Bill O'Reilly: No True Christian would kill Norwegians.

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes, that is the point, which is why your question

Do you agree that it means that at every christian you have met has at least performed some morally objectionable activity against you?

was stupid. No one, least of me, mentioned morally objectionable. So why would agree with that ridiculous statement?



Which is not loving, ie something you would not do to someone you love but someone you could happily do to someone you are indifferent about.

No one mentioned anything about morally objectionable. Since when is straw manning someone morally objectionable? That is ridiculous.

Oh damn sorry, I forgot to put "try" in that quote and you appear to have used it to wiggle your back to your saying that all christians have merely been neutral around you. You can't say this, you've fervently denied this in a post I quoted earlier by you.

As I extensively went over in the post. You said "mutually exculisve to trying to love". This is not "not loving" (please don't use this double not as the entire basis for your next post, the meaning is very clear here) as I'm sure you know.

I never mentioned anything about immoral, that is your little straw man. I said they were doing things that clearly demonstrated they were not trying to love me. You, some what foolishly, assume that must mean what they were doing was immoral, nasty, morally objectionable or any other negative aspect.

This, as I've explained, is because you seem to not understand what exactly Jesus asks Christians to do. It isn't just try and be nice, thus not doing it doesn't require nasty or immoral behavior. Just normal human behavior.

We've also moved on from your being able to say that "people don't understand the teachings" consistently with your fist statement.

Seriously raah take a minute to just stop, take a deep breath, put away your preconceptions and just listen for 5 seconds :rolleyes:

It seems you have given up Wicknight. YOu haven't addressed my last point at all. But simply used an incomplete quote, which from the context you should have been very clear that it was me saying that you were saying "mutually exclusive to trying to love".

So that's where we are in this thing. I'm trying to lead you through it by the hand. If you can give one example of something which is "mutually exclusive to trying to love" which is not at least morally objectionable. Then do so, until then, my position that all such behaviours will be morally objectionable is the dialectically superior one.

Again, just to remind you , with reference to a quote from this thread, the possibilities open to you:

I said they were doing things that clearly demonstrated they were not trying to love me.

First of all, your latest statement is that they are "diong things mutually exclusive to trying to love you".

You're now trying to revert to the neutral/passive description of their behaviours. I've shown you previously, and this is why you returned to your original meaning that they were 'doing things mutually exclusive to trying to love you' or in other words, doing things which are opposite to trying to love you.

If they were there just standing next to you, and not visibly overwhelmed with profusions of love, then you cannot infer that they were not trying. If you do infer this you are inferring it without a basis, and irrationaly coming to a conclusion about a group of people that you refuse to change. We've been over this.

So again, before you go into your "strawman/I didn't say that/I actually meant the opposite to what I said" routine, give one example of something which is:

"Mutually exclusive to trying to love you" that is not in some way morally objectionable. Remeber, you cannot revert to the passive neutral case of just "not loving you" because as I've pointed out, this is not in any way exclusive to trying to love you. Not accomplishing a task is not mutually exclusive with trying to accomplish it. At least that's how must people use the word try, you seem to have some different understanding. Anyway, the question is there, if you'd like to actually continue with the discussion.

Wicknight wrote: »

I never mentioned anything about immoral, that is your little straw man. I said they were doing things that clearly demonstrated they were not trying to love me. You, some what foolishly, assume that must mean what they were doing was immoral, nasty, morally objectionable or any other negative aspect.

This, as I've explained, is because you seem to not understand what exactly Jesus asks Christians to do. It isn't just try and be nice, thus not doing it doesn't require nasty or immoral behavior. Just normal human behavior.

Seriously raah take a minute to just stop, take a deep breath, put away your preconceptions and just listen for 5 seconds :rolleyes:

Anyway, this seems to be the only arguments in your post, and I really should have only responded to this.

First of all, just because you didn't say something, doesn't mean that that something isn't entailed in what you do say.

Now to the 'behaviour mutually exclusive to trying to love' being "normal human behaviour".

We've actually already addressed this. These are not behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love at all. As we all know you can try to do something and not do it at the same time.

You definitely understand this, as we had already established this conclusion, in the quotes I put up in that post (which you conveniently ignored) I show that you had changed your position a second time from the neutral stance, back to your original stance. You have now changed it a third time to the neutral stance again. Hilariously, neither of these positions are tenable. The neutral one, being your first safe harbour, has already been dealt with extensively.

