Refutation of Relativism

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Geremia said:
Now, faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not. (Hebrews 11:1)
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Actually, you’ve (unintentionally) provided an example of the problem - for authority, you’ve quoted Christian scripture . . . . at a Jewess.

In other words, an appeal to ‘revealed religion’ is no means of establishing deductions from that ‘revealed religion’ with those who don’t accept your particular ‘revealed religion’ in the first place.
 
Kaninchen said:
In other words, an appeal to ‘revealed religion’ is no means of establishing deductions from that ‘revealed religion’ with those who don’t accept your particular ‘revealed religion’ in the first place.
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This is, I believe, the entire argument/refutation in a nutshell.
 
Susan1006 said:
I only said I was disappointed in the way your philosophical argument discouraged dialogue - not that it was wrong. It is a classic. But we must encourage people to think about their approach to relativism And perhaps others might find that kind of reasoning clever enough to embrace. I don’t care how we discourage relativism; only that we do it 🙂 Sorry if I offended.
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No worries and no offense. I just posted the classic argument because no one had yet done so, and I thought it was important to have a clear, logical, definite defeat of relativism posted up here. I did, and later posters still did not get it. What DO teachers teach people in schools these days?? Certainly not logic.
 
Numinous said:
No worries and no offense. I just posted the classic argument because no one had yet done so, and I thought it was important to have a clear, logical, definite defeat of relativism posted up here. I did, and later posters still did not get it. What DO teachers teach people in schools these days?? Certainly not logic.
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The existence or not of absolutes is hardly the problem, the problem is establishing absolutes as being absolutes.
 
An absolute truth would be – all human life is worthy of profound respect.

Is objective truth different than absolute truth?

Blessings,
granny

Human life is sacred.
Refuse FOCA
 
Leela said:
Yes, it is. As I thought, relativism is just a placeholder for atheism.

Okay, science and religion both have their uses. Science is our best attempt to understand reality and our place in it. Religion is our best attempt to undertand…what? Things that aren’t real? It seem to me that if we had good reason to believe th eclaims made by religion, they would be part of our scientific understanding of reality.

Best,
Leela
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Science is our best attempt to understand reality and religion is our best response to reality and our place in it. Our religious (or philosophical, if you prefer) beliefs are part of our scientific understanding of reality.
One good reason to believe the claims made by Jesus includes a desire to transcend the tawdry reasons for most of the things we do. The awe which our growing scientific understanding of the natural world inspires is a undeniable reason for worship for me.
As I understand it, relativism claims that reality is in the worldview of the beholder. What’s true today wasn’t necessarily true yesterday, or what’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for you. I find that a pretty slippery slope for critical thinking, but maybe not everyone does. It fosters “Might makes right” thinking and that seems to me to be its most dangerous effect.
 
The Truth is not democratic. True reality–with Christ as King–is a monarchy.
 
Numinous said:
The Truth is not democratic. True reality–with Christ as King–is a monarchy.
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Again, you speak the truth, but do not encourage the thoughtful exchange that might soften hearts and let the King of Glory in. I am trying to be as cunning as a serpent and as gentle as a dove. It’s not easy, but it IS easier to see when someone else isn’t doing it so well 🙂
 
Sorry, that’s something I have to work on. But come on: do you truly think you’re going to change anyone’s mind on an Internet forum? I don’t. Which is why I just slap people in the face with the truth. Maybe then they’ll remember what they read here and be able to talk to someone face to face about it with a bit of lovingkindness. I’m not looking to convert ANYONE on the Internet, because trying to do so is futile.
 
You are probably right. I am always trying to point out with perfect clarity the obvious “rightness” of my belief, so some one will smack himself in the forehead and say, “Aha!” It brings me great comfort, my great hope, my great joy and my great amazement, when I think about the glory of God. You are clever and witty and just as apt (and perhaps more so) to spark a conflagration of thought that leads to conversion as anyone. I refuse to accept that not one person will read and believe on the Internet.
God bless.
 
Susan1006 said:
As I understand it, relativism claims that reality is in the worldview of the beholder. What’s true today wasn’t necessarily true yesterday, or what’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for you. I find that a pretty slippery slope for critical thinking, but maybe not everyone does. It fosters “Might makes right” thinking and that seems to me to be its most dangerous effect.
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What is conspicuously absent, ironically, from your critiques of relativism in favor of absolute truth is any claim that absolute truth is true. Instead you argue that relativism is dangerous which is entirely irrelevent to whether or not it is true.

Best,
Leela
 
A limited form of understanding can come through debate (even less so on the Internet, however), and conversion comes through example and face-to-face conversation. In my experience, anyway. That’s why I stick to simply laying it on the line on the Internet and not worry about sparing people’s overly-fragile emotions.
 
Leela said:
What is conspicuously absent, ironically, from your critiques of relativism in favor of absolute truth is any claim that absolute truth is true. Instead you argue that relativism is dangerous which is entirely irrelevent to whether or not it is true.

Best,
Leela
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What’s it going to take? A logic-o-gram sent from me to you? Relativism also claims an absolute truth: truth is absolutely relative to the situation/circumstance/time period/individual. It is a contradictory and self-defeating argument.
 
Numinous said:
What’s it going to take? A logic-o-gram sent from me to you? Relativism also claims an absolute truth: truth is absolutely relative to the situation/circumstance/time period/individual. It is a contradictory and self-defeating argument.
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You are responding to my comments addressed to Susan here. I agree that you have attempted to argue that relativism is unreasonable, and if you recall, Susan criticised you for making the sort of rational argument that you were trying to make.

Also, I’ve already addressed your remarks about relativism where you keep switching between talking about moral relativism and some absolute relativism which is obviously self-contradictory but a position that no one actually holds. I don’t klnow anyone who has a problem with the idea of truth. Truth is truth. I don’t think there is anything philosophically interesting to say about truth in itself. Who argues that truth is not truth? Where people argue is about when we can say that we actually know the truth. When can we say that our beliefs are justified as true?

Best,
Leela
 
Numinous said:
What’s it going to take? A logic-o-gram sent from me to you? Relativism also claims an absolute truth: truth is absolutely relative to the situation/circumstance/time period/individual. It is a contradictory and self-defeating argument.
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I don’t think that anybody would deny that you’ve totally defeated a straw relativist position.

What you’ve failed to do is to provide any kind of evidence for any kind of absolute that would establish it as being absolute.

An ‘absolute’ that depends only on a kind of “'cause we say so” position is only ‘absolute’ to those holding that ‘set’ of ideas until such time as they can establish it in the minds of others.

The relativist position isn’t that “there are no absolutes” but that “there are no absolutes that have been established as being ‘absolutes’ and no means apparently available by which ‘absolutes’ can be established as being so.”

Shouting about naughty, naughty relativists could be described as merely being a smokescreen to hide your helplessness.
 
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