I always enjoy your comments, and emails of support regarding my articles posted here on my blog. While not always positive, I find each and every one just as important and deserve equal attention and respect. I may not always agree with your perspective, but I will always try and respect your point of view, notwithstanding reason and logic.
This brings me a comment posted by a reader to the article Haiti Earthquake Raises HAARP Controversy, posted on January 14, 2010.
Damien said:
It's time for us to distribute the differences between "reality" and "truth." What is truth to reality anymore? It seems to me that what we're seeing, hearing, and feeling are distancing itself from truth or manipulating truth with diversions.
So then I ask: What IS truth?
Can this profound question be answered? It’s similar to being asked, “What is Consciousness?” One of the most profound questions ever asked. I would like to answer this question very simply by stating, “Each of us knows that truth is something that is not a lie. Very simple, right? Not necessarily.
If I take Einstein’s theory of relativity, and extend this a bit further to the question that Damien poses, “What IS truth?
Then the answer would be that "Truth" and "Reality" is relative, or is another question raised?
Relativism is self-refuting; it cuts its own throat. The statement, "truth is a matter of personal and cultural values, not a matter of a statement's correspondence with objective reality," is a claim about "the ways things are"; that is, it is a truth-claim about objective reality. But this is the very thing it cannot be. If truth is only a function of individual preferences, one cannot escape the prison of subjectivity in order to make objective statements that supposedly apply to all of reality. For these reasons, we can safely say that relativism is false; it does not correspond to reality.
Human subjectivity untethered from objective constraints is a shallow and shabby thing. When it reaches a certain stage we call it stupidity or even insanity.
When Pontius Pilate interrogated Jesus before his crucifixion, Jesus proclaimed that "Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." (John 18:37). To this, Pilate replied "What is truth?" and immediately left Jesus to address the Jews who wanted Christ crucified (v. 38).
As Francis Bacon wrote in his essay "On Truth," "'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer." Although we have no record of any reply by Jesus, Christians affirm that Pilate was staring Truth in the face, for Jesus had earlier said to Thomas, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).[read more]
I do not think Damien was searching for an answer, but rather stating a point. Nonetheless, the question stayed with me day and night. This exchange raises the perennial question of the nature of truth.
I do not think Damien was searching for an answer, but rather stating a point. Nonetheless, the question stayed with me day and night. This exchange raises the perennial question of the nature of truth.
What does it mean for a statement to be true?
This has been a subject of much debate in postmodernist circles, where the traditional view of truth as objective and knowable is no longer accepted. Many even outside of academic discussions may be as cynical about truth as Pilate. "What is truth?" they smirk, without waiting for an answer. But unless we are clear about the notion of truth, and before attempting to determine which claims are true, we need to understand the nature of truth itself.
To briefly debate two views of truth that have been held by the vast majority thoughout history, and that have been pitted against each other, relativism and pragmatism.
Each holds that any statement is true if and only if it corresponds to or agrees with factual reality. The statement, "the desk in my study is brown," is true only if there is, in fact, a brown desk in my study. The statement, "there is no brown desk in my study," is false because it fails to correspond to any objective state of affairs (i.e., to the facts of the matter).
This commonsensical view presupposes a basic law of logic called the law of bivalence, which stipulates that any unambiguous, declarative statement must be either true or false. It can be neither true nor false; nor can it be both true and false. "There is a brown desk in my study" is true or false.
This commonsensical view presupposes a basic law of logic called the law of bivalence, which stipulates that any unambiguous, declarative statement must be either true or false. It can be neither true nor false; nor can it be both true and false. "There is a brown desk in my study" is true or false.
Another fundamental law of logic expresses the same concept in a slightly different way.
The law of excluded middle affirms that "either A or non-A." There either is a brown desk in my study or there is not. One more principle of logic teams up with the other two for further clarification. The principle of contradiction states that "A cannot be non-A in the same way and in the same respect." It cannot be true that there both is and is not a brown desk in my study.
Strictly speaking, questions, commands, and exclamations are neither true nor false, because they do not make claims about objective reality. For example, when people pray, "God, please help me," it is true that they are praying, but they are not affirming that "God will help them" (a declarative statement). I am requesting help.
