What can you say about the following claims?

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  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
  2. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
  3. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
  4. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
  5. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
  2. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
  3. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
  4. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
  5. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
  1. If there’s no such thing as absolute truth, then from what are all subsets of truth derived?
For example, if I say to you “that pot is hot”, it may be a true statement. But then both you and I must have a pre-existing concept of “pot” and “hot”. This leads to the origins of an entire language. The language we speak will be derived from another set of original languages, and so on. This will lead to the origin of language. The origin of language will lead to a discussion of physiological factors, if nothing else.

And back and back and back, until?
  1. The statement “Christianity is no better than all other religions. All religions lead to God” is either true or false. In actual fact, no religion leads to God, but God leads people to Him, through the use, amongst other things, of religion. Now God may speak through other religions, yet we find in other religions a place for Christ. Hinduism places Christ in the pantheon of its gods, but Christianity makes no reference whatsoever to the Hindu gods; Islam places Christ as a prophet, but Christianity makes no reference whatsoever to Allah or Mohammed; Judaism recognises the existence of Christ, but rejects His Messiahship - Christianity does make reference to Judaism, via Abraham.
A Buddhist perspective - The Dalai Lama was asked what question he would ask if he met Jesus. He said, "For me, as a Buddhist, my attitude toward Jesus Christ is that he was either a fully enlightened being or a bodhisattva [a being who aids others to enlightenment] of a very high spiritual realization. . . . The first question I would ask is, ‘Could you describe the nature of the Father?’ " (83). But Christianity makes no direct reference to Buddha.
  1. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
Provided you are more righteous than the Pharisees, or perfect, then you might be right. But I don’t think many of us can make the claim. Secondly a claim like this means that you are setting yourself up as the judge. God is the judge. Finally I don’t think we’ve got a clue what God’s holiness is really like. I think most of us are going to find it terrifying rather than comforting when we really come close to it viz. “No man can see my face and live”.
  1. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
I suspect there’s some truth in that. But Christ also gave that authority to the apostles, and from there on, via apostolic authority by virtue of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, a priest will give you a penance. Personal confession in one’s room generally does not involve a penance. Bishop Sheen put it this way - sins mark a person’s soul like nails being driven into a plank. Confession removes the nails. But the nails still leave disfiguring holes, and the plank is not what it should be. Something is needed to cover and fill the holes, and that’s the reason for penance.
  1. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
Dissent can be a positive thing. It can also be a sign of sheer bloody-mindedness, and argumentativeness. I think there are times when we ought to disagree and there are times when we should go along with the status quo.

Dissent can be positive. It can also be very negative, and merely destructive of relationships.
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
I would say that this statement is self defeating. If this statement is true, then it is “Absolutely True” in all cases which automatically proves that the premise of the statement is false.
  1. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
I like Bob Crowley’s answer on this. No religion leads to God, God draws us toward him and “religion” aid us in that journey.
  1. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
And who or what - might I ask - defines for the non-church goer just what constitutes a “good person”?
  1. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
Perhaps, but then you don’t have to go to a therapist for councilling either. You can jsut go straight to yourself. There are reasons and benefits to going to confession that far outstrip the simple act of listing off your sins. There is counciling and advise and self reflection and helpful penence
  1. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
But we should not keep our minds so open that our brains fall out.
Dissent, ask questions, debate etc is all fine. Until those entrusted with making a decision do so. Then it is up to us to submit our wills to that of God as expressed in His church. This is the great strength of The Catholic Church. This ability to talk things out and reach a consensus decision based on God’s Will for us.
Dissent after this becomes defiance and is a mortal sin.

Peace
James
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
  2. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
  3. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
  4. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
  5. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
All the above statements are falsehoods. They cause untold scandal, sin, and misery.

Woe to those who lead even a single one of these little ones astray.
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
  2. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
  3. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
  4. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
  5. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
Though it is understandable that one can be angered by one’s experiences with the Church or Churches or those of church membership. But one must consider no matter what, God’s people are God’s people and guess what; God Loves His people no matter what. Just read the prophets of the OT. It is only the Lord God that has the right to judge His people.

