How is Truth possible?

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Godmachine

**What’s really creepy is the thought of having to spend all eternity in someone else’s afterlife. **

It won’t be someone else’s afterlife. It will be your own.

And what’s creepy about being immortal? :confused:

The atheistic finality of death is what’s really creepy. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Fodder for the worms only? Tell that to any child and you will get a powerful shudder.

It’s so creepy children are haunted by the image even more than adults. And children are more honest than adults about how creepy the finality of death is without something to hope for beyond the grave.
 
Qoeleth said:
It would seem that any proposition asserted as truth either is:
  1. analytically true, i.e. true by definition, e.g. “1 + 1 = 2”, where “2” is defined as the sum of 1 + 1. In which case there would seem to be circularity of reason; OR
  2. is dependent upon another premise, e.g. “War is bad”, is dependent upon the assertion, “peace is good”, which then perhaps depends upon “happiness is good” (which is perhaps analytically true- and thus circular). Or, perhaps we reach a point were our conclusions depend upon an unsupported premise. The only other possibility would seem to be an infinite regress of premises, which is held to be impossible.
So, it seems there are three options- all purported truths are either:
  1. circular,
  2. depending upon some other premise which is unsupported,
  3. depending upon some other premise which is circular, or
  4. depending upon an infinite regression of premises.
So, how then is any truth claim sustainable?
Click to expand...
Qoeleth

Your assumptions of what is good or bad is relative to the one who is to experience what is to be understood, or judged, as good or bad. In other words who is it good or bad for?

And the Truth is the Truth not matter what the Truth is. As in the Truth is, but to know and or understand it is another matter.
 
Qoeleth said:
It would seem that any proposition asserted as truth either is:
  1. analytically true, i.e. true by definition, e.g. “1 + 1 = 2”, where “2” is defined as the sum of 1 + 1. In which case there would seem to be circularity of reason; OR
  2. is dependent upon another premise, e.g. “War is bad”, is dependent upon the assertion, “peace is good”, which then perhaps depends upon “happiness is good” (which is perhaps analytically true- and thus circular). Or, perhaps we reach a point were our conclusions depend upon an unsupported premise. The only other possibility would seem to be an infinite regress of premises, which is held to be impossible.
So, it seems there are three options- all purported truths are either:
  1. circular,
  2. depending upon some other premise which is unsupported,
  3. depending upon some other premise which is circular, or
  4. depending upon an infinite regression of premises.
So, how then is any truth claim sustainable?
Click to expand...
  1. All scientific propositions are circular but they produce remarkable results
  2. If no truth claim is sustainable the claim that no truth claim is sustainable is itself not sustainable!
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Godmachine

**As I said in another thread, if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists. I’ll add here that not only would everyone know it exists, but everyone would agree on what it is. It would be as obvious to everyone as the sun and the moon. **

Not necessarily. Because God gives us free will, God must remain just hidden enough from us to be free to accept or reject Him, to choose virtue or to choose sin. If God were as obvious as the sun and the moon, God would have to be a physical being.

That notion of God doesn’t sail. 😉
Click to expand...
👍 Irrefutable.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Godmachine

**What’s really creepy is the thought of having to spend all eternity in someone else’s afterlife. **

It won’t be someone else’s afterlife. It will be your own.

And what’s creepy about being immortal? :confused:

The atheistic finality of death is what’s really creepy. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Fodder for the worms only? Tell that to any child and you will get a powerful shudder.

It’s so creepy children are haunted by the image even more than adults. And children are more honest than adults about how creepy the finality of death is without something to hope for beyond the grave.
Click to expand...
👍 Sensational! 😉
 
tonyrey said:
Do you mean you would prefer to spend all eternity** on your own**? Sounds like hell to me! 😉
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Heaven is what I mean by someone else’s afterlife. I have never heard a Christian give a description of Heaven that did not make me shudder at the thought of having to spend eternity there. I cannot imagine why anyone would actually want to go there. But I think that is a topic for another thread.
 
