A
AlanFromWichita
Guest
Ani Ibi:
The very first negative encounter I had in my life with an authority figure was with a nun who insisted that I could not take three from two. I knew, of course, that we could if we just used an expanded definition of “what is subtraction” and added negative numbers to our vocabulary we could. I pleaded with her just to admit to the class (not for my benefit but theirs) that there was a way to do it but we just couldn’t. (I thought it was a negotiable matter because of course she knew math or she wouldn’t be teaching it, right?) When she refused, I offered to help her understand it and I ended up in the principal’s office. Decades later I found out she really didn’t know anything about math and she had no idea about negative numbers.
In countless other times, people have told me of their supposed “absolute” truths and then proceeded to behave in a manner that makes their truths relative, or even completely unapplicable. They have heartfelt reasons for believing so, but almost always I find that their “absolutes” are really only absolutes inside a certain rhetorical box which makes a limiting assumption over the nature of Truth to conform to our humanly logical constructs. We form God in our own graven image to try to understand what we are not wise enough to grasp.
As far as relativism being an evil in itself, that’s hogwash. When relativistic principles are applied to some very narrowly defined absolute truths, it can be problematic. You can say “1+1=10” is objectively false, but in doing so, you presuppose limitations and meanings upon the symbol “10” to think it actually means the decimal number “ten.” Why says it was in base 10, other than convention and experience? In base 2 the statement is entirely accurate. It’s all a matter of what meaning you attach to your symbols, and under what assumptions those symbols reflect reality. Anybody who thinks they are going teach me a thing or two by saying, "truth is absolute by nature, so 1+1=2 is always the case and alternative such as 1+1=10 are thereby false, has used a poor example of absolutism because I’m better at the symbol game and I know of countless examples where it is false. Again, all I have to do is change the rules so we are using binary instead of decimal and 1+1=10 becomes absolutely true, and 1+1=2 becomes completely meaningless.
Truth itself may be absolute in nature, but our understanding it and our codifying of it into human language always presumes numerous assumptions about the relationship between the verbal symbols and implications of the parables we are using, which are not constant across cultures or even within one individual from one moment to the next.
The we use complexity to hide or try to absolute-ize relativism. For example, when discussing culpability for a sin, we have a set of criteria used to determine, but when all the words have been spoken and heard, there still is a subjective component that is objectively part of the determination. For example, if someone tells me that induced abortion of a live baby is objectively evil, and it doesn’t depend on the motive, that’s fine. Limited minds, then, extend this to incorrecly assert that abortion is objectively a mortal sin on the parts of the participants, which is not necessarily true.
The biggest issue I have with people who use “relativism” as a verbal bludgeon is their point is normally just as relativistic as the one they condemn, making them hyprocrites as well as fools. Sometimes it seems to be a matter of conflicting absolutes, and only an expanded understanding can reconcile them, although in any given reference frame it would appear we do indeed have no-win situations. Life is about winning in no-win situations, and Christ showed us how limited our pseudo-absolute ideas are, that are really artifacts of limited understandng. When He suggested they eat flesh and drink blood, He was suggesting they engage in something abominable and unthinkable. It would seem He was going against an absolute prohibition. Rather than admitting to relativistic interpretation of the ban on drinking blood, He just emphasized that in his expanded consciousness compared to our own, it not only makes sense but is mandatory.
Alan
I’m not sure how the quote about my posting style is relevant here. I do not deny that I occasionally have mischief mixed in with my hopefully good motives when I post. This is not one of them, though, at least in terms of my sincerity to the things I’m writing.
The very first negative encounter I had in my life with an authority figure was with a nun who insisted that I could not take three from two. I knew, of course, that we could if we just used an expanded definition of “what is subtraction” and added negative numbers to our vocabulary we could. I pleaded with her just to admit to the class (not for my benefit but theirs) that there was a way to do it but we just couldn’t. (I thought it was a negotiable matter because of course she knew math or she wouldn’t be teaching it, right?) When she refused, I offered to help her understand it and I ended up in the principal’s office. Decades later I found out she really didn’t know anything about math and she had no idea about negative numbers.
In countless other times, people have told me of their supposed “absolute” truths and then proceeded to behave in a manner that makes their truths relative, or even completely unapplicable. They have heartfelt reasons for believing so, but almost always I find that their “absolutes” are really only absolutes inside a certain rhetorical box which makes a limiting assumption over the nature of Truth to conform to our humanly logical constructs. We form God in our own graven image to try to understand what we are not wise enough to grasp.
As far as relativism being an evil in itself, that’s hogwash. When relativistic principles are applied to some very narrowly defined absolute truths, it can be problematic. You can say “1+1=10” is objectively false, but in doing so, you presuppose limitations and meanings upon the symbol “10” to think it actually means the decimal number “ten.” Why says it was in base 10, other than convention and experience? In base 2 the statement is entirely accurate. It’s all a matter of what meaning you attach to your symbols, and under what assumptions those symbols reflect reality. Anybody who thinks they are going teach me a thing or two by saying, "truth is absolute by nature, so 1+1=2 is always the case and alternative such as 1+1=10 are thereby false, has used a poor example of absolutism because I’m better at the symbol game and I know of countless examples where it is false. Again, all I have to do is change the rules so we are using binary instead of decimal and 1+1=10 becomes absolutely true, and 1+1=2 becomes completely meaningless.
Truth itself may be absolute in nature, but our understanding it and our codifying of it into human language always presumes numerous assumptions about the relationship between the verbal symbols and implications of the parables we are using, which are not constant across cultures or even within one individual from one moment to the next.
The we use complexity to hide or try to absolute-ize relativism. For example, when discussing culpability for a sin, we have a set of criteria used to determine, but when all the words have been spoken and heard, there still is a subjective component that is objectively part of the determination. For example, if someone tells me that induced abortion of a live baby is objectively evil, and it doesn’t depend on the motive, that’s fine. Limited minds, then, extend this to incorrecly assert that abortion is objectively a mortal sin on the parts of the participants, which is not necessarily true.
The biggest issue I have with people who use “relativism” as a verbal bludgeon is their point is normally just as relativistic as the one they condemn, making them hyprocrites as well as fools. Sometimes it seems to be a matter of conflicting absolutes, and only an expanded understanding can reconcile them, although in any given reference frame it would appear we do indeed have no-win situations. Life is about winning in no-win situations, and Christ showed us how limited our pseudo-absolute ideas are, that are really artifacts of limited understandng. When He suggested they eat flesh and drink blood, He was suggesting they engage in something abominable and unthinkable. It would seem He was going against an absolute prohibition. Rather than admitting to relativistic interpretation of the ban on drinking blood, He just emphasized that in his expanded consciousness compared to our own, it not only makes sense but is mandatory.
Alan
