@shinyblurry

Sigh, I was trying to avoid being drawn into a theological conversation about love and judgement, but I guess I asked for it.

There are some major theological and philosophical problems with your resolution of justice and love. Let me go into a couple of them. But before that, let me say that I am not hatting on your faith right now. These are just my personal waxing on Christianity. I am no some master of theology, but I am also not naive of the bible and basic logical constructs. Understand, that I am not trying to drag you down or give you excess flack, you have had your fair share of that lately. BUUUUT since you did take the time to write something else, I thought I would return that favor.

First and foremost, you can't resolve what is unresolvable. Love and Justice are pitted against one another in certain instances. There comes a point where you can't be loving and just...you must make a choice. For instance, if your wife cheats on you, you have a choice. You can either forgive her or your can choose not to ignore it and break off the relationship. This has a few oversimplifications like, you could still be with them but also hold it against them, but that goes against the other idea of love, which is forgiveness (so they wouldn't be in a loving relationship anymore). At the end of the world, God makes an arbitrary choice, he decides to not love people who didn't accept Christ, and decides to continue to love those whom did. For the damned, the statement of Corinthians "Love never fails" surely has lost all meaning to them...love wasn't enough.

Second of all, if God is ok with transferring blame from those who are damned to those who are not, then he is forbidden to be the referee in any gaming event I control. It is a mockery to the ideals of justices to let the innocent suffer for the deeds of the wicked. I can't think of a MORE unjust act. The entire "idea" of salvation is a rosy picture. But if you actually care about justice, the idea of salvation flies right in the face of it. Either God isn't as loving as he would say he is, or he doesn't care about justice as much as he says he does. One must be true. God must either not be all loving, or not care about perfect justice. There is no need for judgement if both those things are not true (fucken double negatives!). Would you punish your neighbors dog for peeing on your rug when it was your own dog? Punishment is non-transferable if you really care about justice, period.

Also, it is a mockery to justice that Jesus still gets to go to heaven, even after being made sinful in our stead. Let us take another example. Let us say I am a murderer. I start racking up the kills, become the number one murderer of all times. Then, I get caught. On my behalf, the richest, most affluent political figure in the world decides to accept all the punishment for my crimes. For some crazy ass reason, everyone goes along with this idea. Being so rich and powerful, he is able to get all the charges dismissed. So he and I get away with the most hideous crime of all time, and no punishment is dealt out, to anyone. Is this justice? If it is, God once again can't be the ref any any sporting events I control. Jesus was made imperfect for our sake. Imperfect things do not go to heaven. Jesus should not be in heaven, period. If he is, then the God never really cared about the charges anyway, or doesn't really take justice very seriously.

I also don't understand how the Bible is able to claim the punishment for sin is death, when everyone dies anyway...even the saved. O ok, so I guess their spirit gets to live on or something, but who's spirit died in their steads? I can tell you it wasn't Jesus's, because he is supposedly chilling in heaven. The fact is, SOME will suffer death from sin, others will not. The saved are a special case where the rules needed for their salvation aren't needed because no one is going to die from their sins anyway. I mean Jesus might of literally died, but we all do that, so Jesus didn't save anything there. What you mean is a figurative death, and Jesus is surely not figuratively dead either. So no one died for Christian's sins, and no one died for the damned sins...sucks to be the damned. Once again, God can't see over any sporting events I frequent.

Also, I don't think the Bible supports the claim of "It's not that God wants to punish you...". For instance, in Romans it talks about how God specifically makes vessels of wrath.

"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction?"

They have a name for that in Chess, they are called pawns. And while Chess is only a game, it does seem to me that God is more playing a game with us than loves us or cares about us, from the bibles perspective that is. Romans gives way to this even more with:

"“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”"

Reasons? I want to, I'm God, shut up. Misunderstanding, I don't think so.

"One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?"

This is the kind of flack an adult gives out when a child catches him doing something wrong. And while in many cases, it is the child's very naive understandings of the world that lead to this situations, many times, they are justified in the question and more importantly, and answer.

