Banom you have done well and may the good Lord be with you

Ogaga is next

nothin impossible for God to do, he that has done for Banom will do Ogagas and others
amen

Babies hear and recognize their mum's voice in the womb for f-uck sake,it is scientifically proven.

The mystery of speech that we take for granted starts from the womb.We got to open our minds to enjoy the freedom and pleasures of knowing.The reason why africans live half-harzardly is because they think they have another life.All you got is one life,live it with joy,understanding and fearlessness,stop living in bondage.

redsun:

Religious people are like children,they need to taught every thing,they need to be taught morality,taught fairness,taught kindness,taught self control and self indulgence,common sense,they seem never to have natural intuitions.

Anyway,the blind must led,whichever way.There is utmost freedom in being non-aligned.

Change your circle of acquaintances. Broaden your horizons, is my candid advice. Because it appears that you have had limited contact with 'Religious people'. Those you describe above, sound more like people with learning difficulties. Their doltishness have little to do with 'Religion' or lack of it. Yours sounds more like the prejudiced statements of one trying to justify his belief system in an arguement with someone else who shares a different view-a defence mechanism if you like, a painting-of-a-dog-black kind of mentality, in order to hang it.

It's not only interesting that some people who don't know, don't know that they don't know; It's actually a very dangerous thing.

beneli:

Change your circle of acquaintances. Broaden your horizons, is my candid advice. Because it appears that you have had limited contact with 'Religious people'. Those you describe above, sound more like people with learning difficulties. Their doltishness have little to do with 'Religion' or lack of it. Yours sounds more like the prejudiced statements of one trying to justify his belief system in an arguement with someone else who shares a different view-a defence mechanism if you like, a painting-of-a-dog-black kind of mentality, in order to hang it.

It's not only interesting that some people who don't know, don't know that they don't know; It's actually a very dangerous thing.

I will put it this way,religious people are deluded.It takes something to be missing for one to be relying on abstract for life fullfilment.

PapaBrowne:

@Wirinet

Let me give you a slight analogy.
Imagine for one moment a set of twins in their mother's womb.

Why don't you just accept that the whole Idea of god/gods are imaginary just like your imaginary analogy?

One twin says : "Hey, we have a mother. She is responsible for all that we are. We exist because she allowed some guy somewhere between her legs.We are alive because she eats and drinks. She cares so much for us that she goes regularly to a guy called doctor for something called ante-natal".
"Sometimes I hear her speak to us. She calls us babies. She loves us so much that she would do anything for us.
She says we give her joy. I hear it. She keeps thinking about us every moment".

How did he know about the mother? Did his mother communicate with him? Mothers can not communicate with their unborn baby. How did the baby get to know about the mother what was the means or medium of communication between him and his mother? This analogy falls very flat because you are supposing that unborn babies can reason talk and exchange ideas.

The other twin replies. "What are you talking about. You are just imagining things. There is nothing like Mother. Have you ever seen her? If you say she speaks to us, how come I never hear her? Hey fella, I am on the side of "what you see, is what you get" No hidden charges or bonuses. I wouldn't waste my time thinking about some Mother  that you've just imagined up".
"If truly we have a mother, why can't she come get us out of this blood soaked tight sac that we've been locked up in since conception".

Babies do not have these type of communication at all. You are just offering imaginary analogies that have no basis in reality just like the god hypothesis. You can do better man.

Twin one says": If only you understood you wouldn't speak like this. She loves us so much that she is going to endure the most grueling pain of her life just to get us out of here. It won't be long, we would be out of here in her arms, free to move around and at the same time feel her love.
She would give us bosom to suck, food to eat, she would bathe us and put us to bed. So much love she would give to us.

While this analogy about a mother might be true, There is no evidence to show that any god takes care of his children and love them the way a mother does.

