Evidence for God being "a superior being" ?

[tackattack]

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The conditions aren't imposed on the part of the creator, they're due to the reciprocal dynamic of exchanging love. If my time here proves anything it's that love can be accepted or rejected, and reciprocated love still feels like love from the giving side, but not from the receiving side. I still say the unconditional part stands.

Still talking about love as something that can be exchanged between humans and gods? I thought you agreed that gods are unable to feel and express human emotions, since gods are not human and humans are not gods. From that it follows that we should not label alleged divine behaviour with a category of human experience. Which makes me wonder, do you think gods can have any emotions as in unreasoned predispositions?

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I thought this was clear PR. Have you ever heard the phrase "I love my new lawnmower" or "I love that new show on HBO" Does that mean the objects reciprocate our love similarly, not they have no consciousness thus no emotion. Ever heard someone "Love their dog/cat". Are their emotional centers as developed as ours? No so we can be fairly certain that they don't love us the same way we love them, but we can see aspects of that love in their loyalty and affection, etc. Last example, ever loved an infant. Their cognitive processes and emotional development aren't the same at all as an adults. They obviously don't love us back the same, they're more interested in survival. I know of very few parents who wouldn't throw themselves in front of a moving vehicle to save their child or perhaps even someone else's. If an aspect of God is consciousness and the ability to express that consciousness, perhaps his emotional center is far more developed than ours is ATM. I'm not saying God loves.. as an action. I'm saying God is love as a noun.Yes I feel it is possible to love something and it not love you back and vice versa. Yes I believe you can understand logically the concept of something you can't yet attain. Christians use God as an absolute concept for holiness, everything good and pure that we strive towards. Everything humans witness must be labeled from a category of human experience or abstract concept, because that is the nature of observation. We separate God concept from the human concept by observing, then identifying with abstract concepts, the most absolute version of observed attributes separated from human fallibility.

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1-It is meaningful. I'm missing your point. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your perspective but what kind of skewed perspective sees receiving unconditional love bringing up ideas of fucking absurdity and every conceivable form of abuse imaginable. Please help me see your perspective better.

What I'm saying is why redefine "love" to demonstrate a deity is supposedly "superior" to Homo sapiens? After all we already have the word and its associated meaning so this exercise seems rather pointless.

2-Just one .. that's easy there are lots.
Hosea 13:16The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open.
for just a few..No need for a challenge .. I've fully admitted that there are lots of atrocities attributed to God in the Bible.

Evil that's only attributed to God? *sigh* Well, I only asked for one but conversely I wish I could say it was as straightforward a task for me to find 'divine benevolence' as many Christian apologists claim, but just about every example in Old Testament Bibical text where God isn't slaughtering everyone is just a display of his character being utterly narcissistic and ultimately self-serving, there were few to choose from:

"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25).

Again, see the highlighted text "from my own sake", not, for your sake, every action is to propagate his own glory, everything has to revolve around this petty little ego-manic. The New Testament doesn't help matters as its always a second party professing his morality, not God himself:

Luke 6:27-37 (NRS) "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you... Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same... But love your enemies, do good... and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful... Forgive, and you will be forgiven."

3-I've never once said that you're going to hell, just that you're wearing blinders.

By your faith where do you think I'm going after I'm worm-food?

If I can respect your decision, why wouldn't my God?

Because you care you've shown that you're more moral than your god concept and I wish you'd own up to that. If you had the kind of absolute power that's attributed to this deity, I'm confident, though not certain, that you'd use it to do good, regardless of whether people loved you back or not.

I know this is nothing grander than an appeal to emotion, but as far as the fictional concept of your god goes, he's demonstrated often that he doesn't give two shits about people like me, my existence, my hopes, my dreams, my family or my friends.

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1- And I'm trying to explain the purpose. I'm trying to define a goal for love to evolve into, as an absolute. If I called it perfect love or absolute love would it be easier for atheists to swallow? Is it the word God tripping you up?

2- Must not have tried so hard there are pages in the skeptics annotated bible, I won't bother quoting some for you here's a link. Almost a genuine try, and for that I'm grateful, thanks for the attempt.

3-By MY faith? I would say you're going to die. When you die you'll go wherever you belong, I don't know enough about you to make a further determination. Simply being an atheist doesn't put you in the bowels of hell or whatever your favorite hellfire catch phrase is. If you asking what the tenants of Christianity say will happen to people who know God and refuse him in eternity, then the answer would be an eternity of separation from God.

