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Spiritual "Truth"?

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member

So, we are all running from the same thing? What do you guys think?

There is more to religion than that (community for example), but it id interesting, if-not an over-simplification.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion

So, we are all running from the same thing? What do you guys think?

There is more to religion than that (community for example), but it id interesting, if-not an over-simplification.

As a somewhat wise person, it is a half-truth in my understanding of the world. The problem as I understand it is, that there is no universal single method for the truth.
So here it is for my model of the truth for its different version.
Objective as science
Inter-subjective as social
Subjective as individual.

We all do these 3 with some variation and some don't account for all 3 as different, but interconnect, because they declare they have the truth as one for all 3.
So in practice the truth is context dependent for 2 or more humans as individual contexts in a social context in a world as in part objective.
But that is just me and my opinion on the truth.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
So, we are all running from the same thing? What do you guys think?

There is more to religion than that (community for example), but it id interesting, if-not an over-simplification.
Its fair description of some people in religions but not of religions. Also religions don't always call themselves paths to truth.

What he is missing is that religions are entire systems of living. Rather than paths to truth they have from time to time been the only path to education. Religions do others things, too such as try to help soften poverty or discourage crime. Some discourage disobedience to the government.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
What an idiot.

Religions are tools to help people find and live by THEIR OWN TRUTH. This fool doesn't even understand that truth is both subjective, and relative. He thinks it's 'objective' and exists apart from us. Some magical singular body of knowledge hovering out in space waiting for us to get hold of it.

Truth is an internal value/quality assessment. What is true to you is not necessarily going to be true, to me. Because you are not me, and I am not you. We do not inhabit the same circumstance or experience the same things in the same ways. So of course truth is going to be unique to our unique being and circumstances. To expect otherwise is just stupid. It presumes truth is a 'thing' rather than an experience of things.
 

So, we are all running from the same thing? What do you guys think?

There is more to religion than that (community for example), but it id interesting, if-not an over-simplification.
I mean to believe that it's just escaping something that kind of discounts religions that don't provide a nice solution.
Tons of early religions didn't believe in an afterlife or that life had any inherent meaning. If it was simply escape then why not have a nice story that can easily explain things rather than various complex narratives that often imply the world is just a nightmare?

I would also argue that mysticism tends to have multiple discovery in that mystical experience even among atheists tends to converge. If you look at mystical experiences of Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims etc they tend to be very similar. I mean even in science people disagree and have their own theories about how things work and at a certain point sort of breaks down. It's great for practical stuff but has a tendency to have to fight against previous assertions and then on top of that will often be influenced by political and economic factors.

The idea that meaning should work like science is one of those reddit atheist hat tipper assertions. You know the kind, the folks that think it's so obvious religion isn't true then ignore their own bias and rather than saying " I don't believe in religion." it's more like " It's stupid to believe in religion and you are running away from something."

Don't get me wrong you could criticize rather large amounts of religious people for just accepting whatever they are told but you can do that with any large group.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
spiritual-truth

Religious truth is a phrase I see frequently and have often asked others what they mean by it. I've decided that term generally refers any appealing feeling about reality. Why? Because when I ask, I never get an answer. I'm in a thread right now where this is the case:

Theist: "that leaves you without any chance of "knowing God", because you have decided that you don't need to find spiritual truths, as it is so easy to dismiss them all as "unlikely" and unhelpful."

Me: "That's incorrect. I didn't decide that I didn't need to find spiritual truth. I decided that there probably is no such thing as I define truth. You may recall that my words were "If you're correct, you should be able to provide an example of an ascertained spiritual truth. You can't. I know this because I know how truth is ascertained, and also because I have asked at least a half dozen RF posters who made the same claim to give me one of these truths and explain what makes it truth. They can't." We'll never know what truth you have that I would have dismissed, will we? You've offered none, as predicted."​

And this is from a different thread:

Me: "The thinking of believers has to be understood not in epistemological term, but psychological ones - what need is being met with this belief if not the need to be correct in one's beliefs?"

Other humanist: "Yup. Years ago, another science advocate would explain that very thing to me whenever I would cite theology as the root issue. He kept telling me "It's even deeper than that; it's mostly just basic psychology". It took me a bit, but eventually I came around to what he was saying."​
 
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