend to turn logic upside down in order to jusfify your beliefs.

How is it possible that Paul being a disciple of Jesus Christ not know if Jesus had a long hair and if indeed he had a long hair does it make any sense as to why Paul should be against it?

Which version of the Bible are you reading? Paul was never a disciple of Jesus, intact Paul never claimed to have met Jesus while he was alive. He only claimed to have seen a vision of Jesus on his way to Damascus.

KingEbukaNaija:
1. Change that church ASAP

2. Your senior pastor agrees to Arianism - its heretic and denies the divinity of Christ . Arian teachings hold the view that Christ was a creation of Yahweh and is not eternal or equal in supremacy as Him - a subordinate to Him

The Council of Nicaea deemed Arius' argument concerning Christ to be heretical and heterodox .

Please explain these verses in the Bible;

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son , that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(With emphasis on only begotten son.)

Matthew 6:9
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven , Hallowed be thy name.

Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth , because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

Luke22:42
Saying, Father , if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

John 11:41
Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

realmindz:
If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

I wished my fore fathers had read this verse of the Bible before the Europeans brought Christianity or the Arabs their Islam and kill all the missionaries and Jihadists, Black Africans would have fared much better.

TheGoodJoe:
Trump came from a wealthy family. Handed the father's real Estate company.

Obama built himself through hardwork. Not through wealthy connections. Trump had banks handing him loans repeatedly.

Please, do not compare a true man to a daddy's boy.

At least your 156/102 lie is bust.

Don't mind Idupaul, he swallows every junk right wing racists throw up, just to denigrate Obama and blacks in general. That was how they promoted the birther issue until Obama presented his birth certificate.
Trump cannot debate with Obama on any issue. He is comparing Trump who has never actually worked in his whole life but lived of his family business to Obama who had to struggle his way to the top.
Soon he will be telling us Paris Hilton is a highly successful business woman with a high IQ because she has hotels and properties all over the world.

Yep, remove immunity from principal officers of the executive and hand it over to principal officers of the legislature.

Dogara Justifies Immunity for N’Assembly Principal Officers

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has justified the attempt by the National Assembly to pass legislation extending the immunity shielding the president and state governors from criminal prosecution to the principal officers of the legislature, stating that though there was an outcry, especially on the social media against the move, those against the legislation had effectively conferred legitimacy to the ongoing trial by the federal government of Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, for alleged forgery of the Senate rules.
- http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/07/11/dogara-justifies-immunity-for-nassembly-principal-officers/

On a more serious note, where will the senate get the required 2/3 majority of all the states assemblies in Nigeria to be able to pull through this constitutional amendment, when the state assemblies are simply appendages to the state governors that this law is against. Remember the Local Governments of most states rejected the bill to make them autonomous of the states governments.

idupaul:
Its not hidden , it's available everywhere and it's 102 while Trump's 156

Proof of the test results please.

idupaul:
I never said anything about Obama ,I just posted his IQ score

And where did you get Obama's IQ score? Maybe you conducted the test yourself.

idupaul:
Both IQ scores are there for all see .

My friend oratory and intelligence are not the same thing

I never said they are the same. What i am saying is that you are the only one i know who questions Obama's intelligence, even Trump has never questioned his intelligence.

idupaul:
Obamas IQ of 102 is the lowest amongst us president's in the last 100 years while Donald Trump has an IQ of 156 which is in the genius range

Donald Trump a genius? Which donald trump? It must be another Donald Trump. It could not be the donald trump I have been listening to for the past one year, who talks and tweets like a rich spoilt teenager.
Comparing Obama's intelligence to Trump's is like comparing the intelligence of a gorilla to that of a man. Trump cannot stand Obama in a one on one debate.
What is Trump's academic performance? Obama that became the president of the Harvard Law Review is the person you say has an IQ of 102.

Obama got to where he is today solely based on his intelligence and eloquence, Trump God to where he is basically based on his privileged back ground, race and his shrewd business practices. If being rich is the criteria for intelligence, then Dangote is the most intelligent man in Africa.

agabusta:
I just dont understand. Some people are alleging that it is because they will still make their money from estimated bills. And they in turn will not pay for the rejected power.

Why will they not reject electricity from the generating companies, when they can make money from estimated billing of customers, without having to pay the generating companies. This is the main reason the discos are refusing to provide smart meters to its customers.

KingEbukasBlog:
They are not atheists . You have to prove they are atheists first before surmising that they want to please the crowd .