4-Wish I'd own up to what? How could I logically be more moral than the absolute concept I use to improve my own personal morality, doesn't make sense. If you want me to admit I'm more moral than the concept you have of God, I could safely bet that I am. As far as God giving a shit about you, you're not reading the same book I am then. When Jesus came he went to the poor, the outcast, the sinners, the unbelievers, the lepers, the homeless. Jesus didn't come to save the rich, or the white, or the educated, he came to save us all. [/off soapbox]

Sorry the responses have been a little delayed or emotional I've had strep and am quite grumpy from not eating for 3 days..

[Welsh cake]

Welsh cake I read your article about circular arguments and it applies to atheist as well as christians when neither knows what they are talking about. Remember I've stated several times that I'm not a part of this forum to try and get others to believe in God I'm here to learn about God through your disbelief.

No. Atheists haven't used circular reasoning *sigh* let me explain, here's the thing though about stating "we both don't know, therefore God is still real" and other such tired fallacies of arguments from ignorance, whenever debating in public for any given argument (and it's beneficial you pay close attention here) there is an implicit burden of proof on the party making the ontologically positive claim. Atheists (your audience) have made no such claim about its existence or non-existence, most admitingly will state they don't know whether a god might or not might exist therefore no burden can possibly rest on them, so in this particular instance, the burden is squarely fixed on Theists who assert a cosmic creator exists.

Should you, for example, claim the Loch Ness Monster is real, then the burden is on you and since its asymmetrical it will typically be a heavier burden the more extraordinary the claim; it does not rest with your audience who remain skeptical, attempting to ask them "prove she doesn't exist" is called 'shifting the burden of proof', while you maybe justified in your belief or personal experience of her mighty monstrousness, no one else would be until you can demonstrate she is real.

Now granted, whenever making ontological claims to knowledge you have to realise that it unrealistic to expect everyone on the forums to automatically accept the idea "Nessie exists" right off the bat because she's not a conventionally accepted fact like "trees have leaves", now your audience will have their own respective standards of evidence to satisfy, so when you present your epistemic claim of Nessie you'll either have an irrational crowd who'll reject the evidence provided, OR you simply fail to make your case when you can't demonstrate her existence when asked to.

For god or gods claims many of us non-believers (weak atheists) will often response with agnostic statements about what is ultimately knowable and use scientific principles from epistemology to empiricism to help us determine whether your claim is logically sound or not. If the scientific method cannot verify the idea, if the idea does not conflate with reality, or is detectable through observation or by any other means then we cannot possibly examine it, predict, confirm or even falsify it, however this gives your god concept no more ground in the community than werewolves, ghosts, vampires and other fairytales.

God(s) in this respect consequently become unknowable and nothing more. At this stage you should hardly be surprised if other minds are unconvinced by your supernatural claim, its all just speculation from there on end.

Now there are those of us here who not only reject your claims but go further to argue for the non-existence of god or gods (strong atheists). Remember the aforementioned asymmetry in the burden of proof? Well, both sides of the proposition regarding deities will carry a burden here, but it is not an equal one. First of all god(s), like the Loch Ness Monster don't conform to close conventional knowledge like "there are cows on a farm", if you claim a god exists you are seeking to add to our 'pool' or 'body' of knowledge, and possibly simultaneously undermine scientific facts already accepted by the wider community, so either way it's a far greater challenge to prepose something than it is to deny it.

Strong atheists have less of an ontological burden because they're not trying to add or remove facts from our conventional wisdom, "god doesn’t exist", is simply a null hypothesis. Not all claims are equal for starters, and more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence must be. Strong atheists have evidence to support the non-existence of gods as processes such as self-replicating life-forms; physics, big bang and cosmology have natural occurrences and forces independent of thought or any intelligence. They can also argue from scientific census that matter and energy have always existed, they can't be created or destroyed, the universe has always existed in some form or other, and therefore it renders the god-created-reality concept as invalid at explaining phenomena or origins of space/time. It is also easier for strong atheists to make syntactically positive ontologically negative claims like "god does not exist, he's an imaginary concept" because our prevailing knowledge already establishes the asymmetry that a supernatural universe-creating deity is outside our conventional understanding of reality and therefore either logically unknowable or impossible to discern whether it is real or not.

You need to realise the unequal burden of proof is unbalanced further by your own claims; it is greatest on you to assert god exists, much less on atheists who assert there is no such thing, and not present on atheists/agnostics who assert nothing and merely are responding to the claim by applying scrutiny to see if it holds up and has any practical meaningful value or explanatory power within our shared reality.

