Senate Does "Absolute Truth" exist?

But doesn't this create a logical paradox?

In that, nothing inherently except a personal choice, would distinguish God's contact with man in Christian or Islamic texts, right? In that you would only pick one over the other - Pepsi or Coke, in effect, just on a divine scale.

But if you accept that as true - that God revealed his plans to man - then you have to accept the revelation to Mohammed as a valid discussion with God.

To do that though, then you have to accept God told Mohammed that Christians got his will wrong; in effect, that they screwed up and Islam is the most current iteration of God's will?

 

Hmm. I'm not sure I'm following you. Just because you can believe that God has spoken directly to mortals doesn't mean that you have to accept every claim of direct mortal contact with God. It would be perfectly reasonable to believe that God spoke to Abraham but not Jesus or Mohammed, for instance.

 

God just told me to kill my children. I told him to go **** himself. He's not speaking to me anymore.

 

But if you discount one, then why not discount all?

i.e. a Christian is likely to disbelieve God revealed his truth and plans to Mohammed because is contradicts their beliefs and because of political reasons. In other words, it's arbitrary, the criteria for which you believe happened. None have more evidence than the other for occurring.

So if that is the case, and if on objective terms the manner in which God appears to the various monotheistic texts is similar enough to rule our inconsistency, then everything that follows from that is by definition subjective. Informed by individual bias. So, if that's the case, how do we know God knows absolute truth? We can't. We only have the word of men who claimed to hear it, but they didn't write it down at the time, so..?

 

Yes, there would be no difference between a world in which God is unknowable and a world in which God did not exist. As for why one might choose to believe in a deity anyway, I'll leave that for the Thunderdome™.

 

I'm not meaning to disprove or prove religion so much as ask if there actually is absolute truth? If the premise for absolute truth is, in and of itself, untruthful (insofar as being less of a truth and more of a supposition) then can it actually exist or is it just what we call God's will?

 

God communicated directly with me last night in the form of a prime rib steak with wine jus. I am now a True Believer.

 

Okay sure, cool beans. But if it's cool beans then uhh, why are we having this conversation?

 

The sad thing about Christians is that they somehow think their fiction is actually true. And when you dispute what they say, they get very predictable. First they'll say "God is love! You're taking quotes out of context! You went to the wrong church!" Then when that tactic doesn't work, they'll switch to quoting random passages out of the Bible. When that doesn't work, they'll start threatening you with hell. When that doesn't work, they'll offer to pray for you.

Like clockwork, every time. It's quite amusing, but also frustrating at the same time.

 

Thunder. Dome.
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-theist-atheist-thunderdome™.50018058/

 

It's not our fault that certain people feel the need to infuse their religion into every topic.

 

lol this is a really stupid argument

 

Unsurprisingly, you and your children are still alive.



I know this thread was basically created for just this purpose, but you guys don't have to respond to Christians. I mean, you can just ignore them and continue discussing whatever topic you were discussing and focus on whatever you want. You don't have to let them derail threads with their raging Christianity. Or you can take them to the Thunderdome.

Or you can indulge them, it's cool. I know it can be funny, but for me debating Christians seems so 1999.

 

So you know observer effects in quantum physics where measuring a wave seems to force it to 'choose' an eigenstate, is that subjectivism determining objective truth?

 

Uh no offense, but you seem to be the sort of person who would provoke that kind of reaction from them. Religion is seen as something sacred, that's just how it's been for...all of human history. Some people abandon religion, some people don't...but you're not being realistic or reasonable if you expect everyone in the world to convert to your way of thinking overnight.

 

I wasn't expecting folks to convert to my way of thinking. I was just expressing how predictable their arguments are in this sort of discussion.

 

It's a topic that doesn't require a copy-paste of the same anti-religious arguments though. In reality, this discussion can continue without the following:

1) A jihad against religion
2) Agreement on whether God exists

Now, here's a real kicker. The thread topic is a philosophical question, so arguments being held to same standard as physics theories is, in fact, not the case.

Honestly guys, can there be a point in which you try and engage in the topic?

 

to be fair, ophelia pretty much admitted in the op that she started the thread to troll jeezo-freaks

 

No, she wanted a place where Moviefan could talk about his belief without it being included in a bunch of other threads.

What annoys me about this is that there's thin veneer of intellectual pretension masking a mind that's not really capable of constructing arguments.

In that you could talk to the topic, but it's fun to instead recycle placard level arguments as if a titanic intellect had, on that very spot, hewn the argument out of adamantium using just their mind and a copy of The God Delusion (not read, but skimmed through for pithy quotes).

ophelia, you asked me what I meant when I said if we did dismantle religion, we'd just replace it with something else? Yeah, so take the anti-religious sentiment in these threads, hold a mirror up to it, and see if it doesn't sound like a hardcore religious person. Just worshipping the unseeing, unloving, unmerciful light of no-God, don't mind me!

 

Ender Sai, Re whether "absolute truth" is the same as "God's will:" Well, the problem is we can't get to it, whatever we call it. We're essentially trapped within our skulls and so our realities are necessarily subjective. And I'm not going to touch the question of whether atheism is also a faith-based belief system. I don't want timmo to punch me in the eye.

I'd argue no, for the same reason I posted up top.

In case anyone cares, I'm basically talking about Kant's concepts of noumenon (things-in-themselves, or objective things that would exist without a human observer) and phenomenon (things as they appear to us.) The noumenon is the tree falling in the forest when there's nobody around to hear. We simply can't get at that experience. All we have are impressions of the world filtered through our senses and our mind processes. How close do our perceptions match the "objective world?" We'll never know. So talking about knowledge of anything "absolute" is a bit silly.

And yes, for what it's worth, I largely made this thread so I'd have a place to refer Moviefan2k4 to when his talk about "absolute truth" threatened to derail another thread. I also think the question is genuinely worth looking at, though, particularly since Moviefan isn't the only person in the world who thinks as he does.

 

leave moviefan alone, he's the best poster left in this joint imho

 

I genuinely want to hear his response to my points, and not for some BS point scoring reason.

 

you're aiight, that was just a general warning to the forum. as of this post moviefan is under my protection

call me "defender of the faith"

 

Just like in Civ V, I tend to ignore when leaders put city-states under their protection.

 

Vivec

As a general rule, the impact of throwing down any form of gauntlet is greatly diminished if one uses Civ references to reinforce oneself.