Question regarding absolutism/absolute truth

[Dameedna]

If we reject God as the place to start because there is disagreement about his laws then surely, by that criterion, there is no place to start since there will always be disagreement about any “starting” point.

Wether there is a disagreement about the starting point, or wether there is a disagreement about the nature of God there is still a disagreement.

We cannot go anywhere, because everyone is claiming they are right. Perhaps the “starting” point is not with god at all. But something that is common to all humans, including the buddhists and the athiests.

I think this is nothing more than swapping terms, “enhancing human life” for “morality.” What is it about morality that one would claim does not enhance human life?

Take a good look at your old testement. Lots of killing in the name of God going on there, justified by many.

The FDLS thinks that it is IMMORAL to only marry one woman. In fact if you are to be a moral man, you must aquire 3 wives, to not only help your wives gain heavenly entrance but to ensure it for yourself. After all, one must “restrict” human behaviour for the sake of a heavenly life, and even if it is hurtful(no masturbation, tolerating other women making love to your husband) it must be ahdered to. It is Gods moral code. This is the essense of morality for the believer isn’t it?

Let me know how your polygymous marriage goes, when you accept “true” morality.

hmmmm…

A definition, that is not based on a God belief, is obviously needed.

This seems like a rejection of the concept of absolutes.

There are no absolutes.

It is an absolute statment, that is circular.

Yes, there are absolutes. I have no problem with this at all.

 

[Detales]

I “absolutely” agree, lol! How utterly fortunate you are to have met such an individual. You now know that Truth is transmitted by Presence, not by precepts. Precepts are an after the fact attempt to catch a meaning that only lives in the heart. No wonder Paul said “The letter kills, the Spirit enilvens.”

I am immesurably happy for you. I hope that you are still in association with your friend. My Benefactor has passed, and I only have his memory, publications, and a few personal notes to remind me. However, he lives in my heart as an exemplar of unconditional Love, and as someone who could explicate and give meaning in life experience to what had before him been dead dogma to me. He was a philosophical omnivor who ate sutras and bibles for light snacks. He was likened by Catholic priests to St. John Chrysostom, and by Buddhists to “living Vedanta.” To me the proof of his verity was in that his perceptions disolved religious contentions and fostered an aura of living ecumenism around him that was profound and palpable. It was clear to me that the Love at the foundation of his utterances was so fundamental as to be before the adamantinization of Love into dogma and precepts and religions. He made me feel that I am always in the Presence, that the World and my Being are the constant Chruch, and all things, thoughts, and actions a part of the sacred sacramental ceremony of loving God.

I trust that your friend had a similar effect on you. Remember that like attracts like. How fortunate you are for your experience with such a one in whom you can recognize your own wonder, appearing as another. I feel that if you met Jesus on a path, He would recognize you from afar, and embrace you upon meeting, and weep for joy in the Love of the God you know in your heart.

 

[Dameedna]

I “absolutely” agree, lol! How utterly fortunate you are to have met such an individual. You now know that Truth is transmitted by Presence, not by precepts. Precepts are an after the fact attempt to catch a meaning that only lives in the heart. No wonder Paul said “The letter kills, the Spirit enilvens.”

I am immesurably happy for you. I hope that you are still in association with your friend. My Benefactor has passed, and I only have his memory, publications, and a few personal notes to remind me. However, he lives in my heart as an exemplar of unconditional Love, and as someone who could explicate and give meaning in life experience to what had before him been dead dogma to me. He was a philosophical omnivor who ate sutras and bibles for light snacks. He was likened by Catholic priests to St. John Chrysostom, and by Buddhists to “living Vedanta.” To me the proof of his verity was in that his perceptions disolved religious contentions and fostered an aura of living ecumenism around him that was profound and palpable. It was clear to me that the Love at the foundation of his utterances was so fundamental as to be before the adamantinization of Love into dogma and precepts and religions. He made me feel that I was always in the Presence, that the World and my Being were the constant Chruch, and all things, thoughts, and actions a part of the sacred sacramental ceremony of loving God.

