The Logic of Absolutes

It seems that all atheist, (and I do mean all) will refute any assertion of Absolutes. They claim that everything is relative and truth is only true for you personally. To me and the vast majority of all human kind throughout history this idea or pure relativity has not been accepted and the very idea creates a logical paradox. This idea literally kicks the legs out from any position to make a counter argument if you think about it and is a circular self supporting idea to boot.

The lack of a singularity or some form of set in stone Absolute makes a purely relative world and therefore all that we do and abide by dissolves into social chaos as well as a complete mental breakdown in the reality we live in. Without some set boundaries there is no grounds for thought and all of our construct of right and wrong and good and bad become time and culture sensitive and thus ultimatly meaningless. So technically by this standard the majority of the earths population could at some time accept anything as true regardless of all the logical visible evidence against it.

Example:

At one point in time you could build a building defying the known laws of gravity on earth.

See the problem with this idea is that there is evidence of boundaries and laws that are already set into motion and have been in existence as long as we have been here, and since we know we did not create these laws the logical path would lead most to the conclusion that some master reference is there to govern these laws and bounds, otherwise there would be some evidence of these laws changing and/or popping into and out of existence.

The confusing part is when we begin to understand portions of these laws without full knowledge of how they work and interact with other overlapping laws (gravity comes to mind). When this happens the shallow mind tries to say that they changed or evolved in some way, but the majority sees this as it should be considering all the other external evidence, and that is we simply don’t fully understand them yet.

So for a thought experiment and tool to further this discussion lets see if we can find any consensus of any unchanging preexisting absolute that man has not or logically cannot influence. Though this seems impossible I’ll use the laws of nature as an example since most here believe that nature and other animals or life preceded modern humans, and these laws are believed by most to have existed before man.

Surely you can think of some things that are absolutely True.
I can think of a few.

Now for some examples:

  1. This world and reality is governed by laws and boundaries, regardless if we fully understand them or not, they do indeed exist.

  2. All things known point to some source that caused it. Cause comes before the affect.

  3. There is an organized and seemingly purposeful pattern for survival that has existed before man. (this one may not be so good)

My personal examples:

  1. I exist.

  2. One day my body will cease to be a living organism and that state will not change, ever.

  3. Being completely selfish and having total disregard for all others feelings by my actions will make me a social pariah and cause me to be separated from the majority.

  4. We all seek and need Love (nothing can survive in a vacuum).

I bet I could find some more.

In the end we should be able to determine if there is such a thing as Truth unless all these things can be logically disputed as relative which means that it is dependant on something that is also dependant on something and so on and on without any source, IOW, something from nothing.

Now if were are going to go off into fantasy land and start using improvable and irrational examples to dispute this then we are not going to get anywhere. For the purpose of this argument lets stick to what can be proven with real world examples and logical connected thought, no Star Trek logic please.

I already made a post for you. <3

I’ll reply to your post here:

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=154772

No thanks, far too confusing now that my words have been copied and pasted elsewhere.

I’ll pass.

Fear not, I’ve already copied and pasted your entire post into my topic. No need for duplicates. But have fun in here by yourself. <3

concensus != truth

I’ve never met a single thinking atheist who denies all absolutes. That would be silly. The claim that God does not exist is an absolute, for instance.

I think you attack a straw-man.

Do you beleive there is any absolute Truth? Can you name them?

I myself am a Christian.

But every remotely intelligent atheist I have spoken to would say that there are many absolute truths. Which atheist intellectuals have you read who claim otherwise? I’m pretty sure that Russell, Ayer, Dawkins, Dennett etc etc would say that there are some absolute truths.

If you want me to stick my atheist hat on, and give you an example of an absolute truth that most rational atheists would accept, fair enough. But it seems silly to have such a discussion when I think you simply don’t understand what atheists believe.

How does asking questions illustrate I that believe I know what anyone thinks?

Can you or can you not list any Absolute Truths? Just say so if you cant, I already gave my examples and no one has tried to refute them yet…

But me listing absolute truths whilst pretending to be an atheist would be like me listing absolute truths as a Christian. I mean, there wouldn’t be any religion-centric stuff, but both I and my atheist other-personality believe that ¬[P ^ ¬P], London is the capital of England, it rained in the middle of Hyde Park at 1200 on the 23rd December 2006 (if indeed it did rain), are all examples of absolute truths. Hell, some atheists even believe (like Christians do) in absolute morals.

