Faith or Belief?

[Windwalker]

I had been working on a reply to @Rise from the another thread which unfortunately got shut down apparently due to some members behaviors in it. I had thought to make this a separate discussion anyway prior to that as Rise's replies were a great deal more in depth and deserving of a more focused attention by me. I'll quote from Rise's posts in that thread as a starting point for us to continue that focus here separately.

Firstly, I never said Biblical faith is defined as mental assent to the truth of what is written. In fact, my entire post was aimed at disproving that fallacious understanding of faith.

But as I pointed out, you fell into that trap yourself by making it about trusting what you read from scripture. The reliance is on something you are giving a mental assent to as "reliable data". That is about what the mind believes to be true. That is a "belief in a belief", or "faith" in a mental concept as propositionally true.

To clarify at the outset of this response, by the "heart", I am not talking about your emotions and being driven by its needs, wants, desires and impulses. That's not "the heart" in a religious context. Rather the heart is what deep inside of you has "faith", even when reason and beliefs fail.

A true religious faith, and that is what this is we are addressing, is not "accurately reading the data" or the "evidence", as something objectively just laying around outside yourself, like finding a fossil from the Cretaceous period for further study. Yet, that is what faith is distorted as, which you have been pointing out yourself, prior to to you then attaching back into "believing in scripture."

Faith that God exists is at its core a deep "sense", a "knowing with the heart", and all the rest that deals with that are what the mind thinks about that, what concepts and ideas are supportive of that. They are very much secondary to that, and very much not as reliable as that sense of faith that rests in "not-knowing". To make "faith" about what you believe to be true about scripture, is very much "disputable matters", to apply Paul's term from Romans, you later cited. More on this as we continue.

Second, your statement also seems to be implying that you think it's wrong to base what you put faith in on what you read from Scripture because it's just a matter of subjective interpretation in your view - but I reject the premise of your conclusion.

Not exactly. I have no problem with people making positive uses of scripture in support of their faith. But that support is not "proof" in the sense of "you can trust in the facts". I have noted in my lifetime, while I have always had faith in the reality of God, how I have believed about things like scripture has changed, yet my faith that God exists has persisted, despite finding I now longer could believe things as I once had. I have learned that my faith does not rest in what my mind believes about something. My faith rests in a knowing of the spirit within, or another word for that is the Heart. In my heart, I know God exists, even when I doubt everything I've previously believed.

Beliefs are supports for faith. They help form and give shape to faith, but they are not the basis of faith. Faith is the wings of the heart reaching into the Unknown. Beliefs by contrast are like the scaffolding on a building used to support work on the structure they are attached to. Beliefs can change, or be abandoned altogether, in service of finding more "up to the task" requirements for the growth of the building they surround. To be married to the scaffolding, to adore the scaffolding as defining the building itself, is to no longer be in service of growing the building. It's "beliefs for belief's sake", and faith becomes halted in its progress upwards.

In my view and experience, the "True Believer", one who will not doubt anything they believe about God to be questionable, have the weakest faith. Beliefs are what they rest in, and if the belief is challenged or found to be not what they thought it was, they are in a crisis of faith. They lose faith, when they stop believing what they thought was true before. In other words, there beliefs were not in support of faith. They were a substitute for it.

I have found the truth of Scripture can be objectively and logically determined. I will give examples of that further down in my response.

I have found the opposite to be true. They are more a reflection of how we are seeing things. They reflect what we bring into it. There are many different "Jesuses" seen on its pages, depending upon who is reading it through which set of eyes. Claims to "objectivity", are ultimately relative to the set of eyes one is building their structure for themselves with.

You have for instance the legalistic letter-of-the-law Jesus seen and preached by those whose set of filters see that Jesus on its pages. You have the Grace and spirit-of-the-law Jesus as another Jesus seen. And so forth. These can be at times quite opposite one another.

I'll explain this more as we continue. But it's not a case of "you're wrong and I'm right". It's really more a matter of someone not having the prerequisite contexts in order to see beyond their belief structures, which create the reality of what they believe for themselves. Yourself and myself are included in that statement.

If you realized your premise were wrong, and that Scriptural truth can actually be objectively arrived at, then maybe you'd have a different perspective on what it means to put your faith in what you read in the Scripture.

I very much am aware I am not "wrong" about this. All views are partial truths. What you are proposing about faith, is very Modernistic in nature, despite pointing out its about "trust". Trust is a heart thing, not a head thing. "I believe firmly what I think is objectively true to be a fact", is not a heart thing at all. It's confidence in your mental, cognitive, beliefs. In fact, reliance on beliefs, can and does run headlong into conflict with what one knows to be true from the sincere heart of faith.

It is understandable why you would have that supposition, when you see so many people who have different opinions about the same text; but you may be happy to know that it is possible to draw objective conclusions from scripture that stand up to any kind of objective logical scrutiny and therefore are not the product of mere personal bias.

You appear to be approaching religious faith with a "sciencey" Modernistic lens. If I may quote something from an essay I have quoted from for over a decade now as it hits this point squarely on the head? I'd recommend reading the whole brief essay found here: Biblical Literalism

The literal imagination is univocal. Words mean one thing, and one thing only. They don't bristle with meanings and possibilities; they are bald, clean-shaven. Literal clarity and simplicity, to be sure, offer a kind of security in a world (or Bible) where otherwise issues seem incorrigibly complex, ambiguous and muddy. But it is a false security, a temporary bastion, maintained by dogmatism and misguided loyalty. Literalism pays a high price for the hope of having firm and unbreakable handles attached to reality. The result is to move in the opposite direction from religious symbolism, emptying symbols of their amplitude of meaning and power, reducing the cosmic dance to a calibrated discussion.

One of the ironies of biblical literalism is that it shares so largely in the reductionist and literalist spirit of the age. It is not nearly as conservative as it supposes. It is modernistic, and it sells its symbolic birthright for a mess of tangible pottage. Biblical materials and affirmations--in this case the symbolism of Creator and creation--are treated as though of the same order and the same literary genre as scientific and historical writing. "I believe in God the Father Almighty" becomes a chronological issue, and "Maker of heaven and earth" a technological problem.​

What I highlighted above seems key to me. To try to imagine scripture as telling us the facts in order for us to "believe" is thoroughly a mental endeavor, like looking at the data in a scientific experiment and making logical and rational proposals about it. Now, while that has its place looking at Biblical materials from academic angles, and I think that can help form and shape our opinions, that is not "faith". At its best, that results in informed opinions, or beliefs. But these are not operating at the same levels as faith. And, faith can in fact still be entirely true and valid, even if the beliefs themselves are in error. Faith transcends belief.

This is one example of the difference types of lenses through which people see, and limit what they can see in scripture by putting those glasses on. If you read scripture with a modernist lens, and not a symbolic lens, you end up with a "calibrated discussion" and "faith" is reduced to beliefs in propositions. It does not originate in the heart, which is where faith resides. Consequently, even as it reads the texts, what it interprets does not reflect or include that. It sees a "different Jesus", quite literally.

Continued in post 2.......

 

[Windwalker]

The key to remember here is that the definition of faith I give you will either stand up to logical scrutiny in the context of it's usage in the Bible or it won't.

What it will do is fit what you believe about it and read the scriptures through that lens. For instance, you take scripture to be intended by God to be read as a whole, single message from beginning to end. Therefore when you read areas with different ideas expressed, you read it as though they have some single hidden meaning that is intended for you to discover. That assumption colorizes everything you see, and whatever you conclude about it, has that color present in whatever you then believe is true about it.

To contrast that with myself and the lens I read scripture through, I do not see is as a single message intended by Divine Will. That is a later layer historically to superimpose a "master story" meaning upon it for the sake of mythmaking. I remove that later historical patena from it, which then allows me to take each author sharing their particular "take" on things, creating mythologies for sake of imparting the meaning they wish to express. You therefore can see contradictions as the results of this natural process, and take them as is, rather than trying to force-fit the stories into a single master story, which would create distortions caused by that "literalist" lens. I am not beholden to read scripture through the "inerrancy lens," and the result is a very different picture of "what happened".

Yet, I can find faith in God nonetheless in a non-mythologized treatment of scripture. I understand the intent of the authors as symbolic, and it is that symbolism that carries the meanings, even if the different mythologies conflict with each other. I find it makes scripture far more useful to not feel obligated to make it fit a belief system about it.

To the conservative however, my saying what I do is heard as "wrong", which word you have used multiple times about me in hearing my views. I don't see your views as "wrong" as you do mine however. I view them as partial. And no, I don't view mine as therefore not-partial or complete. Hardly. But I do see them as coming from a larger context, which allows more to be considered than what the inneracy view can allow.

If my definition of faith were merely subjective

When people view subjectivity as a "merely", they are falling into that modernistic trap, favoring rationality as the ultimate test of truth. Even modern science at its core is subjective. All beliefs are held subjectively, even scientific ones. The set of eyes we look at the world through, are subjective eyes. And "objectivity" can be a slippery creature, because subjectivity can either allow or disallow data to be seen, recognized, and considered. If your subjective space has a limited range of what it can possibly see, then truth is limited to that subjectivity. As Emerson aptly put it, "What we are, that only can we see".

