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Normally, I'd assume that was an ironic witticism; here, I'm not so sure...Unfortunately, God confused our languages and thus many misunderstandings happened everywhere all the time. God did this, it MUST contain some truth in it.
Yers... Presumably, he's absolutely correct because it's a truth, and it's a truth because God said it, and what God says is, by definition, truth.We should worship God not by our mouths, but by our heart. This is a truth Lord Jesus told us. He is absolutely correct.
Don't you ever get tired of this recursive 'believe me when I tell you that what I tell you is true' 'reasoning'? (rhetorical question)
That's exactly my point. A truth that is true by definition is tautologous, empty of meaning and value. In the case of the word of God, the absence of verification or validation, and the multiple competing claims for it, also make it arbitrary and uncertain.When I heard this, the first question comes to me would be: Do I believe you? The second question would be: It may be true to you, but why should it be true to me?
These two questions could apply to any human who said anything about truth. But to God, these questions and the like do not exist.
That's a non-sequitur for a non-believer. To a non-believer, the importance of God to believers is to provide a sense of certainty.That is why to identify and to accept a god, or the God, is so important in one's life.
Once could equally say that only the truly lost and adrift would cling to tautologous definitions for certainty.To me, an atheist is simply someone who is lost in the sea of human wisdom.
Usually there is little difference between truth and fact when closely examined. Here I present what I consider to be an example of the difference.
It is a fact that immigrants seek a better life in America because of problems in their native lands.
It is the truth that they should stay and work to solve those problems in their native lands.
Note that the truth statement contains a moral element.
Comments or other examples?
Truth isn't for the faint hearted as it does require judgment.
That's exactly my point. A truth that is true by definition is tautologous, empty of meaning and value. In the case of the word of God, the absence of verification or validation, and the multiple competing claims for it, also make it arbitrary and uncertain.
Being opinionated and judgmental isn't all that hard. Lots of people accomplish it. Unfortunately it also tends to get in the way of reasonable analysis of various situations. But it makes for good reality TV, so I guess there is something to be said for it.
I was referring to verifying some text as God's word; not verifying God's word itself, which is obviously unverifiable... Verification, validation etc, are fancy words for scientific facts, not for truth.
Analytic truths are verified by the context of their definition; synthetic truths are verifiable in their correspondence to the facts, to reality - in as much as reality itself is verifiable. As I said, the 'truth' you're talking about has quite different semantics; it looks like an analytic truth, but has no verifiable context, which is why anyone can claim anything to be the word of God, and every believer has their own version and God concept - which, interestingly, appear to be based their own concept of self (mainly women) or parents (mainly men) [see Concepts of God].Not a single truth can be "verified".
I'm more interested in the sort of truths that verifiably correspond to the facts, to reality.You may continue to search for truth until you were 80's or 90's. My prediction is that you will not find it unless you pick up a god and seriously look at it.
I'm more interested in the sort of truths that verifiably correspond to the facts, to reality.
And 'pick up a god'? you make it sound like they hang out on street corners, soliciting punters...
So not only is it arbitrary truth by fiat, with no necessary correspondence to reality, but no-one knows what it means... I think you need a different word for it.Yes, even a simple word truth could be analyzed into different versions and classifications. No wonder nobody knows what a truth really mean.
There are literally hundreds of doctrines out there. Did you choose yours carefully from the most popular five or six, or are you following whichever random one you grew up with?Whatever God says is the truth. How do we "verify" the words of God or a god? First, study the doctrines.
I think I'm already taken - by the god of natural philosophy (or perhaps that should be the patron saint of natural philosophy, patron saints being the Catholic substitute for the minor gods of Roman polytheism). Doctrine - there's an objective external reality, that has some consistency in its behaviour, and can be tested (measured/observed). Be curious, question and doubt; there are no certainties.there are a bunch of gods out there and everyone of them WANTS you.
So not only is it arbitrary truth by fiat, with no necessary correspondence to reality, but no-one knows what it means... I think you need a different word for it.
There are literally hundreds of doctrines out there. Did you choose yours carefully from the most popular five or six, or are you following whichever random one you grew up with?
I think I'm already taken - by the god of natural philosophy (or perhaps that should be the patron saint of natural philosophy, patron saints being the Catholic substitute for the minor gods of Roman polytheism). Doctrine - there's an objective external reality, that has some consistency in its behaviour, and can be tested (measured/observed). Be curious, question and doubt; there are no certainties.