I trust that your friend had a similar effect on you. Remember that like attracts like. How fortunate you are for your experience with such a one in whom you can recognize your own wonder, appearing as another. I feel that if you met Jesus on a path, He would recognize you from afar, and embrace you upon meeting, and weep for joy in the Love of the God you know in your heart.

I miss my friend so much. She was not infailable, I saw many things she did that were wrong and that she corrected. It wasn’t that I witnessed perfection. It was that I witnessed…a kind of love…that just changes you. And she was so willing to change, even with the slightest hint her behavior was wrong.No defensiveness, no ego. Just…oops…that was bad. New person emerged almost effortlessly.

I’m not the same without her, she is still alive and kicking and as cheeky and naughty as ever. She’s a vibrant one.

But as much as I learnt, I don’t think I learnt enough. I can’t emulate it. I try, but it’s missing. It was only around her when I got so angry at this and that and she would just…laugh. Not in a bad or disrepsectful way, but in a way as though, this does not matter my friend, this is the joy of life.

You go to a bank, line up for an hour. Eveyone gets’ frustrated. By the end of the queue , my friend not only knew EVERYONE in the line, how many kids they had and their favourite beer, I actually witnessed the entire bank queue, singing a song from the sound of music because my friend was bored and decided that it was time to be happy and she loved music. And everyone felt as stupid as possible…and they all had huge grins on their faces.

She on paper, probably sounds completely nuts or like a child. But she wasn’t and isn’t.

I miss my friend. I don’t quite know how to obtain her thingy. It isn’t through a religious rule…but…the only thing that points to it IS religion or at least an essence of something that is holistic. Humans are more than just their bits and pieces.

There may be absolutes. But I just don’t think you can ever define it. As soon as you do, it slips away as though a human…could discover the infinite of their own accord.

 

[fhansen]

I “absolutely” agree, lol! How utterly fortunate you are to have met such an individual. You now know that Truth is transmitted by Presence, not by precepts. Precepts are an after the fact attempt to catch a meaning that only lives in the heart. No wonder Paul said “The letter kills, the Spirit enilvens.”

I am immesurably happy for you. I hope that you are still in association with your friend. My Benefactor has passed, and I only have his memory, publications, and a few personal notes to remind me. However, he lives in my heart as an exemplar of unconditional Love, and as someone who could explicate and give meaning in life experience to what had before him been dead dogma to me. He was a philosophical omnivor who ate sutras and bibles for light snacks. He was likened by Catholic priests to St. John Chrysostom, and by Buddhists to “living Vedanta.” To me the proof of his verity was in that his perceptions disolved religious contentions and fostered an aura of living ecumenism around him that was profound and palpable. It was clear to me that the Love at the foundation of his utterances was so fundamental as to be before the adamantinization of Love into dogma and precepts and religions. He made me feel that I am always in the Presence, that the World and my Being are the constant Chruch, and all things, thoughts, and actions a part of the sacred sacramental ceremony of loving God.

I trust that your friend had a similar effect on you. Remember that like attracts like. How fortunate you are for your experience with such a one in whom you can recognize your own wonder, appearing as another. I feel that if you met Jesus on a path, He would recognize you from afar, and embrace you upon meeting, and weep for joy in the Love of the God you know in your heart.

Do you believe that the “adamantinization of Love into dogma and precepts and religions” (i.e., Thou shalt Love) is wrong if the end result is to preserve the concept that Love exists and is, indeed, the right motive behind human actions? The fact that human nature turns it into legalism doesn’t automatically imply that the dogma is wrong or not valuable. I’m don’t think this is your opinion but I’m curious. I seek wisdom wherever I can find it-I just happen to find it most fully in Catholicism-even if it sometimes needs to be unearthed. Or maybe I’m the one it needs to be unearthed in.

 

[Dameedna]

Do you believe that the “adamantinization of Love into dogma and precepts and religions” (i.e., Thou shalt Love) is wrong if the end result is to preserve the concept that Love exists and is, indeed, the right motive behind human actions?

