Comments on naijablog: The God particle..

For all your intelligence Jeremy this is a really ...

2008-09-25T16:36:00.000+01:00

For all your intelligence Jeremy this is a really dumb post.
I'm off to get a blog ID so I can return with an identity.
After spending considerable time reading your other interesting and informed posts I am at a loss as to how you fell off the mark with this one.
Being critical of people's religious beliefs is not your place.

I feel I can bet on leaving a comment that simply ...

2008-09-21T20:26:00.000+01:00

I feel I can bet on leaving a comment that simply says; I agree with lostatheotherendoftheworld and be better understood than trying to express myself any other way.

I thought I'd add my own tuppence, being: 1. A per...

2008-09-20T00:39:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd add my own tuppence, being: 1. A person who knows the incomparable love of Jesus and wishes others did too (which makes me an evangelical christian) 2. A scientist who has no problems accepting that the big bang or evolution took place and 3. A Nigerian.

I don't think that the existence of God is a scientific question at all. If anything, it is a philosophical question. I personally do not believe that anyone could prove the existence of God - and science depends on empiricism, it depends on things that you can observe and measure, it depends on doing experiments. Theories are a way of explaining those material phenomena, but accepting a theory as truth without evidence is bad science.

I think that people are religious by nature, in general we like to hold on to ideas we don't quite understand just because they are dogma, because it saves us the bother of thinking things through for ourselves. This is true even in science, which many people have made their religion - it's true with any form of ideology. So for example theories of racialism were concocted in the past, using ill conceived experiments and based on the racist values of the time - theories that are still quite pervasive in the world's culture.

So. We all have our blind spots. You say that religion thrives in Nigeria because of the poor quality of life, but I think it may also be due to the African appreciation of the spiritual dimension - something that has been lost with the materialist worldview of the West. Just because you can't see or measure something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. How do you define love? The Bible says that God is love. (By the way, Christians do not worship the Bible, and we don't believe it was written by angels - it was written by flawed humans like you and me, who were inspired by God - and we read it to understand the relationship that God has had with people over the ages - and see what values he wishes us to live our lives by).

As for me, I am a Christian because as I said earlier I have known the incomparable love of Jesus in my life. And the more I look at the world, the more I see that human nature is flawed, and that even our best efforts leave us in a deplorable state. I also believe that there is a different, better way for us to live. Jesus spoke a lot against the hypocrisy of religion. You should read the gospels, you might be surprised at the messages of social justice that you find there. But Jesus wasn't just a political revolutionary - he healed the sick, he cared for the hungry, he associated with the despised of society, he never rejected anyone who came to him - I believe that Jesus was -is- God, that God actually chose to come to live with us, share our lives, accept us in our deplorable state as his children, and transform us, making us more like him each day - if we would only choose to turn to him.

I once read a quote that says 'the religion that is afraid of science dishonours God'. The person who said it was an atheist, but I agree with his sentiments - we have no need to fear science, in fact it should be embraced in helping us better understand the world and making it more habitable. From a scientific point of view I think bad science should be criticised, because it can have very dangerous consequences, and from a human point of view I think the misapplication of science - Social Darwinism, for example - is dangerous. Everything has its limits. Except God, who is eternal, and can't be put in a box!

Praise JESUS!We have a lost soul in here that need...

2008-09-19T18:46:00.000+01:00

Praise JESUS!
We have a lost soul in here that needs deliverance!
Oya! Everybody, bring out your annointing oil. This kind can only be healed by binding & casting and FIREEEEE!!

"As for Adam and Eve and the origin of man, I woul...

2008-09-17T11:02:00.000+01:00

"As for Adam and Eve and the origin of man, I would put that tale on the same pedestal as the Yoruba creation story of a man with a chicken, some grains of corn and a handful of sand starting the world at its centre, in Ile-Ife. It is a myth, at best intended to pass a message, but certainly not expected to be reasoned literally".

Hehehehehehe,I was "expelled" from yoruba language class in secondary school for laughing out loud when I heard that story. Needless to say, our yoruba teacher did not find that funny at all.That is why until today, I can not speak yoruba. I blame the chicken!

I really have to write about that incident...its quite a story.

And I hope on that note, the debate has ended. It was all very interesting.

I see the argument is now tending towards faith ve...

2008-09-16T23:35:00.000+01:00

I see the argument is now tending towards faith versus science. My problem with faith is that that there are six billion religions on planet earth; each individual finds it easy to create god in his own image, to create a world view that explains “everything”. Just like the blind men around the elephant.