I should point out, that I used to be a 5 point Calvinist. Formerly, I used to look at Romans as the great justifier of predestination. It was a power verse of immeasurable theological insight. When I read it now, I have only sadness. It isn't like this is a trivial question to ask God, but in Romans, he brushes off our very important question like he doesn't give a flying fuck. Sadness. Granted it is Paul, not Jesus, but it is still "His word". Deepening sadness.

I have about 6 more points but I have already gone on for far to long. I hope this doesn't get stolen by atheists as ammunition to fire against Christians. Nothing would make more sad than my own personal insights being used to hurt someone. These are but a few of the troubles that lead me away from Christianity being the answer for my life. I actually hope I am wrong. I hope that other people will get to enjoy heaven, even without me. I would hope that there is an actual just God out there, looking out for us, protecting us, making sure the wrongness in the world is "taken care of". But as for wrongness, I only start to see more and more of it in the bible. What used to be a shining beacon of hope, is now a book of how not to care about justice and love.

To this day, though, 1 Corinthians 13 is still what I use to define love. It is also the root of my deconversion. The love I see in 1 Corinthians 13 does not exist in the God I read about in the rest of the bible. That is all, sorry if I cause you any pain or strife with my words. Or, indeed, anyone other person of faith that reads this. If that be the case, than I have failed in great way.

I'm saying it's not a choice at all -- who the hell would choose so much exclusion and persecution? I'm disappointed this guy even suggested that it was anything but 100% natural.

Or maybe it's the case that in an environment where to question anything in the bible directly is political suicide, he's using indirect language to say what he's not saying in words.>> ^FlowersInHisHair:

>> ^messenger:
The only thing I didn't like about this guy was that he suggested it just might be possible that homosexuality isn't a lifestyle choice, that people don't just take up gayness like they take up skateboarding.

Wait, there are a lot of double negatives there. Are you saying you think it is a lifestyle choice, or that you think it isn't?

>> ^messenger:

The only thing I didn't like about this guy was that he suggested it just might be possible that homosexuality isn't a lifestyle choice, that people don't just take up gayness like they take up skateboarding.

Wait, there are a lot of double negatives there. Are you saying you think it is a lifestyle choice, or that you think it isn't?

from the cops accent, this was in the southern usa. not sure which state exactly, but they don't really care about speeding that much, so I'm not surprised that he didn't give him a ticket (excuse the double negative). Also a lot more paperwork with international drivers licenses.

in the north and western usa, state troopers give tickets to everyone they pull over. if they are "having a bad day" you could get a ticket for doing 5mph over the limit...

and any US interstate highway is certainly capable of supporting 100 mph speeds. It's just the other drivers that make it dangerous.

Oh crap. Did Tony Danza the "English" teacher use a double negative and say "You know you think you know so much, then you find out you don't know NOTHING." Sigh. Apparently he knows EVERYTHING.

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^Xax:

Everybody's gotta go to Disney World just once. Problem is, if you're like me, after you've gone once you can't not go back.


Is there a picture of you at the booth with an x through it?!

No no, I said I "can't not go back"... double negative. In other words, I must go back.

@Shepppard: You said "I don't think that thing doesn't read" so I'm not sure where the typo is in your double-negative, but I think I disagree with you (maybe.)

It definitely knows where the walk is, how fast they're going, and whether they're approaching one of the sides. The apparatus will correct the walker back into the center by speeding up in the necessary directions. In other words, if you fall down, it would just center you and stop.

In other, other words, the speed of the platform seems relative to the user's proximity to an edge.

That's how I'd code it anyway.

double negative

>> ^rkone:
>> ^sixshot:
oh, wait, I now see the problem. Those demolition explosives they were using? Yeah, it says right there: Made In China.

Well the flipside to that is the building was definately made in china, and it survived...


