Truth and relativity

[Papersock]

I started reading I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. In the first chapter they go on about how 'There is no truth' is a contradicting statement. I didn't realize that some people were saying that there is no truth.
Of course some things are true. Facts exist.
I found myself playing a sort of phylosophical game with the phrase 'Everything is relative.' One could say, 'is that statement relative? You're saying it as truth, therefore, not everything is relative.
Ok, but could everything else be relative?No, surely not everything else. Gravity, for example, is pretty constant. Things fall to the ground at the same rate, without fail.
Except in space and on other planets. In that way gravity is relative. Then again, there are basic laws of nature that are constant throughout the universe.
So maybe things like physics are not relative.Perhaps it depends on what you mean by 'everything is relative.' The phrase itself could be relative, I suppose, since words and phrases have different meanings.
A blatently contradictory statement could be used, 'Everything is and is not relative.' Does that even mean anything? Is this whole thought process pointless?What do you all think?

 

[yuvgotmel]

A blatently contradictory statement could be used, 'Everything is and is not relative.' Does that even mean anything? Is this whole thought process pointless?What do you all think?

I agree. It's like getting stuck in the middle of a doctor's office having to listen to two children argue back forth "is not"--"is so"--"is not"--is so" ...It's grating on my nerves to even have to think about it. :help:

 

[PureX]

I started reading I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. In the first chapter they go on about how 'There is no truth' is a contradicting statement. I didn't realize that some people were saying that there is no truth.
Of course some things are true. Facts exist.
I found myself playing a sort of phylosophical game with the phrase 'Everything is relative.' One could say, 'is that statement relative? You're saying it as truth, therefore, not everything is relative.
Ok, but could everything else be relative?No, surely not everything else. Gravity, for example, is pretty constant. Things fall to the ground at the same rate, without fail.
Except in space and on other planets. In that way gravity is relative. Then again, there are basic laws of nature that are constant throughout the universe.
So maybe things like physics are not relative.Perhaps it depends on what you mean by 'everything is relative.' The phrase itself could be relative, I suppose, since words and phrases have different meanings.
A blatently contradictory statement could be used, 'Everything is and is not relative.' Does that even mean anything? Is this whole thought process pointless?What do you all think?

What is relative is our understanding of truth. And as a result, we have no way of verifying that a given truth claim is absolutely true or not. A given truth claim may be absolute, or it may not be. We don't know. We are only able to determine the relative truthfulness of a given claim, based on the limitations of our own experience and understanding.

This is what people mean when they refer to truth being relative. They don't really mean that the truth itself is relative, they mean that our understanding of truth is relative.

 

[s2a]

I started reading I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. In the first chapter they go on about how 'There is no truth' is a contradicting statement. I didn't realize that some people were saying that there is no truth.
Of course some things are true. Facts exist.
I found myself playing a sort of phylosophical game with the phrase 'Everything is relative.' One could say, 'is that statement relative? You're saying it as truth, therefore, not everything is relative.
Ok, but could everything else be relative?No, surely not everything else. Gravity, for example, is pretty constant. Things fall to the ground at the same rate, without fail.
Except in space and on other planets. In that way gravity is relative. Then again, there are basic laws of nature that are constant throughout the universe.
So maybe things like physics are not relative.Perhaps it depends on what you mean by 'everything is relative.' The phrase itself could be relative, I suppose, since words and phrases have different meanings.
A blatently contradictory statement could be used, 'Everything is and is not relative.' Does that even mean anything? Is this whole thought process pointless?What do you all think?

Hiya papersock,

I invite you to hang around awhile, and chime in when the mood suits you...

Topically, albeit tangentially, I would offer the similar conumdrum that is posed upon self-ascribed "skeptics".

"If one is a "true" skeptic...then wouldn't one even challenge their own skepticism? If nothing can be "known" with 100% certitude, than can any knowledge be trusted or accepted as "true"?"

Of course, such a rationalized perspective in the form of a baiting "either/or" choice, or "loaded question (posited as legitimate inquiry)" is fallacious at it's core, and even serves to answer itself beforehand.

