Quote:
Originally Posted by romansh  Quote:
Originally Posted by PsiCop Uh, like, no, what I said was that I could not hate Bilbo Baggins.
Back to the topic ... please either refute the malevolence of the Abrahamic God, or admit that you either cannot or will not do so. | 1) your topic is with AB not me ... I don't actually care about theistic gods.
2) my point was you said that you could not hate Bilbo Baggins, a fictional character. The inference being you could not hate (or have any emotion towards) fictional characters. Is this true? |
The word "hate" is a loaded term, and is used expressly for that purpose. Unfortunately for those who use it, I can "hate" things but still understand them. When fundies deride people as "haters of God," what they are doing is dismissing what people say as being based on the emotion of "hate."
This is the propaganda technique known as "emotionalizing." It is not used only by religious apologists, either. It's a very common tactic. For instance, criticizing something a presidential candidate said or did, is likely to win you an accusation of "hating" that candidate, by his/her partisans. But your critique does not, really, mean that you "hate" him/her; and even if you did, it doesn't mean your critique has no veracity.
Emotionalizing is based on an erroneous presumption, that one cannot think rationally about something one dislikes. It really is
not true that "hating" something doesn't mean one can't arrive at logical conclusions about it. Rational, intellectual matters do not automatically lose veracity because of one's emotion. One
can study and learn things one has no liking for and be able to reach valid conclusions about them.
(Of course, one could be driven by "hatred" to make an
invalid point about something ... the emotion makes one mistake an invalid argument for a valid one. In the end, an argument stands or falls on its own merit, and its veracity or lack thereof does not change based on the emotions of the person making it.)
The idea that nothing I say can about the JCI God can be valid, because I "hate" the JCI God, is simply preposterous. First, I don't "hate" the JCI God, but second, even if I did, it's totally irrelevant to my argument.
As for the "love" or "hate" anyone feels toward a fictional character, this emotion is, in the end, expended on a FICTIONAL CHARACTER. It doesn't go any further than that.
So no, I cannot "love" Bilbo Baggins in the way that I can "love" another person. That would be silly. Nor can I "hate" the Abrahamic God in the way that I might "hate" some other despicable person.
The bottom line is that dismissing my conclusions about the Abrahamic God is a transparent propaganda technique that I refuse to permit to be used. Exploring the matter further only obfuscates the issue by granting an appearance of validity to this technique.
It needs to stop. Propaganda techniques like emotionalizing must not be permitted ... not by me, or you, or anyone.