Do you believe in absolute truth?

[donkeyhoty]

...in favor or disgust about Hannah Montana

I have nothing to say about Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter until she's legal... in whatever state or country she's in.

[Hatmanfan]

In any case, talking about an 'objective reality' or 'absolute truths' is a huge waste of time. If there really are such things, we are perceiving them (by necessity!) through the filters of our own minds. This includes our thoughts, feelings, the influences of our family, society and species, and our genetic predispositions. And, most importantly of all, we can only make sense of information about reality through our thoughts, which is only possible because we are able to use language. Language is so limited that I believe there can be no adequate means to make sense of reality objectively. To do that you would need a theoretical being with no subjective qualities, and such a being could not possibly exist, because even without emotion or preconceived notions about reality, how could such a being be aware of the reality they perceive, without having language?

Humans have limited minds, therefor there is no God? That is asinine.

[SteveS]

Hatmanfan - I think you are misreading pjkeeley's statement.  Considering the entirety of this thread's context, I take it that the atheists in this thread were arguing the precise opposite of your statement: "humans have limited minds, therefore there must be a god" is the "asinine" part.

I take pj's paragraph above to be ruling out a particular type of being.  In other words, we maybe can't take it as an argument that there could not be any god, but we can take it as an argument that if there is a god then that god could not have the listed qualities --- there cannot be this particular type of god.

[pjkeeley]

Humans have limited minds, therefor there is no God? That is asinine.

No, what's asinine is deliberately misrepresenting my argument. This discussion is about absolute truth. I wasn't referring to God at all. Does the word God appear in the section you quoted? It doesn't because I was talking about human beings, and why absolute truth doesn't matter because, as you put it, we have 'limited minds'.

The point I was trying to make was that a person can never make sense of reality objectively, because in order to do so she must be able to think, and to think she must use language. Language has limitations. On top of that, by the time she is able to use and make sense of language, she has already developed preconceived notions about reality. Not to mention genetic predispositions. But could a hypthetical person exist within reality but without these limitations? I don't believe so, because how could such a person think? I'm not saying that God doesn't exist, at least not in this discussion, because it's not relevent. Perhaps God, since he is outside of reality and therefore not subject to it, has another way of perceiving reality that doesn't involve thought or language. I don't know or care particularly much about the theology on this. What I'm saying is that ordinary mortal beings within what we call reality are necessarily comprehending said reality subjectively. 'Absolute truth' might therefore be inaccessible and it is thus arguably unimportant to us whether it exists or not.

I should have used 'person' instead of 'being', to emphasise that I was talking about a being within and subject to the constraints of reality.

[SteveS]

Hey pj - forgive me, I think I misrepresented your argument as well.  Shoulda kept my mouth shut and let you handle this --- but it bugged me so I couldn't help responding.  Plus I'm blabby by nature  :?  

I was talking about a being within and subject to the constraints of reality.

A sensible limitation.....  :wink:

[Hatmanfan]

Struck a nerve did I pj? I really am sorry if I misunderstood or misrepresented your piont; but you said:

To do that you would need a theoretical being with no subjective qualities, and such a being could not possibly exist, because even without emotion or preconceived notions about reality, how could such a being be aware of the reality they perceive, without having language?

So while you didn't mention God specifically by name, if I understand you, you described the impossibility of the God of the bible, simply because you cannot understand how anyone could be that way. Did I misuderstand? Ultimately what you said was that we can never know if there may be a god or gods - except for the God of the bible; whom you have the enlightenment to merely speak into non-existence. If you don't have the God of the bible than you do not have God.

[rlrose328]

Wow... Hitmanfan, you sure do have great selective reading skills... that takes a tremendous talent to read only what you want to see, not what is actually there.

PJ said:

I should have used 'person' instead of 'being', to emphasise that I was talking about a being within and subject to the constraints of reality.
(emphasis added)

So your entire response is irrelevant because you are choosing to misread the intent to mean God, not humans.  PJ made it abundantly clear you misrepresented what was said.

[Smarmy Of One]

"The world don't move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right to you may not be right for some." - DIFF'RENT STROKES theme song.

Everybody has truths, but there is no absolute truth. Only facts are indisputable.

[rlrose328]

As the hubby says all the time:

"You can have your own truth, but you cannot have your own facts."

Christians don't seem to understand that.  They believe everything out of their mouths is fact.

[Smarmy Of One]

I couldn't agree more. Everywhere today we see a blurring between what is truth and what is fact. Even in the news.

[musicman30mm]

This quetion is a bit broad, but there is a specific corner of it that I have a though on:

I think all cosmologists, deep down, want to be the one who discovers some universal equation, a formula that if every variable in a given moment is entered into will forsee every event thereafter.  Indeed, I believe this Cartesian equation exists, but the variables are far to many for it to ever be of use to us.

[Kona]

1 + 1= 2??  I seriously doubt this would still hold up at the singularity of a black hole.   :bs:

[Steve Reason]

The only absolute truth I am aware of is the absolute truth of the laws of the universe. But of course this was no doubt a question about morality. I'm always mystified as to why someone thinks that because someone doesn't believe in a god, that such a person is somehow without a moral compass.

I don't need to put my hand on a hot stove more than once to know that it's a bad thing. Is it an absolute bad thing? Hell if I know, but I know I don't like pain, and that's good enough for me. I know that when something makes me feel bad or hurts me, I know that I don't want it to happen again. I don't really give a shit why I believe what I do, I just do. Whether or not something is absolutely right or wrong is not important to me. I'm just trying to enjoy my life the best I can and not hurt anyone along the way. I keep my own counsel on why and how I do that.

And just why is it that invoking a god makes truth somehow absolute? Such a being might have the power to enforce such absolute truth, but it doesn't make it any less arbitrary.

[Smarmy Of One]

I agree with everything you say except that the laws of the universe are fact based and not just truth. I can't just decide that I don't agree with gravity.

The example of putting your hand on the stove being painful isn't an absolute truth either. For someone who has no feeling in their hands, burning them would not be painful at all. The not stove burning your hands is the part that is a fact. The reaction is subjective.

[filip3rd]

Pardon me just jumping in the middle of this debate. Absolut truth  cannot be applied to our universe since our Universe is dynamic and not static there is no one ultimate answer. Here is when Quantum theory come in play. While on a smaller scal such as 2+2=4 the we can be sure this is 100% true on large scale we are going to face more and more question which will not bring us closer to the truth but put us back at zero.

Let say there is a God and he knows the Absolute truth, in this case we will never know because if we will indeed would know absolutly there is God than we would need the same knowledge and understand as God does in order to be capable to understand God and know it absolulty exist.

however in the mid of all this the question is "do you really want to know the truth? "

Thru the whole history of men kind it has been proven that truth is not alwyas welcomed, since it is very difficult to grasp the idea and in many way it can been even hurtful human choses to create a alternative truth and call it example heaven.

Personally I usualy stay away from such debate, becasue if you really get into it the result is always the same, Insanity ! on both side !

With all the respect to our theist members, you will never know the absolut truth. Since God is in full control of your mind you are depended of his power. simply said if any men is in need of Moses to tell him stealing is wrong he is not even close to know the turth. Is just like my dog, when he does something wrong  and he eventulay doesn't do it is not becasue he knews why is it worng because I have teached him not to do it. but again the God of Christianity and bible doesn't have the absolute turth since he didn't know the earth was round.