I know you didn’t ask me this, but I don’t think the end result of rules and dogma is to teach you love. I think the rules and dogma provide a confused soul with the grounding and assurance that the soul needs in the first place that there IS a point to live and there ARE rules to your life and to “save” oneself from their prior state, they must follow them.

Many a convert never gets past the “rules” of god. Without rules, they would go back to their former chaotic life. The RULES become God to them. They aren’t God, they were just a set of rules the human needed to grow. And eventually, a human sheds the need for rules entirely, because they have become governed by something other than their own desires.

 

[Detales]

Fhansen, in my experience Love is not a concept. It is a transformative Power. And yes, I enjoy reading and listening to, as well as discussing or dialouging about dogmas, precepts, etc. But those are descriptions and pointers at best, guidposts and inspirations in some instances. They are neither the real thing nor containers thereof. That’s my take on it.

 

[Detales]

Dameedna, I was with my Benefactor for almost thirty years. Before that I was best friends with someone whom I felt left me in the dust in terms of happy spontenaity and personal insight. I still tend to be judgemental about how well I learned from their examples. But I know this: If I can make a comparison between what I experienced as an ideal and what I am doing, that ideal must in fact be a part of or a guiding light to my own make up. I think that perhaps you are prematurely and unnecessarily hard on yourself. You would not have been so attracted to your friend if she were not a harmonic of your own being. Neither would I be responding happily to your posts.

My Mentor signed his letters with “Man is a Song.” You have to play, whistle, grunt, pound, or whatever, that which is your own expression of your own being. It all comes from the same Source. You can’t do someone else’s, only what is uniquely and differently yours. I trust in you for that.

 

[Detales]

fhansen, it just came back to me that my Mentor used to say that we needed to be un-Earthed, lol! What a happy memory you have sparked for me. I’m sure that what he meant, as far as I can tell, is that we have to move our understanding beyond the obvious or the literal. That is why I mentioned about the three levels of meaning in parables as described by Maurice Nicoll. That is why I have the reference to the Gospel of Mark in my signature, as well as the other statements.

The whole question of literalism, one of our greatest barriers to understanding, is very well treated in a number of works, both ancient and modern, as it seems to be a perpetual problem in our own church as wel as in other faiths. Dialog is “literally” impossible until we can get past this seeming brick wall, which from the other side is clearly seen to be only tissue.

 

[Ender]

We cannot go anywhere, because everyone is claiming they are right. Perhaps the “starting” point is not with god at all. But something that is common to all humans, including the buddhists and the athiests.

If God exists then surely he would be the true starting point. To suggest that the religious should start somewhere else is to suggest that they renounce their belief. For the sake of this discussion, however, I’d be willing to start wherever you want. I am interesting in seeing how you first explain how you know that morality even exists and then how you determine what it is.

Take a good look at your old testement. Lots of killing in the name of God going on there, justified by many.

Let’s not go there. I have made no argument that Christian morality is true; for now, this discussion is purely about your position, how you articulate it and how you defend it.

A definition, that is not based on a God belief, is obviously needed.

OK, provide it.

There are no absolutes.

It is an absolute statment, that is circular.

Yes, there are absolutes. I have no problem with this at all.

C’mon. I was talking about absolute moral truths. Do you believe they exist?

Ender

 

[Leela]

Hi Ender and Dameedna,

I just want to suggest some terms for this discussion that may help clarify our ideas.

I think of knowledge as justified true belief and try to be clear about using these three terms in talking about knowledge. In other words, it can be helpful to distinguish these three pieces of the knowledge puzzle.

Best,
Leela

 

[fhansen]

I know you didn’t ask me this, but I don’t think the end result of rules and dogma is to teach you love. I think the rules and dogma provide a confused soul with the grounding and assurance that the soul needs in the first place that there IS a point to live and there ARE rules to your life and to “save” oneself from their prior state, they must follow them.

Many a convert never gets past the “rules” of god. Without rules, they would go back to their former chaotic life. The RULES become God to them. They aren’t God, they were just a set of rules the human needed to grow. And eventually, a human sheds the need for rules entirely, because they have become governed by something other than their own desires.

