Diana_P is offline Diana_P Post #1  July 10,2011, 6:31pm
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Is truth self-defining? Is truth unambiguous by default or do we make it unilateral with our respective agendas?

How can there be only one truth in a universe of infinite possibilities?

What say you?
 
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charmingphlsphr is offline charmingphlsphr Post #2  July 10,2011, 9:14pm
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Diana_P wrote :
Is truth self-defining? Is truth unambiguous by default or do we make it unilateral with our respective agendas?

How can there be only one truth in a universe of infinite possibilities?

What say you?
Truth is, by nature, exclusive. Consider the question, "is truth subject to the individual?" Postmodernism has led us to a sort of "truth is subjectivity," but by the very claim of truth being subjective, one excludes possibilities for other outcomes. Based on this, it [truth] is either subjective or absolute and it must be either/or, but by being the former it becomes the latter and defeats itself. If truth is not subjective for all people at all times, then it defeats itself by way of contradiction.

As for possibility, it is merely affected by perception. Remember the story that people often use to describe the subjectivity of truth? Four blind men approach an elephant, one grabs the trunk, says it is one thing, the other grabs the tail and says it is another - the others follow suit. They all perceive the single elephant to be different objects. What of an observer watching this from the distance? They stand far off and watch this take place, but they know that the four, blind men are making a single elephant very angry.

Truth is absolute. Perception is subjective.
 
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hermes01 is offline hermes01 Post #3  July 11,2011, 12:35am
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Truth about what?

We may say truth is subjective. What is the OBJECTIVE truth?

I am putting up wall paper.....wife comes in with a cup of tea...looks and says "Its not straight".

To me ...its straight. I MAY be right....she may be right...we BOTH could be wrong.

What is the objective truth?
Obviously its the plumb line. That gives us the truth about the wall paper.

What is the 'plumb line' of truth as far as Spiritual matters are concerned? The Bible?.....Koran...?

The word 'TRUTH'...is......a word..........and as such is an idea.
An idea is FINITE and G.O.D. is INFINITE...

Is the SOURCE and the DESTINY beyond ALL ideas?

Is the MYSTIC way...................
The only way?..(to so called truth)?

There ar two ways of 'seeing' the 'truth'.

From the 'time being's ' way

From 'God's' the Eternal 's point of view).

Is not HIS truth THE TRUTH?

Thus our view of what is true....................is truly limited.

Can WE...............'see' through The EYE of The Absolute and Eternal?

?
 
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AudioDad is offline AudioDad Post #4  July 11,2011, 8:20am
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There are as many truths as there are truth seekers. Couple of favorite quotes on truth by Oscar Wilde:

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it"
 
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Reverse_Dragon is offline Reverse_Dragon Post #5  August 8,2011, 11:04pm
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Forget about 'truth'. Rely on natural law and theory. Fact, not truth.
 
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acelticsteve is offline acelticsteve Post #6  August 9,2011, 8:41pm

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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Forget about 'truth'. Rely on natural law and theory. Fact, not truth.
you are the most confussing person I have ever ran into.
Facts are truth. There are many posabuilitys but only one of them are true. Some times truth is ovscure to us becuse fe don't have the necessary facts to decern it, we have so confused ourselves with our own dubble talk that we don't reconize it or we reject it for some reason. Remember the story of the Emporer's new close? In science a law is some thing that happens the same way every time. IN real science there must be varifacation, it was thought the world was round but when some one sailed around it it was varified. There are many theories that are not, nor ever will be nothing more then thesis or a hyponheses becuse it can not be varfied and some that are founded on shakey or the the evedence is open to inturpation are accepted as truth.
 
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Reverse_Dragon is offline Reverse_Dragon Post #7  August 10,2011, 1:00pm
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acelticsteve wrote :
you are the most confussing person I have ever ran into.
Facts are truth. There are many posabuilitys but only one of them are true. Some times truth is ovscure to us becuse fe don't have the necessary facts to decern it, we have so confused ourselves with our own dubble talk that we don't reconize it or we reject it for some reason. Remember the story of the Emporer's new close? In science a law is some thing that happens the same way every time. IN real science there must be varifacation, it was thought the world was round but when some one sailed around it it was varified. There are many theories that are not, nor ever will be nothing more then thesis or a hyponheses becuse it can not be varfied and some that are founded on shakey or the the evedence is open to inturpation are accepted as truth.
I'm sorry I 'confuss' you. You know this thing has a built in spell checker right?

Truth and facts are not the same thing. A 'truth' has philosophical and subjective connotations that are not present when discussing facts.