To be "skeptical" is not to insist upon absolute surety or certitude--to be qualified/suggestive as being "beyond any/all doubt", but rather to critically employ both reason and understanding to rationally glean/extrapolate the most compelling extant evidences that circumstantially infer the best available explanations of observant phenomena/consequences.

It practically goes without saying that some provisionally earnest declaration stating:
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"...presents little more than an oxymoronic
catch-phrase...that many of faith-based beliefs may deem, or assert as compelling (as provided personal testimony of said faith). Skeptics will sigh, yet again, in confronting but another projected "testament" (of faith, "truth", or "belief").

If I may..."true skeptics" never abjectly DENY any claims of theistic/supernaturalistic influences/causations as being "dispoven"...but as being (themselves) unsupported/unacceptable, and/or "unbelievable"...as presenting any assertive fact or "truth".

I am an atheist because (as a skeptic) I find no compelling reasons to accept faith-based claims as being assertive/authoritative/demonstrable fact/truth. What I can, and do find, is plenty of compelling/overwhelming reasonable doubt as to any prospective validity of faith-based claims.

Skepticism (and/or any resultant atheism) is the absolute antithesis of faith-based claims...and it's the height of stupidity to infer/suggest that some lack of requisite faith therefore precludes an atheistic perspective.

I'll say it again, just to be clear. Faith-based beliefs play no part (ever) in qualifying an atheistic/skeptical perspective. The only people that INSIST that reason is dependent upon faith; are those that embrace and extoll the virtues of an acceptant and pious adherence to faith-based claims as any veritable source of "truth".

Bunk.

 

[Papersock]

You have all made good points and I thank you for posting them. I felt like the authors were taking the phrases "there is no truth" and "everything is relative" too literally. Though I wasn't sure.

Another thing in the book that bothered me was when they said "Does the law that 'every law has an exception' have an exception?" Specifically referring to natural laws, which are not really "laws," but rather, what nature tends to do. I'm not so sure that "every law has an exception" is a law in itself.
Seems like a bunch of word games, to me.

They did the same thing with the sentence "Science can account for everything," saying that the saying defeats itself because science cannot prove that the sentence itself is true. That would be a philosophical argument, and science is built on philosophy.
Couldn't science still explain everything that directly relates to science? Besides, even if we don't have a scientific answer now, that doesn't mean one doesn't exist.
Is science really based on philosophy? The philosophy of materialism?

The margins of my copy of Faith to be an Atheist are being filled with my own notes.

 

[gnomon]

The margins of my copy of Faith to be an Atheist are being filled with my own notes.

I just want to say how happy I am to read that. Because that is how one reads a book!

 

[Willamena]

I started reading I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. In the first chapter they go on about how 'There is no truth' is a contradicting statement. I didn't realize that some people were saying that there is no truth.
Of course some things are true. Facts exist.
I found myself playing a sort of phylosophical game with the phrase 'Everything is relative.' One could say, 'is that statement relative? You're saying it as truth, therefore, not everything is relative.
Ok, but could everything else be relative?No, surely not everything else. Gravity, for example, is pretty constant. Things fall to the ground at the same rate, without fail.
Except in space and on other planets. In that way gravity is relative. Then again, there are basic laws of nature that are constant throughout the universe.
So maybe things like physics are not relative.Perhaps it depends on what you mean by 'everything is relative.' The phrase itself could be relative, I suppose, since words and phrases have different meanings.
A blatently contradictory statement could be used, 'Everything is and is not relative.' Does that even mean anything? Is this whole thought process pointless?What do you all think?

The interesting thing is the way people consider that "relative" and "absolute" somehow cancel each other out, so that you can't have one with the other. Not so. All that really changes between them is the perspective --one is subjective, the other objective.

Everything is both subjective and objective. "Objective" means regarded as a thing; "subjective" means regarded from its perspective as a thing. Everything is relative to every subject, even things that are absolute.