So "behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love". I could name many, they are all negative and morally objectionable. Just as the one you cited of "dishonesty, disrespect etc." (characteristics you said yourself go along with strawmanning) is negative and morally objectionable.

You are now trying to say that "just not loving you" is what oyu meant every christian you've met has done. This is not "mutually exclusive with trying to love you". Can you accept this?

Furthermore, the same question that has remained for the last million posts, if I'm strawmanning you so badly, then you won't have any trouble naming a single thing "mutually exclusive to trying to love you", which is not in some way morally objectionable, or on the hate side of the love/hate scale.

Of course your answering of this question depends on whether or not you think it's possible to try to do something and then not be able to do it. (It is, by any standard usage of the word, but if you have some other usuage, then we'll either have to phrase the question differently, or accept that you are not really speaking english.)

Well I can see you are not going to answer those questions (after about 10 posts of it being asked, and trying to avoid it with smiley faces, strawmen, and isolated quotes).

But if you did answer them or if anyone who isn't in some way handicapped or psychologically debilitated in some way answered them you would see that I was right to infer "all christian's I've met are nasty" from your original a statement. You were wrong about what was new in the bible, you were wrong about the meaning of the word try, you were wrong about the words you used and you were completely wrong to accuse me of strawmanning you.

Of course, you are not going to change your completely baseless and irrational opinion about "every christian you've met". Seeing as though in this very thread you just repeat already refuted arguments fresh (see thing about christians "not knowing what jesus asks of them" on this very page. Inconsistent with your other views on many counts, addressed and moved on from earlier in the thread). This raises the question of why you even bother to engage in these online debates.

If you'd like you can retract your statement about "every christian you've met" and apologise to me for saying that I strawmanned you. If you do then I'll be able to respect you as an honest human being again. Of course, it may well be psychologically impossible for you to do so, but you could admit at least that much .Until then, this entire thread will serve as evidence of your ironic blatant display of dishonesty and irrationality.

Originally Posted by raah!
Do you believe that not loving (or not doing anything for that matter) is mutually exclusive to trying to love (or trying to do anything) ?.

No.

Well this is good, and we are now one set of clarifications away from being completely finished

Certainly.

Given that you seem to think everything you have done so far is immoral, I'll pick an example from another discussion.

Attempting to win an argument by focusing on mistakes that are irrelevant to the point at hand (eg, Well you spelt the word Testament wrong, clearly there is no point listening to you argue about 14th century reformation movement).

This is not morally objectionable, it is not nasty, but it is incompatible with trying to love the person. It is an act of ego at the expense of the other person.

Do you not think it's dishonest? Do you not think that lowering someone else's social status so that you can higher your own is immoral?

Would you agree with the general point that "causing someone else harm so that you may benefit is immoral?". Do you recognise that defaming someone can be construed as a kind of harm? And that most people do not want to have their pride injured or to have their status in society lowered?

It's not generally considered immoral to just try to raise your own social status. But, generally, to do so dishonestly at the expense of others is considered immoral. Just like it's not generally considered that things like aquiring an apple for your self are immoral, but tricking someone out of their apple is immoral. I would also consider the person in that situation, who chose to mock your spelling as a way of getting out of the debate, to be unpleasant.

So in this situation, we have a person stealing social status from another person. Not aquiring social status as a result of an honest competition. It's cheating.

Perhaps you don't see cheating in contests as immoral, but that's fine. We can continue from here anyway.

So, since the only 2 examples you have given of "behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love you" have been both pretty much related to "dishonest debating tactics", are you saying that every christian you have met has engaged dishonestly with you in a debate?

Now remember, since you have ruled out everything like "nasty, morally objectionable, unpleasant", and have thus far not provided a single example of something "mutually exclusive to trying to love" which is not generally considered at the very least dishonest or at most nasty, morally objectionable etc. You cannot just repeat again that the statement does not mean "something negative about christians".

Unless you'd like to specify what you find nasty and immoral. As it seems you have some strange views about this. Just so we're clear, I do find cheating in a debate to make yourself look good at the expense of another person to be nasty. I see this as no different to stealing an apple from something, or doing any whole range of things, many of which are considered crimes, which involve dishonestly and immorally profiting at the expense of others.

