“What is truth,? asked doubting Pilate” (Bacon) Pilate stood before the son of God, but was unable to recognize him. For Pilate, the upholding of Roman law required that he rely on his own sense of logic in dealing with Jesus. In this forum it appears that any theist will have his/her ideas trashed by logic, as if logic could do anything to reveal experiential truth. This is no land for theists; it’s no wonder that they refrain, for the most part,in responding to threads here.
I think you miss out on the challenge to any theist posed by Pilate’s simple question. “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” said Jesus. Now Pilate is here trying to discern Jesus political role. As a politician himself, I think that he probably heard many pretenders speak those same words in rousing the masses, the herd. What is truth? In the hands of a politician, a would-be king, it is a tool to manage the people.
“…on the side of truth…”
Truth is not a public object, but a subjective one. There is no bearing by which one can know on which side of truth one stands. Rather, like Socrates and Plato thought, everyone thinks and believes that they stand on the side of truth. The fact that someone listens to Jesus or Muhammed does not mean that one is on the side of truth, but standing by what they BELIEVE to be the truth.
I applaud the challenge this presents, for every believer should own up to the fact that what defines a theist is BELIEF. If the question is asked I would reply: Truth is faith.
I once saw it that way. We sought to remove ourselves from survival of the fittest; from our animal natures. Our species was frightened by the truths brought forward by men like Darwin and Jesus and Buddha. They were afraid of what it meant and many were afraid to admit that it might mean that they themselves serve that worser nature of the world and that that worser nature was actually beneficial. The fact is that so many people want to be right. They feel something and posit it, but fail to properly explain or understand it and thus fall short of the mark.
I see it as a challenge, now; I see it for what it is. That survival of the fittest that still exists and pushes us to evolve and change; in this age it comes back around to dominating our selves, for lack of suitable challenge elsewhere in our world. The society that started out with having so many people willingly and lovingly add to it, forgetting that drive for adaptation while they were busy, has now dropped to barely having anything new or fresh added to it except in terms of technology and that comes at an ever-increasing rate that overwhelms people and makes them forget the true marvel of the past 200 years.
We love to think it’s not possible without alien assistance and yet we’ve had many great men over the ages who were far beyond their time with their thoughts and ideas. How many times throughout history have we been on the verge of flight only to lose it to the more brutal side of our own natures?
People are desperately seeking answers and losing faith in themselves and the world around them for what they see, failing to be what they wish to see in the world for failing to see other people being what they wish to be in this seeming reality. But, those people do exist. I’ve met them, those shining examples of courage and silent strength. I’ve seen that very same thing in myself once I began to look for it. We are dipping into chaos at the moment as people come to believe that chaos is the most powerful weapon and all other things are lies. It’s because of the negative blinders many have on that they see it this way. They still only look for answers and they thirst for freedom though many of them have forgotten and will deny it as they feel they have finally learned how to play the game.
I do think it’s fair that theists in this day and age face this crisis of belief, for failing to take into account their own brutality in ages past. Yet, we do need to remember that brutality, for it is a part of the truth. Those of faith have made just as many mistakes trying to understand that faith and finally giving up to just believe it anyway; and people call them fools. Liars and deceivers are not going away, but it also appears that they have no conviction of will to hurt you as much as they can or should. They view themselves to be smarter than you for baffling you and stunting your efforts. They feel smarter than all of us for corrupting our system and using it against us and trapping people inside of it to play their game unfairly. And, it is a game to them.
You can not simply be angry at the children for being children, or for being ingenious with their methods of avoiding work, for they still have created art in their own way. You must show them how to be better than all others that have come before instead of just speaking it. It becomes us to not just understand our own arguments enough to not let them fade under onslaught, but to understand the arguments of others and where they stem from so that we can cut through their BS and stand tall once again, free of the guilt of our own seeming hypocrisy that never truly existed at all.
Surely you have heard of “perils before swine”.
What does this tell us about truth then? I’m not sure what your point is.
Are you suggesting that in the spirituality and religion forum, what is true should revolve around what each of us as individuals experience as true? And that if our experiences don’t fall within the parameters of what is deemed to be, say, philosophically or scientifically true it is still true for us?
And what if what we deem to be experientially true results in consequences out in the world with others that harms them or is deemed to be harmful by them?
How would your frame of mind work for all practical purposes when what we believe is true comes into conflict with what others believe is true?
Unless of course I am missing your point altogether. I need to see it how it might “work” within the context of actual human relationships.
ier----what scripture are you referring to…lets be religious…let us refer to scripture…
I think if taken far enough it can. While I don’t think ILP is a place for taking logic that far, I do think a few useful insights can occur here. These insights may even have something to do with how experience relates to concepts like “theism” and “atheism”.
As an aside, I admit I think the term “experiential truth” involves a bit of poetic license. I don’t think experience is in itself true or false.
Also, an interesting question to me is whether or not there is or can be such a thing as “raw” (concept-free) experience.
Ierrellus,
Literalists Bible sort will tell you that truth is not an accumulation of facts, information, and knowledge, but is a person :
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life …
Thanks all, for the good responses.
Turtle, the quote is from Bacon and was used by Nietzsche in “Beyond Good and Evil.”
Voice, I’m that type of literalist; but I recognize the evolution of God in human consciousness from law giver to personal redeemer, i.e., from law to love. I have experienced that love. It’s personal. Impersonal Gods leave me cold.
So what is truth? Is it a matter of perspectivism or an outcome of two or three getting together in acceptance of a viable way of life. The problem appears to be the old conundrum of subjective vs objective senses of what is truth. Should the versus be there at all?