Godmachine
**
Heaven is what I mean by someone else’s afterlife. I have never heard a Christian give a description of Heaven that did not make me shudder at the thought of having to spend eternity there. I cannot imagine why anyone would actually want to go there. But I think that is a topic for another thread. **

Since no one has been to heaven and returned to describe it, I don’t know who can be giving you descriptions of heaven, or whether they are playing with a full deck.

I should think the usual descriptions of Hell would give you more to shudder about than any description of heaven you have ever heard. 😃

Are you really into pain? :confused:
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Since no one has been to heaven and returned to describe it, I don’t know who can be giving you descriptions of heaven, or whether they are playing with a full deck.
Click to expand...
I agree. But then Christians do have their own ideas (plucked out of thin air) of what Heaven is like that they believe to be “truth”.
Charlemagne_II said:
I should think the usual descriptions of Hell would give you more to shudder about than any description of heaven you have ever heard. 😃
Click to expand...
Need I point out that nobody has been to hell and returned to describe it either? And yet the descriptions of hell are also widely believed to be “truth”. Doesn’t anyone here find the notion of infinite punishment for finite crimes somewhat disturbing and troubling?
Charlemagne_II said:
Are you really into pain? :confused:
Click to expand...
What makes you say that?
 
Charlemagne II;

**if a god exists that wants people to know it exists, then everyone would know it exists. **
Click to expand...
Every one will know on the day of judgement, but we believe that God wants us to change freely and willingly, before that day occurs. God does not want injustice here on Earth, he sent you, me and every one else to be a part of the solution.

If you read the story of Moses, God made himself known in so many ways, and so many times, yet the people kept rejected God and went their own way.

Blessings

Eric
 
Godmachine said:
. Doesn’t anyone here find the notion of infinite punishment for finite crimes somewhat disturbing and troubling?
Click to expand...
Not if the punishment is self-inflicted for the sake of being absolutely independent!
 
tonyrey said:
Not if the punishment is self-inflicted for the sake of being absolutely independent!
Click to expand...
But aren’t we supposed to be absolutely independent, in the sense of not being coerced, by any actual evidence of God, to believe in him?
 
Godmachine

**Need I point out that nobody has been to hell and returned to describe it either? And yet the descriptions of hell are also widely believed to be “truth”. Doesn’t anyone here find the notion of infinite punishment for finite crimes somewhat disturbing and troubling? **

The fact is that we don’t know what hell is like. Another fact is that it isn’t going to be fun. 😃

Well, if one chooses infinite punishment for a finite crime, I don’t see why one should gripe.

When a criminal commits a capital crime and gets sentenced to life in prison, does he have a right to gripe?

He knew full well the chance he was taking. The same with atheists and sinners.

They want nothing to do with God? Wish granted! :rolleyes:

**What makes you say that? **

From a previous post, it sounds like you don’t want to go to heaven? Right? :confused:

Where else is there to go but hell?
 
Qoeleth said:
It would seem that any proposition asserted as truth either is:
  1. analytically true, i.e. true by definition, e.g. “1 + 1 = 2”, where “2” is defined as the sum of 1 + 1. In which case there would seem to be circularity of reason; OR
  2. is dependent upon another premise, e.g. “War is bad”, is dependent upon the assertion, “peace is good”, which then perhaps depends upon “happiness is good” (which is perhaps analytically true- and thus circular). Or, perhaps we reach a point were our conclusions depend upon an unsupported premise. The only other possibility would seem to be an infinite regress of premises, which is held to be impossible.
So, it seems there are three options- all purported truths are either:
  1. circular,
  2. depending upon some other premise which is unsupported,
  3. depending upon some other premise which is circular, or
  4. depending upon an infinite regression of premises.
So, how then is any truth claim sustainable?
Click to expand...
Qoeleth:

Truth is only possible if it is grounded outside of whatever it is that we are considering. Otherwise, as you suggest, that which we assert is merely purported. At best, we can only presume ‘truth’.

God is the only possible grounding and foundation for ‘truth’. Not mathematics; not physics; not chemistry; not even geometry.

God bless,
jd
 
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