But what about others who agree with me and my rationality? Isn't that being "objective"? Isn't that what science is about? This is what Khun was pointing out about paradigm shifts being necessary in order to even conceive of other possibilities. It's these major shifts in modes of perception, in modes of thinking, which allows for major advances in the sciences, or limits what it can see. So what this is showing right here is that you have what other researchers have termed as a "consensus reality".

What that means is that if you have your group of conservative, Biblical literalists all reading the same passages of scripture wearing those glasses, or that "paradigm", that mindset, yes, you will see much the same things as the others sharing that same "consensus reality" do. This is as true for religious beliefs, as it is anything in society and cultures. These are shared spaces, where out of practical needs, we conform our thinking and ways of interpreting reality in order to fit in for the purpose of survival. To step too far out of sync with that adopted reality, leaves one outside the group. They are seen as "crazy" or "insane" to see things that don't fit "reality" as the group sees it by those operating within that particular consensus reality.

So with that basic understanding, what you have in our discussion here is a case where I am using a different set of eyes to look at the nature of scriptures with. I too can find more than ample support for what I am seeing, and can find others who see that as well. But this is recognized by me, and therefore I see faith as distinct from beliefs, even though beliefs serve as support for faith. Beliefs can change in support of faith, and often time need to if faith is to continue to be allowed to grow.

I'll leave it as this for the moment, hoping we can key in to the meta-picture of faith, as a discussion about "what scripture says" is going to be limited in what it can offer our understanding. A perfect metaphor in this clever cartoon captures the deeper truth of this:

I think coming from the experience of faith, informs more about what scripture is saying about faith, than trying to read from it what faith means using logic and reason.

And yes, BTW, when Paul says not to judge another over "disputable matters", I very much consider "Biblical inerrancy and literalism, to fit within exactly what he is talking about. "One esteems one day over another", "One believes scripture to have a single message and others don't." What is important? Is it belief that is important, or faith and the fruits it bears, regardless of how one believes they are supposed to believe?

 

[sun rise]

This thread is in a general debate section, so a few personal reflections:

Faith that God exists is at its core a deep "sense", a "knowing with the heart"

I sometimes like to use an image of a person who "smells" something beautiful and wants to find the source of the perfume.

In my view and experience, the "True Believer", one who will not doubt anything they believe about God to be questionable, have the weakest faith.

I've seen that as well.

take each author sharing their particular "take" on things, creating mythologies for sake of imparting the meaning they wish to express.

That's a nice way to put it.

 

[David T]

I had been working on a reply to @Rise from the another thread which unfortunately got shut down apparently due to some members behaviors in it. I had thought to make this a separate discussion anyway prior to that as Rise's replies were a great deal more in depth and deserving of a more focused attention by me. I'll quote from Rise's posts in that thread as a starting point for us to continue that focus here separately.


But as I pointed out, you fell into that trap yourself by making it about trusting what you read from scripture. The reliance is on something you are giving a mental assent to as "reliable data". That is about what the mind believes to be true. That is a "belief in a belief", or "faith" in a mental concept as propositionally true.

To clarify at the outset of this response, by the "heart", I am not talking about your emotions and being driven by its needs, wants, desires and impulses. That's not "the heart" in a religious context. Rather the heart is what deep inside of you has "faith", even when reason and beliefs fail.

A true religious faith, and that is what this is we are addressing, is not "accurately reading the data" or the "evidence", as something objectively just laying around outside yourself, like finding a fossil from the Cretaceous period for further study. Yet, that is what faith is distorted as, which you have been pointing out yourself, prior to to you then attaching back into "believing in scripture."

Faith that God exists is at its core a deep "sense", a "knowing with the heart", and all the rest that deals with that are what the mind thinks about that, what concepts and ideas are supportive of that. They are very much secondary to that, and very much not as reliable as that sense of faith that rests in "not-knowing". To make "faith" about what you believe to be true about scripture, is very much "disputable matters", to apply Paul's term from Romans, you later cited. More on this as we continue.


Not exactly. I have no problem with people making positive uses of scripture in support of their faith. But that support is not "proof" in the sense of "you can trust in the facts". I have noted in my lifetime, while I have always had faith in the reality of God, how I have believed about things like scripture has changed, yet my faith that God exists has persisted, despite finding I now longer could believe things as I once had. I have learned that my faith does not rest in what my mind believes about something. My faith rests in a knowing of the spirit within, or another word for that is the Heart. In my heart, I know God exists, even when I doubt everything I've previously believed.

Beliefs are supports for faith. They help form and give shape to faith, but they are not the basis of faith. Faith is the wings of the heart reaching into the Unknown. Beliefs by contrast are like the scaffolding on a building used to support work on the structure they are attached to. Beliefs can change, or be abandoned altogether, in service of finding more "up to the task" requirements for the growth of the building they surround. To be married to the scaffolding, to adore the scaffolding as defining the building itself, is to no longer be in service of growing the building. It's "beliefs for belief's sake", and faith becomes halted in its progress upwards.

In my view and experience, the "True Believer", one who will not doubt anything they believe about God to be questionable, have the weakest faith. Beliefs are what they rest in, and if the belief is challenged or found to be not what they thought it was, they are in a crisis of faith. They lose faith, when they stop believing what they thought was true before. In other words, there beliefs were not in support of faith. They were a substitute for it.


I have found the opposite to be true. They are more a reflection of how we are seeing things. They reflect what we bring into it. There are many different "Jesuses" seen on its pages, depending upon who is reading it through which set of eyes. Claims to "objectivity", are ultimately relative to the set of eyes one is building their structure for themselves with.

You have for instance the legalistic letter-of-the-law Jesus seen and preached by those whose set of filters see that Jesus on its pages. You have the Grace and spirit-of-the-law Jesus as another Jesus seen. And so forth. These can be at times quite opposite one another.

I'll explain this more as we continue. But it's not a case of "you're wrong and I'm righ


I very much am aware I am not "wrong" about this. All views are partial truths. What you are proposing about faith, is very Modernistic in nature, despite pointing out its about "trust". Trust is a heart thing, not a head thing. "I believe firmly what I think is objectively true to be a fact", is not a heart thing at all. It's confidence in your mental, cognitive, beliefs. In fact, reliance on beliefs, can and does run headlong into conflict with what one knows to be true from the sincere heart of faith.


You appear to be approaching religious faith with a "sciencey" Modernistic lens. If I may quote something from an essay I have quoted from for over a decade now as it hits this point squarely on the head? I'd recommend reading the whole brief essay found here: Biblical Literalism

The literal imagination is univocal. Words mean one thing, and one thing only. They don't bristle with meanings and possibilities; they are bald, clean-shaven. Literal clarity and simplicity, to be sure, offer a kind of security in a world (or Bible) where otherwise issues seem incorrigibly complex, ambiguous and muddy. But it is a false security, a temporary bastion, maintained by dogmatism and misguided loyalty. Literalism pays a high price for the hope of having firm and unbreakable handles attached to reality. The result is to move in the opposite direction from religious symbolism, emptying symbols of their amplitude of meaning and power, reducing the cosmic dance to a calibrated discussion.

One of the ironies of biblical literalism is that it shares so largely in the reductionist and literalist spirit of the age. It is not nearly as conservative as it supposes. It is modernistic, and it sells its symbolic birthright for a mess of tangible pottage. Biblical materials and affirmations--in this case the symbolism of Creator and creation--are treated as though of the same order and the same literary genre as scientific and historical writing. "I believe in God the Father Almighty" becomes a chronological issue, and "Maker of heaven and earth" a technological problem.​

What I highlighted above seems key to me. To try to imagine scripture as telling us the facts in order for us to "believe" is thoroughly a mental endeavor, like looking at the data in a scientific experiment and making logical and rational proposals about it. Now, while that has its place looking at Biblical materials from academic angles, and I think that can help form and shape our opinions, that is not "faith". At its best, that results in informed opinions, or beliefs. But these are not operating at the same levels as faith. And, faith can in fact still be entirely true and valid, even if the beliefs themselves are in error. Faith transcends belief.

This is one example of the difference types of lenses through which people see, and limit what they can see in scripture by putting those glasses on. If you read scripture with a modernist lens, and not a symbolic lens, you end up with a "calibrated discussion" and "faith" is reduced to beliefs in propositions. It does not originate in the heart, which is where faith resides. Consequently, even as it reads the texts, what it interprets does not reflect or include that. It sees a "different Jesus", quite literally.

Continued in post 2.......

"That is about what the mind believes to be true. That is a "belief in a belief"

I want to correct you on the text. Imagine in a world that doesnt know what an orange tastes like. Someone tastes the orange, and then writes down what the orange tastes like. When the person reads what the orange tastes like are they experiencing tasting of the orange?

So when you start to confuse the reader with the writer and the writer is not the reader that needs to be thought out a bit more and contemplated. Why have you confused the writer eating the orange as opposed to the reader reading about eating the orange? That i cannot answer nor should i. Because if i answered, you would be the reader as i am the writer. And you might experience but what would you experience exactly?

