How do we discern what is true?

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HumbleSeminarian

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I was asked a curious question, which I recognized as loaded, but it peeked my interest none the less. It is as follows:

Christians, find a small object and hold it in front of you. What are you more confident in:

1. When you let go of that object, it will fall.
2. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.


My question specifically is how do we discern truth? What is the nature of truth that permits us to recognize it, and how do we make the jump from speculation to acceptance?

From a materialistic perspective, it is easy to accept the truth of gravity due to the scientific method, and repeated experimentation, but what permits our assent of faith in untestable realities?

If we cannot say something is deductively true, can we really say anything affirmative about it at all? If we cannot say anything affirmative, then how can we claim to have any knowledge of it?

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What are your thoughts?

EDIT: Just to clarify, I am in no way considering that Jesus did not rise from the dead. The question is more pertaining to how do we abstract truth? I removed that anecdotal bit about my disposition to the question.
 
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What are your thoughts?
Confidence will vary for the first statement depending upon the circumstances. If a person is underwater and lets go of an object it may float up. For the second it would not vary, therefore 2 is more certain than 1.
 
Matthew 7:24-27

Build Your House on the Rock

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock."
  1. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
The Hindenburg crash actually happened but, I was not there to witness it. I have to rely on the witness of others who came before me. Their stories have been passed on to us so I choose to believe it occurred. Some will say we have video as proof. We also have video of Bigfoot but hardly anyone believes that Bigfoot exists.

If you ask the really hard philosophical questions, we can’t even verify our own existence. We are made up of sinusoidal waves within a sea of sinusoidal waves. We call ourselves conscious beings who interact with our environment among other conscious beings. All we ever receive are biological pulses traveling to some kind of sensory center of consciousness and we construct a reality around these pulses and we say, “We know.” It is hard to contemplate. Physics might shed some light on all of this in the future.
This is only scratching the surface of our knowing the truth. It gets extremely complicated.
On a lighter level, we rely on our experience and the experience of others. Somehow we formulate a reference of what the definition of reality is and we use it as a rock for our own stability.
There is something mysterious about archetypes and the symbols of letters that make up words. Combine this with sensory impressions and we are able to, somehow, establish the truth.
 
I think the only thing demonstrated by the question is the difference between faith and knowledge. Of course faith is more challenging. We have observed the effects of gravity many times. We haven’t seen the resurrection, but “blessed are those that have not seen”.

I don’t think we can discern the truth. I think it is given by God, and it is up to us to trust Him rather than only trust ourselves, our own senses, and what the world shows us. I see the suffering the saints endure, the miracles they experience, and I feel God’s hand in my own life, as my prayers are answered. I see good come out of even the worst of situations. I experience peace and joy in seeking virtue and observing the dogma of the Church. I experience hope in times of suffering, that no worldly observation could give me.

Faith without reason is arbitrary, so why believe the resurrection is true? I don’t see how the Church could have survived if it wasn’t. The early Christians faced such awful persecution, why would so many endure that suffering for a lie? Why abandon Christ at His crucifixion, but then change heart and provoke the empire? There was nothing to gain by pretending Christ had risen, and everything to lose if the resurrection was a lie.
 
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What are you more confident in:

1. When you let go of that object, it will fall.
2. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
Or put another way, are you more concerned about
  1. dropping an object on the floor, or
  2. eternal damnation of your soul
 
From a materialistic perspective, it is easy to accept the truth of gravity due to the scientific method, and repeated experimentation, but what permits our assent of faith in untestable realities?
Divine Revelation. This isn’t blind faith. Jesus is God made flesh. His miracles were witnessed by hundreds, his body placed in tomb and resurrection witnessed by countless. Also his apostles were tortured to death and not one recanted and said they made up the resurrection. Now let’s pause for a minute…if its false and Jesus didn’t rise from dead, that would mean the Apostles were biggest conmen of all time and one thing conmen don’t do is martyr themselves , they throw other people under the bus to save themselves since they’re selfish to the core.
If we cannot say something is deductively true, can we really say anything affirmative about it at all? If we cannot say anything affirmative, then how can we claim to have any knowledge of it?
But if that’s true, then we can’t say anything about history, about WW2 (I wasn’t there either to see that) or even whether the earth is round (heck, I’m looking at the horizon right now and earth looks flat!). See how silly this gets when you define truth as only what you can personally verify with your own senses? We have to be able to base truth on what is logically deduced including what others convey to us and whether that is reasonable based on our reasoning and experience, including about past events.
 
Christians, find a small object and hold it in front of you. What are you more confident in:

1. When you let go of that object, it will fall.
2. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
Ok I just tried this.

Easily #2 since I grabbed object on my desk.
 
