# Jesus loves you - fact or factoid? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 30, 2011, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497 "2011-01-30T08:54:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/1 "2011-01-30T08:54:48Z")
In this thread, **ClaudeRains** was told to knock it off when he mentioned “Jesus loves you” is a factoid that sounds plausible…at first, but wilts under closer inspection. > [@Factoids that sound right, for a moment...](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/factoids-that-sound-right-for-a-moment/569234/13): > > No, it’s not. Knock it off, **Claude Remains**. I hear what **ClaudeRains** said proffered as unassailable fact nearly every day by someone or another. Yet neither I nor anyone I have ever encountered who thought to ask has ever been able to provide a shred of rational evidence to support the claim. This seems to objectively meet any definition of a factoid. And I doubt my experience in this matter is different from anyone else’s on this board. Isn’t this board about fighting ignorance? If I said I was fighting ignorance by explaining that Jesus loving you is a FACT, I would be rightly laughed at by pretty much all present and sundry. So why the chiding from the moderator for **ClaudeRains**? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/2 "2011-01-30T13:20:01Z")
A factoid is (or appears to be) fact-based. (Some people use “factoid” to refer to true facts, others to facts that are not true.) Example of factoid: Giraffes and humans have the same number of bones in their necks. “Jesus loves you” is a faith statement, not a statement about conditions in the material world. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/3 "2011-01-30T14:07:20Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > A factoid is (or appears to be) fact-based. (Some people use “factoid” to refer to true facts, others to facts that are not true.) Example of factoid: Giraffes and humans have the same number of bones in their necks. > > “Jesus loves you” is a faith statement, not a statement about conditions in the material world. **twickter** , all facts are true, by definition. Factoid is really a useless word, meant to confuse. I’m not disagreeing with your assessment of faith vs fact, just the semantics and syntax. [dictionary definition](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid) > [@](#): > > Factoid > 1: an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print > 2: a briefly stated and usually trivial fact [dictionary definition](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fact) > [@](#): > > 1.something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact. > 2.something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact. > 3.a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/4 "2011-01-30T14:59:27Z")
Okay, let me rephrase. “Jesus loves you” seemed qualitatively different to me from the other factoids being proffered, and it was my moderator’s opinion that **ClaudeRains** was OT, since it was not a thread about religion. I therefore told him to knock it off. In this thread, I was asked for an explanation of my mod note: That is the explanation. If anyone wants to discuss whether a believer intends “Jesus loves you” to be a statement of faith or a statement of fact, you can probably find people in GD who would be happy to participate. Feel free to start a thread and link to it from here. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/5 "2011-01-30T17:39:36Z")
Maybe **Claude** ’s real name is Jesus? (As in, Hey-Zeus?) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/6 "2011-01-30T18:28:04Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > . > > “Jesus loves you” is a faith statement, not a statement about conditions in the material world. Perhaps you don’t really talk to the many 10s of millions of Christians in the US (and I assume elsewhere) who assert otherwise, and make it the central purpose of their life to do so often and persuade others to join in? ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/7 "2011-01-30T18:40:58Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Okay, let me rephrase. “Jesus loves you” seemed qualitatively different to me from the other factoids being proffered, and it was my moderator’s opinion that **ClaudeRains** was OT, since it was not a thread about religion. I therefore told him to knock it off. > > In this thread, I was asked for an explanation of my mod note: That is the explanation. > > If anyone wants to discuss whether a believer intends “Jesus loves you” to be a statement of faith or a statement of fact, you can probably find people in GD who would be happy to participate. Feel free to start a thread and link to it from here. So your opinion, having been shown as objectively wrong based on the definitions of words you misunderstood at the time, but now understand clearly, has changed, and you realize that the statement is not qualitatively different? You are basically making stuff up to support a fixed opinion, it seems to me, by suggesting a thread that has nothing to do with the topic of the first one. In fact, “Jesus loves you” does meet the criteria of a factoid, and it was not qualitatively different form the posts before it, because it was the first one. Heck, faith based or not, it is still a factoid because, as stated in the present tense, it presumes a current Jesus that can be pointed to. this is basic English grammar everyone understands without any schooling at all. Statements of faith begin “I believe that…”. Otherwise they are indistinguishable grammatically from simple declarative statements of fact that take the form of , for example: “Jesus loves you” or “up is down” or “Jesus loves Jezebel” So **Twickster** , precisely how do _you_ differentiate between a statement of fact and a statement of faith? What is the essence contained in the 3 words “Jesus loves you” that separates it from “Bob love Bill”? Frankly, both to me sound like conjecture, and a conjecture is an assertion of fact based on the availability, or at least collectabilty of rational evidence. Definitions of conjecture on the Web: > [@](#): > > ``` > * speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence); "speculations about the outcome of the election"; "he dismissed it as mere conjecture" > * guess: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence > * speculate: to believe especially on uncertain or tentative grounds; "Scientists supposed that large dinosaurs lived in swamps" > * reasoning that involves the formation of conclusions from incomplete evidence > wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn > > * A conjecture is a proposition that is unproven but appears correct and has not been disproven. Karl Popper pioneered the use of the term "conjecture" in scientific