I agree with this in part although I’ve seen converts go directly towards love, which you apparently don’t believe even exists in the religions you’re referring to.

I’m suggesting that if we look at the Zen master pointing his students’ attention to the moon with his finger and we relate this to Christianity, the finger is the dogma, etc. and the moon is God/Love and we’re not necessarily ready at first to accept that for whatever reason. I’m also maintaining that this message is the heart of Catholicism but isn’t necessarily readily apparent because of human nature being what it is-“fallen” in the terminology of the Church (which means turned from love)-all of which means that her adherents themselves including her leaders won’t necessarily heed or even fully comprehend her own teachings, especially since conversion back to love itself is considered to be a process. So Augustine put it this way:

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

 

[Ender]

I think of knowledge as justified true belief …

Hi yourself … I don’t know how you are using the term “justified.” I took a class once where we were taught that there were three conditions that had to be met before we could validly say we knew something:

• it had to be true
• we had to believe it was true
• we had to be able to prove it was true

I can’t claim that this construction is valid (I certainly can’t prove it), but if it is then there is no way to know right and wrong since there is no way to prove its claims (which may relate to the term “justified”). We can certainly say we believe, and even strongly believe, that morality exists and what that means for our behavior, but morality itself cannot be proven to exist. Whether or not we believe in God we accept morality on faith, faith that God exists and we can know his laws or faith that our sense of right and wrong is somehow inherently valid.

Ender

 

[Leela]

Hi yourself … I don’t know how you are using the term “justified.” I took a class once where we were taught that there were three conditions that had to be met before we could validly say we knew something:

• it had to be true
• we had to believe it was true
• we had to be able to prove it was true

I can’t claim that this construction is valid (I certainly can’t prove it), but if it is then there is no way to know right and wrong since there is no way to prove its claims (which may relate to the term “justified”).

Right, justified takes the place of “proof” in your teacher’s explanation of knowledge.

Here’s why I think justification is thought to be important: Suppose that you flip a coin and I call “heads.” The coin eventually comes up “heads.” Can I claim that I knew it would be “heads”? Certainly I believed it would be “heads” and my belief was true, so I held a true belief, but it wasn’t a justified true belief so it can’t rightly be called knowledge. I had no justification for belief, I just got lucky.

Now I don’t think that to be justified in believing something we necessarily need proof which may be a particular standard of justification. The reason I suggested your conversation about knowledge could be moved forward by thinking about the three pieces of knowledge as justified true belief is that now you can talk about whether you agree about what constitutes justification, what truth is, and what belief means.

For pragmatists who like to try to focus the conversation on lived experience, a belief is a habit of action. To believe something is to be prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances.

As for truth…well, pragmatists like myself don’t think there is anything philosophically interesting to say about truth. It is the property that all true statements have. Truth is what is good to believe. Truth is truth–an unhelpful tautology, but perhaps all that needs to be said. A moral we draw from the history of philosophy that the project of coming up with a theory of truth that helps us come up with more true statements has not born any fruit, so we should move on to talking about justification.

Justification breaks down into public and private matters. In private matters, you get to determine your own standards of justification, but when you want to get other people to join you in your projects, you will need to convince others that your beliefs are true. So it seems to me that the only piece of this puzzle that is worth talking about is how we can convince others of our beliefs.

We can certainly say we believe, and even strongly believe, that morality exists and what that means for our behavior, but morality itself cannot be proven to exist. Whether or not we believe in God we accept morality on faith, faith that God exists and we can know his laws or faith that our sense of right and wrong is somehow inherently valid.

I don’t know that anyone doubts that morality exists since we all experience morality, so it doesn’t matter that you don’t think you can prove it.

