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Prophetic Failures

arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
I am not lying to you, Sparhafoc. If you could see my job or how I live you would know I am a loser. I am a total embaressment. I am not lying to you when I tell you there is a God and If you tell him you are sorry for all the bad things that you have done and if you really want to live Him in paradise forever, than you will. It's the same for everybody.

Even my wife thinks that I am a loser. Maybe I am the worst husband in the world. I guess if she could find someone better she would be gone right now. I dont know. I have been locked up a lot of times for crimes when I was younger. So I hope you can see that I am not lying to you about things. So either I am suffering from some mental defect, or what I am telling you about God is true.

Do you have any evidence that I am suffering from a mental defect?
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Greetings,

@Led Zeppelin, I suggest you read about oxytocin.

Kindest regards,

James
Right. Our bodies have hormones that can make us want to have sex or probably even make us feel good by hugging a loved one. But love is not the good feeling you feel when you hug a loved one. Love is not a physical thing. It is a non physical thing that God gave us the ability to experience. God can give us the ability to experience things that can exist independently of physical objects. This is why how we know love is real, even though love is not a physical thing.

So you might die, Dragan Glas, to protect someone you love. Without even knowing what love is. Because it exists.
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
So God made things that the biggest idiot in the world can understand but the smartest people will never understand it when they hate Him. I think He said he made it this way, somewhere in the Bible. I forget where he said that though..
 
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arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
No. The brain is physical but love is not. So you might be able produce a reaction in the brain with say..the ingestion of certain chemicals found in chocolate, but this is not love. Love is not physical.

We might for instance, lose our ability to speak well when passionately expressing our love to someone with words. But our ability to speak is not a measurement of love.

Your declarations amount to nothing. Mere wind.

You have to stop and think about how you approach divining truth. You have zero justification for your claim, I have presented argument and suggestive evidence that contradicts your claim, and you have responded by repeating your assertion.

I don't know how you convince yourself, but you can't assert reality and expect me to genuflect.

There is no good reason to conceive of 'love' as being anything other than the behavior of a physical brain and body.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Oh man. Hackenslash, you are a smart guy and have been on this forum a long time, trying to help people understand things. But your post only goes to show that whatever physical metric you are using to show that love product of bio-chemistry is completely invalid.

Assertion. Words are not magic - writing sentences doesn't dictate reality.


The consumption of chocolate has not been a motivating factor through out our human history. A person does not risk his life to save another person because he ate a lot of chocolate. But even though you are not a Christian, Hackenslash, you might even give your own life up in an instant to prevent harm to being done to someone that you love. That is how powerful love is.

Hunger is a motivating factor throughout human history. A person will risk his life to acquire nutrients. Even though you are a Christian (?), you would risk your own life to acquire nutrients. That's how powerful hunger is.

Hunger is also the production of a specific chemical in your body - ghrelin. When your blood sugar level is too low, your body begins producing ghrelin which causes you to experience hunger, and motivates you to take actions to obviate that sensation.

Now go look up serotonin and dopamine.

If you want to have a conversation about the real world, then you're not going to get away with making religious assertions when the physical evidence contradicting your beliefs is widely available and your obligation to furnish yourself with.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Right. I am just pointing out that when a person is not able to experience love from someone then we call that an illness. Because even though that love exists and is part of reality, that person is unable to experience it.

Not 'from a person' - just 'unable to experience love'.

Such a person wouldn't selectively not experience love from a single individual, but would not be able to sense it from any person.

But that's not what you're doing at all.

What you're doing is attempting to liken disbelief in your god to some form of illness.

Now, I think I've dismissed that robustly enough and already stated that if this is the kind of exchange you want, then we can do it and you won't come out well in the exchange. But I was hoping you might have changed your ways TNTD and stopped using the internet as a platform to espouse your unexplored bigotry. As it appears you are intent on likening non-belief in your god to some form of disability, then you have made your bed.