This analogy gives you a perfect picture on our relationship with God. You don't have to see to believe. The mere fact that a baby can't see or feel the presence of it's mother doesn't mean the mother doesn't exist.
For me, I know for sure that I didn't make my digestive system, neither did I do anything to ensure that my lungs process oxygen. I know for sure that it has all been regulated by my creator.

How do you know that a baby can not feel the presence of its mother? It has been established scientifically that babies have that ability so what exactly is your point? What about the millions of babies world wide that were born with a weak or failing heart and lungs that does not function at all or functions badly? Were their weak and failing hearts/lungs regulated by your god too?

Hey Atheists, we all know atheism is a ruse and it exists solely because God exists. If believers in God are wrong, then there should be no need for such a thing as atheism.

You speak as if there is only one god that is claimed to be in existence. During the days of Zues some disbelieved in his existence, does that mean that zues truly existed?

software:

so many many many pastors on here, i think very soon, nairaland will become a church. can we suggest a name pls?

i suggest Nairaland Church of God Mission (naija)

lol. Im in support, but who will be the lead Pastor, you?

PapaBrowne:

@Wirinet

Let me give you a slight analogy.
Imagine for one moment a set of twins in their mother's womb.

One twin says : "Hey, we have a mother. She is responsible for all that we are. We exist because she allowed some guy somewhere between her legs.We are alive because she eats and drinks. She cares so much for us that she goes regularly to a guy called doctor for something called ante-natal".
"Sometimes I hear her speak to us. She calls us babies. She loves us so much that she would do anything for us.
She says we give her joy. I hear it. She keeps thinking about us every moment".

The other twin replies. "What are you talking about. You are just imagining things. There is nothing like Mother. Have you ever seen her? If you say she speaks to us, how come I never hear her? Hey fella, I am on the side of "what you see, is what you get" No hidden charges or bonuses. I wouldn't waste my time thinking about some Mother  that you've just imagined up".
"If truly we have a mother, why can't she come get us out of this blood soaked tight sac that we've been locked up in since conception".

Twin one says": If only you understood you wouldn't speak like this. She loves us so much that she is going to endure the most grueling pain of her life just to get us out of here. It won't be long, we would be out of here in her arms, free to move around and at the same time feel her love.
She would give us bosom to suck, food to eat, she would bathe us and put us to bed. So much love she would give to us.

The other twin: All this your talk looks too good to be true. However, I only believe in things I see. I don't see a mother, So I know I don't have one. I'll rather wait till that 9 months you keep talking about is over, then maybe I'll believe.


This analogy gives you a perfect picture on our relationship with God. You don't have to see to believe. The mere fact that a baby can't see or feel the presence of it's mother doesn't mean the mother doesn't exist.
For me, I know for sure that I didn't make my digestive system, neither did I do anything to ensure that my lungs process oxygen. I know for sure that it has all been regulated by my creator.

Hey Atheists, we all know atheism is a ruse and it exists solely because God exists. If believers in God are wrong, then there should be no need for such a thing as atheism.

That your analogy is very faulty.
First of all, the twin that can describe the exact circumstances of their conception and development must be a "Benni winsh" or is it Ijebu, How was the baby able to know that the woman carrying them is their real mother sharing their genes and not a surrogate rented womb or that their prospective mother is a teenager  tasting the forbidden fruit or a prostitute that got careless. Its is a super miracle for the twin to know that their prospective mother had not been taking "Alabukun and Schweppes" in an attempt to flush both twins down the toilet.

The doubting twin is right because until they are born and their mother is seen and suckled by her, they can never know their mother. The twins could be exchanged at birth and both including the all knowing twin would never know.

God does not create digestive systems, because without a digestive system no living thing would survive (or did you not take introductory Biology?). All living things must be able to eliminate waste from their system. Same with lungs, Animals need to get oxygen into the blood.