The gibberish-talking metaphysical relativists make up for a very small minority of atheists. Meta-ethical relativists are more common, but being an atheist by no-means entails being a relativist.

I really hoped you could do better then that, I was talking about something that was not as dependant on time and place, and as far as pretending to be atheist to answer the questions, well, I only care about what you believe, no need to pretend.

Not on internet forums like this, in fact I would say that the majority here do actually believe in pure relativity with no form of absolute Truth, I think this because everyone I’ve asked says so and wont allow any talk of any common known Truth. Again, look at my examples to get an idea of what I mean.

Kingdaddy:

Is an “absolute” truth a statement that is true under all conditions, and cannot be true for one person while untrue for another?

Just want to clarify this before responding.

Yes.

Then I would say this.

There are truths that are relative and personal, and may be known with absolute confidence and certainty.

There are truths that are absolute and trans-personal, but that can only be known tentatively and without complete certainty.

All truths are thus “absolute” either in their nature or in their certainty of knowledge, but not both.

All truths are also “relative” either in their nature or in their certainty of knowledge, but not both.

I am writing a post on this subject. It is a difficult one. In short people put their pride in extremes they get attached to. I found that if we ‘look for direction and forget perfection’ we can do better.

Aristotle reminds us:

“It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.”

I get into battle all the time with atheists and philosophers that think in terms of ‘black and white’ only with no shades of gray. The problem with such though it is does not allow for relativism when it comes to human nature and only puts its pride in the realm of absolute perfection theory. People do not operate in this real of absolute perfection, so if you are looking for universal laws of absolute perfection concerning human nature you will fail every time.

Thoreau once said when people invited him to dinner they put their pride in how fancy and expensive a meal they could make. Whereas he put his pride in how simple and inexpensive a meal he could make.

Where do we put our pride? In absolute perfection?

Myself? I put my pride in the ‘best fit’ equation.

I hope to get this post done in a few weeks.

Good Luck,

V (Male)

Agnostic Freethinker

I don’t see what something being dependent on time and place has to do with something being objective. I think the examples I cited are good examples of objective truths, that will be agreed to by most atheists.

If the majority of ILP users think that there is no objective truth, then I don’t think that they are representative of the philosophical atheist community at large.

What you don’t seem to understand is that your personal ideas of Absolute are not important, they don’t change reality, nothing you can think of will change reality. Absolute is based on reality and the natural laws are in fact absolute rather you believe it or not. Proof is on the side of reality in the fact that you cannot break these laws, when you can you have made your point, until then you must concede that they are real and absolute.

Gravity is an absolute truth no matter what you think it to be, nothing will change that.

You and others here seem to think that the power of perception can make something appear or disappear or be real or not, your deluded if that’s what you think, it is either True or False, you don’t get to decide or change it to suite you. Jump off a tall building and you body will be damaged by the affect of gravity slamming you to the hard ground, get over it and stop trying to make it fit your relative existence.

What is wrong with people here, are you all insane?

(Sorry, but i really didn’t feel like reading the other comments so sorry if I say something already stated)

My take on this is that people can not reach an absolute state of logic. In order to be absolute, something has to be 100%, which even science cannot obtain. there are always possibilities, and as long as they exist, absolution cannot take place. The most absolute statement that a thing can make is…I don’t know that I don’t know that I don’t know…etc. (like a non terminating decimal)

Absolutes seem to be inescapable. People against absolutes speak in absolutes all the time. If it’s possible, maybe there absolutes are considered more flexible, but they are there. Oh the arrogance of relativists to delcare their absolutley relative principles and have the audacity to not even notice their own absolutism!

=D>

Absolutes exist within systems we’ve created. There are no universal absolutes.

It’s not arrogance to speak with absolutism, it’s necessity. When we say we will be somewhere tomorrow, we have to disregard the small possibility that we won’t be there tomorrow because we’re killed in some freak accident, get sick, etc.

When we use Newtonian physics to deal with the speak of a falling object, we disregard that such physics only works in certain frames of reference.

When I say leprachans don’t exist, I disregard the very small probability that they do exist, because it’s so small, it’s not worth mentioning. If evidence comes to light that shows leprachans do exist, I’ll gladly change my absolutism regarding that.

It’s not arrogant to be absolute about things which are very probable, while still being open to change should new evidence come to light.