Factually, when we look around human history, it's those with imaginary friends - particularly those who believe their imaginary friends tell them what to do - who are considered mentally deranged and in need either of pity and compassion, or of isolation to protect them and other members of society. So that's you then, right? Here's where I liken your belief to that form of derangement. You're a dangerously deranged individual who probably should be locked away for his own good.

That the kind of discussion you want?

No? Then fucking stow your bigotry.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
So God made things that the biggest idiot in the world can understand but the smartest people will never understand it when they hate Him. I think He said he made it this way, somewhere in the Bible. I forget where he said that though..

Absurd.
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
So God made things that the biggest idiot in the world can understand but the smartest people will never understand it when they hate Him. I think He said he made it this way, somewhere in the Bible. I forget where he said that though..
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arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Right. Our bodies have hormones that can make us want to have sex or probably even make us feel good by hugging a loved one. But love is not the good feeling you feel when you hug a loved one.

Another empty phrase.

The feeling of hugging someone is not the same as the feeling of wanting to have sex.

That is, of course, an irrelevancy just as your declaration was.

No one had suggested that the sensation of love is the same thing as the sensation of something else - obviously, they're different which is why we feel different things.

But the bio-chemical causes of those sensations are the same, they belong to the same category of physical behaviors in the body.

Plato holds no value here, TNTD. Treating love as if it's some atom floating around the universe just makes you seem lost in the ancient past. We know a damn sight more now that we did even 10 years ago - you need to furnish your mind with information before making proclamations about reality.


Love is not a physical thing.

Assertion already shown wrong.


It is a non physical thing that God gave us the ability to experience.

Assertion 'justified' by appealing to another asserted quantity - this one a magical man living outside the universe with nonsensical and delusional attributes.

It was bad enough the first time you did this TNTD, but to repeat it?

All you're doing is showing that you're not engaging your brain at all - just regurgitating uncritically swallowed platitudes. We've all heard those platitudes before and find them clownish.

Audience, TNTD, audience. Try these arguments on your fellow Christians - I am sure they'll go down a treat, but asserting magical pixies to non-believers in support of some other mystical claim is not going to result in anyone taking your role seriously.


God can give us the ability to experience things that can exist independently of physical objects.

Prove it.


This is why how we know love is real, even though love is not a physical thing.

Prove it.

So you might die, Dragan Glas, to protect someone you love. Without even knowing what love is. Because it exists.

Shove your empty-headed bigotry back up the sticky orifice you extracted it from.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
Oh man. Hackenslash, you are a smart guy and have been on this forum a long time, trying to help people understand things. But your post only goes to show that whatever physical metric you are using to show that love product of bio-chemistry is completely invalid.

The consumption of chocolate has not been a motivating factor through out our human history. A person does not risk his life to save another person because he ate a lot of chocolate.
Hang on. Let me just check something. Let me make sure I didn't say 'love and chocolate are identical in every respect...

Nope, I didn't say such a silly thing. You know how it is, though. Somebody responds to something you've said that seems so far wide of being a response to what you've said that you sometimes doubt your own sanity.

No, I never said they were the same in every way. What I said is that, from a purely biochemical perspective, the effects are indistinguishable from those of eating copious amounts of chocolate. This is a true statement, and was actually addressing your contention that love can't be tested. Not only can it be tested, we've done the tests, and we know what the results are, which is why I can state with confidence that the effects of one are indistinguishable from the effects of the other. And again, this is using technology that is readily available in any good modern hospital.

These studies have shown that the same regions of the brain, specifically the ventral tegmental area and the ventral striatum, are activated in both cases.

Sorry that your misreading of my central point led you down the garden path.
But even though you are not a Christian, Hackenslash, you might even give your own life up in an instant to prevent harm to being done to someone that you love. That is how powerful love is.

And this is just insulting and deeply, deeply disrespectful of other forum members.

I've risked my life before for people I didn't even know, and I'm confident I'm not the only one here who has. This is nothing to do with being Christian or not, and it has very little to do with love, although I agree that love can be a powerful motivator.