So if it's the case all along that you do not consider cheating or dishonesty (these are the only two examples you've given) to be nasty or objectionable then your statement stands logically. However, it still amounts to you saying that every christian you have met has cheated you in some way to make themselves feel good. Is this what you mean?

Wicknight wrote: »

I doubt that, but lets carry on in hope ....


In its most basic sense, yes. In the way that telling your girlfriend you enjoyed "Just Friends" is dishonest or saying "Sure" when someone says something is is clearly wrong but you just don't want to get into an argument about it, is dishonest.

Ok well this is not in any way like that. Those would be instances of dishonesty which do not harm the other person in any way. As I said, this is more like tricking someone into believing something, or tricking other people into thinking that another persons arguments are invalid. It is using dishonesty to lower the credibility of other people.

Dishonesty in of itself is not nasty or immoral.

Nobody every said "in and of itself", and I gave many examples to that end. Furthermore, this is not something you can just say, that it's not immoral, that would depend on your moral code. But anyway, with regard to those points, you were very clear about it being "at the expense of another".

Do you agree that examples where people are lying to make the other person feel better are very different from ones where they lie to make themselves feel better and them worse as a result?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Define "lowering someone else's social status".

For example, if I were to lie and cheat so that you would appear like a bigot, and then people thought you were a bigot, your social status (on the internet) would be lowered from 'not a bigot' to 'a bigot'.

Again you will have to define harm. Harm is such a general term I can't possibly give a single answer to that question.

Embarrassing someone who has been annoying you so they will go away, not immoral.

Running over someone with your car, immoral.

By harm I just mean doing something to the other person that that person doesn't want you to do to them. In this case i was very clear that it was "damaging their social status" and making them feel bad as a result.

When you say "at the other person's expense" you mean the same thing I mean here. Unless you meant something different. In what way are the dishonest tactics of every Christian you've met "at the other person's expense"?

With regard to you not considering these thigns immoral, we can just skip past this. I was using the word on the understanding that you also accepted the common moral precept that lying and cheating to get ahead is immoral. When I use a word with a subjective intepretation, you should assume that I am using the standard meaning, not your particular meaning. So, if you don't think those things are immoral, then I'm not going to press that further, I'm fairly certain that you actually do, but we don't need to get bogged down in what this or that word means to you.

Again this depends on what constitutes defamation. I know the legal definition of that word, and I suspect you are using it wrong. So some clarification is required.

I was using it very loosely, in much the same way I was using "lowering social status" earlier in the thread. This usage could be inferred from those earlier references to "lowering of social status".

Again you will have to clarify "raise your own social status."

Perhaps to clarify, do you believe winning arguments on Boards.ie raises your social status?

It raises your social status on boards, and perhaps elsewhere. This is not a subjective thing. If people see you winning arguments they will think better of you, whether or not you see such things as beneath you, as you are now angling at.

Unpleasantness is not immoral, nor is it necessarily nasty.

The standard usage of the word nasty easily encompasses both the meanings of immoral and unpleasant. There is not some very specific meaning of the word which you can say that if it doesn't fulfill then it's used improperly. Again, I used the word, and I was using it the way normal people use it. There is the full dictionary.com definition.

nas·ty   [nas-tee] Show IPA adjective, -ti·er, -ti·est, noun, plural -ties.
adjective
1.
physically filthy; disgustingly unclean: a nasty pigsty of a room.
2.
offensive to taste or smell; nauseating.
3.
offensive; objectionable: a nasty habit.
4.
vicious, spiteful, or ugly: a nasty dog; a nasty rumor.
5.
bad or hard to deal with, encounter, undergo, etc.; dangerous; serious: a nasty cut; a nasty accident.
6.
very unpleasant or disagreeable: nasty weather.
7.
morally filthy; obscene; indecent: a nasty word.
8.
Slang . formidable: The young pitcher has a good fast ball and a nasty curve.

You can see here that the general usage of the word is just things like: objectionable (morally), unpleasant, offensive, malicious. When I used the word it was to invoke the meaning in your statement that every christian you've met has done something "mutually exclusive to loving you", this will always be something like "being dishonest at your expense, being arrogant at your expense, being maliciously unpleasant to you etc." . That's what that statement means. You are saying that you meant it to just mean pretty much "using dishonest strawmanning tactics". Though I don't believe that this is how you used it, and that this is an evasion tactic, it's fine. We can still explore what your statement means in that light of those specific constriants.