Truth IS an as-of-yet undiscovered landscape. I agree with Freddie. It is or must be beyond good and evil. How can something SUCH as truth not be since we are so biased in our perspectives, we leave no room for those of others… Truth is like this damn gigantic puzzle which can only be brought together piece by peace. Morality is a wimpy kid to most based on what serves us. Beyond good and evil is the black hole which we must allow ourselves to be sucked into to find any light at all.
The problem I find is that it is so hard to find objective truth. We can’t truly understand truth from our scale of thinking. But; and here’s the butt of it, lol; I watched a movie just last night that explained it in a good way, I think. The movie was called ‘Leaves of Grass’ with Edward Norton playing both lead roles in the movie. In the movie, one of the characters is called upon to give his view of God and perfection and he says it’s like a parallel, but that there are no true parallels that man can create. We know it’s there, but it’s just an idea. Always just one step out of reach. I think that we can know of truth, but we can’t ever actually reach that perfect truth. I think the closest we can get to ultimate truth is by accepting every possibility and accepting the possibility that there is no ultimate truth at the same time as there is.
I don’t think our brains are evolved enough; or perhaps they’re too physically bound; to be able to truly grasp the most defining concepts and thoughts of our species or of life itself. We can know of them and understand them; but never completely.
You don’t strike me as a Bible literalist. You must mean something different.
The Greatest Commandment : Love God, love your neighbor.
Interesting you reference “the evolution of God.” Some Bible thumpers call them dispensations.
In the movie “Questioning Darwin” it is asked :“Can Biblical Christianity and evolution coexist?” (paraphrase)
The answer was a resounding “No.”
In short, if you change the creation story there’s no need for salvation … and Jesus died in vain, and was deluded.
So from where do we get truth? From a book of letters, or from the book of nature ; from the hand of man, or the hand of God?
I agree. I live alone. I still need to love. So I love my invisible friend. This fulfills my need also, to give thankfulness … which I do thru most of my day.
We can’t forget that religion provides comfort during and thru the buffeting of life.
We need (who are we to need) “peace in the valley.” Religion, with all it problems, even if delusional – nothing is perfect – provides that.
I think the truth is a part of us. We either develop it or we destroy it.
There are a couple of contexts that I Think are relevent.
- it’s a philosophy forum - so this will lean responses towards tearing apart, dealing with Words and dealing with logic. This is a good process for certain types of discussion and a poor process for others. It’s not about experience, per se, for example and what happens with certain kinds of repeated experiences and comparing notes on these and offering guidance, etc. And because of this it is a harsh forum in certain ways.
- We are still in a transition to a more secular society period in history. The history of the monotheisms and how the authorities in these theisms related to its regular members and peoples of other Cultures - and for that matter other ways of reaching truth - hang in the air around these discussions. Not to say everyone is coming in with a time to get even grudge to bear, but it is in the air.
What would you like to see happening in REligion and Spirituality? What kind of discussion? What, specifically, would you not want to see there?
I think the word only makes sense when talking about certain limited matters that we can comprehend. “It’s true that…” It has to be about something limited that the mind can comprehend. You could say the only things that are true are things that the mind has already limited to something that could possibly be true.
This made me Think immediatly of the concept of infinity. It is not limited, at least it refers to something not limited (by definition), but on the other hand it is a simple concept - ‘it never stop, keeps on going forever.’ I have Always wondered if we actually conceive infinity. But anyway I saw your suggestions above and I thought I would throw infinity at them.
It seems like the mind can manage to indicate (is the comprehend?) things that are not very limited. Like the idea or existence of something transcendent. I also Think the way we Think of people we love, for example, can contain truths that are rather not limited - I won’t say they are unlimited.
Truth in a philosophy forum ends up meaning, stuff you can put in a proposition that is correct.
I am trying to expand that a bit. (not saying that was your definition, just realizing that through responding to you, I seem to be touching on that area of knowledge or purported knowledge that is not so easily put in single sentences or even many)
Interestingly, I was actually thinking of love when I wrote my post. I think it’s almost absurd to ask if it’s true or not that John loves Jane. It’s the infinity thing using different words, in a way.
Or if it’s true or not he knows Jane - in general or essentially. (not that love and knowledge need be separate issues) It may be absurd to ask, but I do not Think it is absurd to assert that one loves or knows someone, even if one’s knowledge is in some way partial. And then with love and can it be both partial AND complete at the same time. I tend to Think yes.
Thanks Ier’ for the OP. I place myself firmly as an atheist but primarily as a humanist who attempts to transcend this endless debate of proof. If we are to rise above the ordinary then we need to put the ordinary aside.
The issue of truth stems from the human quality of open mindedness. A closed mind, even though it may be correct, has very little understanding of the nature or depth of the truth. A closed mind only focuses on detail whereas an open mind focus on the detail and the context. The disadvantage of our education system is that it prefers closed mindedness for all citizens (without bias).
There is a human being behind every human thought, action, word, theory, text, idea, feeling and emotion. This is the truth in context rather than the truth in detail.
In my viewer Gamer summarized this perfectly in his post that fallacy is the truth of humanity. We are flawed and yet we are perfect at the same time. We are walking and talking contradictions and this is what makes us who we are.
Can we transcend this contradiction through logic or through religion… maybe or maybe not… I am not sure but our own voice unheard tends to cause much inner turmoil within ourselves and so we are obliged to allow others to release their voices also.
edited: spelling
Kierkegaard noted that reasoning about religious matters ends with an abyss of absurdity, that to get beyond the abyss one must take a leap of faith. That leap, as noted above, is the essence of faith.
On the evolution problem, I believe that humans were redeemed from the beginning of creation, but had to evolve in consciousness from ideas that God did it to ideas about why God did it.
“WE see through the dim glass darkly. . .” But we have evolved to the point where greater understanding requires greater responsibility. Love transcends good and evil.