What is truth

[Blastcat]

Hi guys and gals,

This one goes out to all of my theistic friends.
Apologists and simple Christian folks often talk about knowing "truth" a lot.. but now, I have to wonder what they mean by the term.

Could you help me out?
What is the truth, how do you define it, and do you care about it?

Some people don't care about the truth.
Some people say they love the truth, and that their beliefs are true.

Then I realize.. maybe I don't know what they MEAN when they use the word "TRUTH"

Smile

[marco]

If you recall, I have told you that I have no reason to believe in the trinity, so I do not believe in it.

So no three-in-one deal.

God is the Father
Christ is the Son

So not only is Christ Truth but he is one of two Gods. A son of a God is surely a God.

Is that not a truth?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 19 by marco]

So, outside of math, you don't believe in truth ?

That doesn't necessarily follow from the example I gave to illustrate truth. An example isn't a generality.

That's why I asked the question. So, I could find out your actual, non general, actually following position.

But when we depart from the purity of mathematics then truth is something that is possibly agreed upon, seen as always holding water. When we report on a past act then we often get very close to a truth. Waterloo took place in 1815. This is true.

It was raining today is, from my situation, true but may not be from yours. Truth therefore can be relative.

Not with that example, no. It's STILL raining today in your part of the world, even though in mine it's not. It's still TRUE that it's raining where you are, no matter where I am. It's not RELATIVELY raining where you are. The rain where you are isn't RELATIVELY true.

I would like to know how an OBJECTIVE kind of truth can be relative. It might be.. but you brought it up, so you back it up. I'm too tired to guess.

[marco]

Not with that example, no. It's STILL raining today in your part of the world, even though in mine it's not. It's still TRUE that it's raining where you are, no matter where I am. It's not RELATIVELY raining where you are. The rain where you are isn't RELATIVELY true.

I would like to know how an OBJECTIVE kind of truth can be relative. It might be.. but you brought it up, so you back it up. I'm too tired to guess.

Ha, ha - you have a habit of tying yourself up for the sake of argument. When I say it is relative I mean exactly that. I didn't say it was relatively raining, nor would I, for I would struggle to make sense of this. But the truth of "it was raining" depends on where I am, for the statement is not a universal but a local one. I have no doubt it was not raining on Mars. Thus, as I said, truth can be relative.


You would like to know how an objective kind of truth can be relative? An objective truth isn't relative but true regardless of viewpoint or circumstance. If it changes according to when and where, it is not an objective truth.

As far as religious discussion goes I believe that truth is partial rather than relative. There are bits and pieces of what people believe that are true and bits that are not; some have a large measure of truth and others have next to none. The statement Jesus is Truth is just a metaphor and people can give it meaning but instead of extracting something true, they get an interpretation, which is notoriously subject to error. To allay fears of error they often say God told them - which presumably renders their belief completely true..... for them.

But how to decide which bits are true is a giant question. Apart from asking Liam for a historical perspective there seems to be no way of getting a definitive answer.
Best wishes, old friend.

[JehovahsWitness]

So, how do you know that your beliefs are true?
Why do you think they happen to be true?

What method do you use to find out?

WHAT METHODOLOGY CAN BE USED TO ESTABLISH RELIGIONS TRUTH?

As with all truth, establish a fundamental solid basis and work up.

For a religion or a belief to be true, since its purpose is the worship of a god, it must first be established that there is a God. This can be done by an honest evaluation of the physical universe around us. Having established there is enough evidence in the natural world to conclude there is not only a Creator but a loving and ordered one. The next step would be to find out if He has sought communication with humans.

Logically if God is loving (as the physical world we living in testifies) and since humans constantly seek to know and communicate with other intelligent beings, it stands to reason that Our creator would satisfy what seems to be a fundamental human need to know Him; after all he has provided the means by which all other needs can be satisfied.