Again you are really going to have to clarify this who social status thing of yours before I can comment.

To clarify I've never believed my social status has been effected by a Christian, not as far as I'm aware at least. To me social status has little to do with what I'm saying.



I don't consider what we are discussing "cheating", but then we seem to be discussing different things. You have moved on to stealing social status, what ever that is.

Hopefully the above clarifications will show what I mean. Your social status most definitely has been affected by some one of those Christians. If it's true what you say, then you have either benefited from being able to unveil their dishonest tricks, thereby validating you when you go about saying things like "all Christians are dishonest", or have suffered as a result of those tricks. If we take this example, say, someone was using trickery to convince people you were a bigot.

Technically yes, though again I think you are over playing 'dishonest' for effect.

For example you have been dishonest in our discussion many times. You seem to genuinely not think you have, so it is difficult to attribute nastiness to this dishonesty. You are being technically dishonest, but without malice. I suspect you are not even really aware you are doing it.

What? To be dishonest you have to know you are being dishonest. That's how the word goes. Lying about something is not telling an accidental mis-truth about it. It's deliberately saying something which you believe to be untrue. At least this is the standard usage of the word. And as I said, you should just assume I'm using the word in the way that people use it in general, or the ways specified in a reliable dictionary.

Now, it's not neccessary that there be malice for these sort of dishonest tricks to be immoral. Just like when someone steals an apple from you it is not because they hate you, but that they want an apple. It is still wrong to dishonestly profit from the loss of another person. Just as it is wrong to cheat in the leaving cert, and just as it is wrong to act obnoxiously in a debate to win points with people. (In fact, if you'd like to seee how the word is used standardly like this, I remember a thread in after hours where a person used the term exaclty like this. Furthermore, It's probably not difficult to find in this forum where someone says "you're strawmanning, not very christian (i.e that's immoral) ).

Well I suspect that you are angling at a new way into the "neutral" phrasing of your thing, and I'll ask for clarifications at the end.

Well, do you believe you have been nasty to me in this debate? I don't.

Please try to refrain from this terrible form of argumentation. Where you assume I am arguing dishonestly and then use that against my arguments. I'm sure you can understand that it's terribly circular.

Furthermore, the conjunction of 'nasty' with 'dishonest at the expense of another' is not really crucial to the point I am making. But I do think being dishonest at the expense of another person is in some sense nasty and morally objectionable. Mocking someone's grammar is not a nice thing, you could easily say it's nasty.

But again, that we disagree on how we would each use these words doesn't matter.

It seems that you are now trying to get across again that those Christians you met were unconsciously acting in support of their best interests, and if they were doing this we cannot really say that it is immoral, since they were not consciously doing what they did. Is this true?

Or were they consciously and deliberately being dishonest?

Wicknight wrote: »

When have I mentioned a Christian harming me? Why would they have to harm me for me to conclude they were not trying to love me?

Surely you would be able to interpret my use of the word "harm" in the light of the last two posts that came before it? Harm here just means what I have used it to mean the whole time. Done something negative to you, that you didn't want done to you. Harmed your social status etc.

You asked is dishonesty immoral, but are now saying that said dishonest involves harming people.

So as I said, dishonesty is not in of itself immoral. If you end up killing someone due to dishonest then sure it can be immoral. But we aren't talk about anything like that. We are talking about mild mannered interactions with Christians, often on an internet discussion board. :rolleyes:

Again wicknight, I'm sure you could have inferred that I was talking about the kind of dishonesty in those examples you gave. And not something like saying "that dress doesn't look fat on you". Do you agree that the examples you've given are not an appropriate comparison with the kind of dishonesty we are talking about here? That is, dishonest behaviour done for ones own profit at the expense of another.

If you quote single sentences before you read the post this is bound to happen, that is very poor practice in reading comprehension.

I just gave you examples where it wasn't immoral. Your insistence that "this is not in any way like that" would lead me to conclude you agree.

What you appear to be asking is is immoral dishonesty immoral!

... Ok. Well it's ridiculous for you to do this when my posts are just there below you. I thought perhaps that maybe I had misprhased something, but I said this originally:

raah!
Do you not think it's dishonest? Do you not think that lowering someone else's social status so that you can higher your own is immoral?