As for faith, it has no pragmatic value in public matters where you want to convince others of the truth of your beliefs. Faith that your sense of right and wrong is accurate won’t help you convince anyone else that you are right. All it does is make your beliefs immune to other people’s attempts to justify their beliefs to you, and that is a problem. I can’t see why you’d want to do that or why people tell one another that faith is a good thing. (Yes I can, actually. I think faith is part of a cultural immune system–a culture trying to preserve itself.) The effect of everyone having faith in their own beliefs means that no one’s beliefs are subject to the conversational pressure and experiential forces that helps us get rid of false beliefs in favor of better ones.

Clearly a population of believers in absolute truth who all have faith in their own beliefs but all happen to believe different things could not function. There is no way that everyone could be right and no way for the ones that are wrong to correct their wrong beliefs since beliefs held on faith are not subject to revision in light of new experiences including new evidence and arguments.

It’s interesting to me that this faith in one’s own absolute truth sounds a lot like the “nightmare of relativism” that I hear talked about so much. Beliefs based on faith are entirely individualistic since they are not held as subject to external pressures such as other’s demands that our beliefs be justified to them. In this way, faith results in beliefs that are entirely relative to the individual since no other arbiters of truth are admitted.

Of course some could claim that what they have faith in as absolute truth is not their individual belief but that of their religion, but people choose from a very wide variety of religions that hold a wide variety of beliefs which can’t all be true. So such a move only exchanges relativism that is relative to the individual to relativism that is relative to the chosen religious group.

People who do not appeal to faith avoid the relativism inherent in faith because they hold their beliefs subject to lived experience which is not all arbitrary. When we don’t hold our beliefs dogmatically, life has a way of correcting our wrong beliefs. Our beliefs are either born out in practice or not. There is nothing relative about that since lived experience is absolutely absolute.

Best,
Leela

 

[GodLovesTheSpek]

Truth by definition is perfect and immutable or it isn’t Truth. Those seeking Truth can read The Holy Bible, read The Catecism, or read the Papal Encyclicals – ex cathedra.

Now we can try to understand the truths better as we contemplate The Holy Trinity, The Eucarist, The Passion, for example, but the Truth, the only Truth, which comes from He who is Truth Himself will not change.

 

[Ender]

Right, justified takes the place of “proof” in your teacher’s explanation of knowledge.
…
I don’t think that to be justified in believing something we necessarily need proof
Either “justified” means proven or it doesn’t - choose one.

now you can talk about whether you agree about what constitutes justification, what truth is, and what belief means.
We should certainly define these terms. I’ll give you my interpretation:

Justification = proof - that which can be proven in the physical world or that which can be logically deduced from a set of postulates or basic principles.

Truth - something which is … umm … true regardless of whether it can be proven or whether anyone believes it.

Belief - the acceptance of things that have not been or cannot be proven. (I know we say things like we believe wood comes from trees but I’m trying to narrow its use.)

Faith - acting as if what you Believe is True.

Truth is what is good to believe.
This is going to be a stumbling block.

Justification … you get to determine your own standards of justification, but when you want to get other people to join you in your projects, you will need to convince others that your beliefs are true.
We get to vote on right and wrong?

I don’t know that anyone doubts that morality exists since we all experience morality, so it doesn’t matter that you don’t think you can prove it.
I find this at the heart of the issue, it is the essence of the problem.

Faith that your sense of right and wrong is accurate won’t help you convince anyone else that you are right.
Do you think it would be easier to convince people that you are right if you admit to them that you might be wrong? That you don’t fully believe what you’re trying to get them to believe?

Clearly a population of believers in absolute truth who all have faith in their own beliefs but all happen to believe different things could not function.
This would perhaps be correct if either (a) Truth does not exist or (b) it cannot be known. That you assume this is the case doesn’t make it so … you are not justified in believing it. :thankyou:

Beliefs based on faith are entirely individualistic since they are not held as subject to external pressures such as other’s demands that our beliefs be justified to them. In this way, faith results in beliefs that are entirely relative to the individual since no other arbiters of truth are admitted.
I would rather you use the term religion rather than faith; not all faith is religious and it seems you are using them synonymously.

people choose from a very wide variety of religions that hold a wide variety of beliefs which can’t all be true. So such a move only exchanges relativism that is relative to the individual to relativism that is relative to the chosen religious group.
The fact that there is disagreement over Truth does not, as you seem to infer, prove that Truth does not exist or cannot be known.