Yes, science is not complete. But science is not a religion. Indeed, if god exists, as our knowledge increases, one day I expect we should be able to prove god. The purpose of science is to evaluate and document knowledge in a manner that can stand the test of objectivity. Hardly anybody doubts that the earth is not the centre of the world, that it is round and that it orbits the sun (and not the other way round). That is what science does. It proves what we know, and when we know better, it rewrites it self. Although it is not a faith per se, it is more logical to rely on the knowledge we have until we know better.

As for Adam and Eve and the origin of man, I would put that tale on the same pedestal as the Yoruba creation story of a man with a chicken, some grains of corn and a handful of sand starting the world at its centre, in Ile-Ife. It is a myth, at best intended to pass a message, but certainly not expected to be reasoned literally.

Does god exist? I think that is the wrong question to start with. I ask the faithful, will your mores change for worse if there is no god and hell and fire and brimstone? The sad fact is many people will answer "yes" to the last rhetorical question. And that is why our religion is hypocrisy. If god existed, he should be ashamed to have such followers. If all religion teaches us is moronic fatalism, to the point that we have to pray for electricity (as per Obasanjo’s advice), then we are of god’s creation, the most pathetic. I don’t know if god exists or not for sure. But I have a strong hunch it does not make a difference to our well being on this earth.

Lol!!!!!

2008-09-16T23:16:00.000+01:00

Lol!!!!!

@lost & anonyou guys made me laugh - I almost ...

2008-09-16T10:52:00.000+01:00

@lost & anon
you guys made me laugh - I almost choked...whats with the bulala and the way anon says "na" for now. Very original

YAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNN!!!!!!COME AND BUL...

2008-09-16T08:34:00.000+01:00

YAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNN!!!!!!

COME AND BULALA IT NA! YAAAAWWWWWWWNNNN!!! TEHEHEHEHEH

@ Anon 10:15"yaaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn"Who does this? K...

2008-09-16T03:05:00.000+01:00

@ Anon 10:15

"yaaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn"

Who does this? Keeps recurring. One day I go catch you and bulala your yansh.

If you're bored, chop kpekere and stop boring us with your boredom.

yaaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn

2008-09-15T22:15:00.000+01:00

yaaaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn

@lost"...The complications attending the scenario ...

2008-09-15T21:37:00.000+01:00

@lost

"...The complications attending the scenario goes far beyond the God question. Someone who is born blind, deaf, mute? Would such a person even have consciousness?..."

Considering that today we have schools for deaf and blind kids. According to a paper by A. R. Luria in her "The Child and his Behavior",

I quote:

"...As he gains experience, the child learns how to offset his natural shortcomings. Against a background of deficient natural behavior certain cultural devices and skills begin to cover, or compensate the defect, and enable the child to handle impossible tasks in new, different ways. Deficient behavior begins to accumulate compensatory cultural behavior, leading to the creation of a “defect culture”, whereby the disabled child acquires certain positive characteristics, in addition to his negative ones."

Now, how can one put forward to these children that the idea of God is TRUE? I think it says somewhere in the bible that everybody will be given a chance to hear the gospel? How will those innocent children hear it? How can they profess faith? How can they?

Don't get me wrong please, I am not saying the idea of God is false.

@ Red Eyes"I still have a question for those of us...

2008-09-15T20:41:00.000+01:00

@ Red Eyes

"I still have a question for those of us who may have relatives who have come to this world deaf, blind and mute. Which of the the following three would they believe in? (1) that we live in a world with one God?; or (2) with many Gods? or; (3) without a God?"

First of all, let me just say that it's a trick question. The complications attending the scenario goes far beyond the God question. Someone who is born blind, deaf, mute? Would such a person even have consciousness? Without language and history and other such ideological tools? Hmmm.....

But, If I had to take a wild guess: they will experience the same essential and existential fears and anxieties that we all try to articulate through a belief or non-belief in God. However, the exploration of these existential angsts might take different forms.

Firstly, @sandrine "...What it comes down to is ei...

2008-09-15T19:18:00.000+01:00

Firstly, @sandrine
"...What it comes down to is either you believe or you don't.There is no convincing me, it's just not in me. Not believing in God is a path that is lot harder than believing in God..."

Ok, I don't intend to count the angels as they dance but I really think that belief and disbelief are not mutually exclusive opposites. They are 2 sides of the same coin. What about the middle path in this matter?

Secondly, @naijablog
I still have a question for those of us who may have relatives who have come to this world deaf, blind and mute. Which of the the following three would they believe in? (1) that we live in a world with one God?; or (2) with many Gods? or; (3) without a God?

Very irritating post. Something terribly intoleran...