Would you agree with the general point that "causing someone else harm so that you may benefit is immoral?". Do you recognise that defaming someone can be construed as a kind of harm? And that most people do not want to have their pride injured or to have their status in society lowered?

You then tried to say that what they were doing was dishonest in the way that saying "that dress does not make you look fat" is dishonest. I told you it is not that way. So please, read what I say before you respond to it. And remember that I will be checking back on what you and I have said, so trickery such as that will be noticed.

Without knowing what you mean by "very different" I'm afraid to answer that question. They are different, but again your insistence that being dishonest in an internet discussion forum is immoral is not a conclusion I share, and frankly screams of sensationalism.

You don't know what I mean by very different? It's the word different, with the qualifier "very" before it, to indicate that the difference between these two things is not negligible. That is what I meant by those words. That is what most people would normally mean by them.

Well it's not important that you do not consider it to be immoral. Infact, that you think there is nothing wrong with lying and deceiving in a debate may well explain your constant diversion tactics here. I find such tactics as mocking a persons spelling and lying about various things to defame them to be not only immoral, but also pathetic. But it doesn't matter, this is one instance where the word "immoral" is actually subjective. We need not agree that it is immoral.

LOL. If anyone was stupid enough to think I was a bigot because someone said I was on an online discussion forum I wouldn't be too concerned what they thought about me in the first place.

Do you genuinely believe this?

Yes I do believe that what people read or hear about you will affect how they perceive you. Even if only in that context where it is said. i.e, even if it's only on the internet.

If you say so. I think we find ourselves back at that famous impasse we often find ourselves at. I can't relate to you if you genuinely believe that once can cause another harm on an anonymous internet discussion forum.

I can assure you I have never felt harmed by anything a Christian has ever said to me on Boards.ie.

That's fine, you can use that word how you like. It's not neccessary for us to get hung up on your very specific (and incorrect) definitions of words like harm. It is not necessary for you to "feel harmed" for the statement "caused harm to your social status" to be true. But it doesn't matter. We can move on.

You will notice I never said they were being immoral. I said they were acting in a way that was mutually exclusive to how they would act if they were trying to love me.

Whether you are aware or not that you were being dishonest (I suspect, but obviously cannot prove, that you were), it doesn't really matter because it does not require you to have been nasty.

Thus your thesis that I must conclude all these Christians who were not trying to love me must have been being nasty to me is dis-proven.

Agreed?

Well again Wicknight, it really isn't important that you ever explicitly said that the christians you have met were immoral. I used the word to describe the kinds of behaviours these christians would have to have if they were in fact "behaving in ways mutually exclusive to trying to love you". It doesn't matter that you only see things like killing you, or insulting you in person, as immoral. And furthermore, it seems very likely that you do think there is something immoral about it, as you tried to hide away in the lesser case of saying "I liked that dinner" or something like that. If you really thought that the case in which someone is dishonest to profit at someone elsees expense, then you would not have to use those diversion tactics, and examples which are obviously nothing similar to the case being discussed.

And again, you have just skipped over all argument and definitions of the word nasty and stuck with your own strange and extremely (and incorrectly) specific definition of the word. I used the word nasty to describe them, when I used it, I used it under the standard meaning, not just how you would use it. Furthermore, this is more trickery from you in pretending that all I have been arguing is that "strawmanning is nasty", while I do think it's nasty, I could very well continue to press my "thesis" without recourse to those words at all.

The finishing proof however, is here:

As far as what "behaviours mutually exclusive to loving you" goes, you have narrowed this down to "dishonest debating tactics".

So first of all, your original statement is obviously not true. Every christian you have met did not engage you in debate, and if they did, it's unlikely that every single one of them did so in a dishonest fashion.

And as I've been saying from the start, what your statement amounts to, is saying that every christian you've met, has struck you in some negative way. Be it dishonesty, arrogance, they have done something negative to you.


Furthermore, it's very important to point this out, and this is something you do almost constantly. You are trying to sneak the neutral case back in through this "there's nothing wrong with dishonest trickery". If there is nothing wrong with it, then why is it an instance of their not loving you?