Your very last statement is warped beyond logic. Are you only applying that logic only to your God? or you apply it also to Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, Re, Santa, Gnomes, fairies, sphinxes, centaurs, UFOs, etc. Everything ever imagined by anybody must exist in reality because if beliefs in such things are wrong, then there would be no need for the thing itself.

nawa oooo, so we get so many spiri koko 4 nairaland

stede:

nawa oooo, so we get so many spiri koko 4 nairaland

No try us o, we can even start our own church self. At least we already have e-Fellowship :-)

No matter what, just read the bible, pray and fellowship with other strong believers daily or regularly. Find good christians to be around with. This will give you a solid foundation in Christ, whereby you cannot falter. Thank God I have a solid foundation and I cannot easily backslide. I go to church regularly (where God led me) read a lot and so forth.
Please don't go by negative feelings. Just obey God. If you don't feel to go to church, just go, unless you have a very good reason not to go. This is just an example.

beneli:

Neither the so called Atheists nor those who believe in a God have the ‘evidence’ to back up the things they choose to believe-or not believe-in. The choices made have nothing to do with ones level of exposure, education, or as somebody mentioned earlier with ‘being a slave to rationality’.

Those who, like Richard Hawkins, say that belief in God amounts to a delusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion, should have the humility to admit that they don’t have the evidence to support their stance. In other words by using the word ‘delusion’ in connection with people who believe in God, they only reveal their own ignorance of the meaning of the word. (http://www.answers.com/topic/delusion)

The fact is that Science has not disproved the existence of God; neither has Philosophy nor History nor Archaeology. And until there is evidence that God does not exist, belief or unbelief in God will always boil down to personal choices, made in spite of the evidence or lack of it. That is where the faith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith) thing comes in.

It certainly takes a lot of Faith to believe that the universe was created from a cosmic explosion of a subatomic ball that hurled space, time, matter and energy in all directions. Those that believe in God say that this explosion happened because God said ‘let there be, ’. The 'atheist' is not quite sure why it happened. Current ‘rational’ thinking is that matter came out of 'nothing', possibly from the other side of a Singularity (a black hole), that connects the membranes of different universes. The ‘why’ for them, is that this event was ‘random’. And this is accepted as ‘rational’ thinking.

The only thing that separates the ‘atheist’ from ‘theist’ is what they have chosen to submit to. The Atheist holds his own power of reason and intellect as supreme and submits only to himself and to 'logic', while the 'theist' believes in someone or something that is greater than himself, to which he submits.  What that someone or something is, is a matter of choice that has been influenced by so many intermingling factors. The several influences of my life have lead me to submit to the Christian Faith.

‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’. I am content in this knowledge. For those who have a problem with that, it's their choice which has nothing to do with a 'superior' intellect.



'Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish'.
-Albert Einstein

A well reasoned post. I might understand the influences in the highlighted part to be your environment, and, then, your experiences, and, more importantly, the INTERPRETATION your environment had already conditioned you to give to those experiences.

sauer:

Hey, it's Richard Dawkins, not Hawkins, or are you perhaps carried away by hearing too much of Stephen Hawking??  

And also, Just so you know, Albert Einstein never believed in your god. Was a jew, and only talked of God in place of Nature. Substitute "God" with "Nature" in that quote, and boom! u have it!

Just a little clarification. Like everyone else in that part of the world at the time, Einstein was raised to believe the Adam and Eve story but says he later found that the body of evidence clearly demonstrates that the stories in the Bible cannot be true. He then concluded that the state was deceiving the youth by presenting them as true stories. But he did believe in God. He was a deist. That is, he believed an intelligent mind was behind it all, and that was about it. Hear him:
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own - a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in Nature."

Congrats my brother, I want to assure you that there is rejoicing already because of your soul in heaven even as we are doing so on earth.

God bless you as you continue in this right direction.

@Banom

Nice one Bros, hence I have forgiven you for all your insults/bashing on me the last time, all 'cos of Opelove.

Bless!

Anyway we can turn this into a reality show. he he

banom's path to Christendom.  it's funny how the folks that used to argue with him have become comrades.

koolchicco:

@Banom

Nice one Bros, hence I have forgiven you for all your insults/bashing on me the last time, all 'cos of Opelove.