2008-09-15T18:59:00.000+01:00

Very irritating post. Something terribly intolerant about it, but at the same time, it sounds like you're trying to convince yourself that your way is the right way. As has been repeated here over and over, no one KNOWS for sure, but i'd rather take my chances with a (according to you) non-existent God than with man's whims and caprices, thank you very much.

Well done Jeremy. Excellent write-up.'Faith' is su...

2008-09-15T16:23:00.000+01:00

Well done Jeremy. Excellent write-up.

'Faith' is sucking life out of Nigeria. It is blinding and brainwashing a whole generation of otherwise intelligent people. Unfortunately, many Nigerians cannot see it...refuse to see it.

Don't know if you've read my 'hate free zone' post on a related theme about religiousity and ignorance.

Keep doing what you do. Love reading your blog.

religious people don't need 'proof'. thats what 'f...

2008-09-15T15:27:00.000+01:00

religious people don't need 'proof'. thats what 'faith' is. its the unwavering belief insomething that cannot be proved.

or as other people know it ... superstition.

These are my two cents:I do not believe in God, ju...

2008-09-15T14:34:00.000+01:00

These are my two cents:
I do not believe in God, just like Jeremy. I had my fair share of "you will go to hell"comments.What it comes down to is either you believe or you don't.There is no convincing me, it's just not in me. Not believing in God is a path that is lot harder than believing in God. All of us yearn for that unconditional love and for the believers, they find it with God. My path is lonely, nobody will love me no matter what, I am sole responsible of my actions and I am not looking to be forgiven at the end.There are a lot more believers than non-believers whatever you might think.Everybody I know in Miami, is a believer.Most people I know go to church. My seven years old was already told by a classmate that she will go to hell.
What I teach my children, is that nobody knows for sure and that God could exist or not.I teach them to be tolerant of the opinions of others and to not worry about what they will say to them.I also tell them that they might change their mind one day and believe and that I will respect their choice.
What I think Jeremy was trying to say is some churches prevent people to be independent thinkers and make their own choices. I also think that some believers are not as tolerant of others as the bible might be. I respect people who believe in God and their belief but I do not accept brain washing and lack of compassion.

"At present, many evangelical Nigerians believe in...

2008-09-15T12:44:00.000+01:00

"At present, many evangelical Nigerians believe in irrational things which give them hope but don't actually help them practically improve their lives. This I find rather sad. Don't you?"

Nope I don't I'm afraid. Religious principles are behind the founding of the most successful countries in the world. The founding fathers of the old US of A, choose to inscribe "In God we Trust" on the back of the US dollar. The Church of England is for all practical purposes the national church with its history being closely intertwined with the nation and also having the Queen as its Governor General.

Nigeria and the issue of religion is more an issue of sincerity. I wonder how many of the so called devout christians are really practicing the principles advocated by christ? I strongly believe that if only 50 percent of those who advocated such principle really practiced them it severely transform the country and indeed the individuals...

@solshine7I think you need to re-read what you hav...

2008-09-15T09:51:00.000+01:00

@solshine7
I think you need to re-read what you have written as you kind of contracdict yourself. Scientists actually know a lot about the universe and a lot of that knowledge is factual and can be proven. You then go on to say that you like the idea of the mysteries of God and Jesus. Last time I cheked no-one has met either and there is no evidence of the former and very little of the latter.

The lack of some spiritual entity (God) doesn't make the world a less interesting place. In fact it becomes much more fascinating as one can only be awe struck at the wonders of nature.

A God who is on the same level of knowledge as us is unlikely to be a God - surely?

I have to agree with Modibbo. This is certainly mo...

2008-09-15T09:33:00.000+01:00

I have to agree with Modibbo. This is certainly more about what's messing with Jeremy's mind at this time. There is a certain urgency to prove to himself his own belief, just like religious people are always paranoid to prove their faith.

So Jeremy says:

"The ultimate truth for we humans is existential and initially quite depressing: there is no meaning in the universe. We are probably genetically wired to believe that there is"

There is a certainty in this statement that grates in its arrogant 'i have it all figured out and you dont'-ness but more importantly it defeats the entire premise of Atheism.

You are well within logical rights to say that you dont believe in God, and his existence is unprovable and even disproved. But to say that the universe has no meaning?

Jeremy, no amount of knowledge or engagement gives anyone the right to make such a grand declaration about such a subjective existential quiestion. YOUR universe might have no meaning, but dont speak that for another's

In saying for certain that 'the universe hadsno meaning' you are as dogmatic and unreasonable as those who say 'God created the universe and that's final'.

I neither respect their sense of misguided superiority, nor yours.

Lost at the end - you've hit the nail right on the...

