It is right to practice what you believe. May you go in peace with God as your guide.
PS. What you have described is also referred to by some as “following your heart.”
FWIW
My Religion
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It is right to practice what you believe. May you go in peace with God as your guide.
PS. What you have described is also referred to by some as “following your heart.”
FWIW
7djengo7
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Everything which is not true is false? Really? No. Not really. Sorry. You're wrong. It's false that everything which is not true is false. Why, there're plenty of things which are neither true, nor false.
Well, you’re kind of nitpicking me there - but you are correct. In order to be more specific and precise, I should have said that which is not demonstrably true is potentially false. Thank you for helping me be more accurate.
Will you give some examples of something that is neither true nor false?
7djengo7
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You affirmed the false proposition, 'Everything which is not true is false'. I contradict that false proposition by affirming the true proposition, 'Some things which are not true are not false', and you call my contradicting "nitpicking". By calling it "nitpicking", do you mean to tell me that to affirm the true proposition, 'Some things which are not true are not false', is to affirm something of little or no importance, or value? If that's what you think, then, so much the worse for your affirmation of the false proposition, 'Everything which is not true is false'. How do you imagine you are absolved from an even greater charge of "nitpicking" in your affirmation of that falsehood? For, remember what you said:
If, by "false isn't worth having", you mean, "false isn't worth believing", you are correct. If, instead, you mean "false isn't worth knowing about", you are incorrect.
But you are correct, here, to say "but you are correct".
Some examples of things that are neither true nor false? Sure. No problem:
- "that which is not demonstrably true is potentially false"
- "Spider Man beat up Batman"
- "Batman beat up Spider Man"
- "Peter Pan flew in from Neverneverland"
- "all mimsy were the borogoves"
Those are some verbal things that are neither true nor false. However, there are also other things--non-verbal things--that are neither true nor false. For instance, a dog, a cat, a tree, a grocery store, a rock, a car, a potato salad, and many other things. Not one of 'em's true, and neither is it false.
All those thing are true and not false based on our understanding of truth. A dog a cat a tree and so forth exist, can be observed and experienced. Therefore they are true and not false.
We may rightly question our understanding of truth as there certainly could be a greater truth than we conceive.
In any event, everything else you said seemed ok from my quick read of it. Since I don’t really trust you I didn’t give it much time. I feel that talking to you is like playing with fire. FWIW.
7djengo7
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False. Not one of them is true. No dog is true. No cat is true. A dog exists. A cat exists. But neither of those things (a cat, a dog) is true (nor are they false). To exist is not to be true. Were it the case that to exist is to be true, then every false proposition would be true, and it'd be just plain asinine to imagine that false propositions could be true.
Now, the proposition, 'Rover is a dog', will be either true or false, but Rover, itself (or himself, as the case may be) is neither true, nor false.
Am I to take, from this, that you at least agree with me that some verbal things are neither true, nor false?
It seems like you’re allowing logical argument to make yourself completely irrational to me. Things which exist, like a dog, cat or stone are true by nature simply because they exist. The truth of their existence is not in question, they are factual. A fact is something that is inherently true by nature. So, I just don’t get where you are coming from and I don’t have anything else to say about that. We exist. That is a fact, therefore a truth. The nature of our existence could certainly be called into question, that we exist is not in question, therefore it it true.
Some things, like Batman and Spider-Man sure...but you included my statement things which are not demonstrably true are potentially false...and there is no criticism of that statement as I understand things. So, I guess you and I are just radically different when it comes to logical thinking and argument.
I was just thinking about dying and I was going to say that I’m ok with dying as a result of my religion. But then, I checked myself and realized I’m not ok with dying because dying is brutal. I should say I’m ok with death, but that’s not true either. I’m not ok with death, I’m ok with being dead.
Dying sucks because it’s so terrifying. I had an experience with it in a way and I freaked out. I got caught in a severe lightning storm while on my motorcycle that seemed like certain death to me at the time. And I was scared. So, dying is no good.
Now death. Well, being dead is fine...the problem I have with death is that it exists in the first place. It’s the whole idea of why would God make a world of death? I realize now I am repeating myself, and that is not cool, but I’m still struggling with this issue.
My recent thoughts are that there are many solutions to the problem. One must be open to truly consider things.
It is possible that we are being punished for crimes in a previous existence. I’m not convinced of that explanation.
It could be that the price of our life is death. The brightest lights burn out the fastest. So, the joys and pleasurable experiences with this life are so extreme that their opposites are equally powerful.
So, we get to experience physical existence and the price of it is the hardest physical thing. Yet, it can be done. A monk set himself on fire in protest of the Vietnam Nam War and died without even screaming. That is the power of belief, and the mind.
So, at this point I say I don’t have the answers but my faith allows me to trust in God, that the answers may come....but if they don’t I must learn to be OK with it. FWIW. That’s where I am in my faith at the moment.
Dying sucks because it’s so terrifying. I had an experience with it in a way and I freaked out. I got caught in a severe lightning storm while on my motorcycle that seemed like certain death to me at the time. And I was scared. So, dying is no good.