Please consider, in God’s Kingdom, the Lord has no use for rebels.
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
Agree. A person with red-green colour blindness, a person with ordinary trichromat sight and a person with tetrachromat sight will disagree on the colour of something. We can never know the “real” world, all we can know is what our brains get incoming along our sensory nerves.
  1. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
Disagree. Most religions lead towards (though maybe not “to”) the goal, which should not be called “God”. Some religions definitely do not. For example extreme Calvinism and any religion requiring human or animal sacrifice lead away from the goal.
  1. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
Agree. Insert synagogue/church/temple/mosque/gurdwara etc. as appropriate.
  1. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
Irrelevant. This is specific to Christianity; there is no concept of sin in Buddhism. With no concept of sin there is no forgiveness of sin either. You cannot escape the consequences of your actions.
  1. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
Partly agree. Reasonable discussion is good. Unreasonable discussion is a waste of time.

rossum
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
This first claim is a pseudo-intellectual piece of clap-trap. If it’s true, then it’s also simultaneously false, and so are the rest of the “claims” that follow.

It turns the idea of “truth” into a mockery. No, it seems very likely that there is a world outside of ourselves that we can be more or less “right” about – our technological advancements attest to this fact (we need to be able to know the world outside of ourselves accurately in order to manipulate it).

Obviously, people perceive reality in different ways, but there’s still only one reality. That’s why it’s called reality.

As a result, we can tell whether a statement is likely true – and thus, whether we should accept it – by how much evidence there is to support it.
Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
There is no evidence that there are any gods or that any faith is “better” or “worse” than another.
I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
There is no evidence that there’s a “need” to go to church or to be a good person. People who like going to church will go to church, and people who like being “good” will be good, and people who don’t will not.
You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
No evidence that there are gods, no evidence that there are sins, and no evidence that there is a need to confess anything to anyone.
Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t a claim about the world around us, but a value statement. Generally, I happen to agree that questioning authority is a positive thing, as we must always be prepared to change our positions on questions when presented with evidence.

But, again, that’s a statement of values, not some fact about the world that can be said to be “true” or “false.”
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
  2. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
  3. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
  4. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
  5. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
  1. In order for this statement to be true, you must believe that there is no absolute truth absolutely. There are such things as right and wrong, good and evil.
  2. Christianity would reject the claim that all religions lead to God. The Church recognizes that some other religions may hold similar truths but the Catholic Church is the one true Church established by Christ.
  3. Going to Church is mandated by God. Being a good person is defined by God.
  4. Confession is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Only a priest can give you absolution, You can’t do it by yourself.
  5. Dissent is an invitation to anarchy. All new ideas need to be measured against an absolute standard.
Hope this helps,
Ed
 
Agree. A person with red-green colour blindness, a person with ordinary trichromat sight and a person with tetrachromat sight will disagree on the colour of something. We can never know the “real” world, all we can know is what our brains get incoming along our sensory nerves.

Disagree. Most religions lead towards (though maybe not “to”) the goal, which should not be called “God”. Some religions definitely do not. For example extreme Calvinism and any religion requiring human or animal sacrifice lead away from the goal.

Agree. Insert synagogue/church/temple/mosque/gurdwara etc. as appropriate.

Irrelevant. This is specific to Christianity; there is no concept of sin in Buddhism. With no concept of sin there is no forgiveness of sin either. You cannot escape the consequences of your actions.

Partly agree. Reasonable discussion is good. Unreasonable discussion is a waste of time.

rossum
The source of the colour exists, regardless of what the two people might think. This means there is, in truth, an existent reality, independent of the two human witnesses.
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
**A person’s experiences in life will define what is true for that person. I don’t believe in all “abosolute truths”. For example, a young muslim lady at school told me that women should cover their hair when out in public, or they are sinning, that it is immoral. She believes that to be true. I, however, do not, at all. Whose truth is correct? **
  1. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
    If one believes this, then does that mean that no muslims will go to heaven, at all? If only Christianity leads to God, does that mean no Jews will go to heaven?
  2. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
  3. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
    **I think a Catholic who says these things is not ready for it, but can be later. Whatever led them astray really doesn’t matter, because I think that if dealt with properly, they can return. I think such a person can be coaxed back with gentle reminders, even invitations, and by education. But browbeating someone because they don’t got to Church, or believe in going to confession, is kinda counterproductive. It’s more likely that they will keep pulling further away with a forceful strategy. And of course, a noncatholic isn’t going to believe that one must go to confession to a priest. **
  4. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
    **Actually, disagreeing with someone’s faith may in fact lead another person to appreciate their faith even more. Dissent means to disagree. While I don’t think it’s always positive, it’s not always negative either. What’s wrong with disagreeing to the point of researching for answers to one’s questions? One might find that they agree with more than they thought. And one may find they agree when the reasons for believing make sense. and of course, there are those that don’t get answers that make sense to them, and they don’t believe. But not believing or disagreeing, in general, doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Isn’t questioning and doubting, researching and discorvering, part of growing and evolving in life? **
 
