That's just how you choose to interpret those words. In doing so you ignore all of the other words that say punishment is eternal.
What, two verses that speak of eternal punishment against the terms I mentioned above? I choose to interpret them the wrong way, really?
And death is a punishment, anyway, like it or not. (In fact, it was the very first punishment God ever warned of in Scripture, in the Garden of Eden - DEATH, in plain words.) The phrase eternal punishment can fit with the conditionalist view almost just as easily as any kind of eternally ongoing conscious punishment, if the death is everlasting and there is no coming back from it. Really not that big of a stretch.
But no, in favor of the two pet eternal punishment verses apparently we are supposed to interpret that death
really means "spiritual death" (a term we ourselves made up and is not found in Scripture), to be destroyed or everlasting destruction
really means an ongoing process of being destroyed without ever actually being destroyed, perish
really means just live miserably, and consumed by fire
really means be preserved in fire so that you feel the pain of being burned but never actually get consumed or burned up by it.
... Sorry, I can't buy that. This argument you put forth implying that
I choose to interpret the above terms in a special way (as in, I interpret them the exact way they sound) so as to avoid acknowledging the reality of eternal torment does not hold water.
(And again, for those new to this thread who favor eternal torment and did not see me say this the first time, spare me the "*gasp* You deny Christ's very words?!" smear attack, just because I believe He meant something different by contrasting eternal life and eternal punishment in Matthew 25:46 than traditionalists do. ... Besides, if people live forever in hell as well as heaven, why would Jesus then use the phrase eternal life solely for the believers in that verse, instead of clarifying that both believers and unbelievers have some kind of eternal life, albeit one in bliss and the other in misery?)