Still, the apologetic tactic of casting your arguments in terms of consequence is not lost on us. We recognise this appeal for the fallacy it is.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
I am not lying to you, Sparhafoc. If you could see my job or how I live you would know I am a loser. I am a total embaressment. I am not lying to you when I tell you there is a God and If you tell him you are sorry for all the bad things that you have done and if you really want to live Him in paradise forever, than you will. It's the same for everybody.

Even my wife thinks that I am a loser. Maybe I am the worst husband in the world. I guess if she could find someone better she would be gone right now. I dont know. I have been locked up a lot of times for crimes when I was younger. So I hope you can see that I am not lying to you about things. So either I am suffering from some mental defect, or what I am telling you about God is true.

Do you have any evidence that I am suffering from a mental defect?
So, in your mind, the options are:

1. Lying
2. Lunatic
3. Correct.

Do you not see any more options here? I'll ignore the passive-aggressive self-flagellation, and simply point out that there's at least a fourth option that's glaringly obvious to anybody paying attention:

4. Wrong.

I have no doubt that you think you're correct, but can you actually demonstrate it? Preaching is not evidence.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
So God made things that the biggest idiot in the world can understand but the smartest people will never understand it when they hate Him. I think He said he made it this way, somewhere in the Bible. I forget where he said that though..
Well, God never said anything in the bible, maybe because the authors of the bible didn't have any access to what he said.

For my part, it's always hilarious when a believer reaches for their holy text, little realising the hole they've just dug for themselves.

Why? Because the holy text isn't only the worst thing to rely on for evidential purposes (i.e., it doesn't prove what you need it to, it merely asserts it), it is in fact the strongest evidence that your God cannot exist. I know this isn't trivial to get, but the existence of Yahweh is logically incompatible with the existence of any of the badly-written fanfic about him. They're mutually exclusive.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
I am not lying to you, Sparhafoc.

Well, I doubt your account of many things, but that doesn't mean you're lying - you could be misremembering, or you could just have misread or misunderstood experiences you had.


If you could see my job or how I live you would know I am a loser.

Well, I am sorry for that, but that's neither here nor there.


I am not lying to you when I tell you there is a God

I believe you that you believe, but what you don't seem to be able to grasp is that I don't believe you know anything relevant, nor do I believe that the confidence of your assertions implies that I am obliged to defer to your contentions.

I do not believe that the Christian god exists, not because of anything you've ever said or done, but because I find it an absurd fairy tale full of contradictions, nastiness, and inanity - it's clearly the kind of belief system you'd expect as a product of its time, but it simply does not stand up to anything like modern scrutiny.


and If you tell him you are sorry for all the bad things that you have done and if you really want to live Him in paradise forever, than you will. It's the same for everybody.

No thanks.

Even were the god contention true, the idea of living for eternity is a childish make-believe that my brain would never permit me to lend credence to. It's a cartoon, not a reality.


Even my wife thinks that I am a loser. Maybe I am the worst husband in the world. I guess if she could find someone better she would be gone right now. I dont know. I have been locked up a lot of times for crimes when I was younger. So I hope you can see that I am not lying to you about things. So either I am suffering from some mental defect, or what I am telling you about God is true.

Do you have any evidence that I am suffering from a mental defect?

Your argumentation is the real embarrassment here, and certainly the most relevant one.

For example, you've just presented me a false dichotomy. Either a) you're mentally disabled or b) the Christian God exists.

Obviously, these are not the only two options - not that they would be mutually incompatible anyway. You and other Christians believe for bad reasons, but these reasons don't amount to a mental disability, and just because you are absolutely certain and confident, that doesn't mean the universe is obliged to conform.

I can, and do, believe that you (Christians and theists in general) are not mentally disabled, and simultaneously believe that you're wrong to believe in gods, that your beliefs are based on poor critical thinking, inculcation, a general ignorance about the world, and/or many other factors unique to each believer.

This isn't hard to follow, is it?