How do you prove someone else is an atheist? Do you you put his brain to a device or a polygraph machine to know what he/she actually believes. Most atheist do not publicly reveal their atheistic status. Only very people close to me know I do not believe any God - my wife and maybe two friends, most people simply see me as irreligious.
On the other end of the scale, there are many Christian pastors who are really atheist at heart. I know a fairly popular one who had altercations with my wife (can't give much details). When she told him that he Will end up in hell, he simply said there is nothing like hell, meanwhile, he preaches about hell to his numerous followers every Sunday.

KingEbukasBlog:


So you are an atheist immediately you start questioning God and religion

Atheism is the conscious explicit rejection of God not the questioning of your beliefs in God

So you mean those days as a Christian I was searching on the Internet , questioning many things and seeking reasons to believe I was an atheist ?

Sir , that is not atheism , it is skepticism . Two entirely different things .

You are forgetting to put Mark Zukerbergs reaction in its proper context. He was asked whether he is an atheist, and he answered in the negative, but he now added that although he was raised as a Jew, there was a period he questioned things. This could only mean, that he questioned the Jewish God. And since he was still in the process of responding to the question of whether he is an atheist or not, it could only mean that there was a period he was an atheist.

How do you know he was never an atheist? He himself never said he was never an atheist, he only said he is not an atheist. Unless, you have been in Mark's head from the day he was born, there is no way you can know if he was ever an atheist. He even said there was a period he questioned things. Do you understand what he meant by that? That can only mean that there was a time he questioned religion and God, meaning he was an atheist.


If mark zukerberg was never an atheist according to you, how come you and your fellow anti-atheists brand Hitler, Plutarco Elías Calles, Pol pot and others as atheist. These people never called themselves atheists and would have answered negative if they had been asked if they are atheists.

This is what Hitler said about atheism;

We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations; we have stamped it out” [2] ~Adolf Hitler

So how come you guys brand Hitler an atheist and attribute all his atrocities to atheism, when he vehemently oppose atheism, and at the same time celebrate mark zukerberg for saying he is not an atheist and then attributing his achievements to theism.
In other words any great achiever in the world is a theist, and is celebrated, whether he believes in your God or not, and anyone who commits atrocities must be branded atheist whether he identify himself as one or not.

jmoore:
Painment of an atheist.

Cry me river ogun.

Mark gave a concrete"No" and you still doubt him

Even if God comes down physically, you will still not believe.

Hearts made of stones powered by illiteracy. Most Nigerian atheists are illiterates. So I am not surprised why a simple sentence is difficult to interprete.

Wright brothers were Christians. They delivered airplane to you. There are many scientists that are Christians so you should stop making it look as if all scientists are atheists. Such assumption exposes your ignorance.

---

Here is a quote from Galileo who was a Christian
"The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens. And let no one believe that the reading of the most exalted thoughts which are inscribed upon these pages is to be accomplished through merely staring up at the radiance of the stars. There are such profound secrets and such lofty conceptions that the night labors and the researches of hundreds and yet hundreds of the keenest minds, in investigations extending over thousands of years would not penetrate them, and the delight of the searching and finding endures forever."

Please quit that "most scientists were scientist" nonsense. For most of recorded history, only religious organizations (monasteries) ran any form of educational institution, from primary education to tertiary institution. There was nothing like public or secular education. naturally all educated people whether, scientists or others were members of religious organizations, whether Christian, Buddhist, Shinto, shaolin, or Islamic. In fact it was from Islamic universities that science and technology of ancient Greece got revived into western Europe.

You must be joking to be quoting Galileo. Galileo who was almost kill for holding a contrary view to the church that the Sun was the center of the Universe and not the earth, you expect him to write that God does not exist? He would be beheaded the very next day.

KingEbukasBlog:
You surmised that I'm a Catholic because I believe in Jesus

Have you seen me bowing down before any image before

How does this refute the fact the universe is created/caused to exist ?

You haven't shown me why atheism is logical .

Whether you are a catholic or not is irrelevant, as long as you are a christian, you have the image of a while Aryan man with blood dripping all over his body, hanging somewhere in your home, office or church, which you revere or worship. You think that is perfectly logical?

The universe we know (observable universe) could never be created by that your jewish man. There is no evidence that the universe was created. All we know is that the universe exists.

Atheism is logical because all the Gods that had been created throughout human history was created in the image, culture and values of the cultures that created them. In other words, they were peoples imaginations. That was why a conquered people would also have their gods conquered and replaced.

KingEbukasBlog:
We are not afraid of atheists . We are only repulsed by atheism . Atheism is so illogical

Believe me nothing is more illogical than bowing down before the image of a white man hanging from a cross with blood dripping all over his body and believing that man to be God.