The text is written and well aware of everything i just wrote. We are not dealing with believers in regards to the texts. And they are fully masked in exactly who they are. They know exactly what they are doing.

 

[Windwalker]

That's a nice way to put it.

Thanks. I think it captures it too. Looking at Jesus in particular with the four different Gospel "according to" authors, each one spins Jesus according to what they want to communicate, which in case of the other Gospel writers, they can be a reinterpretation of the earlier author's Jesus, recasting him as a Jesus that they see, in a challenge to other authors.

John definitely does this in his recasting of Mark's Jesus, the Jesus of despair, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me!" to the completely in control of everything Jesus, "Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?". To Mark's Jesus with the disciples fleeing him, to John's Jesus ordering the army to let them go. These are different visions of Jesus, each for their own purposes to communicate what they want through reenvisioning him align with their vision.

The problem with literalism is rather than taking each as their own thing and gleaning understandings about their own faith through these things, they try to impose their own retelling of the story, their own mythology of unified message, to reconcile the differences into some new mythology that ties it all together. It's all part of the same process of mythmaking, from the parabolic history of the gospels, to the later doctrines and theologies about them; the "master story" as it is referred to.

 

[leov]

What it will do is fit what you believe about it and read the scriptures through that lens. For instance, you take scripture to be intended by God to be read as a whole, single message from beginning to end. Therefore when you read areas with different ideas expressed, you read it as though they have some single hidden meaning that is intended for you to discover. That assumption colorizes everything you see, and whatever you conclude about it, has that color present in whatever you then believe is true about it.

To contrast that with myself and the lens I read scripture through, I do not see is as a single message intended by Divine Will. That is a later layer historically to superimpose a "master story" meaning upon it for the sake of mythmaking. I remove that later historical patena from it, which then allows me to take each author sharing their particular "take" on things, creating mythologies for sake of imparting the meaning they wish to express. You therefore can see contradictions as the results of this natural process, and take them as is, rather than trying to force-fit the stories into a single master story, which would create distortions caused by that "literalist" lens. I am not beholden to read scripture through the "inerrancy lens," and the result is a very different picture of "what happened".

Yet, I can find faith in God nonetheless in a non-mythologized treatment of scripture. I understand the intent of the authors as symbolic, and it is that symbolism that carries the meanings, even if the different mythologies conflict with each other. I find it makes scripture far more useful to not feel obligated to make it fit a belief system about it.

To the conservative however, my saying what I do is heard as "wrong", which word you have used multiple times about me in hearing my views. I don't see your views as "wrong" as you do mine however. I view them as partial. And no, I don't view mine as therefore not-partial or complete. Hardly. But I do see them as coming from a larger context, which allows more to be considered than what the inneracy view can allow.


When people view subjectivity as a "merely", they are falling into that modernistic trap, favoring rationality as the ultimate test of truth. Even modern science at its core is subjective. All beliefs are held subjectively, even scientific ones. The set of eyes we look at the world through, are subjective eyes. And "objectivity" can be a slippery creature, because subjectivity can either allow or disallow data to be seen, recognized, and considered. If your subjective space has a limited range of what it can possibly see, then truth is limited to that subjectivity. As Emerson aptly put it, "What we are, that only can we see".

But what about others who agree with me and my rationality? Isn't that being "objective"? Isn't that what science is about? This is what Khun was pointing out about paradigm shifts being necessary in order to even conceive of other possibilities. It's these major shifts in modes of perception, in modes of thinking, which allows for major advances in the sciences, or limits what it can see. So what this is showing right here is that you have what other researchers have termed as a "consensus reality".

What that means is that if you have your group of conservative, Biblical literalists all reading the same passages of scripture wearing those glasses, or that "paradigm", that mindset, yes, you will see much the same things as the others sharing that same "consensus reality" do. This is as true for religious beliefs, as it is anything in society and cultures. These are shared spaces, where out of practical needs, we conform our thinking and ways of interpreting reality in order to fit in for the purpose of survival. To step too far out of sync with that adopted reality, leaves one outside the group. They are seen as "crazy" or "insane" to see things that don't fit "reality" as the group sees it by those operating within that particular consensus reality.

So with that basic understanding, what you have in our discussion here is a case where I am using a different set of eyes to look at the nature of scriptures with. I too can find more than ample support for what I am seeing, and can find others who see that as well. But this is recognized by me, and therefore I see faith as distinct from beliefs, even though beliefs serve as support for faith. Beliefs can change in support of faith, and often time need to if faith is to continue to be allowed to grow.

I'll leave it as this for the moment, hoping we can key in to the meta-picture of faith, as a discussion about "what scripture says" is going to be limited in what it can offer our understanding. A perfect metaphor in this clever cartoon captures the deeper truth of this:

View attachment 31129

I think coming from the experience of faith, informs more about what scripture is saying about faith, than trying to read from it what faith means using logic and reason.

And yes, BTW, when Paul says not to judge another over "disputable matters", I very much consider "Biblical inerrancy and literalism, to fit within exactly what he is talking about. "One esteems one day over another", "One believes scripture to have a single message and others don't." What is important? Is it belief that is important, or faith and the fruits it bears, regardless of how one believes they are supposed to believe?

I understand this issue pretty much the same way. For years I have been 'correcting' understanding of faith, it is not Christian issue, it is what human being is, another sense.

 

[Windwalker]

I understand this issue pretty much the same way. For years I have been 'correcting' understanding of faith, it is not Christian issue, it is what human being is, another sense.

I think in particular it's worse in a modern age because we have become far too much in a love affair with logic and reason, as if that will answer all life's mysteries for us. That has the effect of detaching us from our own interior sense of knowing and understanding. We don't trust it anymore. We don't develop it. We speak ill of it.

You can tell this is the case because you hear it, not only from atheists, but Christians referring to the subjective as "merely", or "only", as if it is something like a burp, a nothing really to be paid much attention to. I consider this to be a deeply systemic problem for our age.

In the worst examples is when a Christian cites the Bible saying, "The heart is deceitfully wicked", to mean don't trust what your gut tells you. That interpretation of that verse in that way shows an almost pathological dissociation with one's own interiority. But it also shows the lens through which they see what scripture says, reflecting and affirming that reality for themselves. "What we are, that only can we see".

 

[Skwim]

.

FWIW:

Fact: A thing that is indisputably the case.
Fact is rooted in conviction that a thing is "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold acceptance."* The core of science and day-to-day living.


Belief: The provisional acceptance that a thing exists or is true.
An occasional encouragement in our day-to-day musings. It serves as the basis of faith.


Faith: Trust in a belief.
For some, the balm of everyday concerns. Most notably, faith is exemplified by the trust put in the supernatural and specific religious writings. For others, it's simply the confidence that the other guy at the intersection isn't going to T-bone us as we proceed forward.




* Paraphrased from Stephen Jay Gould

.

 

[PureX]

I think in particular it's worse in a modern age because we have become far too much in a love affair with logic and reason, as if that will answer all life's mysteries for us. That has the effect of detaching us from our own interior sense of knowing and understanding. We don't trust it anymore. We don't develop it. We speak ill of it.

You can tell this is the case because you hear it, not only from atheists, but Christians referring to the subjective as "merely", or "only", as if it is something like a burp, a nothing really to be paid much attention to. I consider this to be a deeply systemic problem for our age.

In the worst examples is when a Christian cites the Bible saying, "The heart is deceitfully wicked", to mean don't trust what your gut tells you. That interpretation of that verse in that way shows an almost pathological dissociation with one's own interiority. But it also shows the lens through which they see what scripture says, reflecting and affirming that reality for themselves. "What we are, that only can we see".

BINGO!

Ultimately, the rejection of spirituality is a rejection of our own humanity, and we will end up paying very dearly for that if we follow that course of reasoning and behavior for too long.

 

[leov]

I think in particular it's worse in a modern age because we have become far too much in a love affair with logic and reason, as if that will answer all life's mysteries for us. That has the effect of detaching us from our own interior sense of knowing and understanding. We don't trust it anymore. We don't develop it. We speak ill of it.

You can tell this is the case because you hear it, not only from atheists, but Christians referring to the subjective as "merely", or "only", as if it is something like a burp, a nothing really to be paid much attention to. I consider this to be a deeply systemic problem for our age.

In the worst examples is when a Christian cites the Bible saying, "The heart is deceitfully wicked", to mean don't trust what your gut tells you. That interpretation of that verse in that way shows an almost pathological dissociation with one's own interiority. But it also shows the lens through which they see what scripture says, reflecting and affirming that reality for themselves. "What we are, that only can we see".

I have my epigenetic pet theory: we from ancient times had spirit perception organs which in the last few hundred of years were affected by different type of industrial pollutions and things like sugar, e.t.c., which lead to dominating of male side of brain, grow materialism, obscuring of ‘seeing’ spirit. I understand that it plays well with archons.