In any case you cannot dismiss there is a burden of proof regarding your god claim, for the default position is disbelief (not always atheism, as you could be arguing for Allah while your audience only accepts Yahweh is the one true god) because if were to accept every single claim that presented itself our own ontology would quickly be rendered useless, our reasoning would become obsolete, facts and fantasy would contradict each other and all scientific inquiry would cease.

The only time you're ever excused from the invocation of the burden of proof is you're your argument takes the worse possible approach - arguing God is outside the realm of logic, because as the author of logic it no longer applies to him so he can make "a square into a circle" for example. When you argue that God is Transcendent AND Immanent, these illogical claims are outside our knowledge or intuition - they are easily dismissed from the get-go as absurd, incoherent and asinine.

I hope you understand your position and mine more clearly now. And for the record, I never once said your sole purpose on this forum was to 'convert' or 'redeem' us or whatever.

1- And I'm trying to explain the purpose. I'm trying to define a goal for love to evolve into, as an absolute. If I called it perfect love or absolute love would it be easier for atheists to swallow? Is it the word God tripping you up?

Not at all, the noun, the word usage is confusing, I see where you're coming from when you state a person's love maybe different from another's because perhaps they are fundamentally different in their personalities and behaviour towards others, but the word "love" already has a meaning and we've established its usage; it is within our cognitive capacities to perceive or express this abstract emotion, so I'd like you to demonstrate to me how they differ so drastically with your god concept, and how we are incapable of also expressing this yet also capable of distinguishing the two aren't the same.

In other words, your dumb argument is dumb and needs work.

3-By MY faith? I would say you're going to die. When you die you'll go wherever you belong, I don't know enough about you to make a further determination. Simply being an atheist doesn't put you in the bowels of hell or whatever your favorite hellfire catch phrase is. If you asking what the tenants of Christianity say will happen to people who know God and refuse him in eternity, then the answer would be an eternity of separation from God.

Then you must appreciate I'm already in a state of separation from God, so what's the difference? If its not being with sky daddy then where I am physically, meta-physically or according to you "spiritually" going to be after biological death if I don't share your core beliefs? I'll rephrase the question if you can't manage: Since your deity concept judges us what is this afterlife place/state he has planned for me and what will I experience there as an atheist?

And for goodness sake don't jump around again and state ''oh, god doesn't send you there, you choose to go there'' because no sane individual chooses an afterlife of eternal suffering for the IPU's sake.

4-Wish I'd own up to what? How could I logically be more moral than the absolute concept I use to improve my own personal morality, doesn't make sense. If you want me to admit I'm more moral than the concept you have of God, I could safely bet that I am. As far as God giving a shit about you, you're not reading the same book I am then. When Jesus came he went to the poor, the outcast, the sinners, the unbelievers, the lepers, the homeless. Jesus didn't come to save the rich, or the white, or the educated, he came to save us all. [/off soapbox]

Just which version of the Bible are we referring to exactly? You speak of Jesus' superior nature, the same Jesus who is judge in Matthew 25:31 who will someday separate the sheep from the goats, needless to say if this were remotely true I'd probably wind up on his left hand only for him to say "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels". I'm really feeling the "God's love" here; based on the Biblical account he doesn't particularly sound like a very compassionate man/demi god to me Tack. Your interpretation of him and his sky daddy sounds an awful lot similar to some kind of Universalist edit, not saying you are one, but it is all rather inaccurate from what scriptures depict happens.

Sorry the responses have been a little delayed or emotional I've had strep and am quite grumpy from not eating for 3 days..

What's up friend? Are you fasting or something?

[Purple Rabbit]

Hope you have recovered from the strep tackattack.

Let's pick up the pieces of this discussion

I thought this was clear PR. Have you ever heard the phrase "I love my new lawnmower" or "I love that new show on HBO" Does that mean the objects reciprocate our love similarly, not they have no consciousness thus no emotion. Ever heard someone "Love their dog/cat". Are their emotional centers as developed as ours? No so we can be fairly certain that they don't love us the same way we love them, but we can see aspects of that love in their loyalty and affection, etc. Last example, ever loved an infant. Their cognitive processes and emotional development aren't the same at all as an adults. They obviously don't love us back the same, they're more interested in survival. I know of very few parents who wouldn't throw themselves in front of a moving vehicle to save their child or perhaps even someone else's.