Bless!

Yeah, I recall that fight. Where's that girl?

I am happy for you Poster of the topic.

May the Holy Spirit guide and guard you all the way.

PRAISE THE LORD! i must say am surprised but am veery happy for you

Interesting thread by Banom, his new found friends should keep an eye on his spiritual growth until he has another meditation that convinces him god doesn't exist. Anyways, as long as Banom is happy with what he has found there is no problem after all some people preferred to stay in the Matrix after their eyes were opened to reality.

duduspace:

Interesting thread by Banom, his new found friends should keep an eye on his spiritual growth until he has another meditation that convinces him god doesn't exist. Anyways, as long as Banom is happy with what he has found there is no problem after all some people preferred to stay in the Matrix after their eyes were opened to reality.

funny, i hope he doesnt have another dream

koolchicco:

@Banom

Nice one Bros, hence I have forgiven you for all your insults/bashing on me the last time, all 'cos of Opelovely.

Bless!

Mind you am still interested in her,

banom:

Mind you am still interested in her,

U see wat Am sayn. Once a willy always a. .

So u no repent reach dia?

koolchicco:

U see wat Am sayn. Once a willy always a. .

So u no repent reach dia?

na u no dat one, i don tellu wetin i tell you.

Oh Banom,
The Good Lord that has started a good work in your life will definately perfect it. I can t find words to say how happy i am for you. Let me say that, christianity is a personal issue, you and your God and no human. U owe your obligation to God and him alone. I know that in the course of exchangeof words on different issues, i may have said stuff that may have shown the life of christ in my life, this is perharps because of the passion with with i hold onto such this. Please forgive me also. Am happy for you.

@ mystic,
Needless to apologize , 4give me as well.

who cares?! your salvation is your personal business and relation with your maker.
btw atheism is not a religion, it's just a belief. so y u say "denounce" like it's some demon worshipping ritual you're absconding from.

omo na u know. make your piece with GOD!

banom:

@ mystic,
Needless to apologize , 4give me as well.

Have u apologized to Opelove as well? You'll need to do that asap, Bro!

Hi people, the following includes my opinions and some things I have learnt, and I do not intend to argue about my views (as I have learnt here on NL), for reasons best known to myself.

@All the Atheists on this thread:

By definition, no one knows what lies outside their tiny circle of knowledge. To claim you know there is no God is to claim you have exhaustively searched every part of every universe and dimension with an infallibly accurate method of detecting every non-physical entity that could possibly exist. The claim that God has taken the initiative and chosen to reveal himself to some people is not nearly as unbelievable.

Don't be like a blind person trying to convince himself that because he has never seen, everyone else claiming to see must be mistaken. In the realm beyond your present experience amazing things could dwell - even a God poised to shatter your insensibility to him.

Are you ready for the most daring adventure? Try saying this:

God, I would like you to show me if you exist. If you are God, you are so superior to me that I cannot put demands on you. Anything you choose to show me must be on your terms - your time and your method. I can understand you not showing yourself to people who have little desire to know you. I will demonstrate my genuineness by at least reading the material presented here, looking for clues that might help open me to your revelation. And why should you bother revealing yourself to someone who would continue to ignore you anyway? If you show me there is a God who made me and wants the best for me, I will give you your rightful place as God of my life by obeying and trusting your love and wisdom.

That prayer opens the most exciting possibilities in the cosmos.

@All those saying that all "religions" are the same

That's what many religions teach, so [size=13pt]you have nothing to lose by ignoring them and concentrating on Jesus, who declared that if you don't surrender to him, you have everything to lose[/size]. (John 14:6; Acts 4:10-12) You and I are simply not in a position to claim to know more about spiritual reality than the greatest religious teacher earth has seen - Jesus. He upheld the Scriptures which insist that all other religions offend God. (Deuteronomy 32:16-20; Matthew 5:17-19)

What I mean is that if I was in a position to choose between many options, and one of them shows clearly that I will lose EVERYTHING else if I do not select it, while the other ones are not so clear in their definition, isn't it logically correct to see that the PROBABILITIES do not balance out? The conditional probability leans heavily in Jesus' favour, even if you do not want to believe otherwise.