 

[Nakosis]

Faith that God exists is at its core a deep "sense", a "knowing with the heart", and all the rest that deals with that are what the mind thinks about that, what concepts and ideas are supportive of that. They are very much secondary to that, and very much not as reliable as that sense of faith that rests in "not-knowing". To make "faith" about what you believe to be true about scripture, is very much "disputable matters", to apply Paul's term from Romans, you later cited. More on this as we continue.

Ok, faith, a knowing in the heart. I kind of get that. A certainty of knowledge that is unshakable?


Whatever belief which supports that is fine but if a supporting belief is found to be untrue, the core faith remains the same. Faith is the rock that supports belief, not the other way around.

Trust or belief does not convey the heartfelt knowledge that is faith.

So faith is felt as unshakable knowledge of the heart?

My view on this is knowledge of the heart is not real knowledge. Faith is something we've unconsciously have come to accept as true. True in every sense of the word truth. Faith is something that the unconscious mind has accepted as fact. Not necessarily a conscious choice but it is consciously felt. Since every aspect of reality we experience is filtered through the unconscious mind, this faith becomes a fundamental truth to everything we experience.

Whatever happens to you, whatever you experience, it is because of God or kharma or whatever truth is lodged there in one's unconscious mind.

This is my view, it's what makes sense to me. It explains, I think, why people feel faith so strongly.

 

[Rise]

Thank you for starting a new thread, I was looking forward to discussing the topic with you and was disappointed to see the thread had been locked.
For anyone who wants the context to understand what the discussion is about, here is a link to what I wrote to windwalker:
Faith in God

I was in the process of typing out a detailed response to your post, and got halfway through when I realized we'd be talking past each other unless we can establish something first.

To do that, I'd ask you to indulge me in answering a question for me about three pictures:

Here is a picture #1:
http://davidcschultz.com/wp-content/gallery/horses/47-928-horse-wildflowers.jpg
I will claim to you that this is a picture of a man playing a tuba as part of a marching band going through New York City.
Is my claim true, false, or is it impossible to state conclusively either way?

Here is picture #2
https://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/psychology-ischool/images/inkblot03.jpg
I will claim to you that this is a picture of a butterfly.
Is my claim true, false, or it is impossible to state conclusively either way?

Here is picture #3
https://www.swarez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Red-Five-6.jpg
I will claim to you that this is a picture that expresses the tormented soul of a man trying to avoid the existential questions of life and death, the paintbrush of rage casting upon the canvas in vain protest.
Is my claim true, false, or is it impossible to state conclusively either way?

 

[Windwalker]

Thank you for starting a new thread, I was looking forward to discussing the topic with you and was disappointed to see the thread had been locked.
For anyone who wants the context to understand what the discussion is about, here is a link to what I wrote to windwalker:
Faith in God

I knew there was a reason to start a separate thread for this with you. I'm glad I've pursued this. I appreciate the direction so far. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. Nice to meet you, by the way.

I was in the process of typing out a detailed response to your post, and got halfway through when I realized we'd be talking past each other unless we can establish something first.

To do that, I'd ask you to indulge me in answering a question for me about three pictures:

At first I thought, I'm going to have to process this line of questioning a bit. But I sat down at my piano and was playing a few notes, then thought I'd make a stab at this and see where it takes us....

Here is a picture #1:
http://davidcschultz.com/wp-content/gallery/horses/47-928-horse-wildflowers.jpg
I will claim to you that this is a picture of a man playing a tuba as part of a marching band going through New York City.
Is my claim true, false, or is it impossible to state conclusively either way?

Taking a quick off the cuff look at the three cases you present to me, I found myself wanting to categorize these between different art forms, from Realism to Abstract Expressionism (of which I am a fan). In this example of a photograph of a horse, what this would represent is Realism, trying to capture in detail what the eye sees in nature. Photography can easily fall into that category, with the exceptions of artistic elements that create the more impressionistic nuances with defocal elements, and other creative elements. (I'm a photographer as well).

This would be something that would easily fall under the greater consensus reality that we all share interpreting the world of objects which we give names to: Horse, Flowers, Field, Sky, etc. If you were to take that horse and call it "Man and Tuba", there is very little room to see that in it. Not many, if any, could see that.

Here is picture #2
https://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/psychology-ischool/images/inkblot03.jpg
I will claim to you that this is a picture of a butterfly.
Is my claim true, false, or it is impossible to state conclusively either way?

Now we are stepping beyond Realism into the Abstract. In fact, this is a Rorschach type test image. In this case, it is pattern recognition of something more along the lines of a metaphor in language. It's not about "correctly" interpreting the image, but rather about exposing what the subconscious mind reveals. There are no right or wrong answers. There is only exposing what you see, what expresses what you feel and your thoughts about that.

Here is picture #3
https://www.swarez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Red-Five-6.jpg
I will claim to you that this is a picture that expresses the tormented soul of a man trying to avoid the existential questions of life and death, the paintbrush of rage casting upon the canvas in vain protest.
Is my claim true, false, or is it impossible to state conclusively either way?

Now your talking what I love the most. Abstract Expressionism. I have a Jackson Pollock print on the wall in front of me in my music creation space in my home. So, the style is familiar to me.

Now, your claim that this, "expresses the tormented soul of a man trying to avoid the existential questions of life and death, the paintbrush of rage casting upon the canvas in vain protest," is a completely valid interpretation based upon your perception. I might get something different from it. Something that might appear in conflict with it. But it can be equally both at the same time. It is really about what it inspires in us on the deeper, less rational, more primal gut level that evokes truth though its non-descript, outside the boundaries abstraction that allows the Deep within us to find truth and expression. Those are not singular things, but many.

I'm interested to see where you apply this to your argument. I can tell you at the outset when in comes to scripture, I think it is vastly more the 2nd and 3rd type than the 1st of your examples. Probably mostly the 2nd, until you enter mysticism which is a lot more the 3rd. Biblical literalists are much more the 1st, trying to take the Rorschach and make a photograph of nature.

 

[Rise]

Taking a quick off the cuff look at the three cases you present to me, I found myself wanting to categorize these between different art forms, from Realism to Abstract Expressionism (of which I am a fan). In this example of a photograph of a horse, what this would represent is Realism, trying to capture in detail what the eye sees in nature. Photography can easily fall into that category, with the exceptions of artistic elements that create the more impressionistic nuances with defocal elements, and other creative elements. (I'm a photographer as well).

This would be something that would easily fall under the greater consensus reality that we all share interpreting the world of objects which we give names to: Horse, Flowers, Field, Sky, etc. If you were to take that horse and call it "Man and Tuba", there is very little room to see that in it. Not many, if any, could see that.

Now we are stepping beyond Realism into the Abstract. In fact, this is a Rorschach type test image. In this case, it is pattern recognition of something more along the lines of a metaphor in language. It's not about "correctly" interpreting the image, but rather about exposing what the subconscious mind reveals. There are no right or wrong answers. There is only exposing what you see, what expresses what you feel and your thoughts about that.

Now we are stepping beyond Realism into the Abstract. In fact, this is a Rorschach type test image. In this case, it is pattern recognition of something more along the lines of a metaphor in language. It's not about "correctly" interpreting the image, but rather about exposing what the subconscious mind reveals. There are no right or wrong answers. There is only exposing what you see, what expresses what you feel and your thoughts about that.

Now your talking what I love the most. Abstract Expressionism. I have a Jackson Pollock print on the wall in front of me in my music creation space in my home. So, the style is familiar to me.

Now, your claim that this, "expresses the tormented soul of a man trying to avoid the existential questions of life and death, the paintbrush of rage casting upon the canvas in vain protest," is a completely valid interpretation based upon your perception. I might get something different from it. Something that might appear in conflict with it. But it can be equally both at the same time. It is really about what it inspires in us on the deeper, less rational, more primal gut level that evokes truth though its non-descript, outside the boundaries abstraction that allows the Deep within us to find truth and expression. Those are not singular things, but many.

I'm interested to see where you apply this to your argument. I can tell you at the outset when in comes to scripture, I think it is vastly more the 2nd and 3rd type than the 1st of your examples. Probably mostly the 2nd, until you enter mysticism which is a lot more the 3rd. Biblical literalists are much more the 1st, trying to take the Rorschach and make a photograph of nature.

I was glad to see your interest in seeing where this goes. Now that your answers have been given, I have one pair of follow up questions that will lead us into our point.

But first, let me make sure I understood your answers clearly:

It seems then you are saying that my claim about picture #1 would be decisively and clearly "false".

Then it appears you are saying my claim about #2 and #3 is "true" in the sense that no one truth can said to exist for those paintings; therefore my statement can't be said to be false because it is just as true as any other conclusion someone might have.
You also appear to be saying my claims are not "inconclusive" because you believe there exists enough information about picture #2 and #3 for us to determine that no one truth exists; so the question of whether we have enough information to determine what is true is irrelevant at that point.



So, the follow up questions are then:

1. On what basis and by what mechanism can you declare my claim about Picture #1 is false?
I agree with your answer to #1 and it's safe to assume no one else with normal cognitive functions would disagree with your answer to #1 either.
But truth and falsehood are not separated by a popularity contest - so how do you establish a concrete truth that my claim is false?
What is the mechanism and process that leads everyone to come to the same conclusion about this picture that my claim is false?
There must be something universally recognized and accepted here at work that allows people to discern truth from falsehood in this case.