It's a double negative. The two cancel each other out!

i get wary when double negatives are used in connection to sex offenses..
especially when the only meaning i get from it is 'we're here to make some sex offense trouble for you!"

stop floundering

You're the only one floundering here, trying to shove your loose interpretation of poorly spoken words down the throats of everyone with any sense who is explaining rather simply the actual meaning of an often wrongly worded phrase. The bottom line is, in almost every situation, people should say "I couldn't care less" when they actually say "I could care less."

Most people just don't care enough about the words they speak to analyze or understand their meaning. Then, of course, there's that rare 0.01% of wackos who do understand but still try to defend, pervert, and proliferate twisted words because they have a false sense of entitlement and a magnificently inflated ego. These are the nuts who'd probably also try to convince you that saying "I don't not care" is also a valid way to express your lack of interest in something. "Sure it am not not a double negative and sure the speaker are actually saying it cares, but hey that am okay. You can figuring it out what they could mean any ways, so we should encourage every people to speak those way! Hooray for bastardization of these Ynglish lang wedges!" Let's encourage everyone to exercise incorrect language because, hey, everyone else can figure out what they mean anyway, right? GMAFB.


It is never misinterpreted by the listener

This is not true at all. I forget the particular song, but on Green Day's American Idiot album, a line says something like "I could care less" and I've always wondered and will never know if he added stress to the phrase to make it clear he's speaking literally about actually caring or if that stress was just for the melody and he actually misspoke as most people do and he really does not care.


Whenever this phrase is used, it is a whimsical way of saying they're in danger of caring less than they already do.

When someone exclaims, "I could care less if we water board George W.," what they're really saying is, "I'm in danger of caring less than I already do if we water board Old Georgie. Everyone pay close attention to the needle on my caring gauge because I think it's about to drop a little bit!" Right. You just keep looking at your reflection in that diploma frame and telling yourself that, friendo.

Out of curiosity, what about when people say, "If I never see you again, it'll be too soon?" Is that a whimsical way of someone saying they actually hope to see you again and preferably sometime soon, or is it someone who suffers from bad word choice and is attempting to inform that they never want to see you again?

If you ever comment on this again, it'll be too soon, and if you do, I couldn't care less.

What's funny is that the "I could care less" thing is very low on my list of grammar pet peeves (that guy was just bugging me). Conversational language is far looser than the written word, and a lot of things get a pass from me. It is also ever evolving. However, while it may be about what is implied or inferred, if you're not careful with what you say, those two can be in direct opposition. That can definitely be the case with "I could care less" (though folks seem to have accepted it). The lazier we get with our language, the less* we will understand each other in the future. The world has enough trouble communicating as it is, we shouldn't help it along.


*Less vs Fewer IS one of my pet peeves, on the other hand.
In reply to this comment by deedub81:
"Grammar is about structure, not what is implied (or inferred)."


Yes, and "language" is about what is implied and what is inferred. Grammar is not the only factor involved in communication.

Language is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols —each referring to linguistic concepts with semantic or logical or otherwise expressive meanings.

Communication is the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. Communication sometimes has nothing to do with grammar.



That being said, it bugs the CRAP outta me when somebody says, "I could care less."






In reply to this comment by Bullwinkle:
"Yep, mixed up imply/infer and didn't reread my post. Whoopee, what a tame and insanely common mistake. Notice how I can admit where I'm wrong instead of kicking the air like a mule."

A common mistake and a big one. It also discredits your whole "English Major" trumpeting.

"What an amazingly thorough rebuttal, just stubbornly asserting the opposite without addressing the logic of my post. Why would anyone interpret that you cared enough to give a preference unless an actual preference followed? Explain. Your entire argument rests on this. For "I could care less" to imply caring when the opposite was intended, it has to be inferred that way by the person to whom it's spoken."

I doon't have to write a dissertation (or 100 formal papers) to make a point, though I clearly have to illustrate it again, since you boiled it down to your point instead of mine.

Grammar is about structure, not what is implied (or inferred). So, yes, the speaker may intend to say they couldn't care less when they say, "I could care less," but that is not what they're saying, even if the listener understood what they meant. As another example, people may know what you mean when you use a double negative, that doesn't make it correct.

