Theism's Perversion of Basic Terms

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
you're right. i don't have faith that a bloodthirsty action is necessary to make a better man.

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
(Roman 10:17 NKJV)

Originally posted by RJHinds
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
(Roman 10:17 NKJV)

i heard about the tooth fairy the other day. so then faith comes by hearing and you just heard the word of fairy.

have fun with your new faith.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
i heard about the tooth fairy the other day. so then faith comes by hearing and you just heard the word of fairy.

have fun with your new faith.

There is no faith in the tooth fairy because the hearing must come by the word of God. 😏

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Holy! Holy! Holy!

Originally posted by finnegan
Your first two statements are tautologies, once you accept that thinking is a brain activity and in humans, possibly some other animals, we are conscious of our thoughts.

You make too optimistic a claim when you say that science can monitor and measure these brain activities at a level that would provide an accurate map of the thought process, though th ...[text shortened]... ies with opponents who bang around their fallacies. It might even lead to an interesting debate.

i dont see how my claim is optimistic? science/technology (part of the same thing too me) can measure the brain activity and the chemicals released in conjunction with that activity. now i didnt say how accurately they can measure it, but they can see what parts of the brain light up as a result of certain thoughts. so we can form a relatively accurate brain map. i agree there are other important ways of describing and understanding love, such as art, literature and all kinds of ologies. i thought the physiological reactions in the body were more important to this debate as the poster was inferring that love exists beyond the physical realm.

Originally posted by Suzianne
It's all about Faith. Faith is required. Faith is the first ingredient. Without Faith there is minimal understanding.

So you claim that some things only make any sense to those that have faith that it make sense?
I think you are playing the age old 'you can't understand it so you can't question me' game.
Well I say your talking nonsense and know it. I don't think you understand anything, but are pretending that you do and don't want to be challenged on the issue.
And no, you can't question my judgement in this case because only us atheists can understand these issues. You must become atheist if you want to question my claims.

Originally posted by RJHinds
There is no faith in the tooth fairy because the hearing must come by the word of God. 🙄

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Holy! Holy! Holy!

right, so faith does not come from hearing, it comes from indoctrination, culture and the desire to fit into a group... and the bible got yet another thing wrong.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
every time you have a loving feeling or thought there are a series of physiological happenings within the body.

these physiological happenings differ depending on the type of 'love' you are feeling.

science can monitor and measure these physiological happenings and describe them.


which of the above statements would you disagree with?

So what, we can get physiological happenings all the time that does not
mean you know what love is. That is like saying you understand the color
red due to a print out on a scanner. Either you have eyes to see or you
don't, the effects that one goes through doesn't mean you understand the
cause it basically means you see some effects.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
So what, we can get physiological happenings all the time that does not
mean you know what love is. That is like saying you understand the color
red due to a print out on a scanner. Either you have eyes to see or you
don't, the effects that one goes through doesn't mean you understand the
cause it basically means you see some effects.
Kelly

i would say we know exactly what the colour red is regardless of having eyes or not.

"the effects that one goes through doesn't mean you understand the
cause it basically means you see some effects."

if you drop heavy object on your foot the object falling is the cause of the pain, it is not pain. your brain activity triggers the feeling of pain. so the cause of love cannot be described as love. love is the collection of feelings triggered in your body.

do you believe all emotions exist outside the body or just love?

i dont understand why christians have a problem with love being described by bodily reactions. your god created the body so its perfectly plausible he could wire it up to create the love emotion. what ever the unknown, unknown construct you think he uses for love, its still just something he has created for a function. why would he have two systems for creating emotion when he can just bung it all in the body. it seems to me that because love is an important emotions to the faith that love has been given magical qualities by believers to separate it from other emotions. i dont think you have to do that for something to be special.

Originally posted by LemonJello
I say evil created itself.

Not sure what you mean. How can something create itself? How could it be that something is responsible for bringing itself into existence?

Besides, I thought you were committed to the idea that, ultimately, God created the world and everything in it. Is that not correct?

Love is a feeling that you feel th ant us to be, say, jealous or vengeful, either, right? You'd agree with that?

Besides, I thought you were committed to the idea that, ultimately, God created the world and everything in it. Is that not correct?
Yes I believe God is creation.


Okay, so you maintain you cannot explain or describe love directly. But we should at least be able to outline things that are consistent (or not) with loving attitudes. For example, consider the plethora of natural evils that exist and all the destruction and suffering they wreak; some examples might be cancers, tsunamis, plagues, etc. How could it be loving for God to allow and/or provide for such things in His creation? Another example: how could it be loving for God to sentence a person to eternal punishment? Another example: in the bible it shows God sanctioning genocide at various times; how could this be loving?
I can honestly not explain why certain things are happening the way they do. Not long ago, at a child's funeral I walked around the cemetery as I could not stand there watching a father bury his son. The question in this case was not where was God, but rather, where were the parents - the child drowned - one year old. God has a plan for us and certain people were put in our lives so we can learn and grow, whether they are here to stay or even for a little while. Why war, sicknesses and plagues are part of our lives is only a question God can answer. Some of the cancers and plagues people bring unto themselves.



Well, in a way, you are just making my point for me. My point was that you theists are taking a term like 'gift' and distorting its meaning in such a way that it no longer has any resemblance to how that term is employed in everyday affairs. Look what you just did here. You just equated 'gift' with 'knowledge'. Of course, one could say that a smart doctor is a gifted doctor, or whatnot, but you are already starting to stretch things.
Well, it is a stretchy word.
Gift can mean:
1. A present...something you give as a birthday present
2. To be gifted...some sort of power, knowledge or even maybe talented

These are quickly what I could think of, maybe someone can help me add here??? Anyway, I just basically gave an example. In my opinion, the gift of salvation from God falls under point 2 above.