So, to re-iterate my question; Can you prove I my claim is wrong? Is so, how?

2. Can you defend your conclusion as true that picture #2 and #3 have no right or wrong answer, and further that my claims are one of many equally viable truths?
Although I think your answer is fairly consistent with the one I and others would give, we still run into the same problem we had with #1 about how and why you are able to state your conclusion about #2 and #3 with confidence that it is true.

What if I insist that your claim is false, that picture #2 can only be said to be a picture of a butterfly?
Is it possible to prove my new claim is wrong? If so, how?

 

[Windwalker]

I was glad to see your interest in seeing where this goes. Now that your answers have been given, I have one pair of follow up questions that will lead us into our point.

Yes, I enjoy seeing how you are attempting to create a framework that we can share, and thus make judgments calls about things within that framework. What you'll find in my response though is that I will deliberately step outside that framework to shed some light upon it as an artificial construct, as all are frameworks of reality. And this will begin to touch into my greater points that lead off this discussion.

I have no problem establishing the context and terms of discussion, as I think you'll agree it becomes frustrating when language fails to communicate across different domains of thought. Ultimately it comes back to what we're attempting to establish here.

But first, let me make sure I understood your answers clearly:

It seems then you are saying that my claim about picture #1 would be decisively and clearly "false".

No, I would not say it that way. That we call that a horse, a field, flowers, sky, etc., are not the truth about those things in themselves. Those are boundaries around familiar objects we assign words to define a separate things. Take away language, and they aren't what we call them anymore.

From a God's eye view, they are not a horse, or a flower, etc. They are collections of the same energies as all other things we see as objects in the world and assign names to, based upon our perception of its reality. Our perception of reality, is not the things actual reality. From a different non-human perspective, that thing would appear nothing like what we imagine it to be through our limited perception.

Therefore, pulling back a little bit down into human conventions where you are using terms as "false" or "wrong". At best, these are false according to the conventions of language being used. If that person who says "That's a man playing a tuba", and if we are looking at the same thing and talking about it while both perceiving it through relatively the same basic set of eyes, I would say he uses language differently than me. He is speaking a foreign language I don't understand, and his use of it confuses me.

If however, in a worst case scenario we were able to pull back the person's skull and actually see what his brain is seeing, if it is translating that data in that way, where it sees that same picture, yet an image of a marching band appears in his mind, then I would say there is a malfunction with his brain. It isn't registering data correctly, that is "correctly" according to standard models of typical standard brain function.

Some brains also theoretically could function this way, like a type of dyslexia for instance. This could be a potential disorder. But, and here's the catch... he isn't wrong. That is what he sees. He accurately states what he is seeing, and it happens to be different than how the majority of others see it.

You see how I am steering this away from black and white binary choices, into a larger framework that takes into account perception? Perception is key here. Uses of "right or wrong" are biased to a common convention, based on perceptions. A false at one level, may be a true at another.

This will come up repeatedly. But once understood, seeing scripture though that framework, adds a whole other layer of truth, meaning, and understanding being possible.

Then it appears you are saying my claim about #2 and #3 is "true" in the sense that no one truth can said to exist for those paintings;

Let's move carefully through this. There is no one universally agreed truth about anything in the conceptual domains. It's literally not possible. It's all based upon perceptions which shape, form, and utilize conventions of language. In reality, some individuals will have very definite opinions about what they are seeing, and in their realities through their perceptions, they are very much "right" in how they hold that perception as truth.

I believe all of reality is very much like the 2nd and 3rd examples. We have simply concretized portions of it such as #1 example into familiar patterns. Show #2 or 3# long enough to a group of people, pretty soon those will become "horse" and "flowers", too in their language through common usage, and then when you say now today they can't be known, they would laugh at you. "Everyone knows that's a horse!" That's how these things begin to shape and define what is "reality" to us. You're just on the already a conventional use end of things.

You also appear to be saying my claims are not "inconclusive" because you believe there exists enough information about picture #2 and #3 for us to determine that no one truth exists; so the question of whether we have enough information to determine what is true is irrelevant at that point.

I believe right now, since we have not assigned words to these at this point, it's in that more, "undefined", more metaphorical sense of things. What that means is this. All language is metaphor. All language is a drawing of lines and boundaries around things we wish to isolate and identify in order to relate to it. Language is an artificial construction, superimposed upon vast Openness, that Undefined Reality. Some, myself included, might call that God.

When language becomes conventions of usage among a common group, these metaphors deform reality as they become descriptors of reality. As I've heard stated before, when a metaphor becomes a descriptor of reality, it becomes a "dead metaphor". It reduces the Openness, to a "thing". And through language usage, the "thing" created by language becomes its reality to us. Our reality to us then is a projection of our thoughts about it, superimposed upon an Undefined Screen, as it were. It's not Reality. It's our idea about it.

Therefore, at best we can say, "at this point, this is the current reality of this as we understand it". That reality can change overnight. It's not "its reality", but the reality of it to us, at this moment, within conventional understandings of reality shaped by language and perception.

That's a bit of mouthful, but it gets the point across that a mono-perspectival view of reality, is not the definition of the Truth of Reality, where we can say absolutely a thing is "false" or "true", assuming our perception of it is Reality itself... as if we were God.

So, the follow up questions are then:

Now, with the above clarifications and expansions, I'll see if I can't answer appropriately:

1. On what basis and by what mechanism can you declare my claim about Picture #1 is false?

I've demonstrated that I would not call it false in an absolute sense. I might use that language as shorthand for something out of the norm, but understanding the relative nature of it even for myself, not as an absolute.

But truth and falsehood are not separated by a popularity contest - so how do you establish a concrete truth that my claim is false?

I don't. I don't believe it is a concrete reality. I detailed why above.

What is the mechanism and process that leads everyone to come to the same conclusion about this picture that my claim is false?

Convention. Common uses of language. Culture. Values. etc. All these things I've mentioned that influence how we interpret Reality (and that means how we read the Bible as well....).

There must be something universally recognized and accepted here at work that allows people to discern truth from falsehood in this case.

Common convention. Consensus reality. That means an agreed upon perception and understanding of reality though shared language. But this is not absolute. This is relative to the group. Others might call that "horse", a "man with a tuba".

So, to re-iterate my question; Can you prove I my claim is wrong? Is so, how?

No. It is apparently true to you somehow. And that makes a greater point.

2. Can you defend your conclusion as true that picture #2 and #3 have no right or wrong answer, and further that my claims are one of many equally viable truths?

Currently, so far as we know, there are no conventions calling them something specific. However, if they do somewhere, where "two or three agree" (humor), that it has a name, then I would be wrong according to them for saying it has no specific meaning. Right and wrong, are relative to those whose truths they are accepted as within their realities.

Although I think your answer is fairly consistent with the one I and others would give, we still run into the same problem we had with #1 about how and why you are able to state your conclusion about #2 and #3 with confidence that it is true.

I have never started my position of its rightness or wrongness at all, let alone with confidence. I think perhaps you were hoping I would? And within the particular framework of reality you evaluate these things, that would make some sense. But as I said at the outset in the post, I'm stepping outside that framework to show just how artificial these things actually are. They can't be defended very well as absolutes.

Logic and reason, as I have presented them here, stand up to support this minor deconstruction of this framework you appear to be using, presenting your cases and supporting arguments for its ability to reflect reality accurately. Every framework of reality does this. That is their function, to help make sense out of Nothingness for us. But each one is different perception of reality, with different metaphors, mapping out different pieces of this vast Openness we call reality. They literally create and constitute different realities for those who participate within them. "In Him, we live and move and have our being", ironically describes this.

(Believe me my thoughts go much further than this. In no way is this nihilistic. On the contrary, it's liberating, spiritually. Truth, with a Capital T, transcends all propositional truths we claim using terms like "true and false". It goes much, much deeper than this simple deconstruction.

What if I insist that your claim is false, that picture #2 can only be said to be a picture of a butterfly?
Is it possible to prove my new claim is wrong? If so, how?

No, I would agree that you see that that is its reality. Who knows, at some point, I may agree. Then we could say together that those who don't see what we see, are "wrong.".

I look forward to our next exchange.

 

[Rise]

Yes, I enjoy seeing how you are attempting to create a framework that we can share, and thus make judgments calls about things within that framework. What you'll find in my response though is that I will deliberately step outside that framework to shed some light upon it as an artificial construct, as all are frameworks of reality. And this will begin to touch into my greater points that lead off this discussion.

I have no problem establishing the context and terms of discussion, as I think you'll agree it becomes frustrating when language fails to communicate across different domains of thought. Ultimately it comes back to what we're attempting to establish here.


No, I would not say it that way. That we call that a horse, a field, flowers, sky, etc., are not the truth about those things in themselves. Those are boundaries around familiar objects we assign words to define a separate things. Take away language, and they aren't what we call them anymore.

