Since we're talking about religion, I'd like to share some dialogue from one of the chronicles that really speaks the most to me. "Putting aside our sorrow, we renewed our faith in the prophecy that other rings would be found. And see how our faith has been rewarded." "Halo! Its divine wind will rush through the stars, propelling all who are worthy along the path to salvation." "How to start this process? For ages, we searched for one who might unlock the secrets of the ring. An Oracle. And with your help, we found it." "With appropriate humility, we plied the Oracle with questions. And it, with clarity and grace, has shown us the key." "You will journey to the surface of the ring, and retrieve this Sacred Icon. With it, we shall fulfill our promise." "Salvation for all!" "And begin the Great Journey."
"there's no way for us to know so there's no sense in being concerned about it, or rigidly attached to an idea about it." Is this truth claim the exception to the rule?
I'm sharing my personal perspective, which I recognize as only my perspective. I'm not claiming anything as the truth or expecting anyone to accept anything I say as true. I haven't taken a stance for anything. If anyone tried to claim that what I've said is true, I would point out the ridiculous of doing that. I've just been commenting on the general perception that 'what I believe' is what is true, and the obvious flaw in that line of thinking. People generally seem to be under the impression that believing in something (in general) is good, that their beliefs are good, and that they are doing the right thing by believing what they believe. Perhaps this is a byproduct of the idea of faith, which is one of the core tenets of many religions? Perhaps people are assuming a correlation belief and faith? From my perspective, I can see that correlation, but I can also see how those words can actually be interpreted as being opposites. A belief is an attachment to an idea. Faith is freedom from attachment to ideas. Belief is a sort of pseudo knowing. Faith is an acceptance of unknowing. I just find perception and perspectives to be extremely interesting, and I enjoy discussing them.
Faith and belief are synonyms. http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/belief Anyways, i hope you know i understand your thought process. I'm very familier with reletivism. It's self refuting... If you arn't claiming anything as truth like you said in this post, than why where you doing the exact opposite in all of your previous posts? Statements are truth claims.
Ahh, you're correct. I probably should've looked up the definitions of those words before using them. I find that we often either use words in ways that don't align with their official definition, or in ways that DO align with the official definitions but don't align with the original meaning from which those words evolved or were translated. In this case, I'll say that I don't think the definitions of either of those words (belief or faith) accurately reflect the original meaning in the context of religion...that the original meaning referred to an openness to unknowing. But of course, I have no proof for that. It's just my interpretation based upon my experiences. I've heard the word relativism before, but I can't say I know exactly what it means. Essentially what I've been saying is "What you (and I) think is true isn't necessarily true just because we think it is". It's not making any claim about what's true. I haven't made any statements that I consider 'truth claims'. If it's come across that way, then it's a result of how it's been perceived, and not a result of how it was intended. Anything I've said has been an attempt to call into question the thoughts and beliefs of others, not an attempt to tell others what's true. A lot of times when I'm writing, I feel compelled to say things like 'it seems', 'generally', 'from my perspective', 'I find', 'I feel', etc. so that it doesn't come across as if I'm stating a fact. I find that it just becomes tedious to read repetitive word usage like that though, so I generally try to avoid doing it excessively. Feel free to question me on particular comments, because I've written a lot and I don't know what specifically you're referring to. I have to say though, that if what I've said so far doesn't lead you to as least be willing to question whether or not your thoughts and beliefs are 'true', then it's likely that nothing else I say from this point forward will make any difference. And you shouldn't interpret that as me saying that what you think is true isn't actually true, because that's NOT what I'm saying.
The term faith is often associated with religon, and carries a stigma. "Faith is beleiving without evidence" atheists always tell me.... Smh Anyways good talk.
Speaking of truth and everything, I'm not claiming either of you brought up or believe in purely science and nothing else, or to how much of an extent scientific theories have truth to them. But I wanted to contribute something which I think is good food for thought. Sometimes those of us who aren't religious attack those of us who are for "believing in things that aren't true "or "fairytales", **** like that. You guys get what I'm saying. Anyway, something very fundamental to science, our Physics teacher taught us, was that nothing we test or none of the claims we make are true, even if our prediction's data matches up and everything. Rather, the different theories and laws we believe in, are in his words "pretty damn close" to reality, and it's as accurate as we can get as of now. But it's incorrect to say that all these things are 100% true. Errors happen in experiments for example. We have error margins. Why are those error margins there? Basically, they're there to show that within such-and-such percentage is as close as what we need to get to say that what we're looking at is probably true. But we can't just say truth, period. That said, it was just a more philosophical outlook at things, I just thought it'd be cool to bring up. As for my personal opinion, I think it's silly to think that you can't be religious and scientific at the same time. You can look at it as the observations of what God has created. So I don't know. But I don't care what anybody else believes in, that shouldn't stop two people from having coffee together at the end of the day.
