The more Truth is doubtable, the more it is called a crime to doubt it.
Rafael Leyre
photographs of truth. We can try to approach truth but can never reach
it. The absolute truth of society and religion is not as much ‘what
really is' as it is ‘what befits our imagination'.
Truth can only be an attribute of doubtful reality; statements
claiming to be truth themselves should never be trusted. Often the
most unlikely, obscure and fuzzy statements are named truth, while
likely, simple ones are just stated. The more Truth is doubtable, the
more it is called a crime to doubt it, and many have been put to death
for the crime of doubting unbearable nonsense.
The notion that our thoughts are inspired (this means: filled by
spirits) from a higher place is a remnant of our totemic past, but has
tempted civilizations because it fits so well in a society where inert
masters think and slaves work. Those slaves are declared to have no
intelligent minds, while severe punishment is proclaimed if they
should ever use them. In this world-image, the highest master must
have the most powerful mind and pure intelligence becomes the essence
of God, who only has to command or even think the world in order to
create it.
Intelligence is a device to resolve trouble, not an attribute or gauge
of authority.
It makes no sense to call a being perfect and intelligent at once.
Either a being is perfect, and needs no intelligence because all is
fulfilled; or it is intelligent, but then needs at least some
shortcoming to shine its light on. Pure Intelligence is useless in a
perfect world, and is meaningless in an imperfect world.
Before clay pottery was invented, gods creating men out of clay were
unthinkable. The four elements could only be imagined since the Bronze
Age, when metal was made with ore, fire, bellows and water. The
Egyptian sun god had to wait for humans to invent boating before he
could sail towards the evening. No all mighty, all knowing god was
conceivable before the entire known world was submitted to one immense
bureaucratic empire. A society governed by supply and demand could
only be imagined after scarcity had contaminated all material goods.
We are not equipped to understand Ultimate Revelation. Descartes
accepted, without much proof, that God would not be so cruel as to
fool us all the time; but if God wants to be understood by creatures
as incompatible with it as we are, creatures from a very different
category and universe, it really has no other choice.
To believe in a perfect, all knowing God is impossible, because we
must first imagine something resembling it (for example a white male,
yet non-human, yet endowed with human thoughts), and keep this in mind
while stressing to ourselves that our dedication is meant for
something different we can't imagine. Clearly, someone claiming to
believe in this way really does nothing but conform to a society or
group, stumbled upon by birth or other coincidence, or chosen for
specific reasons.
The assertion that belief and understanding are equivalent functions
of the brain, is invalid, because it is possible to understand a
message one does not believe, but impossible to believe a message one
does not understand.
The strength of our mind is not its capacity for truth, but its
capacity for hope.
MrGoodSalt
The New Atheism: And the Erosion of Freedom (1986) Robert A. Morey. P&R
Publishing: Phillipsberg, NJ. ISBN: 0-87552-362-5
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter One: The Crazy Sixties
Chapter Two: The Erosion of Freedom
Chapter Three: The New Atheism
Chapter Four: Defining Atheism
Chapter Five: The Causes of Atheism
Chapter Six: Logic and the Atheists
Chapter Seven: Logical Errors of Atheism
Chapter Eight: Materialism
Chapter Nine: A Sample Debate
Chapter Ten: Jesus and Paul
Chapter Eleven: Atheists in Action
Conclusion
Appendix: Answers to Common Objections
Bibliography
Chapter Seven: Logical Errors of Atheism
BEGIN QUOTE
Error #8
It is erroneous to build one's position on self-refuting propositions. The
following self-refuting propositions are from atheist literature or debates.
1. "Only empirically verifiable or falsifiable statements have any meaning."
This statement is itself incapable of verification.
2. "There are no absolutes." This statement is an absolute.
3. "Everything is relative." This statement is meant to be taken as an
absolute.
4. "We can't know anything with certainty." Yet, we are supposed to know this
statement with certainty.
5. "There is no truth." Except, of course, the one just given.
6. "What a person believes is the result of irrational forces." Then this
statement itself is also the result of irrational forces. So, why believe it?