So I reject your response - you attempted to present me a binary option that lacked any logical reasoning behind it. I would suggest that your repeated appeals to these borked forms of argumentation are suggestive of the poor reasoning you apply to your own beliefs, and that's at least part of why you believe.
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

I am not lying to you when I tell you there is a God
Take a mental step back, LedZeppelin, and consider this:

What you really mean is that "I believe there is a God".

Your belief doesn't make it true.

In fact, re-read what you've posted but this time, each time you read "God", think "I believe God". See how that changes things.

For most of my life I believed there was a god, until I reached a point where I realised that I had no evidence for one other than what other people told me: parents, priests, the bible, etc. (Bear in mind that the bible is second-hand - it comes down to us through many different translated languages by many authors.)

No direct evidence whatsoever.

And the universe isn't evidence of a creator - merely that the universe exists.

Kindest regards,

James
 
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arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

So God made things that the biggest idiot in the world can understand but the smartest people will never understand it when they hate Him. I think He said he made it this way, somewhere in the Bible. I forget where he said that though..
If this is true, then god is duplicitous - hardly the act of a omni-benevolent being.

Do you not see the contradiction in what you are saying about god's behaviour?

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

I have been locked up a lot of times for crimes when I was younger.
I'm very sorry to hear that, LedZeppelin.

But I would argue that that is not because you're a bad person or a "loser".

I once wrote an essay in school titled, "Conscience governs morality" - it was one of a list of essay titles given to us by a priest for us to write about.

However, I turned it around, and argued that the morality to which we're exposed as children determines how our conscience develops. For example, those who grow up in a cannibalistic society see nothing wrong in eating people.

A developmental psychologist of my acquaintance used to work in the prison system here in Dublin, the capital city of the Republic of Ireland. He'd give talks to inmates on the sociological data of crime.

He pointed out two things:

1) He told them that in Dublin there were six "toxic" post codes. Anyone who grew up in one of these was highly likely to end up in prison. He'd then ask the inmates where they grew up - more often than not, all the inmates were from those post codes. This often shocked them - it showed that they weren't necessarily just a bunch of "bad apples".

2) He'd then show them that there was also a "personal responsibility" side to the equation, by pointing out that others on their street, and even siblings, hadn't ended up in prison. What choices had they made that were different from those who'd ended up in prison?

It gave them a different perspective - they weren't bad people or "losers", as you put it. Some changed their attitudes, and learned to read, and even went on to get degrees. In short, to discover their better nature within themselves.

You are not a bad person or "loser", LedZeppelin.

If you can find compassion for yourself, then you can become a better person. As I once argued, the second commandment says, "love thy neighbour as thyself" - but, the fact is, you can only love your neighbour as much as you love yourself. If you don't, you can't truly love your neighbour.

I hope what I say doesn't cause you pain or embarrassment - that you might receive it in the spirit of compassion that it is meant.

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

Right. Our bodies have hormones that can make us want to have sex or probably even make us feel good by hugging a loved one. But love is not the good feeling you feel when you hug a loved one. Love is not a physical thing. It is a non physical thing that God gave us the ability to experience. God can give us the ability to experience things that can exist independently of physical objects. This is why how we know love is real, even though love is not a physical thing.

So you might die, Dragan Glas, to protect someone you love. Without even knowing what love is. Because it exists.
The emotion itself may not be a physical thing but the basis for it is: the biochemistry of the brain.

And remember, wherever you wrote "God", replace it with "I believe God".

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Take a mental step back, LedZeppelin, and consider this:

What you really mean is that "I believe there is a God".

Exactly.

I am not lying to you when I say that there is a God
I am not lying to you when I say that I believe there is a God

The second one is entirely unproblematic. I don't generally engage in the habit of considering people who say they believe in God to be lying. There's no obligation from me for them to justify the claim that they believe: I accept it.

But if some wants to say that there IS a God, then whether they're 'lying' or not is irrelevant: they're just 'wrong' - they cannot justify that claim.
 
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