I know. I was making the point by strained analogy - a homage to Einstein when he explained relativity to aetherist physicists shortly after he published it. He told them (paraphrased), "There is no such thing as the aether as you know it, there is only spacetime; if you must have an aether, you can call spacetime the new aether, but it's not at all like the aether you're used to."What you have chosen is not a god, it is simply natural science. And it is changing every day, every minute.
It depends what you use it for and how you use it, what kind of saturated oil you're comparing it with (and various other factors). The public want simple soundbites of information that are easy to digest, like their oils; the real world doesn't always work like that.(I just learned this morning that soybean oil is worse to health than saturated oil. Do you "believe" that? It is given by a significant research and has a bunch of "data").
Proud? No; that's just how the world appears to be. Quantum mechanics is stochastic; you might as well ask if I am proud to have gravity.Are you proud to have no certainty?
No. Reality doesn't care whether you think it's a good thing or not, and the goal of science is knowledge and understanding - to explain the world we observe in terms of useful models. Certainty in science is expressed in degrees, or levels, of confidence that may get close to 100%, but never reach it (expressions of absolute certainty are generally either analytic, or shorthand for 'beyond reasonable doubt' or an uncertainty too small to consider). They are also expressed within specified contexts, bounds, or limits.I don't think it is a good thing. The goal of science is to "have" certainty.
I don't see why you're disappointed; the world is the way it is, and that's what science tries to discover.Unfortunately, I don't see how is it possible to have. As a person devoted his whole life to science, I am quite disappointed.
No. Reality doesn't care whether you think it's a good thing or not, and the goal of science is knowledge and understanding - to explain the world we observe in terms of useful models. Certainty in science is expressed in degrees, or levels, of confidence that may get close to 100%, but never reach it (expressions of absolute certainty are generally either analytic, or shorthand for 'beyond reasonable doubt' or an uncertainty too small to consider). They are also expressed within specified contexts, bounds, or limits.
Facts are facts. They are only good or bad in relation to some context (and some moral or ethical judgement).Here is one of the key philosophy: There are things which are "good" versus "not good", both in reality and in ideology. There are facts. But there are good facts versus not-good facts, and there are even some bad-facts. That is the key point of evaluation.
Unknown & uncertainty are just words; they're not facts until they refer to some particular real-world context; then they may be judged good or bad from some viewpoint. If you were hiding from a terrorist wanting to shoot you, would it be a not-good thing if your hiding place was unknown to him? If you were wrongly accused of murder would you consider it good that the eyewitnesses were honestly certain you did it (this has happened)? or would it be good if they were uncertain that it was you?Unknown, uncertainty, are two examples of not-good facts.
I was taught that it was the 'tree of knowledge of good and evil' (which might mean the tree of all knowledge, depending on your interpretation), though what it has to do with the moral value of certainty, I don't know. It seems to me that if we all knew what was GOOD, the world would be a better place. I suspect it's another homonym for which you have your own definition.There are several times in Gen 1, the word "good" is used. The more I read it, the more meaningful this word become. Can you recall what is the name of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden? Adam ate the fruit. So we ALL can tell if something is GOOD or not.
Facts are facts. They are only good or bad in relation to some context (and some moral or ethical judgement).
Unknown & uncertainty are just words; they're not facts until they refer to some particular real-world context; then they may be judged good or bad from some viewpoint.
Exactly. The facts themselves are simply correspondences with reality, they have no moral or ethical dimension in and of themselves; but we can judge the facts according to our moral & ethical viewpoint in the relevant context.We can always judge anything to be good or bad. This capability is independent of anything. The judgement could be questioned, but a judgement can always be made.
Unfortunately, this is neither a logical nor a coherent statement.Uncertainty is not good. Sometimes it may be good. But ultimately, it is still not good. That is how we tell good from not good.
Exactly. The facts themselves are simply correspondences with reality, they have no moral or ethical dimension in and of themselves; but we can judge the facts according to our moral & ethical viewpoint in the relevant context.
Unfortunately, this is neither a logical nor a coherent statement.
Can you explain the logic behind that?Uncertainty is only good in the sense that it inevitably leads to what is true.
By definition.Once you know what is true you are no longer uncertain.
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