Furthermore, if I say "Study harder!" to my lazy pupil, I am not affirming "You are studying harder" (a declarative statement); I am commanding or imploring his academic diligence. If I exclaim "Yes!" when my pitcher strikes out the cleanup hitter in the bottom the ninth to win the game for the home team, I am not saying, "He struck out the batter" (a declarative statement); I am voicing my approval. The question of truth is properly applied only to declarative or propositional statements.
With all that said, let's examine the theological statement, "Jesus is Lord of the universe," . This is either true or false. Whether it's coolly uttered or enunciated with great emotion, it has only one truth-value: true or false. It either honors reality or it does not. The Christian claims that this statement is true irrespective of anyone's opinion (see Romans 3:4). This is because truth is a quality of statements, not a matter of subjective response or majority vote or cultural fashion.
For example, the statement, "The world is spherical." was true even when the vast majority of earthlings took their habitat to be flat.
One challenge to the correspondence view is relativism. Relativism comes in various shapes and sizes, but its salient claim is that the truth of a statement depends on the views of persons or cultures, not on whether statements correspond to objective reality. For a statement to be true simply means that a person or culture to believes it to be true. Hence the popular refrain, "Well, if that's true for you..." or, "We can't judge other cultures."
Let's look at something more present: one person can say "Jesus is Lord" and another can say "Allah is Lord," and both statements will be true, if they accurately express the sentiments of the speakers. This view seems to advance tolerance and civility, but it does so at the expense of logic.
If I say "Jesus is Lord" and you say "Allah is Lord" both statements cannot be objectively true because they describe mutually exclusive realities. Jesus is known by Christians as God made flesh (John 1:14), while Muslims deny that Allah incarnates. If "Lord" means a position of unrivaled metaphysical and spiritual supremacy, then Jesus and Allah cannot be both be Lord because "Jesus" and "Allah" are not two words that mean the same thing. If we mean to say that I believe in Jesus and you believe in Allah, there is no logical contradiction, since subjective states of mind cannot contradict each other; that is, it may be true that I subjectively believe X and you subjectively believe non-X. But X and non-X themselves cannot both be objectively true. When dealing with divergent claims to objective truth (as we often do in comparative religion and philosophy), contradictions emerge frequently.[source]
We all know anything is possible, so to dismiss anything would be ignorant, if not bordering on stupidity. The same goes with believing everything you see or hear. This is where reason and logic play an important role. This is very important, especially when religion plays a role that teaches you to have "faith" and not to question, just to accept. It becomes very dangerous when you no longer use your own reason or logic...if anything it was given to you to use. This is an attribute of being human.
Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. ... I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general. (Gottfried Leibniz, 1670)
We may agree, perhaps, to understand by Metaphysics an attempt to know reality as against mere appearance, or the study of first principles or ultimate truths, or again the effort to comprehend the universe, not simply piecemeal or by fragments, but somehow as a whole. (Bradley, 1846-1924)
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. (Winston Churchill)
Human kind ... cannot bear very much reality (T.S. Eliot)
And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are. (Plato)
The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge. (Plato)
Truthfulness. He will never willingly tolerate an untruth, but will hate it as much as he loves truth... And is there anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth? (Plato)
Then may we not fairly plead in reply that our true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things with the mental faculty fitted to do so, that is, with the faculty which is akin to reality, and which approaches and unites with it, and begets intelligence and truth as children, and is only released from travail when it has thus reached knowledge and true life and satisfaction? (Plato)
What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from the twilight of error to the truth, that climb up into the real world which we shall call true philosophy. (Plato)
The object of knowledge is what exists and its function to know about reality. (Plato)
And those whose hearts are fixed on Reality itself deserve the title of Philosophers. (Plato)
When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence. (Plato)
One trait in the philosopher's character we can assume is his love of the knowledge that reveals eternal reality, the realm unaffected by change and decay. He is in love with the whole of that reality, and will not willingly be deprived even of the most insignificant fragment of it - just like the lovers and men of ambition we described earlier on. (Plato)
Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialization as opposed to aristocracy. (Bertrand Russell)
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