All these are examples of human emotion, i.e. emotions humans have towards the things and persons that surround them. I leave it to you whether these emotions all can and should be classified under the category of love. Anyway in all these posts on this topic I've stated over and over again that this human emotion does not require a third party to enable the emotion or a second party to acknowledge the emotion..

If an aspect of God is consciousness and the ability to express that consciousness, perhaps his emotional center is far more developed than ours is ATM. I'm not saying God loves.. as an action. I'm saying God is love as a noun.Yes I feel it is possible to love something and it not love you back and vice versa. Yes I believe you can understand logically the concept of something you can't yet attain. Christians use God as an absolute concept for holiness, everything good and pure that we strive towards. Everything humans witness must be labeled from a category of human experience or abstract concept, because that is the nature of observation. We separate God concept from the human concept by observing, then identifying with abstract concepts, the most absolute version of observed attributes separated from human fallibility.

So what you are saying boils down to the observation, which I happen to agree on, that god is no active party in the human emotion of love. And you argue that all activities in that category can be denoted by the noun "love". You've failed however to argue that we need yet another noun "god" to be able to better understand the particular phenomenon of human emotion. And you've also failed to clarify how this association defines the newly introduced concept of god. In fact what you have shown here more than anything is how the god concept abuses a concept from reality (love) to force a superfluous meaning of god into existence. It is a clear case of semantic fraudulence to me.

[tackattack]

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Hope you have recovered from the strep tackattack.

Let's pick up the pieces of this discussion

I thought this was clear PR. Have you ever heard the phrase "I love my new lawnmower" or "I love that new show on HBO" Does that mean the objects reciprocate our love similarly, not they have no consciousness thus no emotion. Ever heard someone "Love their dog/cat". Are their emotional centers as developed as ours? No so we can be fairly certain that they don't love us the same way we love them, but we can see aspects of that love in their loyalty and affection, etc. Last example, ever loved an infant. Their cognitive processes and emotional development aren't the same at all as an adults. They obviously don't love us back the same, they're more interested in survival. I know of very few parents who wouldn't throw themselves in front of a moving vehicle to save their child or perhaps even someone else's.

1-All these are examples of human emotion, i.e. emotions humans have towards the things and persons that surround them. I leave it to you whether these emotions all can and should be classified under the category of love. Anyway in all these posts on this topic I've stated over and over again that this human emotion does not require a third party to enable the emotion or a second party to acknowledge the emotion..

If an aspect of God is consciousness and the ability to express that consciousness, perhaps his emotional center is far more developed than ours is ATM. I'm not saying God loves.. as an action. I'm saying God is love as a noun.Yes I feel it is possible to love something and it not love you back and vice versa. Yes I believe you can understand logically the concept of something you can't yet attain. Christians use God as an absolute concept for holiness, everything good and pure that we strive towards. Everything humans witness must be labeled from a category of human experience or abstract concept, because that is the nature of observation. We separate God concept from the human concept by observing, then identifying with abstract concepts, the most absolute version of observed attributes separated from human fallibility.

2-So what you are saying boils down to the observation, which I happen to agree on, that god is no active party in the human emotion of love. And you argue that all activities in that category can be denoted by the noun "love". You've failed however to argue that we need yet another noun "god" to be able to better understand the particular phenomenon of human emotion. And you've also failed to clarify how this association defines the newly introduced concept of god. In fact what you have shown here more than anything is how the god concept abuses a concept from reality (love) to force a superfluous meaning of god into existence. It is a clear case of semantic fraudulence to me.

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Yes, I've moved from applesauce to rice and can at least talk now, and ty. Now by all means back to the discussion.

1- I agree you can love without reciprocation, but what value is there in loving a flower? Is there more value in loving a child and it's showing it's love in return? You're treating God as a third party when I'm simply stating that God (from a Christian perspective) the initiator of pure, unconditional love. As a Christian I use that as a guide to better my love to my fellow man. I also am thankful for that love from God and reciprocate that back to him through praise and worship. Lot's of atheists claim that worshiping is because God requires us to love him back, I'm saying it's not a requirement (my whole original point I believe)

2- OK I don't want this to get to a semantic battle. Instead of God's Love, I'll simply use pure, unconditional love. I perhaps got caught up myself in some dogmatic semantics. In attempting to define God, I have found that pure, unconditional love is one attribute of God. Since God is also the originator, any human love would be towards God. Since the originating love perceptually appears more refined than my own abilities to love and fall in the biblical definitions of what love should be, I assume it comes from a higher source, namely God. Since I seek to better myself I attempt as often as allowed to emulate that love.