Even the most prefunctory overview of the relatively few books that claim to be direct communication from the Creator to mankind shows the bible stands out as different (in terms of distribution, translations, and arguably effect on mankind's history) so starting (or even ending) with that book one will see that it gives evidence of being divinely inspired meaning containing the thoughts, ideas, instructions from our Creator.

A study of the bible, therefore equates to a study of what is truth. From there continue to go where the evidence points.


In a nutshell,

JW


Can anybody offer some means to confirm a claim is true and factual?
viewtopic.php?p=1073726#p1073726

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

GOD, TRUTH and ...RELIGION

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 23 by marco]


Hi , marco

I thought this link could be useful to us all:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013 ... s-movement

Not with that example, no. It's STILL raining today in your part of the world, even though in mine it's not. It's still TRUE that it's raining where you are, no matter where I am. It's not RELATIVELY raining where you are. The rain where you are isn't RELATIVELY true.

I would like to know how an OBJECTIVE kind of truth can be relative. It might be.. but you brought it up, so you back it up. I'm too tired to guess.

Ha, ha - you have a habit of tying yourself up for the sake of argument.

No, I have a habit of not agreeing with things that don't make SENSE to me.
I'm not INTO intellectual S&M.

When I say it is relative I mean exactly that.

Well, that clears it up..

I didn't say it was relatively raining, nor would I, for I would struggle to make sense of this. But the truth of "it was raining" depends on where I am, for the statement is not a universal but a local one. I have no doubt it was not raining on Mars. Thus, as I said, truth can be relative.

Locality doesn't infer SUBJECTIVITY or RELATIVITY... this whole "It's not raining ON ME" is egocentric, perhaps, but pure silliness empirically. IS IT RAINING ON YOU?... YES OR NO?

We aren't even TALKING about if it's raining on ME... We are wondering if it's raining on YOU. And, as far as I can tell, THAT'S NOT RELATIVE TO ANYONE ELSE.

If it IS, it just IS. If it's NOT, it's not.. and that doesn't DEPEND on my LOCAL WEATHER, but it does depend on YOURS.

You would like to know how an objective kind of truth can be relative? An objective truth isn't relative but true regardless of viewpoint or circumstance. If it changes according to when and where, it is not an objective truth.

You are talking about personal, subjective, relative VIEWPOINTS about OBJECTIVE FACTS. The facts are the facts... they don't CHANGE due to our VIEWPOINTS.

The facts are objectively TRUE or they are not.

As far as religious discussion goes I believe that truth is partial rather than relative.

Religious beliefs change from person to person.. it's all just relative, according to your peculiar definition of the word. Now, you are being inconsistent.

There are bits and pieces of what people believe that are true and bits that are not; some have a large measure of truth and others have next to none. The statement Jesus is Truth is just a metaphor and people can give it meaning but instead of extracting something true, they get an interpretation, which is notoriously subject to error. To allay fears of error they often say God told them - which presumably renders their belief completely true..... for them.

That just makes them WRONG.

But how to decide which bits are true is a giant question. Apart from asking Liam for a historical perspective there seems to be no way of getting a definitive answer.
Best wishes, old friend.

It seems to me, that when presented with a story book.. we must NEED to interpret what it can possibly MEAN to us, and we have to do that INDIVIDUALLY, dependent on our PERSONAL circumstances and predilections. I don't think there IS any "truth" to the Bible... not objective truth, in any case. What I think is that the Bible, like many weird collection of poems and odd stories, can ONLY be subjectively true.

And making "sense" out of the Bible stories is a world wide hobby.
Some people are Star Trek fans... some Star Wars.. and so on.. they ALL love to speculate and argue as to who has the TRUTH...

But of course, none of them do. Possibly ( and I would say even PROBABLY ) not even the authors knew precisely what they meant, or maybe even CARED about the so called "truth".

[PghPanther]

[Replying to Blastcat]

This subject has a keen interest to me............truth is never defined very well in debates but I like to make the following designation..