Actually the fact that the earth is a sphere was proven centuries before the first circumnavigation, by the Greek natural philosopher Erosthenes. By measuring the shadows of two sticks spaced a known distance apart, he used basic arithmetic to calculate the curvature of the earth's surface, the fact that it must be spherical, and it's approximate size. (he was accurate to within 2% of the actual size)

In science a 'Law' is only different from a theory in one respect. A law has been tested hundreds, thousands, even millions of times and every single experimental result coincides with the predictions of the theoretical model. The moment a result disagrees with those predictions, scientists are the first to tear down that law and find out what was wrong with the theory. That is how science progresses.

This is a pet peeve of mine. Hypothesis is what you expect an experimental result to be. IT IS COMPLETELY SEPARATE FROM THEORY. A theory is a predictive model, used to anticipate future events, that is consistent with all available evidence.

The theory of gravity is not "what goes up must come down". That is just a sentence. The theory of gravity, as first published in Newton's Principia Mathematica, is G=m*-d^2. Which means the gravitational force between any two objects is equal to the mass of those objects multiplied by the inverse square of the distance between them.

Try not to use words you don't know the definition of.
Last edited by Reverse_Dragon; August 10,2011 at 1:09pm.
 
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AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #8  August 29,2011, 8:48am
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Diana_P wrote :
Is truth self-defining? Is truth unambiguous by default or do we make it unilateral with our respective agendas?

How can there be only one truth in a universe of infinite possibilities?

What say you?
Is there only one truth?

Because you can ask such a question; and because this kind of question can be replied to as either "yes" or "no"; and because we have no choice but to cling to a presumption that the universe is rational; then to remain rational we are essentially forced to hold it self-evident that there also exists a ubiquitous unchanging principal of causality (for we see it in our language, our thinking and our very thoughts) that applies everywhere and at every moment.

So - I can (and must) confidently (and rationally) answer "yes".

Just as most anyone one might see from different angles a glittering diamond reflect light rays along each of its many facets, men of good virtue in a clear and pure light of reason (or even less virtuous men only in possession of a weaker light (dimmed or wounded intellects) can see various aspects and dimensions of truth. Truth though is monolithic and the ultimate freedom since it can never be perverted or changed. Ultimate freedom and purity implies a thing not subject to the limits of time and space (since all things in time and space change and decompose over time). Our prime mover is not truth per-say but rather the One who first spoke the truth - the same one who set it all in motion when He said "Fiat Lux". ("let there be light") and then some heart beats later said.
John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me".
QED:
There's only one God and therefor only one truth.
Last edited by AZJoe; August 29,2011 at 1:31pm. Reason: fix typo
 
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AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #9  August 29,2011, 8:56am
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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Forget about 'truth'. Rely on natural law and theory. Fact, not truth.
OK - I'm naturally inclined to believe your warning to us so we won't believe a single thing you say here. Or are you being clever to get us to believe that you are untrustworthy so we won't believe the truth?

My theory is you're confused. But I can't propagate that theory as truth since the scientific method does not let a theory be declared as an absolute truth unless its proven. Do you know of any proven theories in science that no longer have the term "theory" attached to them and are now stated as "objective truth"?
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AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #10  August 29,2011, 10:11am
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AudioDad wrote :
There are as many truths as there are truth seekers. Couple of favorite quotes on truth by Oscar Wilde:

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it"
Here's another of his that I like.

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future" -- Oscar Wilde

Wilde's epigram doesn't mention "where" the sinner's future is spent. And I don't recall when he wrote this one. But given how Wilde's life went from the very top of the ladder of success to literally the gutter and how he ended up requesting last rites by the Catholic Church I think the man could have been prophesying his own life. This admitted sinner likely left his past behind him to find his future in the right place as a saint. It's the sinners though who do not finish so well that have future's that only God knows for certain how pleasant...

Just curious, AD, do you know much about the men you quote?

For others benefit let me say that Oscar Wilde was an amazingly talented and intellectual man as most know. But here's the interesting tidbit about how Oscar Wilde closed out his life that a lot of people who quote him in current times likely don't know about.
After the wildly successful and flamboyant Wilde was thrown in prison for his lewd & indecent acts with other men (by Victorian England Anglicans predominantly) he came out a shattered but fundamentally changed man spiritually. He attempted to enter a Catholic Jesuit religious order but for their own reasons rejected him as unsuited (and he wept bitterly). In spite of all his prior wealth (as a successful playwright) and his estranged wife's financial help he soon fell into debauchery, depression and ended up utterly destitute. Before he died he asked for reconciliation with the Catholic Church, received last rights and professed his faith literally on his death bed in the moments he was expiring.
An intellectual peer and acquaintance of Wilde's was GK Chesterton -- another master of the epigram (who also rediscovered and converted to Catholicism later in life). I just happened to be reading GK's "Heretics" this week and came across a quote that mentions Wilde that I thought apropos and quite opportune to mention here.

The same lesson [of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker] was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw.
G.K. Chesterton in "Heretics" (1905)
Last edited by AZJoe; August 29,2011 at 10:25am.
 
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