When we don’t hold our beliefs dogmatically, life has a way of correcting our wrong beliefs. Our beliefs are either born out in practice or not.
It seems like you’re saying that a weak belief - a hunch say - is better than “really believing” (dogmatically) since you have no faith that what you have deduced for today will stand up to tomorrow’s scrutiny.

There is nothing relative about that since lived experience is absolutely absolute.
I would have thought this was the definition of relativism since each person’s lived experience is his alone.

You’ve really said too much to discuss at one time. Pick some part of my rebuttal and let’s focus the discussion on some manageable part.

Ender

 

[Detales]

Godlovesthespek; great “handle.”

I think when we speak to non-Catholics, we need to be careful of distributing even the accurate definition you gave over anything other than God only. It is fine, however to say that “I believe XYZ to be “True” in my understanding.” This is a simple semantic proposition.

I say this because otherwise you are asking for perhaps unnecessary arguements. That is because while the Church has its own unassailable internal logic, a simple reading of history will immediatley bring challenges from non-believers. It is easy, say, given the nature of the Council of Jerusalem, to posit that the Church as we know it today is primarily a Paulist Church, the early Church being unmistakably founded in, and alligned in practice with, Judaism. I know Jesus did not say how to spread His teachings, but there are a host of questions regarding scholarly veracity in this area that make the word “True” suspect in the eyes of non-Catholics.

As for the Bible, we know that we have none of the original documents, not even first copies. And all those are different from one another in some regard or other. Also, some of their contents may be traced to works that pre-date Jesus in some form or other. And the Bible with its present complement of books wasn’t assembled until the fourth century. Again, there is, from the non-Catholic view, material here to be concerned about in terms of scholastic, or even spiritual, accuracy.

Even today, as we gain greater understanding of language and translation,,** we find that some interpretations are changing. For example, we know that in the time and place of Jesus the teaching language (parables) had at least three tiers of meaning, and therefore of interpretation. (See Mark 4:33-34)** Also, in Latin it says “Idem non idem.” They meant, I believe, that the “same” thing in one language is* not *the same in another. Yet we have Aramaic going into Greek and Latin during radically different cultures than our own, and then being translated into English–about whose verb “to be” Heinlein said “only the first person singular is true to fact.” There is also the factor of the about two thousand year time factor, not to mention that there is good reason to believe that authors of that time did not write expository prose in the same sense that we now understand it. Again, red flags for non-believers.

Further, the Catechism may in our eyes be “True,” but in fact it was developed over time and includes exegetical material that can easily be targeted as valid, but not necessarioly “True” in the sense you defined. And again, from a non-Catholic stance, ex-cathedra, etc, etc, are all dependent on the previous factors and are therfore subject to scholastic scrutiny, therefore not “True” in that sense through those eyes.

So I think it is wonderful that you have the strength of your faith. I’m just saying that if it is represented as a faith, however valid and “True” *to you *, claiming it as “Truth” without qualification may be asking for unnecessary arguments based on demonstrable doubt regarding changelessness. Of course, “Truth” still stands as applied to God, in any case. I’m just cautioning against putting forth even the strongest faith in the place of scholarly argument in a forum where it might draw unwarranted critique when put in such a way as your post.

*In this regard it is fascinating to read the Lamsa translation done recently by Dr. George Lamsa, a speker of Aramaic. See www.lamsabible.com

**A funny story about this comes from a lady who was asked why, when it would serve her well in her situation, she didn’t learn a particular foreign language. She replied “God writ the Bible in English, and that makes it good enough for me.”

***A fine work on this account is Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man: an interpretation fo sme of the parables and miracles of Christ.

 

[Leela]

Hi Ender,

I’m not sure what to say about what you called your “rebuttal.” You sound so hostile . I said, “I don’t think that to be justified in believing something we necessarily need proof” and right off the bat you demanded, “Either “justified” means proven or it doesn’t - choose one.” I thought I clearly did choose. I said that justified does not necessarily mean proof–that proof is one way of talking about justification but not the only way.