The source of the colour exists, regardless of what the two people might think. This means there is, in truth, an existent reality, independent of the two human witnesses.
Some birds and bees can see in the ultra violet. Colour is not an absolute but is imputed by us onto a narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is a function of the way our eyes and our nervous systems are built. Why is your sense of colour to be taken as more absolute than that of a bee or a tetrachromat? A bee can see in polarized light - is that an absolute reality of is that a function of a bee’s optical and nervous systems?

We can never know reality - all we can know is that small portion of reality that our sense organs can detect and turn into electrical impulses on our sensory nerves. From those electrical impulses our brains build an internal model of reality. That model is usually reasonably accurate, but it is an error to mistake the model for the actual thing. A model car is not a car. Our internal model of reality is not reality, yet all we can know is our internal model and the electrical impulses our brains use to build that model. We can never actually know reality.

rossum
 
Error 1: There’s no such thing as absolute truth.
Truth is conformity of mental images and ideas with what is “out there.” If two people see a dog, one might say, “That is a dog,” while the other says, “That is a fox.” The first statement is true because it conforms to reality; the other is false because it does not. Such realism is the normal human reaction to reality, the natural position of the human mind and indispensable for avoiding skepticism.

How could saying “there is no such thing as absolute truth” be absolutely true? It is a contradiction in terms.

Confidence in the human ability accurately to recognize and analyze reality, as well as in God’s having willed to disclose aspects of reality to human beings, enables His Church to proclaim His truth.
 
Error 2: Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
No other religious founder claimed to be God – not Mohammed of Islam, not in Hinduism, not in Buddhism, not in Taoism, not in Confucianism.

The vast gulf between Catholicism and any other religion is that the Catholic Church has been founded by a Divine Person who lived with a human and divine nature and claimed to be God, proving that claim by His resurrection. When God leads us through His Church, others fashion their own beliefs and morals.
 
Error 3. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
How can you determine what is being “good” – you assent to no truth from Jesus of Nazareth do you?

Error 4. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
Who are you to tell others what to do, against Jesus of Nazareth who is God and gave us His Church to show us what to believe and to do?

Error 5. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
We don’t need “new” prejudices; we have the fullness of truth in Christ’s Church. The mind “open” to prejudice is one which is unable to close on truth. Why should you want to dissent from the teaching of God?
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
  2. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
  3. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
  4. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
  5. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
since God Himself has revealed the contrary and made His will known on all these matters my advice would be listen to Him, not the person who constructed these claims for their own reasons.
 
Some birds and bees can see in the ultra violet. Colour is not an absolute but is imputed by us onto a narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is a function of the way our eyes and our nervous systems are built. Why is your sense of colour to be taken as more absolute than that of a bee or a tetrachromat? A bee can see in polarized light - is that an absolute reality of is that a function of a bee’s optical and nervous systems?

We can never know reality - all we can know is that small portion of reality that our sense organs can detect and turn into electrical impulses on our sensory nerves. From those electrical impulses our brains build an internal model of reality. That model is usually reasonably accurate, but it is an error to mistake the model for the actual thing. A model car is not a car. Our internal model of reality is not reality, yet all we can know is our internal model and the electrical impulses our brains use to build that model. We can never actually know reality.

rossum
“Our internal model of reality is not reality.”

However there is a reality out there. In the case of light, it consists of electomagnetic waves of certain frequencies. That one man may disagree with the perception of another man, or a bee or a bird, about what colour they see at a certain set frequency, doesn’t change the existent reality that our mind perceives.

Hence the hard cold “truth” exists (physical truth in this case), but what differs is our perception of that truth.

A deluded man may step off a cliff thinking he is immune to gravity, but the truth is that he is not, regardless of what his mind tells him.

I think we need to distinguish between perceptions and the reality which underpins those perceptions.
 
“Our internal model of reality is not reality.”