2008-09-15T09:30:00.000+01:00

Lost at the end - you've hit the nail right on the head. It does not matter what we say about God. God, JAMB, USDV, Shell job....all the same - brilliant!!

What Jeremy is doing is the classic failure of all well-meaning 'development' interventionists. They begin from the stand-point that the Western development model is the best, and proceed to impose their history, experience and values on us in the developing (or not) world.

The western industrial development model is a failure. Whether in terms of its impact on the environment, the extremems of wealth and poverty it has created, or the wars it continues to generate (Iraq will not be the last).

China is taking over the world by rejecting the Wests panacea for development - democracy. They are achieveing historically unknown economic development by creating their own model. They have their own notions of God and the meaning of life.

So Jeremy, do yourself a favour, as a development intervener. Lead less and follow more. Teach less and learn more. Talk less and listen more.

What if belief in God is part of Nija's formula for success. And here you are killing it, to make us more 'Enlightened'?

Modibbo

It is probably common knowledge that atheists are ...

2008-09-14T22:13:00.000+01:00

It is probably common knowledge that atheists are more obsessed with God than anybody else. Which is why I do not make my experience of the world contingent on the absence or presence of God. There is something uninteresting about the absolutism of atheism and theism. What’s also sad is that both systems of thought are simply different sides of the same coin. That is why getting bogged down, especially, within the context of Nigeria’s modern cosmology, with questions about the existence of God is to strongheadedly close out any possibility for conversation.

@ Jeremy.
Insightful comments!
“The bigger picture about the development of modern European thought from the renaissance to the so-called 'Enlightenment' is that the questioning of the existence of God and the weakening of the power of the Vatican absolutely went hand in hand with the birth of what we now refer to rights discourse.”

Sound so much like H. G. Wells. It’s funny how the Enlightenment has become the DNA blueprint for modernity and progress. Mbembe does a good job of inviting us to think about things a bit differently. You forget also that Enlightenment ideals were symptomatic of larger social/historical contexts.

“The disappointment for theists is that at the core, there is no spiritual force hard-wired into the cosmos that we could refer to as God in the conventional sense - well meaning, all powerful, omniscient etc.”

Hard-wired or not, it is this same “spiritual force” that propelled the massacres of the Crusades. The same “spiritual force” that gave moral grounding for colonialism and slavery. The same “spiritual force” that made MR. NDDC burn 270 million Naira in a grave yard, and that is keeping Nigerians from exploring their civic potentials.

You can already see where I’m going with this. It is not about whether there is God or no God but how “God” functions. We would understand what is going in Nigeria better if we moved away from God as obsession to God as function. Besides, if you look closely, “God” is always being used for something or is symptomatic of something. “God” hardly ever functions in and of itself. Meaning that as much as it looms largely over our imagination and experience, “God” is always after the fact. This is why the God vs. No God argument is reductive. Because God “isn’t.” (Which is what he has always wanted to be: “I am that I am”). No matter how originary and immanent he wants to be, he is still no different from his African animist counterparts who, as Achebe says, can be destroyed for the simple reason that they were created.

Asking Nigerians to reenact the Enlightenment by questioning the existence and power of God is pointless. For the simple reason that Nigerians, deep down, do not believe in God! You honestly think that these pastors and their followers believe in God? God is just one of the many manifestations of the hypostasis, Survival. “God,” like three square meals, JAMB, American Visa, and Shell job is one of the many vocabularies Nigerians use to articulate their Will to Survival.
That is why there is no “natural” link between national progress and the death of all churches.

Churches will die a natural death that will also be symptomatic.

In actuality, scientists know so little about our ...

2008-09-14T19:52:00.000+01:00

In actuality, scientists know so little about our galaxy, our universe, our existence. What person has seen Saturn first-hand? What person has traveled to every inch of our galaxy? Last time I checked, no one. That's why I don't depend on what humans can explain, even the most intellectual ones.

There is a mystery to God and Jesus and I like that. I wouldn't want to worship a God who's on the same level of knowledge that humans are on. I believe that our life on this planet is but one small act in the grand story of eternity.

I like how the song "Conversations" by Sara Groves puts it. Here's the link to the lyrics:

http://artists.letssingit.com/sara-groves-lyrics-conversations-x5klk7h

I was thinking of replying this post, perhaps get ...

2008-09-14T19:46:00.000+01:00

I was thinking of replying this post, perhaps get some quotes from Timothy Keller's 'The Reaason for God: belief in an age oif Scepticism' or write some of CS Lewis' classic.........but then I stopped. Stopped because I reaaly dont need to. And I still respect Jeremy's position, while I disagree with.
BTW, how are you doing? long time no see......ive been away from the blogosphere.