"Grammar is about structure, not what is implied (or inferred)."


Yes, and "language" is about what is implied and what is inferred. Grammar is not the only factor involved in communication.

Language is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols —each referring to linguistic concepts with semantic or logical or otherwise expressive meanings.

Communication is the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. Communication sometimes has nothing to do with grammar.



That being said, it bugs the CRAP outta me when somebody says, "I could care less."






In reply to this comment by Bullwinkle:
"Yep, mixed up imply/infer and didn't reread my post. Whoopee, what a tame and insanely common mistake. Notice how I can admit where I'm wrong instead of kicking the air like a mule."

A common mistake and a big one. It also discredits your whole "English Major" trumpeting.

"What an amazingly thorough rebuttal, just stubbornly asserting the opposite without addressing the logic of my post. Why would anyone interpret that you cared enough to give a preference unless an actual preference followed? Explain. Your entire argument rests on this. For "I could care less" to imply caring when the opposite was intended, it has to be inferred that way by the person to whom it's spoken."

I doon't have to write a dissertation (or 100 formal papers) to make a point, though I clearly have to illustrate it again, since you boiled it down to your point instead of mine.

Grammar is about structure, not what is implied (or inferred). So, yes, the speaker may intend to say they couldn't care less when they say, "I could care less," but that is not what they're saying, even if the listener understood what they meant. As another example, people may know what you mean when you use a double negative, that doesn't make it correct.

"Grammar is about structure, not what is implied (or inferred)."


Yes, and "language" is about what is implied and what is inferred. Grammar is not the only factor involved in communication.

Language is the systematic creation and usage of systems of symbols —each referring to linguistic concepts with semantic or logical or otherwise expressive meanings.

Communication is the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. Communication sometimes has nothing to do with grammar.



That being said, it bugs the CRAP outta me when somebody says, "I could care less."






In reply to this comment by Bullwinkle:
"Yep, mixed up imply/infer and didn't reread my post. Whoopee, what a tame and insanely common mistake. Notice how I can admit where I'm wrong instead of kicking the air like a mule."

A common mistake and a big one. It also discredits your whole "English Major" trumpeting.

"What an amazingly thorough rebuttal, just stubbornly asserting the opposite without addressing the logic of my post. Why would anyone interpret that you cared enough to give a preference unless an actual preference followed? Explain. Your entire argument rests on this. For "I could care less" to imply caring when the opposite was intended, it has to be inferred that way by the person to whom it's spoken."

I doon't have to write a dissertation (or 100 formal papers) to make a point, though I clearly have to illustrate it again, since you boiled it down to your point instead of mine.

Grammar is about structure, not what is implied (or inferred). So, yes, the speaker may intend to say they couldn't care less when they say, "I could care less," but that is not what they're saying, even if the listener understood what they meant. As another example, people may know what you mean when you use a double negative, that doesn't make it correct.

"Yep, mixed up imply/infer and didn't reread my post. Whoopee, what a tame and insanely common mistake. Notice how I can admit where I'm wrong instead of kicking the air like a mule."

A common mistake and a big one. It also discredits your whole "English Major" trumpeting.

"What an amazingly thorough rebuttal, just stubbornly asserting the opposite without addressing the logic of my post. Why would anyone interpret that you cared enough to give a preference unless an actual preference followed? Explain. Your entire argument rests on this. For "I could care less" to imply caring when the opposite was intended, it has to be inferred that way by the person to whom it's spoken."

I doon't have to write a dissertation (or 100 formal papers) to make a point, though I clearly have to illustrate it again, since you boiled it down to your point instead of mine.

Grammar is about structure, not what is implied (or inferred). So, yes, the speaker may intend to say they couldn't care less when they say, "I could care less," but that is not what they're saying, even if the listener understood what they meant. As another example, people may know what you mean when you use a double negative, that doesn't make it correct.