For their behaviour to be "mutually exclusive to their trying to love you" they have to wrong you in some way. What you have done is given an example of "dishonest trickery" as something "mutually exclusive to loving you", because this is something which everyone considers wrong. It is a negative unpleasant characteristic. You then try to start saying "there's nothing wrong with it at all", which is patently absurd, because if that were the case, then it would not be "mutually exclusive to loving you".

So, if there's nothing wrong with "dishonest strawmanning and trickery at your expense" then it is not something which is "mutually exclusive to loving you". And you have contrdicted yourself in giving it as an example.

So again we have you saying something groundless and irrational. "Every christian I've met has engaged with me dishonestly in a debate". This is a moronic statement. This didn't happen. Obviously you just had to retreat to this to defend your general statement. That you so want to cling to these negative views of "every christian you've met" without any actual rational basis, means that you are a bigot.

This was my "thesis" all along. You are saying these negative things about christians you've met not because you have any reason to say them, or that they are in any way rooted in experience, but that you, like most of the people who post here, enjoy to engage in senseless 'out-group hostility'. Whereby you frame yourself as "honest rationalists" and the christians are 'dishonest immoral...etc.'. This helps you see yourself positively, and this is why you get people on here searching out instances of "dishonest nasty immoral christians" on the internet to share with their fellows here. This is why a mass murder in Norway creates such a wave of satisfaction across the atheist blogs.

Wicknight wrote: »

Harm means harm raah. If you didn't mean harm then don't say harm :rolleyes:

My point was that it doesn't have to mean physical harm. This is just another instance of you limiting the meanings of words to suit your purposes.

I would be very cautious about inferring anything from what you post given your tendency to completely mis-understand what I'm saying.

If we cannot assume we are both understanding each other it would be foolish of me to assume you mean anything, since in the past what you have meant has been miles of what I would have assumed would be the rational response to what I said.

So I will stick with answering your questions as directly as possible, least we wind up with any further misunderstandings.

And as you know (that you know this is evident from the absence of your quoting the clarificactions), I clearly said "dishonest at the expense of another".

I'm aware of that, you seem to missed the point where I disagreed with you. It is not nasty or immoral. It is not lowering someone's social status. It is harmless.

Do you understand wicknight, that if I give arguments to support something, and you give none then I assume that you have no arguments to refute this, and have accepted it? Just saying "I disagree" is not an argument.

Well I made the mistake of assuming you were using the word "harm" normally, and look where that got us.

What did you assume about it wicknight? That I meant it physically harms you? That's not really possible to do.

It is if you want to support your original claim that my comments were bigoted.

Ok well I'll address this toward the end. You seem to thrive in a mulit-quote atmosphere where you can ignore massive chunks of my posts. Single isolated sentences are not a proper way of understanding someones argument.

You believe everything you read on the Internet?

Do you think that addresses anything in what you've quoted?

Well you will notice that your charge against me is that I was saying that all Christians I've met have acted in a nasty or immoral fashion towards me, and that this was a bigoted statement.

Saying now that I don't have to say they acted nasty or immoral to me, nor do I have to think they acted nasty or immoral to me, it is enough that you say what I meant was that they were nasty, well frankly that is just ridiculous.

You seem to have run out of an argument?

Ok, well since you like to pick and choose what you respond to. I'd prefer if you only responded to these last points.

You can still be a bigot if you say something like "every black person is a dishonest thief, but there's nothing wrong with that". I am calling you a bigot because you have no basis to say what you are saying. And you are saying negative things, you are saying that every Christian you have met is doing things which would be conventionally considered nasty or unpleasant, but which are fine by you (and that such behaviours are fine by you would go along ways towards explaining your behaviour in this thread). Now here is a section of the last post that you chose not to respond to:

For their behaviour to be "mutually exclusive to their trying to love you" they have to wrong you in some way. What you have done is given an example of "dishonest trickery" as something "mutually exclusive to loving you", because this is something which everyone considers wrong. It is a negative unpleasant characteristic. You then try to start saying "there's nothing wrong with it at all", which is patently absurd, because if that were the case, then it would not be "mutually exclusive to loving you".

So, if there's nothing wrong with "dishonest strawmanning and trickery at your expense" then it is not something which is "mutually exclusive to loving you". And you have contrdicted yourself in giving it as an example.

So again we have you saying something groundless and irrational. "Every christian I've met has engaged with me dishonestly in a debate". This is a moronic statement. This didn't happen. Obviously you just had to retreat to this to defend your general statement. That you so want to cling to these negative views of "every christian you've met" without any actual rational basis, means that you are a bigot.

