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Faith, Truth & the Absolutes - the myth

gnostic

gnostic

The Lost One
I find that it is strange that (religious/theistic) people think that FAITH and BELIEF in god or gods can be ABSOLUTE or be the ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

I find that BELIEF to be "subjective", rather than "objective". BELIEF is like OPINION. BELIEF and OPINION are also like taste in music or taste in beauty. One person may like country-western music, but I don't like it at all. With such difference, there can be no absolutes.

Beliefs in god or the creator are also subjective, therefore it can't be ABSOLUTE.

Also people believing in ancient texts in what are written about the divine and spiritual being(s) to be real.

How can they be sure that these texts are nothing more than myths, folklore - fictional superstitions? Have they seen these spirits? Heard from them? Touch them?

Gods or spirits are supposedly INCORPOREAL - without forms, substances, and masses. Spirits are supposedly invisible. And can't affect the real physical world, so how could they possibly have any effect on the corporeal, let alone create everything in the physical universe?

Some would claim that the spirits are (pure) energy, but I don't buy that. Because all the energies that we have been able to detect (so far) and measure, showed that energy are corporeal, not incorporeal, otherwise we shouldn't be able to detect those energies if those energies are incorporeal.

Take heat, for example. Heat is energy, that comes from infrared electromagnetic spectrum. We can't see it, but we can feel heat. We can use instrument or device to detect heat and measure it (temperature), like the simple mercury thermometer. Heat can come mass, due to work done (or kinetic energy) or from chemical reactions. Just because we can see those energy with our own eyes, doesn't mean they are incorporeal.

We don't know if spirits are real. So nothing about the spirits can be ABSOLUTE. I have grave doubts about the existence of god or gods, so it can't be ABSOLUTE.
 
I

InformedIgnorance

Do you 'know' or believe?
I find it as amazing that atheists can be as absolute, though at least as far as I am aware they are less likely to adopt such a position (instead preferring the 'de facto' approach); still, I believe a large portion of the reason people claim to have absolute conviction about their faith is because many faiths promote that doubts are inherently bad, that by holding onto the faith strongly enough you will be rewarded somehow or become a better person. Conversely, doubting or critically examining many of your faith based positions is considered to be almost seditious in nature, destructive to both the person and to the belief.

That combined with group and societal pressure for conformity makes it more difficult for people to either internally acknowledge or accept any divergence of their opinion from the group norms but also to more harshly treat any divergence by others.
 
T

thau

Well-Known Member
The apostles' "belief" was not subjective.

It spread from there with good cause.

The miracles and empirical evidence for Christ is not subjective either. Seeing is believing.
 
Scott1

Scott1

Well-Known Member
vanityofvanitys said:
The apostles' "belief" was not subjective.

It spread from there with good cause.

The miracles and empirical evidence for Christ is not subjective either. Seeing is believing.
Click to expand...
YOUR belief in the truth of their claims is subjective... you didn't see - yet still believe... in other words, a subjective belief.

Get it?
 
T

thau

Well-Known Member
Scott1 said:
YOUR belief in the truth of their claims is subjective... you didn't see - yet still believe... in other words, a subjective belief.

Get it?
Click to expand...

I got it. Just as subjective as your belief Napoleon overran Europe.

Some people know when to move forward with a strong grasp of the truth and reasons for it.
 
I

InformedIgnorance

Do you 'know' or believe?
Comparing the strength of historical evidence for Napolean's military campaigns against those of Jesus' divine nature is a stretch to say the absolute least.
 
gnostic

gnostic

The Lost One
informedignorance said:
I find it as amazing that atheists can be as absolute, though at least as far as I am aware they are less likely to adopt such a position (instead preferring the 'de facto' approach)
Click to expand...

Well, I am not an atheist.

My understanding of absolute seemed to be different to that of what some believers.

So I don't understand how people can believe in anything to be ABSOLUTE with regards to spirits or gods. And nothing in sacred texts can indicate the absoluteness of gods or spirits.

