Originally Posted by Missileman
Actually, I'm an equal opportunity non-believer...I think you're all full of shit. I would NEVER suggest that someone's actions can be justified because of their beliefs. I was asking YOU the question to see if you might grasp the hypocrisy of your position.
I may be full of shit if a man may have no absolute in either his principles or his morality. From the subject were are discussing morality hits a bit closer to home. So I will address from that perspective if you do not mind. The way I see it you pose the question that how do I know they are wrong and I am right? As if putting forth this query should prove something, exactly what you think it proves I havent a clue. Unless you think it proves there are no absolutes. Would there being no absolutes prove my beliefs to be hypocrisy? My answer is a simple question , are you sure that there are no absoutes!?? Sorry, just couldnt help tossing that one in here.
Can atheists justify any type of morality? Can water really be wet? Can monkees shine shoes?!!
In today's culture, the ideal of rejecting principled beliefs to be valid by presenting that there are no absolutes (which negates the entire concept of there being TRUTH) may be appealing to many and a defense against those taking a moral or highly principled stand! Yet, that fails to this old self evident truism. The truth, is the truth, is the TRUTH. Many people find this to be a VERY ENLIGHENING truism, they feel that there is something obvious and right about it and with just cause!
However, if you were to survey the latest philosophy journals, you would find no mention of absolute truths and no philosophers intent on demonstrating the existence or nonexistence of this apparent "species of truth". The reason for this is not a lack of interest, on the part of contemporary philosophers, in the issues that people have in mind when they proffer the refutation of principled beliefs with ‘there are no absolute truths’. Philosophers have many things to say about these issues. Rather, the reason why contemporary philosophers do not discuss "absolute truths" is that they find such talk to be the placing of circles into squares out of boredom IMHO!
The problem with the concept of "there are no absolute truths" is that it is a catchphrase under which several related but logically distinct ideas are collected. As such, whenever someone uses this concept it is unclear which (or which combination) of these logically distinct ideas they have in mind. Because of the lack of conceptual clarity in the notion absolute truth, contemporary philosophers prefer to avoid it and instead employ terms that capture with more precision the different ideas that people associate with absolute truth.
So can we jusify or prove these EXAMPLES (?),
- Anything that we take to be true is revisable
- We can never have a ‘god’s-eye’ view of the universe
- All truths are a matter of opinion
- Truth is relative (to culture, historical epoch, language, society etc.)
- All the truths that we know are subjective truths (i.e. mind-dependent truths)
- There is nothing more to truth than what we are willing to assert as true
Each of those examples have been discussed, at one point or another, in contemporary philosophy and each are held or denied with varying degrees of confidence. So my advice is, if every you are tempted to talk about absolute truths you should ask yourself which, if any, of the above ideas you have in mind.
All the those given, which are meant to express the negation of the existence of an absolute truth, does not actually refer to the existence of the absolute truth itself. Rather the expressions merely refer to the inability of humans to percieve or recognise absolute truths. I guess this has a lot to do with our semantic definition of what “truth” is though. Now I acknowledge that the concept of “truth” AS has been devised by humans is a very subjective phenomena. However, surely when we refer to “absolute truths” we are referring to the existence of objective facts, in other words, an “objective reality” that exists beyond the human mind.
We are not referring to a general consensus that all humans can agree upon to be true… Surely humans do not have to be aware of the existence of these absolute truths and objective facts in order for them to exist?
“We can never have a ‘god’s-eye’ view of the universe”!!!
My problem with the examples given that express the belief that “there are no absolute truths”. They all refer to our inability to percieve or comprehend absolute truths. But our ignorance does not have anything to do with whether absolute truths actually exist. The truth, the true state of affairs, an objective reality could exist, without us being none the wiser. Or one may intuitively know it and act upon it without the need to prove it to anybody!
The existence of absolte truth does exist whether we know it or not, whether we admit it or not. For example: It is true that either that man killed his wife, or that he did not. One or the other. Whether we know whether that man is guilty or innocent, he is definately one or the other.
The TRUTH is not dependent on our own personal, subjective opinions. If it were, everything we believe to be true, including whether that man was guilty or not, could be completely arbitrary!! In fact, if there was no “absolute truth”, or facts about the world, to correspond to our beliefs, then truth, absolute or relative, could not exist (according to the correspondance theory).
If you maintain that individual truth must a\lways be revisable, but does that really have any impact on the truth about truth? It seems to me, that the thesis for the argument that “there is no absolute truth” can not hold any weight at all.
Thus we have your "what if you are wrong" argument , its questioning of what is truth, and the "second guessing ourselves" taken down one of the many million of paths one can easily carry it...
If we were to talk about religious morality, I would say that relativism only has one place: it determining which things are okay outside of whatever determines one’s moral code. However, I am of the thought that there is only one correct moral code. Now I realize that there will be many that are within this school of thought that have different moral codes. This is a seemingly a paradox. However, the clear solution is that we must realize that when examined from a pure secularism view, our moral code might be the wrong one. So then debates must be done between the different moral codes to determine which one is the correct one. However, the idea of one person determining morality for themselves and another determining morality for themselves when the two moralities might disagree means that we have actually done away with morality and that we have just welcomed in every person being a walking moral code, which means that morality can never be determined. This means we could never say an action was actually immoral, because to the other person it could have been one of the most moral things they could have done!! This is chaos. Reality does not lend itself to this paradox being valid IMHO.
I hereby certify my "absolute belief" that Islam is not right by the ONE TRUE GOD!
Or as was cited before by my previous vote...--Tyr
Originally Posted by Missileman
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--TYR