philosophy. ... > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjecture > > * Conjecture (conjectural emendation) is a critical reconstruction of the original reading of a clearly corrupt, contaminated, nonsensical or illegible textual fragment. ... > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjecture_(textual_criticism) > > * A statement or an idea which is unproven, but is thought to be true; a guess; A supposition based upon incomplete evidence; a hypothesis; A statement likely to be true based on available evidence, but which has not been formally proven; The interpretation of signs and omens; To guess; to ... > en.wiktionary.org/wiki/conjecture > > * A preliminary statement or hypothesis that something is true; a statement may later be confirmed or disproved through observation or testing. > mdk12.org/assessments/vsc/mathematics/bygrade/glossary.shtml > > * An educated guess. > www.gse.uci.edu/cset/math_glossary.php > > * A conjecture is a statement which, although much evidence can be found to support it, has not been proved to be either true or false. > ddi.cs.uni-potsdam.de/Lehre/TuringLectures/MathNotions.htm > > * a hypothesis drawn from observed patterns in several examples > www.csdsac.org/Curriculum/mathglossary.htm > > * a conclusion arrived at by guesswork. > www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Bean-Trees-Study-and-Homework-Help-Full-Glossary-for-The-Bean-Trees.id-30,pageNum-74.html > > ``` Note that there does not seem to be any mention of “faith” in any of those diverse definitions. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/8 "2011-01-30T18:43:55Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > Perhaps you don’t really talk to the many 10s of millions of Christians in the US (and I assume elsewhere) who assert otherwise, and make it the central purpose of their life to do so often and persuade others to join in? However broadly and fervently it may be believed, Jesus’s love (or lack thereof) is a matter of faith. Faith and belief are not components of the material world. Crush the entire universe down to the finest dust and sift through it with the most expensive mass spectrometer, and you fill find not one atom of belief nor one molecule of faith. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Doctor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/9 "2011-01-30T19:09:08Z")
FWIW I agree with **Twickster**. It was off-topic. It came across as thread-shitting actually. If you were a Christian (I’m not), you would have found that comment to be somewhat offensive in that thread. Just my 2 cents. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/10 "2011-01-30T19:29:32Z")
> [@paperbackwriter](#): > > However broadly and fervently it may be believed, Jesus’s love (or lack thereof) is a matter of faith. Faith and belief are not components of the material world. Crush the entire universe down to the finest dust and sift through it with the most expensive mass spectrometer, and you fill find not one atom of belief nor one molecule of faith. Even were this so, how does it differ from a factoid? One only believes in the “truth” of factoids via faith, there being no evidence to support the conjecture of truth, correct? ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/11 "2011-01-30T19:32:16Z")
> [@Doctor](#): > > FWIW I agree with **Twickster**. It was off-topic. It came across as thread-shitting actually. If you were a Christian (I’m not), you would have found that comment to be somewhat offensive in that thread. Just my 2 cents. I am not Christian, and I am shat upon regularly by Christians injecting that exact claim into everything. If it is isn’;t offensive when they say it, how is offensive when they finally get someone else to say it? Absent any evidence to support the conjecture regardless of who says it (or apes it, for that is what Christians do when presenting it as a matter of fact, not faith), How does **Doctor** find it different from a factoid, such as, to make something up, “Godzilla loves you”? FWIW, a very simple google search shows many sites that assert this fact as, well, fact: [Google Search](http://www.google.com/search?q=jesus+loves+you+fac) And yes I know about landover… ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/12 "2011-01-30T21:27:33Z")
> [@not\_alice](#): > > Even were this so, how does it differ from a factoid? One only believes in the “truth” of factoids via faith, there being no evidence to support the conjecture of truth, correct? As **twicsket** said: "‘Jesus loves you’ is a faith statement, not a statement about conditions in the material world. " Nothing in this post changes that. I’m not very interesting in debating metaphysics, but faith is not a concrete entity. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/13 "2011-01-30T21:52:35Z")
> [@paperbackwriter](#): > > As **twicsket** said: "‘Jesus loves you’ is a faith statement, not a statement about conditions in the material world. " Nothing in this post changes that. I’m not very interesting in debating metaphysics, but faith is not a concrete entity. You must have faith about faith 🙂 You seem to have skipped right over what I wrote offering rational evidence for my position. Would you care to actually proffer a rational argument for your position, as that is the preferred strategy on this board? Or to point out the specific flaws in my logic (which there may well be)? Although I have been away for a while, maybe with the new year, are there new policies on the board? I can’t rule it out on the evidence, seeing as these non-rational claims are coming from moderators and SDSAB members. So, do we still favor rational arguments over non-rational ones here? If so, are moderators and SDSAB folks exempt? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-loves-you-fact-or-factoid/569497/14 "2011-01-30T21:54:08Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > In this thread, I was asked for an explanation of my mod note: That is the explanation. > > If anyone wants to discuss whether a believer intends “Jesus loves you” to be a statement of faith or a statement of fact, you can probably find people in GD who would be happy to participate. Feel free to start a thread and link to it from here. > [@not\_alice](#): > > Even were this so, how does it differ from a factoid? One only believes in the “truth” of factoids via faith, there being no evidence to support the conjecture of truth, correct? [Moderator Instruction] **not\_alice** , **twickster** has provided an explanation for her action, and instructed those who wish to debate the issue of the factual nature of the remark to do so in Great Debates. ATMB is not the place for debating this issue. If you wish to do so, please start another thread in Great Debates. I’m going to close this. If anyone has other issues with **twickster’s** action, they may start another thread in ATMB.