However there is a reality out there. In the case of light, it consists of electomagnetic waves of certain frequencies. That one man may disagree with the perception of another man, or a bee or a bird, about what colour they see at a certain set frequency, doesn’t change the existent reality that our mind perceives.

Hence the hard cold “truth” exists (physical truth in this case), but what differs is our perception of that truth.

A deluded man may step off a cliff thinking he is immune to gravity, but the truth is that he is not, regardless of what his mind tells him.

I think we need to distinguish between perceptions and the reality which underpins those perceptions.
Bob Crowley

Well if you take that, and put it in the context of the Christian view. The Truth is revealed and those that see, or hear, come to know. But if one does not have eyes to see and ears to hear then one can not perceive The Truth The Way The Life. That God is.

And since Jesus comes to you that you may know Him, then obviously you see the Absolute Truth from where you are. That does not change what the Truth is, does it?

All of creation is subject to change, according to the Truth which is revealed and does not change.
 
“Our internal model of reality is not reality.”

However there is a reality out there.
There certainly appears to be one. However we can never know that reality. The reality a dog senses has far more olfactory detail than the reality we sense. The reality a hawk sees has far more optical detail than the reality we see.

What we actually sense is a series of electrical impulses entering our brains from our sense organs. Those electrical impulses are not, and cannot ever be, the actual reality “out there”.

We can never get to the reality; the best we can do is to refine our inevitably imperfect models of that probable reality.
That one man may disagree with the perception of another man, or a bee or a bird, about what colour they see at a certain set frequency, doesn’t change the existent reality that our mind perceives.
But the perception is not the reality so what actually gets to our brain is not reality but the imperfect perception. We mistake the model of reality that we build in our brain for the actual external reality. That is an error. Our model is built on the basis of incomplete and imperfect sense data and so can never be completely accurate. It works well for many purposes, but it is still only an imperfect internal model and is not the actual external reality.
A deluded man may step off a cliff thinking he is immune to gravity, but the truth is that he is not, regardless of what his mind tells him.
That is a case where the internal model is badly out of step with the external reality. It is far more common for people to mistake their internal model for external reality.
I think we need to distinguish between perceptions and the reality which underpins those perceptions.
Agreed, though I think we will draw different conclusions from that distinction. External reality may well exist, but we can never know it and we can never construct a completely accurate internal model of it.

rossum
 
  1. The statement “Christianity is no better than all other religions. All religions lead to God” is either true or false. In actual fact, no religion leads to God, but God leads people to Him, through the use, amongst other things, of religion. Now God may speak through other religions, yet we find in other religions a place for Christ. Hinduism places Christ in the pantheon of its gods, but Christianity makes no reference whatsoever to the Hindu gods; Islam places Christ as a prophet, but Christianity makes no reference whatsoever to Allah or Mohammed; Judaism recognises the existence of Christ, but rejects His Messiahship - Christianity does make reference to Judaism, via Abraham.
A Buddhist perspective - The Dalai Lama was asked what question he would ask if he met Jesus. He said, "For me, as a Buddhist, my attitude toward Jesus Christ is that he was either a fully enlightened being or a bodhisattva [a being who aids others to enlightenment] of a very high spiritual realization. . . . The first question I would ask is, ‘Could you describe the nature of the Father?’ " (83). But Christianity makes no direct reference to Buddha.
Come now, that could just as easily be an argument that Christianity is simply less accepting of other religions, more narrow-minded.
 
  1. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me.
does 2+2=5 for this person? of course not, what they mean is that what they believe may be different than what you do, but that doesnt change what the truth actually is.
  1. Christianity is no better than any other faith. All religions lead to God.
no other religions lead to G-d. no other religion has the Messianic Prophecies that prove Christ is the Son of G-d. Jesus said that no man comes to the Father except by me. the mathematics of Messianic Prophecies verify that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. thereofre there is no other way to G-d.
  1. I don’t need to go to Church. As long as I’m a good person, that’s all that really matters.
no its not, G-d is quite clear on the requirements, feeling like youre a good person is not enough. in fact it cannot be
  1. You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest. You can go straight to God.
then why did Jesus tell the Apostles to go forth and forgive sins?
  1. Dissent is actually a positive thing, since we should all keep our minds open to new ideas.
dissent is disobediance, new ideas dont mean anything, all the ideas that mattered are at least 2000 years old.

thats what i would say. 🙂
 
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