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1- And I'm trying to explain the purpose. I'm trying to define a goal for love to evolve into, as an absolute. If I called it perfect love or absolute love would it be easier for atheists to swallow? Is it the word God tripping you up?

Not at all, the noun, the word usage is confusing, I see where you're coming from when you state a person's love maybe different from another's because perhaps they are fundamentally different in their personalities and behaviour towards others, but the word "love" already has a meaning and we've established its usage; it is within our cognitive capacities to perceive or express this abstract emotion, so I'd like you to demonstrate to me how they differ so drastically with your god concept, and how we are incapable of also expressing this yet also capable of distinguishing the two aren't the same.

In other words, your dumb argument is dumb and needs work.

3-By MY faith? I would say you're going to die. When you die you'll go wherever you belong, I don't know enough about you to make a further determination. Simply being an atheist doesn't put you in the bowels of hell or whatever your favorite hellfire catch phrase is. If you asking what the tenants of Christianity say will happen to people who know God and refuse him in eternity, then the answer would be an eternity of separation from God.

Then you must appreciate I'm already in a state of separation from God, so what's the difference? If its not being with sky daddy then where I am physically, meta-physically or according to you "spiritually" going to be after biological death if I don't share your core beliefs? I'll rephrase the question if you can't manage: Since your deity concept judges us what is this afterlife place/state he has planned for me and what will I experience there as an atheist?

And for goodness sake don't jump around again and state ''oh, god doesn't send you there, you choose to go there'' because no sane individual chooses an afterlife of eternal suffering for the IPU's sake.

4-Wish I'd own up to what? How could I logically be more moral than the absolute concept I use to improve my own personal morality, doesn't make sense. If you want me to admit I'm more moral than the concept you have of God, I could safely bet that I am. As far as God giving a shit about you, you're not reading the same book I am then. When Jesus came he went to the poor, the outcast, the sinners, the unbelievers, the lepers, the homeless. Jesus didn't come to save the rich, or the white, or the educated, he came to save us all. [/off soapbox]

Just which version of the Bible are we referring to exactly? You speak of Jesus' superior nature, the same Jesus who is judge in Matthew 25:31 who will someday separate the sheep from the goats, needless to say if this were remotely true I'd probably wind up on his left hand only for him to say "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels". I'm really feeling the "God's love" here; based on the Biblical account he doesn't particularly sound like a very compassionate man/demi god to me Tack. Your interpretation of him and his sky daddy sounds an awful lot similar to some kind of Universalist edit, not saying you are one, but it is all rather inaccurate from what scriptures depict happens.

Sorry the responses have been a little delayed or emotional I've had strep and am quite grumpy from not eating for 3 days..

What's up friend? Are you fasting or something?

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1-"your dumb argument is dumb".. :S.. well excuse the fuck out of me.. allow me to use big words so you can continue to not get it. The main differences between the common interpersonal love human's share and the love between God and man are:
a- The initiator of said love is incorporeal
b- The love being received is unconditional
c- The love being received isn't mercurial
d- The love being received is eternal

3- I do appreciate you're living in a state of denial of God, if I assume you have read the Bible and don't believe God exists. I don't know if you're an atheist because you've never believed in God or because you deny God. If you want me to assume the former I will. To answer your question, what he has planned for you is an eternity of his love unless you actively deny evidence that God exists. If you've never been presented with any and it's not against your nature then I would assume than typically that would fall under being ignorant of the law, which actually affords you heaven in Romans 2:14-16. In your case I believe you're wanting me to assume you see evidence for God to exists, but you don't see it as viable or that you intentionally live an amoral lifestyle according to yourself. If either is the case then I'm going to have to assume you wouldn't be welcome in Gods presence.
This is how my faith teaches the afterlife. You die. Since we are after Christ and based on whether you have heard the "good news" of Jesus or not you either are in the Lord's presence or not. It's debatable whether there's a purgatory phase that's a temporary torment (During which time I'm sure any disbelief in a deity would cease). Then there's judgment day where those worthy are born again, and those who aren't are sent to annihilation (whether that's eternal torment or nothingness idk). I don't believe God eternally punishes someone unworthy of that, it far more likely that it's simply oblivion. I think it's possible in the instant of death to be face to face with your creator and instantly believe and repent. I'm not certain if it has to all be done when alive 100% and interactive with the world or not. I hope that clarifies it a little better, from my perspective.