Now death. Well, being dead is fine...the problem I have with death is that it exists in the first place. It’s the whole idea of why would God make a world of death? I realize now I am repeating myself, and that is not cool, but I’m still struggling with this issue.
My recent thoughts are that there are many solutions to the problem. One must be open to truly consider things.
It is possible that we are being punished for crimes in a previous existence. I’m not convinced of that explanation.
It could be that the price of our life is death. The brightest lights burn out the fastest. So, the joys and pleasurable experiences with this life are so extreme that their opposites are equally powerful.
So, we get to experience physical existence and the price of it is the hardest physical thing. Yet, it can be done. A monk set himself on fire in protest of the Vietnam Nam War and died without even screaming. That is the power of belief, and the mind.
So, at this point I say I don’t have the answers but my faith allows me to trust in God, that the answers may come....but if they don’t I must learn to be OK with it. FWIW. That’s where I am in my faith at the moment.
True.
But like I said, dying is brutal in most ways, and the idea of death is tough to grasp. I think one possible answer could be that we actually chose to be here but we don’t remember it. We willingly chose to come here, as people choose to go on vacation.
The other option I consider most likely is that God chose to allow this existence along with every other possible existence because that’s what it took to run physical existence.
The other possible explanation that I don’t favor is that we don’t really exist, we are a part of a very sophisticated computer, most likely from the future, and we only seem to exist in our own programming as part of the simulation.
7djengo7
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I don't know what (if anything) you mean by "true by nature", but such things as dogs, cats, stones, trees, and automobiles are not true (and they are also not false). Yeah, they exist; no, they are not true.
If you consider a dog, a cat, a stone, a toothbrush, and a can of beans to be things that are true, try believing those things; after all, isn't it wise to believe whatever is true? Try believing a cat. Try believing a can of beans.
Perhaps you'd like to say that a Ritz cracker is true? Take one and break it in two. I suppose you'd like to call each of those pieces a "half-truth"?
To be true is not the same as to exist. To exist is not the same as to be true.
Truth is a statement of reality.
Good. Yes it is. Django doesn’t seem to agree with that.
Nang
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What can be realized, is merely a witness of Truth.
But which is absolute? Which is total and inexhaustible?
Mortal conception of reality is only partial and subjective.
Truth is immortal and objectively Divine . .
So then by what method have you falsified all of the worlds religions of which you are aware?
I'm not asking for a separate answer for each religion, I want to know generally what sort of method you used to declare all of the worlds religions false. Did you just arbitrarily toss them all collectively into the trash bin or did you actually have some systematic method of determining they're veracity (or lack thereof)?
This happens to be a substantial step down the road toward Christianity but let's not get ahead of ourselves...
How do you know that truth supersedes belief?
That's a real question, by the way. I'm not trying to be clever.
Clete
P.S. I've not read through the thread yet. If this post is too much of a reset then just say so. If there is a particular section of the discussion I should read before jumping in, just point it out. In the mean time, I'll try to read through and get more of the gist of the existing discussion.
P.S.S. Just noticing the last few posts...
The word "True" means "Consistent". Consistent with what depends on the context in which the word is being used. If you lay floor tiles for a living then "true" means that your flooring is laid consistent with some standard like an adjacent wall or a chalk line as well as with the other flooring including all of the tiles you've just laid. If it is all consistently flat and level and even, etc it is said to be laid "true".
In the context of philosophy, the word "True" or "Truth" simply means that an idea or concept is consistent both with itself and with reality. Pursuant to this idea of truth, there are three axioms upon which all knowledge and discourse is necessarily based...
1. What is is. A is A.
This is known as the law of identity. It is the most fundamental statement of truth that can be made. It has the following corollary...
2. Any truth claim is either true or it is false.
This is known as the law of excluded middle. A truth claim cannot be both true (i.e. consistent with reality) and false in a specific context. And, as before, it has a corollary...
3. Any two truth claims that contradict each other cannot both be true at the same time in and the same way.
This is known as the law of contradiction. It is similar to the previous law but applies when truth claims are in conflict with each other and not reality itself.
There is no truth that can violate any of these three laws of reason. No argument can be made without making use of these laws. Thus any attempt to counter these laws is self-defeating! They are therefore true because of the rational impossibility of the contrary. That's why they are called "axioms". (There are others.)
Clete
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ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
To that I would add "what exactly do you ( [MENTION=8654]Guyver[/MENTION]) mean by "truth supersedes belief"?
For example - it is a truth that, as I am typing this, my clock displays 9:22
I believe that [MENTION=8654]Guyver[/MENTION] will read this, sometime in the next day or so
Does that truth "supersede" that belief?
Well, hopefully, what he means is that he would allow the truth to change his belief and that the truth is true whether one believes it or not.
In this case, the truth and your belief were the same. So that’s a good thing. But that is not always the case.
Clete, I know that truth supersedes belief because truth is always true, but beliefs may be true or false. Beliefs are true in the mind of the person who believes, but even that can change over time.
Yes. That is well said.
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