And with the god of 3 Abrahamic religions, god is supposedly beyond anyone's comprehension, and henceforth, there should be a lot of things about god should be UNKNOWABLE.

And yet, we have Christians and Muslims who believe that everything about their god are contained within those pages, as if there were no mystery to God. They have "absolute" faith of what (they believe) they know about God. I am staggered by their "knowledge" of god...

How do they know that God is ABSOLUTE?

How do they know that the covenant is ABSOLUTE?

How do they know that morality in any of the scriptures to be ABSOLUTE?

I don't think any of the scriptures that I have read to contain ABSOLUTE TRUTH. The truth is RELATIVE and SUBJECTIVE. There are no ways to verify such truth, and if you can't verify, it can never be ABSOLUTE.
 
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I

InformedIgnorance

Do you 'know' or believe?
I agree; I have had discussions with those among my religious friends, the ones who are more intellectually capable and emotionally stable than the rest (not making a negative comment about religious people, simply talking about my friends :p), about how they were certain about such things, even the simple identity of the entity that they are worshipping, how they would know if it was in fact a 'devil' for example.

The response I have always received is that they 'know' it is truth, and the reason they know this is because they 'would know' if it was not the work of god, instead some evil spirit; the most descriptive response said that the 'presence' or sensation given by such a being would not be the joy, wonder and awe, they currently feel from worshipping. That made them certain that the entity was benevolent and therefore that joy they experienced was enough for them to 'know' that any 'truths' they considered in such a state were absolute.
 
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arthra

arthra

Baha'i
gnostic wrote:

"I find that it is strange that (religious/theistic) people think that FAITH and BELIEF in god or gods can be ABSOLUTE or be the ABSOLUTE TRUTH."

My comment:

I don't think all people who believe in God accept that truth is absolute:

"Its teachings revolve around the fundamental principle that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is progressive, not final."

~ Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 58

Accepting truth as relative deabsolutizes dogmatism and promotes interreligious dialogue.
 
gnostic

gnostic

The Lost One
vanityofvanitys said:
The apostles' "belief" was not subjective.

It spread from there with good cause.

The miracles and empirical evidence for Christ is not subjective either. Seeing is believing.
Click to expand...

What you have from the apostles were beliefs and testimonies and church's dogma, all of which cannot be considered to be empirical evidences.
 
gnostic

gnostic

The Lost One
arthra said:
I don't think all people who believe in God accept that truth is absolute:

"Its teachings revolve around the fundamental principle that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is progressive, not final."

~ Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 58

Accepting truth as relative deabsolutizes dogmatism and promotes interreligious dialogue.
Click to expand...

Now this I can understand...except for the "deabolutizes" word. I am not sure there is such word.
 
T

thau

Well-Known Member
gnostic said:
What you have from the apostles were beliefs and testimonies and church's dogma, all of which cannot be considered to be empirical evidences.
Click to expand...

Are you even suggesting that Jesus could be a myth? Are you suggesting the same about the Roman Empire, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Henry VII, etc.? Then why make such a case? To leave room for doubt and room for ignoring the message?

I am lost?

All the empirical evidence that has transpired since the Resurrection has validated Jesus Christ's reality and divinity.
 
Student of X

Student of X

Paradigm Shifter
gnostic said:
We don't know if spirits are real. So nothing about the spirits can be ABSOLUTE. I have grave doubts about the existence of god or gods, so it can't be ABSOLUTE.
Click to expand...

If left to ourselves, we, as individuals, don't know. Luckily, we aren't always left to ourselves.

"All that the soul knows when it is left to itself is nothing in comparison with the knowledge that is given it during ecstasy. When the soul is raised aloft, illumined by the presence of God, when God and it are lost in each other, it apprehends and possesses with joy good things which it cannot describe. The soul swims in joy and knowledge."

Angela da Foligno, mystic, quoted by Father A. Poulain in The Graces of Interior Prayer [1910]
 
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