4-I have no idea what universalism believes, but the NIV and KJV Bible are actually very vague on what happens exactly after death. I think the Catholics took purgatory from the Apocrypha. You can rest assured that this is my general understanding of Christian doctrine and it's biblical implications. It's quite obvious you don't feel God's love. Just like with interpersonal relationships though, how can you possibly expect anyone to love you when you're spitting bile out of your mouth at all times. That's my whole point about softening the heart, not convincing yourself to believe in something you don't, but to eschew the hate and intolerance and allow for the opportunity for someone to love you. (I'm not sure if that was in this thread or not.. a lot of catching up to do)

[Strongbad]

@tackattack - Could you please explain how something is unconditional when it has at least one condition attached to it?

“b- The love being received is unconditional”
“d- The love being received is eternal”
“To answer your question, what he has planned for you is an eternity of his love unless you actively deny evidence that God exists.”

If that isn’t a condition, then I don’t know what the word means. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the definition of the word, as defined by Merriam-
Webster here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/condition

[tackattack]

Everything I'm aware of in existence has the basic condition of acceptance. I naturally rule that one out otherwise the word unconditional has no meaning. If you'd like it better, the only condition of recieving god's love is accepting god's love. We can word hack all night but it won't get us any closer to anything.

[KichigaiNeko]

Everything I'm aware of in existence has the basic condition of acceptance. I naturally rule that one out otherwise the word unconditional has no meaning. If you'd like it better, the only condition of recieving god's love is accepting god's love. We can word hack all night but it won't get us any closer to anything.

This is true tacky. For some the word 'unconditional' just has no meaning. The fact that words like acceptance, belief, worship, (insert appropriate grovelling stance here) are tacked (no pun intended)onto this word 'unconditional' is the bit many have great difficulty with.

[tackattack]

And when it's atached to a word like unconditional surrender does it still hold no meaning? As a peace treaty it by it's nature still has to be accepted as a condition. Is I've never used unconditional groveling anything in my time on this earth nor have I heard it in any congergation I've been in. Are you saying that people have that much of a hard time acepting the term unconditional love? I'm trying to read between the lines KN, please tell me what you're trying to really say.. no inuendo.

[KichigaiNeko]

And when it's atached to a word like unconditional surrender does it still hold no meaning? As a peace treaty it by it's nature still has to be accepted as a condition. Is I've never used unconditional groveling anything in my time on this earth nor have I heard it in any congergation I've been in. Are you saying that people have that much of a hard time acepting the term unconditional love? I'm trying to read between the lines KN, please tell me what you're trying to really say.. no inuendo.

Do you know nothing of humans tacky?? Scare people enough with earthquakes, oil spills, damaging weather and the like and you will have any number of 'grovelling individuals' who are ready and willing to sell their souls to your devil just to be spared any inconvenience.

Your 'unconditional' always comes with "CONDITIONS" so it is a word of no or very little worth...to use this as a clear demonstration of this god of yours is a worthless exercise so I would like to you to consider another angle please...

There tacky clear enough for you ??? Or do I have to start using expletives and start vilifying you point of view?? so you will take notice ??

Tacky you are one obtuse mofo...you know this don't you.

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Innuendo...
That's Italian for suppository isn't it??

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Sorry for trying to support your point of view as having anything to do with validity next time won't you....

[Strongbad]

Everything I'm aware of in existence has the basic condition of acceptance. I naturally rule that one out otherwise the word unconditional has no meaning. If you'd like it better, the only condition of recieving god's love is accepting god's love. We can word hack all night but it won't get us any closer to anything.

Everything in existence “exists” whether you accept it or not. And unfortunately, “unconditional” does have meaning – it means “not conditional or limited”, “absolute”, “unqualified” (sorry about all of this “word hacking”). But I think I am clear on your stance: the Christian god loves us unconditionally unless we don’t accept his love, in which case he withholds it. Of course, this means that all people of religions other than yours, who don’t accept the love of your god, are doomed to an eternity in hell.

I have no idea what universalism believes, but the NIV and KJV Bible are actually very vague on what happens exactly after death.

I think this passage from the KJV bible makes it pretty clear what Jesus thinks will happen to unbelievers i.e., people who don’t accept god’s love, after they die:

Mark 9:43-48
43And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
44Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
45And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
46Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
47And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
48Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry. -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post

I think I have a term to designate the followers: Conditional Unconditionalists.