From a God's eye view, they are not a horse, or a flower, etc. They are collections of the same energies as all other things we see as objects in the world and assign names to, based upon our perception of its reality. Our perception of reality, is not the things actual reality. From a different non-human perspective, that thing would appear nothing like what we imagine it to be through our limited perception.

Therefore, pulling back a little bit down into human conventions where you are using terms as "false" or "wrong". At best, these are false according to the conventions of language being used. If that person who says "That's a man playing a tuba", and if we are looking at the same thing and talking about it while both perceiving it through relatively the same basic set of eyes, I would say he uses language differently than me. He is speaking a foreign language I don't understand, and his use of it confuses me.

If however, in a worst case scenario we were able to pull back the person's skull and actually see what his brain is seeing, if it is translating that data in that way, where it sees that same picture, yet an image of a marching band appears in his mind, then I would say there is a malfunction with his brain. It isn't registering data correctly, that is "correctly" according to standard models of typical standard brain function.

Some brains also theoretically could function this way, like a type of dyslexia for instance. This could be a potential disorder. But, and here's the catch... he isn't wrong. That is what he sees. He accurately states what he is seeing, and it happens to be different than how the majority of others see it.

You see how I am steering this away from black and white binary choices, into a larger framework that takes into account perception? Perception is key here. Uses of "right or wrong" are biased to a common convention, based on perceptions. A false at one level, may be a true at another.

This will come up repeatedly. But once understood, seeing scripture though that framework, adds a whole other layer of truth, meaning, and understanding being possible.


Let's move carefully through this. There is no one universally agreed truth about anything in the conceptual domains. It's literally not possible. It's all based upon perceptions which shape, form, and utilize conventions of language. In reality, some individuals will have very definite opinions about what they are seeing, and in their realities through their perceptions, they are very much "right" in how they hold that perception as truth.

I believe all of reality is very much like the 2nd and 3rd examples. We have simply concretized portions of it such as #1 example into familiar patterns. Show #2 or 3# long enough to a group of people, pretty soon those will become "horse" and "flowers", too in their language through common usage, and then when you say now today they can't be known, they would laugh at you. "Everyone knows that's a horse!" That's how these things begin to shape and define what is "reality" to us. You're just on the already a conventional use end of things.


I believe right now, since we have not assigned words to these at this point, it's in that more, "undefined", more metaphorical sense of things. What that means is this. All language is metaphor. All language is a drawing of lines and boundaries around things we wish to isolate and identify in order to relate to it. Language is an artificial construction, superimposed upon vast Openness, that Undefined Reality. Some, myself included, might call that God.

When language becomes conventions of usage among a common group, these metaphors deform reality as they become descriptors of reality. As I've heard stated before, when a metaphor becomes a descriptor of reality, it becomes a "dead metaphor". It reduces the Openness, to a "thing". And through language usage, the "thing" created by language becomes its reality to us. Our reality to us then is a projection of our thoughts about it, superimposed upon an Undefined Screen, as it were. It's not Reality. It's our idea about it.

Therefore, at best we can say, "at this point, this is the current reality of this as we understand it". That reality can change overnight. It's not "its reality", but the reality of it to us, at this moment, within conventional understandings of reality shaped by language and perception.

That's a bit of mouthful, but it gets the point across that a mono-perspectival view of reality, is not the definition of the Truth of Reality, where we can say absolutely a thing is "false" or "true", assuming our perception of it is Reality itself... as if we were God.


Now, with the above clarifications and expansions, I'll see if I can't answer appropriately:


I've demonstrated that I would not call it false in an absolute sense. I might use that language as shorthand for something out of the norm, but understanding the relative nature of it even for myself, not as an absolute.


I don't. I don't believe it is a concrete reality. I detailed why above.


Convention. Common uses of language. Culture. Values. etc. All these things I've mentioned that influence how we interpret Reality (and that means how we read the Bible as well....).


Common convention. Consensus reality. That means an agreed upon perception and understanding of reality though shared language. But this is not absolute. This is relative to the group. Others might call that "horse", a "man with a tuba".


No. It is apparently true to you somehow. And that makes a greater point.


Currently, so far as we know, there are no conventions calling them something specific. However, if they do somewhere, where "two or three agree" (humor), that it has a name, then I would be wrong according to them for saying it has no specific meaning. Right and wrong, are relative to those whose truths they are accepted as within their realities.


I have never started my position of its rightness or wrongness at all, let alone with confidence. I think perhaps you were hoping I would? And within the particular framework of reality you evaluate these things, that would make some sense. But as I said at the outset in the post, I'm stepping outside that framework to show just how artificial these things actually are. They can't be defended very well as absolutes.

Logic and reason, as I have presented them here, stand up to support this minor deconstruction of this framework you appear to be using, presenting your cases and supporting arguments for its ability to reflect reality accurately. Every framework of reality does this. That is their function, to help make sense out of Nothingness for us. But each one is different perception of reality, with different metaphors, mapping out different pieces of this vast Openness we call reality. They literally create and constitute different realities for those who participate within them. "In Him, we live and move and have our being", ironically describes this.

(Believe me my thoughts go much further than this. In no way is this nihilistic. On the contrary, it's liberating, spiritually. Truth, with a Capital T, transcends all propositional truths we claim using terms like "true and false". It goes much, much deeper than this simple deconstruction.


No, I would agree that you see that that is its reality. Who knows, at some point, I may agree. Then we could say together that those who don't see what we see, are "wrong.".

I look forward to our next exchange.

Your latest post was helpful for me to understand the angle you are approaching this from. I can see it was good to make sure I'm understanding what you are trying to say clearly before moving on. I don't want to misrepresent what you are saying or fail to connect what I'm saying with what you were saying.
Let me try summarizing your answer again to make sure we're on the same page:

You appear to be saying my claim about picture #1 being of a man playing a tuba in a marching band in New York City is "inconclusive" - in the sense that you cannot state whether it is true or false. You appear to also be going further than merely stating that you personally lack the information needed to draw a definitive conclusion - you also appear to be saying that no one else would ever be able to definitively state anything true or false about that picture either, for the same reasons that you personally cannot state anything is definitively true or false about that picture, because everyone else is equally subject to the same limitations concerning this task.

The reasons you have given about why you cannot state whether it's true or false appear to be:
1. Language barrier. You don't know for certain what the definitions of the words are that I am using, so you can't know if whether or not my statement is true according to my definition of those words.
2. If I really believe I am seeing a man playing a tuba, for whatever reason, even if it's due to a brain malfunction, then you can't tell me I'm wrong because my perception is what determines what is true - so therefore there is no such thing as an objective truth about what is contained within picture #1.

Would this be a fair summarization of your answer?

 

[Windwalker]

Your latest post was helpful for me to understand the angle you are approaching this from. I can see it was good to make sure I'm understanding what you are trying to say clearly before moving on. I don't want to misrepresent what you are saying or fail to connect what I'm saying with what you were saying.

Again, this is good. As we progress, I'm sure I'll be pointing back to this as the context of the discussion with allow for further. hopefully more easy clarifications.

Let me try summarizing your answer again to make sure we're on the same page:

You appear to be saying my claim about picture #1 being of a man playing a tuba in a marching band in New York City is "inconclusive" - in the sense that you cannot state whether it is true or false.

Another clarification here. In conventional communications within a certain framework of reality being used, which could be termed "consensus reality" as to differentiate itself from Absolute Reality, or a God's eye view from a place of omniscience so to speak, we use a shorthand to express our agreement or disagreement with the other's understandings within the same context (framework), as either true of false, right or wrong, etc.

My point is this, that we can make certain "conclusions" as to the consistencies with the norm within that framework, i.e, it would be quite an abbiration to that norm to call that horse a man with a tuba, because it is a shared language. That person, with all other things being equal, would not be accurately reflecting that norm, or convention of language.

But, and this is my far greater point. When you are talking communicating from within differing frameworks, we are literally communicating across differing realities, or perceptual truth "domains". Even though we use a common language, the understanding may be entirely foreign to those not in the same reality. There may be a completely legitimate reason for that divergence from the consensus reality that in fact has a justifiable, valid basis for not seeing it the way everyone else does. Where this become really apparent, is when it's not one person calling it a man with a tuba, but entire groups of people who are not by all indications collectively insane.

Once we pull back from such an obvious deviation from what we all collectively call a "horse", which spans multiple frameworks or realities, things become far more murky and muddy as to what is "true" or "false".

I'm bringing this up because once we starting talking about God, spirituality, scripture, beliefs, faith, and the like, we are hardly dealing with anything so apparently black and white, like a photo of a horse. But the principles I laid out in this example, make a whole lot more sense in application once we step beyond something so "obvious", like a photo of horse.

You appear to also be going further than merely stating that you personally lack the information needed to draw a definitive conclusion - you also appear to be saying that no one else would ever be able to definitively state anything true or false about that picture either, for the same reasons that you personally cannot state anything is definitively true or false about that picture, because everyone else is equally subject to the same limitations concerning this task.