7. "What you believe is determined by psychological, environmental, chemical or
class conditioning." Then this belief also is the result of such conditioning
as well, and is equally worthless.
8. "No one can know anything about God, for He is unknowable." This statement
requires a great deal of knowledge about God.
[Quotes added to replace italicized text.]
END QUOTE
The following books may be of interest:
1) "A Primer on Post Modernism" (1996) by Stanley J. Grenz ISBN # 0-8028-0864-6
"The postmodern worldview operates with a community-based understanding of
truth. It affirms that whatever we accept as truth and even the way we envision
truth are dependent on the community in which we participate. Further, and far
more radically, the postmodern worldview affirms that this relativity extends
beyond our perceptions of truth to its essence: there is no absolute truth;
rather, truth is relative to the community in which we participate." p.8
2) "Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture" by
Gene Edward Veith, Jr. ISBN # 0-89107-768-5
"The intellect is replaced by the will. Reason is replaced by emotion. Morality
is replaced by relativism. Reality itself becomes a social construct." p28-29.
3) "The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog" 3rd Ed. (1997) James W.
Sire. InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL. ISBN: 0-8308-1899-5
Preface to the Third Edition.
1. A World of Difference.
2. A Universe Charged with the Grandeur of God: Christian Theism.
3. The Clockwork Universe: Deism.
4. The Silence of Finite Space: Naturalism.
5. Zero Point: Nihilism.
6. Beyond Nihilism: Existentialism.
7. Journey to the East: Eastern Pantheistic Monism.
8. A Separate Universe: The New Age.
9. The Vanished Horizon: Post Modernism.
10. The Examined Life.
Notes.
Index.
This is a fascinating book which claims all world views can be assessed based
on how they answer 7 basic questions:
1) What is prime reality - the really real?
2) What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
3) What is a human being?
4) What happens to a person at death?
5) Why is it possible to know anything at all?
6) How do we know what is right and wrong?
7) What is the meaning of human history?
The world views examined are:
a) Christian theism
b) Deism
c) Naturalism
d) Nihlism
e) Existentialism
f) Eastern pantheistic monism
g) New age
h) Postmodernism
A particularly interesting aspect of this book is that Sire describes these
different world views a progressive disintegrations from an original ideal.
"In short, Lyotard defined postmodernism as 'incredulity toward
meta-narratives.' No longer is there a single story, a metanarrative (in our
terms a worldview), that holds Western culture together. It is not just that
there have long been
many stories, each of which gives its binding power to the social group that
takes it as its own. The naturalists have their story, the pantheists theirs,
the Christian theirs, ad infinitum. With postmodernism no story can have any
more credibility than any other. All stories are equally valid." p.174
4) "The Death of Truth: Responding to Multiculturalism, the Rejection of
Reason, and the New Postmodern Diversity" (1996) Dennis McCallum ISBN #
1-55661-724-0
"But the postmodernists are far from insane. They present a dangerously
convincing case for their view - a view that ultimately directly undermines all
possibility of knowing objective truth (that is, truth that is true whether one
believe it or not). ... Postmodernism, as it applies to our everyday lives, is
the death of truth as we know it." p.14
Ready With An Answer: For the Tough Questions About God. (1997) John Ankerberg
and John Weldon. Harvest House Publishers: Eugene, OR. ISBN: 1-56507-618-4
BEGINNING OF QUOTE
A Note from the Authors
Almost everyone is searching for something beyond themselves to give their
lives meaning. However inadequately, many people are searching for the truth.
Indeed, there probably isn't a person alive who wouldn't like to know the
truth, if that were possible.
Despite the religious, political, moral and philosophical confusions of the
modern age, despite the penchant to make personal preference one's truth,
people know intuitively there is more to life and they secretly yearn for it.
We can see indications of this all around us, in cinema, art, literature,
science, philosophy, politics, and just about every other realm of human
endeavor.