As a scientific rationalist I accept all truth as provisional......meaning that it needs to be demonstrated as providing some form of a consistent and predictable model in reality such as the principle of lift over an airfoil in flight for instance.

A provisional truth is open to revision and even rejection or replacement through the process of science if a better model in reality comes about. Such as the revision to Newtown's laws of gravity in special conditions of velocity and/or mass where time and space become relative as in Einstein's theory and perhaps someday a revision to that if we come up with a quantum gravity model that is consistent and predictable.

Now......

.....all theist I known when they proclaim truth are talking of an absolute truth............one that comes from a final authority that is not subject to revision or rejection ever.............no matter what models demonstrate against that claim.

Until this distinction is made between the two the debating of truth is worthless and unproductive......

Now what I would challenge any theist with is that there is no absolute existential objective truth..........they say yes and it stops with God.

I say.........God may claim he is the all powerful and eternal absolute but do we know that?

and even if their God claim exists.......how does this God even know it is the final absolute authority of truth?

God may be the result of a programming from another deity or life source greater than it just to make it think that.......God's whole authority could be an illusion to itself if he has no way to examine yet another reality onion layer above it?...........

For the most part, theist use God is a convenient backstop but they cannot justify it as absolute and neither could this God if it existed because once you got beyond the only reality we know that exists so far then there is no stopping the game of where the backstop to authority may exist.

We may never end up knowing any existential claim absolutely but the consistent and predictable models of science in the reality we live in have done a marvelous job so far in our management of diseases, and progressing as a civilization over the claims of absolute truth.

and its funny..........while provisional truth is open to revision absolute truth claims that are not open to that is where we have a plurality of absolute truth claims by different religions.......... and even with theist within the same faith on doctrine and dogma......

....and it is in these absolute truth claims where you need to have your faith strengthened in them to avoid doubt......

Doubt in absolute truth?

Last I checked gravity is only a provisional truth claim yet I don't see anyone going around needing their belief in gravity strengthened to avoid doubt that it might not work tomorrow.......

Existential truth is only something that can be demonstrated with consistency and have predictable outcomes...........and it must remain provisional subject to revision or rejection if a better model comes along.

Existential truth is not an absolute for anyone or any being if they ever existed..............

and by existential I mean a statement beyond your own personal subjectivity.........I can say I like cherry ice cream and that would be absolutely true to my own subject experience but to say there is a personal God that exists and is the God of the Bible who is the absolute truth and authority on life is an existential claim that has not been shown to demonstrative provisional qualities of that claim.

Now the real questions is...what is the more prudent process in dealing with existential truth claims in reality as we know it................absolute or provisional?

I rest my case..........

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 24 by JehovahsWitness]

Hi, JehovahsWitness

This kind of conversation is EXACTLY what I'm looking for.
I have to be honest with you.. I am surprised that I'm having it with a JW..

In my experience, those conversations were always ... talking past each other.
But it really seems as if we AGREE on things.

That's exciting to me. I think it's a victory for the two of us, so bravo !

So, how do you know that your beliefs are true?
Why do you think they happen to be true?

What method do you use to find out?

As with all truth, establish a fundamental solid basis and work up.

Ok, that makes sense to me.
I think I do the same thing.

We want to test our beliefs to something that is solid and basic... something, that perhaps has a VERY high degree of probability. Something, perhaps that EVERYONE usually agrees is true. I would say ... Reality is real, for starters. I exist, seems to be another one of those.. and Other People exist...

How are those for basic solid fundamentals?

For a religion or a belief to be true, since its purpose is the worship of a god, it must first be established that there is a God.

I can't agree more.

It seems FOOLISH to me that someone would worship... something that hasn't been established as REAL. If I don't know that a god really exists, I would tone down my BASIS to something I could be more sure of, like reality is real, and people really do exist, things like that.

This can be done by an honest evaluation of the physical universe around us.

