Science, religion and the truth

[Jim]

@mikkel_the_dane ”You can’t reason people out of something they didn’t reason themselves into.”

Are you aware of some psychological and social reasons for people clinging to their God beliefs? Do you see the futility of trying to reason people out of that, without them first learning better ways of trying to satisfy those needs? That might apply just as much to belief in objective, absolute or science truths.

 

[sealchan]

It *is* relevant to a discussion of what each believes to be the truth. It isn't relevant to what is the truth. In fact, one way to distinguish the truth is that it holds even if nobody believes in it. So, the Earth rotated even before people believed it rotated. Diseases were caused by bacteria before anyone knew bacteria exist. Belief isn't relevant for the truth.

Now, beliefs *are* relevant to how people act. They *are* relevant to what they will accept (whether truthful or not). They *are* relevant for a conversation about beliefs. They may even be relevant to whether we can ever know any truths. They just aren't relevant to what is and is not true.

There is, in what you are saying, this notion of a truth outside of individual knower's subjective awareness. This is not possible. Furthermore it is akin to the idea that some believers have that they can dispose of their own opinion in favor of only believing in God's word...not man's.

You can't claim an unwitnessed "reality" (a truth no one bears witness to) as an objective truth any more than the subjective truth of supposing you know what an unwitnessed reality would be like if, in fact, it were witnessed.

There is no escape from truth living in both a subjective and objective context in all cases which I think validates the OP.

 

[sayak83]

You don't need truth for that. You need to be able to turn that statement into behavior, which can be replicated by others.

Regards
Mikkel

I do not understand what you are saying.
Here is a statement,
"Earth rotates on its axis".
Is it a True statement or a False one.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Welcome. I had strong spectrum signs when I was young, but decided to spend time learning how people relate. Sort of a scientific investigation.

Now, some people even say I am social. Of course, that is over 40 years later.

Well, the latest research show that it might be possible that you can in a limited sense train yourself out of the spectrum.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I think I would be in agreement with you that although we must strive to recognize subjective and objective we cannot escape either. Those who want to make it simpler than that are doing violence to "the truth".

Correct. The world is a combination of the subjective and objective.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Jim]

Well, I don't know if I am doing any good. I am trying,

Trying to do sone good? What good are you trying to do? Sometimes I think that I’m trying to help make forum discussions more friendly, fun, fruitful and beneficial for everyone.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I do not understand what you are saying.
Here is a statement,
"Earth rotates on its axis".
Is it a True statement or a False one.

Depending on the understanding of a given human the statement "Earth rotates on its axis" will have meaning dependent on the given understanding.

Here is a simple test. Take the word "gravity". Imagine the universe without any humans or other beings with higher cognitive functions; now would gravity still be there? Now do the same with "truth". Would truth still be there?

You don't need truth.
Truth | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
There is a set of theories about truth, which are deflationary.
Further notice there is no just one theory of what truth is. Truth is apparently a human social construct.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Jim]

Correct. The world is a combination of the subjective and objective.

Regards
Mikkel

How does that translate into behavior for you?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Trying to do sone good? What good ate you trying to do? Sometimes I think that I’m trying to help make forum discussions more friendly, fun, fruitful and beneficial for everyone.

Some people think they hold the truth over other people. Apparently they don't. I focus on the non-religious side of those who believe in the truth.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Jim]

Some people think they hold the truth over other people. Apparently they don't. I focus on the non-religious side of those who believe in the truth.

Regards
Mikkel

How does not thinking that you hold the truth over other people translate into behavior in what you say and do?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How does that translate into behavior for you?

In short if I want something it is subjective. How I do it can be objective. Then when there are other humans involved there are no overall objective truth, because there can be different subjective POV and then we are into the land of ethics.
But before we get to ethics in any sense of meta-ethics, we hit subjectivity and that is where the fun starts in regards to truth.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Jim]

Some people think they hold the truth over other people. Apparently they don't. I focus on the non-religious side of those who believe in the truth.

Regards
Mikkel

Somehow I got the idea that you had some community service aim or purpose in mind, but maybe I misunderstood,

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How does not thinking that you hold the truth over other people translate into behavior in what you say and do?

Not very well, because I have learned it being combative with abstract reasoning and using reductio ad absurdum.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Jim]

In short if I want something it is subjective. How I do it can be objective. Then when there are other humans involved there are no overall objective truth, because there can be different subjective POV and then we are into the land of ethics.
But before we get to ethics in any sense of meta-ethics, we hit subjectivity and that is where the fun starts in regards to truth.

Regards
Mikkel

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by “behavior,” when you said something about how a person words translate into behavior.

Do you think that if a person learns not to think they hold the truth over others, that can change their behavior in ways that benefit others?

 

[Jim]

@mikkel_the_dane Sorry. I think maybe I dialed the wrong number. Sorry.

 

[Native]

Vacuums have nothing in them. It is the 'push' from the pressure of the gas that moves the gas. Ultimately, it is simply the motion of the molecules in the gas that make it spread out.

Except from when you´re talking of cosmic clouds of gas and dust. Then it is "gravity which draws gases together to form stars and planets". Ultimately you´re in opposition to yourself. What´s the truth then?

 

[Jim]

Some people think they hold the truth over other people.

Is that a problem for you? It is for me. That could be my mistake, thinking that you might see it as a problem like I do.

 

[Jim]

Some people think they hold the truth over other people

When I first read that, I thought that you meant it figuratively. I thought it was about something in people’s attitudes and behavior that I want to help change, and not only something that they carry around in their minds.

 

[Jim]

@mikkel_the_dane I thought that you might be seeing a problem that I see, that I think of figuratively as people thinking that they know something. Sometimes they say or think that literally, but not always. However that may be, what makes it a problem for me is not the internal experience in itself, it’s people using that to excuse and camouflage hostile attitudes and behavior. Even if arguing about it with people could change that internal experience from “I know” to “I’m thinking,” that would do nothing to stop a person from finding excuses and camouflage for hostile attitudes and behavior.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well, there are strong philosophical principles in science, if that makes it better.
Remember the cosmological principle.
So yes, you can call it differently but you can't remove human cognition from science and thus we get rules and what not.

Regards
Mikkel

Completely irrelevant to the point I actualy made.