I suggested a way of thinking about knowledge–that of justified true belief–not to **** you off but because that is how any philosophy class wold begin in talking about knowledge since that is how Plato defined knowledge.

You gave your definitions of the three terms in question plus faith:

"Justification = proof - that which can be proven in the physical world or that which can be logically deduced from a set of postulates or basic principles.

Truth - something which is … umm … true regardless of whether it can be proven or whether anyone believes it.

Belief - the acceptance of things that have not been or cannot be proven. (I know we say things like we believe wood comes from trees but I’m trying to narrow its use.)

Faith - acting as if what you Believe is True."

We completely agree on truth. Note that one can say “He believes it, but it is not true”, but not “He knows it, but it isn’t true.” I’m not sure what constitutes proof or proper justification. And I think you are leaving out “things that can be proven” from the category of things that can be believed.

…but despite listing your definitions of these terms, you seem to disagree that knowledge is justified true belief. Fine…you are not the first philosopher to disagree. What do you think is wrong with that definition of knowledge? What do you think is a better definition?

Best,
Leela

 

[Detales]

HI Leela,

Thanks very much for your postings. I went through your blog to the article Selfless Consciousness Without Faith. I found it refreshing, sane, and very much what I take as the actuality of things, save that I equate the fundamental nature of consciousness with the actual substance of all existance in degrees and kinds. In fact, my way of understanding is often mistaken for atheism, though it is not in the strict sense so. It is just that given even the Catholic stance that God is eternal makes it at the same time impossible for God to be a person. I also in those terms have what is, for me a perfectly viable explanation of the Trinty, an unshakable morality, and etc. etc.

You sound like you would be a wonderful person to have a coffee with. Thank you for your presence on these forums.

 

[GodLovesTheSpek]

Semantics. The question was asked about absolutism. Truth isn’t “as I see it” or “IMHO”, “my opinion” etc. People who desire truth but finding the responders presenting a nebulous web of “wiggle words” couched in niceties are in danger of allowing The Father Of Lies just enough room to create doubt and wedge and chip his way in. In that situation those that seek may not see the Truth at all because it is unrecognizable. It is our mission to present the Truth – fully and absolutely – then it can be recognized.

 

[Leela]

Hi Detales,

Thanks for the kind words.

Thanks very much for your postings. I went through your blog to the article Selfless Consciousness Without Faith. I found it refreshing, sane, and very much what I take as the actuality of things, save that I equate the fundamental nature of consciousness with the actual substance of all existance in degrees and kinds. In fact, my way of understanding is often mistaken for atheism, though it is not in the strict sense so. It is just that given even the Catholic stance that God is eternal makes it at the same time impossible for God to be a person. I also in those terms have what is, for me a perfectly viable explanation of the Trinty, an unshakable morality, and etc. etc.

Though my blog is directed toward nonbelievers, the question came up as to whether theism could be made compatible with pragmatism. It was suggested that Paul Tillich’s work could be viewed as along those lines. Are you familiar with him? Do you think of your views as generally being consistent with pragmatism?

On the issue at hand in this thread, you addressed GodLovesSpek with suggestions about his view of truth. My concern is not about whether or not he can hope to justify his beliefs to me but on the way he is using the word truth itself. He seems to be making a category error in treating as truth as an object to be apprehended rather than as a word we use to describe sentences. To me, truth is the property that all true sentences share, but it doesn’t make much sense to talk about truth without saying what you are claiming to be true. He wants to distinguish himself from others by saying “we Catholics stand for Truth,” as if other people don’t think that what they believe is true, and even saying that God himself is truth. How can a personal deity be equated with a property of sentences? It’s like saying Harry is honesty, or Julia is greed, or Sam is harmony. These aren’t words that can be equated with persons. If it was meant to be a poetic metaphor or something fine, but people say “God is truth” all the time as if they were saying something that had intellectual content.

Best,
Leela