So again, I don't care what special "understandings" you may have of the words "nasty" or "immoral". It makes no difference to me. You are saying that every single christian you have met has exhibited some unattractive characteristic, and wronged you in some way. Since about 1000 posts ago I've been saying this to you. It doesn't matter which words I use , or you use to say that every christian you have met has been dishonest, or something else which will of necessity be a negative thing.

Wicknight wrote: »

See you are in trouble now.

You assert that anyone doing anything that demonstrates they are not trying to love someone that means they are trying to wrong or harm them.

Well that is a nice little bigoted statement right there, isn't it. So everyone in the world is basically trying to harm or wrong everyone else except for their immediate friends and family.

Let me guess, that isn't what you meant ...

It would imply that only if I thought that everyone in the world was "engaged in behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love someone", and as we've already discussed, not loving someone is not mutually exclusive with trying to love someone.

The whole point is that "behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love" are going to be of logical necessity things which are wronging or harming people in some way. It is going to be a host of negative things.

What you are doing here in this post, is just trying to again sneak in the neutral case. That everyone in the world is engaged in "behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love" when we've both already established that not doing anything with respect to a person is not "mutually exclusive to trying to love that person".

You know this, and I know this, this is why your examples were all things which involve people doing things which were objectionable or not nice to you. Like strawmanning, and other such dishonest tactics.

So just to summarise, I do think that "bevahiours mutually exclusive to trying to love" are going to be negative things. Indeed every example either of us have given have been negative/objectionable behaviours. But nowhere in this entire thread or in that post did I say that "everyone is engaged in behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love".

You used some very very very questionable logic. You said you were taking my meaning (the only meaning that either of us have ever used as well), that "behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love" were bad things, then you reverted to your escape tactic of trying to pretend that this just refers to the neutral case. So you switched meaning mid argument. You essentially inferred that "everyone who is not interacting either positively or negatively with a person is doing something wrong with respect to that person".

We can go over that if you'd like. But the main crucial, and final point of the whole argument is that:

"behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love" will in some way involve a person doing so mething objectionable, nasty, immoral, dishonst, not nice, whatever you want, against the person they are supposed to be trying to love. This is confirmed by the only examples you have given, and by the common sense english interpretation of the words.

Wicknight wrote: »

So to your mind most people in the world are actively trying to love everyone else in the world? Since that is the only alternative you presented me. You are either trying to love someone or you are trying to hate them, since not trying to love someone means trying to hate them, according to you.

People they never met, people they barely know. They are all trying to love them? Or, since there is no alternative to your mind, they are thus trying to hate them, and suggesting that most people are actively trying to hate everyone else would just be ridiculous and rather quite bigoted.

So this is your position, just to be sure? Cause you are either bigoted (believing everyone is trying to hate everyone else) or insane (believing that everyone is trying to love everyone else).

Or possibly you don't actually believe what you said to me earlier ....

Ah well, we've been over it a million times. The alternative to doing something nasty to someone, and also to trying to love them, is just to act neutrally with respect to them. As I pointed out in that post which you again chose to ignore "standing next to someone is not an instance of a behaviour which is mutually exclusive to trying to love them".

The reason I put the two questions way back there up was:

"Do you agree that not loving someone is not mutually exclusive with trying to love them" - This , people just acting neutrally, is not compatible with your "behaviours mutually exclusive to trying to love people" statement.

And you agreed to this question. You also agreed that if you were to infer that people were "not trying to love you" from their neutral behaviour that you would be a bigot. This was way earlier in the thread. This is the reason why you gave the [paraphrase] 'no, they are not just acting neutrally, they are actively engaged in behaviours mutually exclusive with their trying to love'.

With this "mutually exclusive to trying to love" there are no alternatives. If they are engaged in these behaviours then they are engaged in objectionable etc. behaviours.

You seem to be really trying your hardest to turn your original statement back into a statement where the christians you have met were just behaving neutrally. This is really amazing. Because you've already admitted yourself that you would be a bigot for saying what you said if those christians were infact only acting neutrally with respect to you and you made this baseless inference. So I would ask you to try and read over the things you have said before, and also my full posts. And try not to forget all the arguments that have gone by before.