Hi Greylorn,
You seem to be adopting a very rationlist and empirical approach to truth. But other approaches are possible- e.g. pramagmatism, a statement or position can be regarded as true to the extent that it is USEFUL. Now, if people find the propositions of Christianity helpful for providing ethical guidance, consolation or hope, then they are useful, and therefore, to this extent to true.
In a similar way, a scientific theory that works and is useful in practice could be regarded, for all intents and purposes, as ‘true’.
All stories of creation, whether scientific or religious, are myths, with no real demonstrability or iterability. Their only possible function is to provide us with an understanding of the present, of the purpose and nature of our short lives.
If an individual or culture finds one myth useful in this regard, then it is true precisely to the extent that it satisfies a quest for meaning.
Your very example over whether an animal is a duck or a donkey illustrates the linguistic nature of all philosophical disagreements. The animal is what it is. If a person A chooses to call it a “duck” and person B chooses to call it a “donkey”, the dispute is purely one about which words is more satisfactory, not about the thing itself, which is what it is (like God- “I am what I am”).
The universe similarly is what it is. The disagreement is only in the best myth to account for it. And this may only be judged on aesthetic/ethical/utilitarian grounds, rather than scientific ones. It is just a matter of values, taste, culture and situation.
Qoeleth,
Thank you for the thoughtful post. Let’s look at “truth.” I have no idea how to define it except as a set of ideas which describe things as they actually are. The only certain truth I know of is pure mathematical truth, but such truth often gets muddled when applied to reality.
I’m no stranger to pragmatic truth, having done time in engineering, but your definition in terms of what works is not applicable to my notion of “Truth.”
For example, once upon a time I did some mindwork for a friend who had a peculiar learning disability, which seemed unrelated to her high intelligence.
With permission I hypnotized her lightly and used some tricks to quickly locate the problem. Then I put her under deep hypnosis (the level at which if I had told her she was about to go night skydiving and had a parachute strapped to her back, she’d have jumped out of the car while we were driving down the mountainside.) In that state, I completely reprogrammed her childhood memory, overwriting an horrific experience and painful outcome with a different story, a series of similar events from which she emerged the heroine. I reprogrammed her brain with a complete lie.
Then I buried everything— the new experience and the memory of being hypnotized, as well as her “disability.” I insured that she could never again be hypnotized by anyone else, and that she could not retrieve either the real or false childhood memory at the conscious level.
The result was a complete and permanent cure, and a total change of life in which she started her own successful business exploiting the exact information which she had been previously unable to learn— simply because her subconscious mind believed it to be a master of such information.
Despite the positive result, I’d not call the reprogramming job “truth” in any way, shape, or form. I taught her to believe in an utter lie, because the truth was too ugly. I would do it again.
I’ll assume that you know the difference between, let’s say for example, real physics vs. mathematical models of physical behavior. Most of the TV documentaries use computer models of reality, based upon a mix of real physics, speculative physics, and many mathematical approximations. Engineering uses models, primarily. Real physics is less important in engineering because the boys have learned to build in fudge factors by way of compensation.
Theology is entirely speculative modeling. I think that most of it is a poor job, exactly what one can expect, given that it was done by well-meaning but dreadfully ignorant people. Nonetheless, I figure that if someone’s beliefs work for them, why change that? The engineering rule,
If it works, don’t fix it, has broad applications. I do not jump into threads which consist of Catholics dealing with their beliefs and applications to life, or quibblings over various arcane doctrines. But now and then I encounter someone who seems to have realized some of the same contradictions between his religious model and reality that I once found myself dealing with.
This OP is an example. Its originator seems to have gone brain dead. No matter. His post demonstrated that he had found a contradiction between various elements of dogma which affected his personal view of his own reason for existing. I’ve dealt with those questions for myself, and passed along my solutions.
Note that they are theological in nature, not religious. Adopting them would not require that the poster stop attending mass and behaving in a Christ-like manner.
Au contraire! When extended, the same ideas are
more demanding of personal responsibility than (IMO) the Church’s.
Moreover, my ideas are theological only in a positive manner. They affirm the existence of a creator. I am personally fond of them because I believe that unlike the traditional doctrines of Christianity, they stand a slight chance of overcoming the increasingly powerful forces of atheism. Hence my signature…
It sounded like Ford’s famous line about the color of cars one can buy: “You can buy a car of any color, provided that you want a black car”.