Within the conventions of language, such as naming objects, it's safe to use the shorthand of true or false. But again, I caution, you cannot start with the seemingly obvious and apply that up the chain of complexity and sophistication. For instance, you can't take the law of physics, and expect to be able to use it to understand human behaviors. You can't be reductionistic that way. It doesn't work.

The reasons you have given about why you cannot state whether it's true or false appear to be:
1. Language barrier. You don't know for certain what the definitions of the words are that I am using, so you can't know if whether or not my statement is true according to my definition of those words.

I can assume you are on board using the same term I do, but if for instance you were calling everything by different terms, and you were not alone in that but were part of a community who all spoke like that, then I would assume you to be a foreigner of sorts to me, and that you must have a valid reason for deviating from the conventions of language I am using. If you were just one individual, then I'd be concerned about why you aren't following the standard. But if you could then rationally explain why, even if I couldn't follow the all the reasons why to support your views, I would not then assume you were "wrong", but "different". Rather than saying you're crazy, which would be lazy, I'd try to assume you understood something I didn't. There is a key difference there. There are in fact many different ways to see and talk about the same things.

2. If I really believe I am seeing a man playing a tuba, for whatever reason, even if it's due to a brain malfunction, then you can't tell me I'm wrong because my perception is what determines what is true - so therefore there is no such thing as an objective truth about what is contained within picture #1.

There is no reason to assume you can't have a different understanding, if you exhibit a stable mind in doing so, and possibly attempt to explain the basis for your deviation from the conventional norm.

Would this be a fair summarization of your answer?

Is this helping to clarify further? Maybe if you give a theological example, the practical application of what I'm talking about might become clearer. My premise is that what we see in scripture, how we understand and relate to the Divine, is very much a reflection of the perceptual frameworks we are living within and seeing the world through. And therefore, that affects what we do, or can see in scripture. We aren't speaking "God's Truth", but our understanding translated down into our particular frameworks of reality within which we "live and move and have our being". There are more than one of these.

These are not individual anomalies, but entire domains of reality, worldspaces, which cannot be judged in terms of right vs. wrong when you are communicating between them, or evaluating them. Right vs. wrong, true vs. false, are relative to the framework itself on a horizontal plane, not a vertical plane. Everything you and I believe, from a God's eye view, is utter nonsense.

 

[Rise]

I asked you if my latest summation of your answer was a fair representation of your conclusion concerning my claim but you did not really give me a direct answer either way.
I am waiting for a confirmation from you before moving ahead about what your answer to my claim actually is so that I don't misrepresent what your answer was.

I am looking for a conclusive answer from you about whether you think my claim about picture #1 was "true", "false", or "inconclusive".
If you feel you are unable to give a conclusive answer based on the information available then your answer would be "inconclusive".
"All of the above" cannot be an answer as that would be logically impossible.

I think one of the problems here is that you've been giving me various hypothetical reasons why someone, under some circumstances, might possibly conclude something different from what you or I would about the picture, and from their perspective think they were right - but I never asked you whether or not there were hypothetical scenarios under which someone might conclude something different from you. We could talk about those next if you deem them relevant, but for the purposes of my question they aren't relevant because I was only asking what you personally conclude about my claim from looking at the picture.

I asked what you, yourself, personally think about the claim I made. Which means, using your own understanding and reason, what conclusion do you come to about the claim I made concerning picture #1? If you were asked to examine this picture and my claim and give your own conclusion about whether or not my claim was true, false, or inconclusive, then what would your conclusion be?

Once we pull back from such an obvious deviation from what we all collectively call a "horse", which spans multiple frameworks or realities, things become far more murky and muddy as to what is "true" or "false".

I'm bringing this up because once we starting talking about God, spirituality, scripture, beliefs, faith, and the like, we are hardly dealing with anything so apparently black and white, like a photo of a horse. But the principles I laid out in this example, make a whole lot more sense in application once we step beyond something so "obvious", like a photo of horse.

Within the conventions of language, such as naming objects, it's safe to use the shorthand of true or false. But again, I caution, you cannot start with the seemingly obvious and apply that up the chain of complexity and sophistication. For instance, you can't take the law of physics, and expect to be able to use it to understand human behaviors. You can't be reductionistic that way. It doesn't work.

The fact that you now call the first picture "obvious" and "black and white" suggests that you don't really personally believe what you told me about it being impossible to state definitively that my claim about the picture is true or false.
Which is why I must make sure I've gotten a clear definitive answer from you about my claim on picture #1 before we move forward.

Your response suggests you are avoiding giving a clear answer about what you personally conclude concerning my claim because you don't like the implication of where it will lead.

But if your position is sound then you should not need to worry about where truthfully answering my question will lead.
If it is, as you say, that this exercise will not have any bearing upon more complex issues, then you will surely have no trouble defending your position after you have truthfully answered my question directly.

Is this helping to clarify further? Maybe if you give a theological example, the practical application of what I'm talking about might become clearer.

You're putting the tuba before the horse here. You're trying to couch your answer about picture #1 in anticipation of where you expect I'm going to argue, but in the process you're avoiding giving me a clear answer about what you conclude concerning my claim.

I'd love to get into the more complex theological examples, but before we can do that I need a clear answer on what you conclude about my claim concerning picture #1.
This will establish a basis of common ground from which we can talk further.
It is precisely because this issue is so simple and straitforward that it provides common ground for us - as long as you're willing to tell me directly what you personally conclude about my claim from the three options given.
When you're trying to establish common ground for communication you need to start at a basic level - the least common denominator that you both share in common. Trying to start at a higher level is what leads to confusion and talking past each other.

 

[Windwalker]

I asked you if my latest summation of your answer was a fair representation of your conclusion concerning my claim but you did not really give me a direct answer either way.

The direct response part of it was that true and false, right and wrong are relative terms, not absolutes. They are relative to the consensus reality of those setting up true and false conditions. They aren't universal in the absolute sense. They are "conditionally" true, or false, to us and our group. Not to God.

I am looking for a conclusive answer from you about whether you think my claim about picture #1 was "true", "false", or "inconclusive".
If you feel you are unable to give a conclusive answer based on the information available then your answer would be "inconclusive".
"All of the above" cannot be an answer as that would be logically impossible.

This right here is a perfect example of how people have different frameworks of reality. In this case, your framework of reality is that the world is full of binary, black and white choices. There are only two possible choices, "True" or "False". (Inconclusive is not a choice). Those are the conditions you have set up ahead of time, unconsciously, using that filter-set that will decide in advance how the answers are going to have to look to you operating within that framework in order to be considered valid.

That binary condition of reality is superimposed upon everything it sees. Every possible way of interpreting something, has that condition colorizing its actual reality which is not bound to that conceptual reality. At best then, any "logical conclusion", is actually only logical to that system you are using, not to Reality itself. It is a "relative truth", not absolute.

Contrast that with the framework I am using, which I've been pointing at the whole time in what you are inaccurately assessing as my being "inconclusive". The world is not a world of binary choices. You can have more than one right answer. In fact, right answers can be wrong answers in a different context, such as seeing me as inconclusive appears accurate to you, while is it inaccurate to me.

As a practical analogy, the framework which sees binary choices see the light from the sun as either white light, or the absence of light or "darkness", good or bad, on or off, true or false. It is like slatted glasses which either allows light in, or blocks it out. In the framework I use, it's like placing a glass prism in front of my eyes instead. Instead of seeing two options, two choices, light or dark, true or false, Reality appears as a spectrum of possible choice, each blending into each other without any naturally-occuring dividing lines. Instead of two choices, there is an infinite spectrum of possibilities to choose from, each blending into each other, yet all are from and reflective of that same original Light Source you look at.

Therefore, I'm not being inconclusive. I am being inclusive of all possibilities, as best I can given the allowed spectrum of light with the prism I currently have and hold and look through at the world I live in. I am not seeing through a slatted binary lens, but something more comparable to a glass prism. Down the road some, that filter may be replaced with a more sophisticated lens which sees not just a spectrum of colors, but x-rays, gamma rays, and even more nuances and complexities like multi-dimensions, systems within systems within systems of reality, and so forth.

And I wish to add here, these are not meant as value-judgements, but simply understanding how two reasonable, intelligent, stable-minded people such as ourselves, can see things in completely different ways. It's not a case of being right or wrong, or good or evil, but one of differences of perceptions, influenced by the particular set of glasses prescribed to us through cultural programmings. An "either/or" reality, as well as a "both/and" reality, are filters which allow a certain views of Truth, or Light, to be held by us, without completely obliterating us with an unfiltered Truth, the Omniscient Mind, or the eyes of God.

We could talk about those next if you deem them relevant, but for the purposes of my question they aren't relevant because I was only asking what you personally conclude about my claim from looking at the picture.

They are relevant because they explain why if I say they are "wrong", how that is not an absolute statement, which is how I believe you would likely see that. "They are wrong. Period". I can conclude this, "They aren't seeing what I am seeing, for whatever reason". That is the conclusion, and it is wholly accurate.