Now let’s pause for a minute…if its false and Jesus didn’t rise from dead, that would mean the Apostles were biggest conmen of all time and one thing conmen don’t do is martyr themselves , they throw other people under the bus to save themselves since they’re selfish to the core.
Dying for a false belief isn’t uncommon, in some sense it’s the norm. Hundreds of millions, if not billions of people have given their lives in defense of ideals. You yourself are an example of just how easy it is to persuade people of the validity of something. You believe in the divinity of Christ based solely upon stories and personal experiences, both of which are of questionable merit.

As for the apostles choosing to die as martyrs, its not very difficult to explain. Given a sufficient number of people there will always be some who are susceptible to persuasion. Hence false prophets. Given a sufficient number of people, almost any belief will find proponents, but those proponents, no matter how loyal they may be, aren’t evidence of validity.

Many followers of Muhammad would seem to be quite willing to die in defense of their beliefs, does that mean that their beliefs are likely to be true?
 
Many followers of Muhammad would seem to be quite willing to die in defense of their beliefs, does that mean that their beliefs are likely to be true?
This doesn’t follow. Followers of Islam aren’t in a position to know if their beliefs are true or false. However the apostles were, if they made everything up then they would be dying for a lie they created. Someone might die for something they believe is true but no one would die for a lie they made up
 
Followers of Islam aren’t in a position to know if their beliefs are true or false.
Likewise you aren’t in a position to know if Christ actually rose from the dead.
However the apostles were,
As were the followers of Muhammad.
if they made everything up then they would be dying for a lie they created.
No they died for what may have been nothing more than a false belief, not a lie that they themselves created. People have been doing so throughout history. The apostles aren’t unique in that regard.
Someone might die for something they believe is true but no one would die for a lie they made up
And I never suggested that they died for something that they made up. But as you pointed out, people will die for something that they believe, and getting people to believe something is extremely easy.
 
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Likewise you aren’t in a position to know if Christ actually rose from the dead.
Likewise you aren’t in a position to know that the Apostles died for nothing more than a false belief
No they died for what may have been nothing more than a false belief
And I never suggested that they died for something that they made up
Oh so the Apostles didn’t make it up, they believed a lie told by who? Themselves?

They’re such big conmen they conned themselves!
 
Likewise you aren’t in a position to know that the Apostles died for nothing more than a false belief
You’re right, both positions are a matter of belief.
Oh so the Apostles didn’t make it up, they believed a lie told by who? Themselves?
No, they didn’t simply make up a lie, nor did anyone else. What they believed, they believed for the same reason that everybody believes…a combination of evidence, experience, personal and emotional investment, and a susceptibility to persuasion. Put those things together in the proper proportion and you can get people to believe almost anything.
 
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Ok so back to the question - they believed a lie told by who?
It’s not a lie intentionally told by anyone, it’s a false belief that grew out of poor assumptions. Christ may have believed that he was God, or he may not have, but there’s no reason to believe that anyone intentionally lied.
 
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It’s not a lie intentionally told by anyone, it’s a false belief that grew out of poor assumptions.
Oops you just made a knowledge claim about what they believed. You already conceded you’re not in a position to know their state of mind.
 
As were the followers of Muhammad.
False, there’s no record of any verifiable eye witnesses to Muhammad recieving divine revelation. So the only person who would actually know would’ve been Muhammad.
No they died for what may have been nothing more than a false belief, not a lie that they themselves created
So if they didn’t lie, what happened? They all just happened to mass hallucinate the same thing? They were either telling the truth or they were lying we don’t have to over complicate this.
But as you pointed out, people will die for something that they believe, and getting people to believe something is extremely easy.
Then the who got the apostles to believe this “not a lie” false belief you speak of?
 
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Christians, find a small object and hold it in front of you. What are you more confident in:

1. When you let go of that object, it will fall.
2. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
It’s funny how many Christians try to explain the truth of their faith without mentioning faith.

School taught me #1 is caused by gravity. The fact that when I drop something it falls teaches me that’s the truth.

My mom taught me believing #2 is the truth is called FAITH. When I listen to my mom, I open my heart to faith which allowed God to enter my heart which then taught me to accept #2 as the truth.

We can tell you everything you need to know about God. Who He is. What He did… who followed Him. Why, what happened to them happened… But until you open your heart to it, allow God to enter and fill you’re heart with the truth, what we say won’t matter.

On that note when you open your heart to wanting to know the REAL TRUTH only God can lead you too it. Faith and Trust in Him will lead you to it.
 
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Why don’t you ask him what is he more confident in:
  1. when he let go of object, it will fall
  2. the apple really fell on Newton’s head
 
  1. When you let go of that object, it will fall.
One might ask why should anything fall, or why should there be an object, or any subject matter? I don’t see why the objects of our experience and their behaviour should be any more a possibility than some being dying and coming back to life. The only difference is that we have not personally witnessed it and so we tend the measure the likely-hood of it according to our experiences. But a-prior we really don’t know what the ultimate nature of reality is and we have a limited understanding of what is or is not possible.

After all we could just as easily have been born into a reality where people don’t die; what reason is there to think that death is an ontological necessity?
 
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