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Recent content by Zophius

  1. Z

    what do you mean when you say "God"?

    No, I don't think so. Funny enough, but I just don't feel like subjecting myself to more of this kind of snideness and condescension. I'm sure you'll interpret that as your having "won". If that makes you feel good, go right ahead.
  2. Z

    The sick concept of Eternal hell suffering.

    Now it's my turn to say amen. But for Heneni's sake I will rephrase: any god that would employ legions of minions to torture his creatures for eternity is not good, and thus not God. The problem with Hell is that it is a psychologically powerful idea, and the majority of people confuse the...
  3. Z

    what do you mean when you say "God"?

    LM, you have systematically distorted what I said. I didn't say that people had to believe in God to create poetry or art; I said that talking about God, for many people, was more similar to creating poetry or art than it was to anything else. Nor did I say one needed the word God to express the...
  4. Z

    what do you mean when you say "God"?

    Thank you, a...1. I appreciate the warm welcome and the references to those other threads - will check them out...
  5. Z

    The sick concept of Eternal hell suffering.

    Heaven and hell are not literal places or states. Neither is the afterlife. All refer to states of the spirit on the road to down to darkness or up to enlightenment. Any god who would torture his creatures for eternity is not good and therefore not God, but an impostor created by human beings.
  6. Z

    Arabic - The Mother of All Languages

    Darkwater, your beliefs are completely deranged. But I have to give you credit for your persistence, and the sheer boldness of your delusions.
  7. Z

    what do you mean when you say "God"?

    Like most sweeping generalizations, this is at best a half-truth. Such ideas are most often not statements of fact competing with scientific or any other statements of fact. They are attempts to express the inexpressible - how their personal experience, the universe, the web of relationships...
  8. Z

    what do you mean when you say "God"?

    Some good points there. It seems to me I've erred in just pursuing this one line of argument, because the other half of it - maybe the core of it - is that similar alternative conceptions of God are not new in Western thought. There are echoes (I am not necessarily claiming equivalents) of what...
  9. Z

    Everyone: Who believes that Jesus truly existed.

    Just a minor historical detail: No one knows who wrote the Gospels. They wrote in the names of his disciples (or disciples of his disciples), but there is no evidence to show it was actually them.
  10. Z

    what do you mean when you say "God"?

    Any decent intellectual historian could tell you that your spoon has no idea what it's typing about. The meaning of the word "atom" for contemporary physicists is very, very different from what it meant for physicists 100-odd years ago. Did that transition take a lot of messy arguments? Of...
  11. Z

    no more Old Testament, thank you

    Jesus isn't here. If you have a serious argument, I'd be interested to hear it. As it is you have not said anything.
  12. Z

    no more Old Testament, thank you

    Jeremy, to your points, which I guess were originally addressed to someone else: 1) The OT covers a broader time span. - The OT's antiquity makes it crucial as a historical document, but that's about it. 2) The OT primarily sets the legal parameters and the precedent of God's justice. - I...
  13. Z

    no more Old Testament, thank you

    Angellous: you failed to give one specific example to refute my assertion and support yours, while calling my opinion "irresponsible and infantile". I'll refrain from pointing out the irony of your remarks, but that sounds like the lack of an argument to me. See, that makes sense, except the...
  14. Z

    no more Old Testament, thank you

    I have had it with the Old Testament. Except for every once and a while when something truly divine shows through, the OT God just seems like a souped-up tribal patriarch to me. He is constantly jealous, angry, violent - and most important, all too human in inspiration. I don't see any sign in...
  15. Z

    what do you mean when you say "God"?

    There is no other easily available word for what I mean by God, even if there are possible analogues. Please look at the post that started this thread, and the one after that in which I make clear that I am not using God just to refer to some ordinary concept such as "love" or "the universe." I...
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