Hmm this sounds more subjective than objective, doesn't it?
Would change from person to person, depending on their circumstances and predilections. I don't take ALL OF THOSE to be "basic solid fundamental" .. there are TOO MANY of them.

I think that I want the MOST people agreeing with my take on "truth", don't you?

Having established there is enough evidence in the natural world to conclude there is not only a Creator but a loving and ordered one.

That's subjective. Not everyone is a creationist.
What you have is a less than ideal solid basis. It seems to be based on subjective judgements, not objective ones.

The next step would be to find out if He has sought communication with humans.

Yeah, well.. good luck with that one.

Logically if God is loving (as the physical world we living in testifies) and since humans constantly seek to know and communicate with other intelligent beings, it stands to reason that Our creator would satisfy what seems to be a fundamental human need to know Him; after all he has provided the means by which all other needs can be satisfied.

Whoa there.. too many claims in that paragraph. it's certainly not what I would call "fundamentally solid or basic " .

It seem very peculiar to me. And I don't think that way at ALL.
If it can be basic to YOU, but not to EVERYONE.. it's not what I would call objective to all, but subjective to SOME.

Even the most prefunctory overview of the relatively few books that claim to be direct communication from the Creator to mankind shows the bible stands out as different (in terms of distribution, translations, and arguably effect on mankind's history) so starting (or even ending) with that book one will see that it gives evidence of being divinely inspired meaning containing the thoughts, ideas, instructions from our Creator.

Long sentence.

Well, you are describing your subjective interpretation. That I don't happen to agree with. I think that a fundamental SOLID basis for the truth should get more UNIVERSAL agreement.

A study of the bible, therefore equates to a study of what is truth. From there continue to go where the evidence points.

Bible = truth?

I THINK that describes a circle.

From what I gather from what you just described, you are using confirmation bias to keep your perpetual motion machine of circular logic going round and round.

I can explain, but it's a bit long and boring.


1. Somehow, you start off with a belief that the Bible is true.
2. Then you check to see if what the Bible says can be found in the world.
3. You make an honest quest for that.
4. You DO find a way to see it the way the Bible says it is... i.e. creation.
5. Creation confirms what the Bible says is true.
6. Therefore, the Bible IS true. Your bias in ( 1 ) has been CONFIRMED!
7. THEN, you check the world to see if your confirmation can be confirmed a little more.......and lo and behold.... YES AGAIN!

It's that first step.. that somehow in ( 1 ) ... you "have" this belief to go check out.

That first one wasn't confirmed by creationism, yet.

So, creation can't be the reason you believe in God. You had to believe before. Those of us who don't BELIEVE in God.. also do not believe in CREATION. It's just impossible to be a creationist if we don't believe in god first.

So, I have to wonder what it was that made you BELIEVE in God before you even HEARD of creationism?

Any ideas?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 27 by Blastcat]

My dear Blastcat,

I summarized what would take the average person at least a few months and possibly years to do in one post. You are effectively at stage #1 and would probably need to study at that stage for some time. There's no moving on to stage 2 (the second sentence) until you have established whether or not there is a Creator through an objective and honest study of the natural world. This would be like moving on to discuss the exact shade of blue used by Chagall in one of his paintings that doesn't know what the colour blue is - a lesson in futility. If you think that you can do that by skimming through a post on the internet you are as delusional as if you think you can obtain a PhD by watching a nature program.

I can post some links to help you get started but the very fact that you think you can make any observations about stage #2 after a matter of minutes convinces me I have not correctly communicated the hundreds of hours of study it takes to finally understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a Creator. I'm not saying of course that everyone that has faith must become a university level expert in biochemistry - that's not the case, but as Malcom X said "by whatever means possible" you have to study until you are convinced for certain one way or the other. If that takes a year of study, so be it, for some very little if any time is necessary at this stage because they come from a religiou backgroun. I hazard a guess though that if one is coming from a staunchly atheistic position, stage #1 will be neither quick or easy process (and no you didn't do it in school or university where your young mind was passively molded by your educators). This is a whole different process but once convinced there is indeed a Creator nothing can shake that conviction - you cannot unring a bell. If you feel you have no need, there is no God and that's that; the rest is futile, I wish you an most excellent life.