"But it's incorrect to say that all these things are 100% true. " Whoever you are citing is philolosophicaly in error. They are coming to the absolute conclution that humans cannot come to absolute conclutions... A self defeating statement. "As for my personal opinion, I think it's silly to think that you can't be religious and scientific at the same time. " Your're right, it's non debate-able
I believe in science. I view the world with logic, reason, common sense and an open mind. Science doesn't try to proof itself right, it's trying to proof itself wrong. They don't go like, "oh well, it's 90% accurate lets call it a day". A few missing links don't disprove evolution, the evidence is overwhelming. However I would never attack someone because of their religion, because that doesn't help anyone. I'm not battling or constantly fighting for my belief or in this case lack of belief because that's no way to live your life. I just roll with it and that's easy over here because religious people are a minority where I live. As for science, if I see Ken Ham or even Mike Pence denying scientific facts or see them as 'just a theory' I cringe. Btw is your Physics teacher religious?
"Science doesn't try to proof itself right, it's trying to proof itself wrong." Fallacy of reification. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) The dogma of scientism is overwhelming, as for the evidence in support of the theory of evolution; there is none. Evolution, meaning change, is a fact. On the macro level this is not observed and cannot be observed. You are using your inductive reasoning skills to come to that conclution, not the scientific method. I'm not going to get in a long winded debate here on this thread at the risk of it being closed... But i do take this seriously, and i would love to debate with you via PM if you want.
Nah man I'm good. I don't have the time and energy to do this dance, we will not get one step closer. We are so far apart from one another it's ridiculous. I'm in the corner of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins etc. This debate will lead to nothing. Have a good one.
Well if you value science, reason, logic, etc... like you say you do; We most certainly would make progress. But i understand if you don't have the time, offer is always on the table though.
(This is a mixed response to both of you lol, so don't think something is directed at you that probably isn't a response to your statement necessarily) I was quoting my Physics teacher, who's teaching as a retirement. His actual career was somewhere in a management position in Silicon Valley. Also, what he told us wasn't in the context of religion, it was a general thing he taught us at the beginning of the year as an approach to the class. I don't know if he's religious, though I can't picture him being religious. He did say that things can be proven to not be true, though. So that kinda goes with what MULLERTJE said about Science trying to prove itself wrong. Perhaps not what he was saying exactly, but maybe the same train of thought. Keyword being "maybe". But anyway, what you're saying, Soldat (and maybe MULLERTJE), is assuming that somehow he or I stated that "there's no such thing as absolute truths: period". Not at all. We're talking about Science, or perhaps the philosophy of science, but not an approach to every aspect of life. In fact, many scientists have this approach to their field, at a core level. The fact of the matter is that Science is a posteriori knowledge, meaning it is based upon experience, and therefore not 100% objective. See, the most important thing to note is that things can be disproven. We can rule things out, and by doing so maybe even get closer to what is true. You might not hear this from Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher or whatever, but Albert Einstein is someone who I give a lot more scientific credit to, and he stated the following: "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong". So I don't know, it was something I brought up in relation to religion because I think it's ridiculous to say Science vs Religion, as it's like comparing apples and oranges. I also don't dig the thing where it's said arrogantly that "I believe in science, I use common sense unlike religious people", **** like that. Not saying anything about anyone here, I promise. It's just what I don't prefer for myself, I find it very toxic and immature. But either way, I think I agree that since Science is observations of everything around us, it is not 100% objective, as humans have biases, and as such not always 100% true, although can be accepted as a "temporarily established truth" of sorts, with the notion that the universe could surprise us tomorrow. So sorry if I offended anyone, this isn't personal at all. It's constructive, get's the brain flowing. But really, I personally believe it boils down to humility. "I know everything" vs "I will never know everything". A theory or law to me would be "it's probably true, but I can't say 100% it is, because humans are little specks in this massive universe". That's what I think my teacher was getting at as well.
Very well said. Sometimes it's hard for me to debate in another language, to get a point across in civil words so if I sounded harsh for no reason I apologize. What I meant with 'science is trying to prove itself wrong' is that if a theory of lets say theoretical physics just fails only once, it's false. Period. It has to work every time. So if it disproves itself you can toss it out the window and start over. I think that's what you're saying. Anyway thanks for your answer but like I stated before, I'm out. Cheers.
"I know everything" vs "I will never know everything" This is a false dichotomy, the real question is; can we know ANYTHING at all? If you say no, you are contradicting yourself.
The only truth that all humans should be able to agree on as being an absoulte truth, is the truth that "absolute nothing" does not exist, has never existed and will never exist. Simply put, non-existence cannot create existence. Non-value cannot create value. Mathmatics proves this quite simply, try to divide by zero and come to me with your results. This leaves us with the undeniability that infinity exists and existence is Infinite. Seems straight forward and obvious but the implications of it are astounding.