To the casual observer, wild mushrooms are all much the same and who cares anyhow? But when there is nothing else to eat, it becomes rather important whether the variety you choose is poisonous. And if you eat nothing for weeks, indecision becomes as deadly as the worse decision.

New Agers and others mutilate all the unique features of Jesus' teaching, distorting Christianity into a form of eastern religion and surprise, surprise, when comparing this grotesque perversion with other religions, it begins to look as if 'all religions are much the same.'

@All other non-Christians thinking there's nothing in it for them:

You are right to reject a religion that's a list of dos and don'ts, or a gathering of dour-faced, self-righteous Bible thumpers. Jesus would reject it too. Anything Jesus is involved in is vibrant, liberating, compassionate, powerful and supernatural.

People dismiss Christianity on the basis of an outsider's glance, like a little girl-hating boy certain he will always detest lovemaking. Knowing Jesus is more wonderful than the uninitiated could dream.

All yearning is a yearning for Jesus, discovered someone enjoying the ultimate adventure. The love, excitement, challenge, fulfilment and understanding we crave are found in the One who made us.

Jesus likened the Christian spiritual experience to buried treasure. Millions walk passed it, never suspecting the wonders that lie below the surface. Anyone who makes the discovery, however, would eagerly trade for it everything they had previously treasured, like trading trinkets for truckloads of diamonds.

To attempt description of the benefits of spiritual union with Jesus sounds as hollow and self-centred as listing receiving a gold ring as a benefit of marrying the most wonderful person. It's like dissecting the most exquisite, priceless flower and offering the individual parts to the highest bidder. Moreover, it sounds like hype - just too good to be believable. This is to be expected. We were made to enjoy the God who made us, so it is hardly surprising that a relationship with him will fulfil our deepest longing. Nevertheless, it still sounds too good to be true,

I think Banom's decision is what every man would entertain as an option when things aren't going right. But at the same time respect his decision if he's in fact serious. I my self as much as I don't believe in God in the Biblical sense of God, I still go to church to shake my ass as an option for getting lose without liquor. I love the way Nigerians sing all kinds of song to praise something they can't see and the organized noise in churches are always entertaining. No atheist here will deny the fact that going to church is fun (Tithe of offering is not though). I go to church when I'm in Nigeria cause my hood is always dry and all my friends are in church so I just go with them and have fun instead of take anything the pastor is preaching serious. Unless he's preaching something entirely out of the bible but real. What most pastors don't do. I even used to watch Pastor Bimbo on cable here cause she makes a lot of sense when she's giving objective advises to couples and not preaching a gospel.

If you are happy with your decision congrats for being happy. But why Christianity? Why not some traditional beliefs which will drive you closer to your people?

The historical jesus was not a christian,he was a rebel that came up with an idealogy that lifts man out of the bondage of his day.The story is a phenomenon of a change through selfless sacrifice and fearlessness.It is a story of losing to find.

It a  story of the old becoming new and it should be applied to every rational individual,reborn in your own time and in your own ways.Claim it.

Na wah o!
All these grammar beacause one person give im life to christ?
wait
if the guy gives his life to jesus and some people dont believe he exists, why does it burn them so?
All these just tell me something, the devil isnt happy at all.So Banom if you needed any proof that you are now with jesus, let the devils reaction reassure you that you are doing the right thing.
You may be discouraged at times but know one thing, he will never leave you alone: the bible says for we have not a high priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities, but was at all points tempted as we are, yet without sin
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.(heb4 15and 16)
have a lovely weekend

banom = attention LovePeddler