You want truth, fine, you have to FIGHT for it, not piddle about on the internet with navel fluff pickers passing the day, fight, study, read until you the penny drops and read with a humble and open mind. A word of advice would be to not say you will "report back" because just the idea of replying to someone with opposing views makes our imperfect prideful egos start protecting itself. Just do it truth like water will find a way in a sincere and humble heart. That's not you? You don't need anything? You've all the knowledge you require on the subject or (as someone said to me here that made me laugh, you don't need literature with colour ...lol... ie simple clear information that doesn't flatter the intellect and is made for ordinary none academics. Fine, like I said. Have a nice life.

This is probably more than I've written directly to anyone in all the years I have been on this board, feel privileged...lol Seriously though, don't worry about putting all that in the trash, my skin is thick and I got nothing to lose, you however, I sincerely believe have everything to gain; there is nothing so sweet as finding truth when you have been searching for it for years. Anyhoo...

Bottom line: You ask me how I got where I am now. Read this post a couple of times and you will begin to understand the road I have travelled and the road anyone that wants true faith must travel.


My very best and sincere regards,

JW

[youtube][/youtube]

The Origin of Life"Five Questions Worth Asking
https://www.jw.org/finder?pub=lf&wtlocale=E&srcid=share

Was Life Created?
https://www.jw.org/finder?pub=lc&wtlocale=E&srcid=share

Playlist

[marco]

For a religion or a belief to be true, since its purpose is the worship of a god, it must first be established that there is a God. This can be done by an honest evaluation of the physical universe around us. Having established there is enough evidence in the natural world to conclude there is not only a Creator but a loving and ordered one.

You are confusing reason and belief; and truth has nothing to do with your method of discovering God. Even if one can conclude that there is Intelligent Design, we are nowhere near deducing a loving creator. You may invent one but don't call this truth.

The next step would be to find out if He has sought communication with humans.

And you do this by holding a Bible in your hand as you search. Ingenious.

Even the most prefunctory overview of the relatively few books that claim to be direct communication from the Creator to mankind shows the bible stands out as different (in terms of distribution, translations, and arguably effect on mankind's history) so starting (or even ending) with that book one will see that it gives evidence of being divinely inspired meaning containing the thoughts, ideas, instructions from our Creator.

What a silly argument. The Bible was the first book to be printed. Christianity was the political power in charge of the presses. You might as well be surprised at finding someone wandering in the Vatican was a Roman Catholic. The Koran is catching up, especially as the Bible is banned from such countries as Saudi Arabia. This has little to do with TRUTH - everything to do with political clout.

A study of the bible, therefore equates to a study of what is truth. From there continue to go where the evidence points.

Ha ha ha - this little frolic in logic could have been written by Lewis Carroll for one of Alice's adventures. Hilarious. I must use it illustratively some time.

[marco]

No, I have a habit of not agreeing with things that don't make SENSE to me.
I'm not INTO intellectual S&M.

You would have fun with tensor calculus then.

When I say it is relative I mean exactly that.

Well, that clears it up..

Phew - thanks for that.

Locality doesn't infer SUBJECTIVITY or RELATIVITY... this whole "It's not raining ON ME" is egocentric, perhaps, but pure silliness empirically. IS IT RAINING ON YOU?... YES OR NO?

"It was raining" is a statement and one way to determine its truth would be to check what happened weather-wise. The answer would depend on where you were. So "yes" or "no" could equally be correct. But if that brings on a headache, we can pretend I never mentioned the weather.

I think Pilate asked where truth was but we never discovered what he found.