That is why we have written this book - to help people find the truth. Of
course, sometimes the truth is hard to take. But of all things in life, knowing
the truth is surely one of the most satisfying. Knowing the truth means knowing
that what you believe is absolutely true, and not just true for you alone, but
for everybody else as well. Not just true for now, but true forever. That's the
truth we are searching for, and that's the truth we are talking about in this
book.
This book is written both for Christians to help strengthen their faith and
non-Christians to help persuade them that Christianity is the truth.
Naturally, there are relativists who deny truth exists. But what if they are
wrong? "A philosophy that denies the possibility of truth is a philosophy that
denies its own truth-claims. No one should take it seriously."
This book is designed to take the reader through a progression of logical
arguments that we hope will cause him or her to conclude there is a truth and
that it can both be known and experienced. What makes the endeavor a bit easier
is that in the end, there are only two options for explaining our existence:
the natural or the supernatural.
First, there is the supernatural or religious explanation. Is it reasonable to
believe that the universe was created by an infinite God? Second, there is the
natural or evolutionary explanation. Is it more reasonable to believe the
universe arose by chance from nothing, as modern science claims? Interestingly
enough, even the natural explanation is a religious one, tantamount to
requiring belief in the miraculous. Either way we are forced into the realm of
the religious. Further, if a great deal of scientific evidence rules out a
naturalistic explanation for origins, we have little choice. By default we are
automatically required to enter the realm of religious truth claims, at least
if we want to know the truth about who we are. And who isn't at least a little
bit curious?
The difficulty is that all religions claim to be the truth (even naturalistic
ones). Of course, not all religions can be equally true. All might be false, or
one might be true, but all cannot be absolutely true since they all clearly
contradict one another. Indeed, it is somewhat startling that millions of
people today claim that all religions are true. Everyone knows better. And if
all religions aren't true, either all are false or one is true. There are no
other options.
If there is one true God, it is logical to assume there is one true religion.
The purpose of this book is to see just how clearly the evidence leads us to
conclude that there is only one true God and only one religion that is fully
true.
If you really want to examine the case for knowing the truth, you can't afford
to miss this book. Like it or not, we all live out our lives more or less
consistently with what we think is true. And, depending on what we believe is
true, this has major implications for each of our lives. Further, we all die.
To live our lives apart from the truth isn't healthy, but to die without the
truth is a tragedy.
So, if you are currently of a naturalistic persuasion, and you already believe
in one kind of miracle, perhaps it wouldn't hurt you to consider another kind
of miracle along the way. If you are currently of a religious persuasion,
perhaps it wouldn't hurt you to examine your beliefs more critically.
So where do we begin our search for the truth? Although we will discuss other
religions and philosophies, our emphasis in this book will be to examine the
evidence for the truth of biblical Christianity.
Why?
Simply because this is the most logical starting point. There is little need to
examine 500 different religions in A to Z fashion (even if that were possible),
when there is one religion that stands out from all the others in almost every
respect.
Christianity is the only religion that is simultaneously most likely to be true
and, given its claims, the easiest to disprove if false. Given this, there is
no better place to begin.
If biblical Christianity proves true, then we have found the truth.
If it proves false, then the search is still on…
If nothing else, we hope this book will be a challenge to you personally to
spend some time in the most important endeavor in life.
There is no greater adventure.
END OF QUOTE
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." JOHN 8:32
Good Christian books listed and described at:
http://www.hometown.aol.com/mrgoodsalt/index.htm
Mark Richardson
wrote:
>Our head is no camera that, if well adjusted, generates sharp
>photographs of truth. We can try to approach truth but can never reach
>it. The absolute truth of society and religion is not as much ‘what
>really is' as it is ‘what befits our imagination'.
>
<snip>
>The strength of our mind is not its capacity for truth, but its
>capacity for hope.
Excellent essay!
I have often tried to say the same things myself - but not nearly as
well.
Mark.
--
Mark Richardson mDOTrichardsonATutasDOTeduDOTau
"My name is Mark I am a recovering Skeptic
(AKA Muddy Boggs, AKA Donald R. Alford AKA ...)
debater. It is 050 days since I last tried to argue
with him."
You too can quit! Take the pledge!