The fact that you now call the first picture "obvious" and "black and white" suggests that you don't really personally believe what you told me about it being impossible to state definitively that my claim about the picture is true or false.
Which is why I must make sure I've gotten a clear definitive answer from you about my claim on picture #1 before we move forward.

I don't believe I ever said it's a black and white issue. I did say "obvious", but I qualified that to what seems obvious to everyone, because most everyone shares the conventions of language the same way. I do not however say, "It's obvious that is a horse", because "horse" is an artificial construct of language. Ultimately, it's not a horse at all. Horse is a mental construct.

I make a point of that to say that "truth" is relative to our filters of reality we translate experience through. We cannot speak in terms of Absolutes, by invoking God. We don't see as God does. There is Absolute Reality, and relative reality. We all live in relative reality, trying to understand Absolute Reality, or God. Any statements we make, are not Absolute, including that one I just made now. It too is conditioned by the conditional filters I use, that primism instead of the slatted glasses. That prism is a filter too.

But if your position is sound then you should not need to worry about where truthfully answering my question will lead.

I am concerned that if I don't qualify the conditions for my statements, they will be taken as in agreement with how you are framing it. And that will lead to confusion, as you would not be translating what I say to correctly reflect my thinking from within this particular framework of reality. You would be trying to force-fit something that is star-shaped into a square hole. I'm trying to show how it's not shaped squarely.

You're putting the tuba before the horse here. You're trying to couch your answer about picture #1 in anticipation of where you expect I'm going to argue, but in the process you're avoiding giving me a clear answer about what you conclude concerning my claim.

I'll repeat my clear answer again. They are "wrong" in relation to the conventional uses of language. However, that use is not an absolute. "Wrong" in human reality really only means inconsistent with conventional use. It's not an absolute. They "deviate from the norm", is more accurate, less confusing, and less judgemental.

If the goal is conformity to a particular standard, such as answering questions on a test as to the meaning of words, they would not get a passing grade. But life and reality is not a standardized test. That "standard" is an artificial construction superimposed upon reality. They are human ideas about reality, trying to establish a common from of reference. Which we then mistake as Reality itself.

That is a clear answer. It's a relative truth. (And no, this does not at all mean "anything goes", if you are thinking of bringing that up).

It is precisely because this issue is so simple and straitforward that it provides common ground for us - as long as you're willing to tell me directly what you personally conclude about my claim from the three options given.

Again, this illustrates the difference in the respective frameworks we are using. It appears simple and straightforward to you, but it appears nuanced, subtle, and complex to me because of my understanding of culture and language and perceptual truths. Those do not seem to be being acknowledge or taken into account by you, I believe. This is why I am detailing the logic and rationale behind why I cannot answer in binary terms. Again, if I do use binary language, it's just a shorthand for being outside current conventional thought. These are not laws of the universe. They are interpretations, translations of experience.

When you're trying to establish common ground for communication you need to start at a basic level - the least common denominator that you both share in common. Trying to start at a higher level is what leads to confusion and talking past each other.

Alight, this makes a point. I think I've laid out enough of the framework I'm using to show that is how I ultimately, at this time in my life, actually see these things. I can use that shorthand language if you like, but bear in mind, it's impossibly more complex than that. Yes, it's not a man with a tuba in that photo of that deer most humans agree that it represents.

I think we've established clearly a basic difference in the lenses we are seeing reality through. Do you agree with any of the points I've been mentioning, such as the relative nature of truth seen through the cultural filters and limitations of language we all as humans use?

I'll be interested now in seeing where this will apply in the theological discussion. And I promise, I'll try to self-edit a bit more and not get so bogged down in these details. I can just refer back to them if I feel it is important to do so. I think you can see the differences at this point.

 

[Rise]

This exercise using something simple is designed to establish at what point you're willing to agree that objective true and false statements can be made about a claim.

I should give the definition of "objective truth" here to avoid potential confusion: Objective truth is true, and continues to be true, regardless of what an individual's subjective belief or perception is. That is why it can be universally established and recognized as true by individuals regardless of their subjective bias.

If you are willing to declare something is objectively true in contrast to what is objectively false, then we have a common ground basis for how we define truth and how we use logic, which we can then use as a basis to discuss what the truth is concerning what Scripture says.

If you are not willing to do that then it at least establishes that we don't share that common ground. That then changes the nature of what we are really debating - it ceases to be a debate about what the Scripture says but instead becomes a debate about how, why, and under what circumstances anything can be said to be objectively true or false. And if you don't first deal with that question then any discussion about what the Scripture says, or doesn't say, would have difficulty gaining traction.

That is why, before we can move forward, I need to know from you one way or another where you stand on whether or not my claim about picture #1 is objectively true or false. Because that determines which direction we go in the discussion.

Yes, it's not a man with a tuba in that photo of that deer...

If you had stopped there, I'd have a clear answer.

...most humans agree that it represents.

It's this caveat you add that makes it questionable to me how clear your answer really is.
It leaves wiggle room for you to later claim that you really didn't take a definitive position on the question either way.

I can put this in other terms that may help you to understand what kind of answer is necessary and why:
When you state something is true, the implication is that if someone were to challenge your claim that you'd be willing and able to defend your claim as true with logical reasoning and facts that establishes why your claim is true in opposition to other possibilities.
If you're not willing to defend your claim of what is true against what you see as false, using reason and facts, then you were never really making a claim about what is objectively true to begin with - you were merely stating an opinion.

If I were to insist to you, "No! That picture is of a man playing a tuba! That is not a horse!", what logical process would you use to demonstrate that your claim is correct and my claim is wrong?
If you would not be willing or able to even tell me I'm wrong or defend that you are right, then you never really made a conclusion about whether or not my statement was true or false to begin with. You merely expressed your opinion that you don't see what I see.

But that doesn't fit the requirements of the question, which is designed to establish under what circumstances you're willing to objectively argue that something is either true or false, or whether you are unwilling to do that under any circumstance.

I would be forced to conclude, based on what you've said up to this point, that you are not willing to make an objective declaration about what is true or false in that picture.
Is that an accurate assessment of your position?

Therefore, I'm not being inconclusive. I am being inclusive of all possibilities,

As I said, "all of the above" or "both at the same time" is not a logically possible answer. Because any conclusion you try to draw, or even trying to avoiding drawing a conclusion, automatically puts you logically in one of three categories.

1. By giving an answer that my claim is neither true nor false, regardless of what your reason for that is, you are defacto stating you cannot reach a conclusion about the truth of falseness of my claim - hence my claim is "inconclusive". That is the definition of inconclusive - meaning you cannot come to a conclusion. You can't come to a conclusion because you don't believe it's possible to determine or definitively state whether my claim is really true or false, for whatever reason.

2. If you are trying to say that inclusive means all things are equally true, then you have also reached a conclusion that defacto concludes my claim is true.

3. Even if you try to claim that inclusive means all claims are equally false because it's impossible for the one objective truth to be known or communicated by an individual, then you have still reached a conclusion that defacto concludes my claim is false.

There is no logical process by which my claim can be true, false, and inconclusive all at the same time - because the definition of each category is mutually exclusive in the sense that it by definition excludes the possibility of it being the other two categories. Something that is false by definition is not true, and vise versa. If you claim otherwise then you are no longer using those terms according to their definitions and are talking about a different concept entirely that requires a different label.
And there is no answer you could give that would not logically fall under the exclusive definition of one of those three categories. This is why, logically, no matter what position you try to take, you end up either saying my claim is false, true, or inconclusive because it's impossible for you to say whether it's true or false.

It's almost like you are trying to take all the positions at once and none of them at the same time. Logically that doesn't hold up. At some point you're taking one of those three positions if you try to draw any kind of conclusion about my claim at all. Even concluding that you cannot conclude anything is itself a conclusion that puts you into one of those three categories of logic.


So I think it occurs to me that this raises a whole new issue here.
I was thinking that maybe you didn't believe in objective truth, but only subjective truth, and was prepared to move on to the next point in the discussion from that common ground...
But now I'm wondering if even that conclusion wouldn't serve as a basis of common ground to launch from because that statement first implies you recognize the concept of truth vs falsehood to begin with.

For you to even take that position you'd first have to recognize and use the commonly accepted definition of what truth is, and how that relates to falsehood. If you believe something can be both true and false at the same time then not only is that logically impossible and against the definitions of those words, but it prevents you from even taking the position that all truth is subjective because you've rejected the very idea of truth to begin with.

If you're trying to insist that my claim about the picture can be both true, false, and inconclusive at the same time, then that shows that we need to step even further back one step behind the debate of objective truth vs subjective truth and come to grips with what what the definition of truth and falsehood is first. That's also why sometimes you have to start with something simple to figure out where your common points of agreement actually are. I don't think I would have been able to pick up on this area of communicative disagreement if we had just launched strait into talking about the Scripture directly. We would have talked past each other without understanding why what we were saying wasn't connecting.

Now, if I have mischaracterized your view in any way I welcome correction - but part of why I'm trying to get a clear answer to my questions is so I know exactly where you're coming from and I don't risk strawmanning your position unintentionally. In the absense of clear answers to my questions I'm forced to start drawing my own conclusions based on what you have said.