Anyway, I doubt any responsible doctors are egocentric enough to think that their services are a gift to the patient, since responsible doctors have deep senses of responsibility for their patients. If a doctor told me he had the gift and told me to take it or leave it, I'd probably tell him goodbye and then go find some other capable doctor who actually knows how to interact with prospective patients.
You haven't seen a lot of doctors have you? Some of them are egocentric and only they know best. Even though, I probably too will go see a different doctor, but I will not let proud and other things stand in my way if it is true that only that doctor truly is the only one that could help me.



Besides, your analogy doesn't seem that apt. Perhaps if you stipulated that the doctor himself is ultimately personally responsible for providing for my illness in the first place; and if you further stipulated that upon refusing the "gift" of his services, the doctor would take out a flame thrower and set me on fire for all eternity; then maybe you'd be on to something.
This is your opinion. I think you want to start blaming God or someone to feel better. The gift that God provides in a sense YES does sound as ridiculous to you as your example above to me, the fact is you are making a joke of it and I'm not. You've obviously taken time to study and learn science, evolution and all those things. If you have taken the same time and energy to learn God, you'd understand what we're discussing better. No one just knows science, the same... No one just knows God.



So, as a simple example, God would never want us to, say, sanction genocide, right? He wouldn't want us to be, say, jealous or vengeful, either, right? You'd agree with that?
If you are referring to Numbers chapter 31, then what you should do is read the Bible from the start and you'll get the bigger picture.


I really don't know why all this bad things are happening to people. The main thing we are forgetting is that we are doing sin daily without repenting and that leaves an open door for inviting bad luck into our lives. Well at least it is my opinion. I have to pray to God for forgiveness and to protect my family. Everything I have and am can be taken away from me in second, and with sin in our lives we deserve death.

I am just glad that I still am alive and that I can still make a choice to continue serving God the way He is.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
"Love is a feeling that you feel that you can not explain feeling. Love is indescribable. "



not true. love like any other human emotion can be explained with science. it has also been described a multitude of times, especially in terrible songs.

My opinion can not be wrong 😉

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well if it cannot be described then how could we possibly know whether or not we are talking about the same thing? If it can be described, then it can be studied by science.

What you're saying is wide. Can science tell you what I'm thinking? I guess no. Can science tell you what I'm thinking after I told you what I was thinking. I guess no again. Science is not the answer to all the questions, in fact, there are many studies that proves science can not accurately measure human feelings. I agree that science can measure the way we react to certain types feelings, but I don't think science can tell you what type of love and how strong a love feeling is that I have towards someone.

I say again, the love you have inside you is indescribable. I think some one earlier mentioned that you can describe love with doing stuff, like singing, dancing or doing something to show your love, but doing all of it still doesn't show ALL the love you have inside, but it is a good way of showing you have/do love.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
This is the one thing I've said here that some people actually remember. Some theists use these terms with a meaning that is so warped it has almost the opposite meaning of the original word. I call these terms bizarro terms.

Your post is a collection of favorites.
Bizarro-love: the state of caring so much for someone that you will ensu ...[text shortened]... ven and the otherwise good person who did not ask Jesus into his heart goes to hell.

etc. 🙂

Exactly. What we have here is a collection of bizarro-terms.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You will only understand these things when you change your heart. When that happens you will not need anyone to explain it, for you will receive the knowledge from the Holy Spirit. 😏

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Holy! Holy! Holy!

I wasn't aware that there was anything wrong with my heart. Besides if I am, as you claim, having trouble understanding things here, that should implicate a problem within my mentality, not my blood pump.

You could always try explaining it to me if you think I have a failure of the understanding.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think you should add [b]life and death to your list.[/b]

I think you're right about that. It's confusing when some theists talk about eternal life on one hand and death on the other; when in fact according to their own accounts, both seem to entail eternal life but with drastically different conditions of life (happiness beyond imagining on one hand, the worst fate imaginable on the other).

Originally posted by KellyJay
"3) God's eternal punishment of persons who refuse what is putatively a "gift". "

No, not even close. Eternal punishment is due to the sin of each person, the
gift is a way out. Rejecting the only way out just leaves you in the state you
were in before the way out. Love is while we were yet sinners, God gave us
this gift, it wasn't something we could ...[text shortened]... ing
a gift it relies completely on the giver, the only thing we do is recieve it.
Kelly

If I understand your argument here correctly, you are claiming that God's being loving is consistent with the fate of eternal punishment of sinners because (1) it is actually the sinners' own sin that imposes the eternal punishment and (2) God offers his gift as a way out.

If I have that correct, then I have to disagree. Both of your points are flawed: (1) seems blatantly false and (2) is, as I have been stating again and again, just a bizarro use of the word 'gift'.

Your (1) is notionally confused. How can sin impose eternal punishment? Sin is the putative offense, whereas punishment is the authoritative disciplining of the putative offense. At any rate, there is nothing analytic to the concept of transgression of law that entails that transgressors are destined to punishment, eternal or otherwise. The punishment here requires a punisher or law-giver, which is God. You've selectively ignored the fact that, according to your own accounts, God is the one responsible for settings things up such that those who transgress against his will (and refuse his supposed 'gift'– I'll get to my objection to your (2) in a second) are destined for eternal suffering. If there is eternal punishment awaiting sinners, it is God who imposes it. You seem to have selectively ignored this.

Regarding point (2), if a person actually had reasons to think he was in the situation you describe, then it is not a 'gift' scenario. It would actually just be a forced-choice scenario. It's essentially a case where the person either relates with God, or God provides for their eternal suffering. What about that implicates love on the part of God? At any rate, you have already confirmed that refusal of the 'gift' entails that the sinner is destined for his fate of eternal punishment. Again, this is not how a gift functions in everyday talk.