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Want Unity? You have only 2 options to achieve it

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
This boils down to facts vs alternative-facts. Want Unity? One of the following 2 options has to happen.

1. People who rely on facts must start believing and agreeing with alternative-facts.
2. People who rely on alternative-facts must start believing and agreeing with facts.

It's that simple. You cannot have unity if people cannot agree on facts. It will never happen. The division will remain and only grow.
What you seem to be saying is that those who want the truth must also accept the lies, and those who want lies must also accept the truth.

I don't see this as particularly helpful. Yes, you'll have lots of agreement, but the world will fall apart completely.

I mean, what the heck is an "alternative fact, anyway?

Fact: the beginning of Hamlet's most famous soliloquy is "To be or not to be, that is the question."

Alternative fact: Hamlet said "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

The next time you go see a production, which line do you think you'll hear?
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
Yeah, everything is nothing but math, right? Your example is too simple, unless you can reduce everything down to math. Can you do that?

Considering the context which is the political climate of the US. Pretty much all facts in debate have a mathematical expression since they are derived from statistics and economics.

Are people getting richer or poorer?
Are there more jobs or less jobs?
Is there more crime or less crime?
Is this policy fiscally viable or not?
Is life expectancy rising or falling?

You know that kind of questions. There are datas on those subjects which are called "facts". The problem is that conspiracy theorists don't like to rely on objective measurements of one thing or another and prefer to rely on gut feeling or arbitrary non causal measures.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
This boils down to facts vs alternative-facts. Want Unity? One of the following 2 options has to happen.

1. People who rely on facts must start believing and agreeing with alternative-facts.
2. People who rely on alternative-facts must start believing and agreeing with facts.

It's that simple. You cannot have unity if people cannot agree on facts. It will never happen. The division will remain and only grow.


beliefs are of no value as facts.

faith without actual works is dead
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Considering the context which is the political climate of the US. Pretty much all facts in debate have a mathematical expression since they are derived from statistics and economics.

Are people getting richer or poorer?
Are there more jobs or less jobs?
Is there more crime or less crime?
Is this policy fiscally viable or not?
Is life expectancy rising or falling?

You know that kind of questions. There are datas on those subjects which are called "facts". The problem is that conspiracy theorists don't like to rely on objective measurements of one thing or another and prefer to rely on gut feeling or arbitrary non causal measures.

Yeah, some people use only feelings in the end, when you should start with the facts and use feelings. But you can't reduce it down to just facts. Just as you can't rely on just feelings.
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
There are always at least two possible truths with 2 or more humans, because existential truth is always subjective.

Further if you have solved the is-ought problem and can turn ought to into fact and truth you have solved sometihng, which no human in record history have done before.

You have done your research, right? Well, apparently not, because the everyday world can't be reduced down to facts and truth. At least until now, because you have solved, right?

Well, that's if you ignore the functionalist counterexamples that makes the is-ought problem a bit moot as well as contractual ethics and a bunch of other forms of pragmatic and naturalist ethical schools which side-step the problem completely. Those are answers to the is-ought problem of ethics, but you might nor "like", for lack of better words, these type of answer.
 

74x12

Well-Known Member
This boils down to facts vs alternative-facts. Want Unity? One of the following 2 options has to happen.

1. People who rely on facts must start believing and agreeing with alternative-facts.
2. People who rely on alternative-facts must start believing and agreeing with facts.

It's that simple. You cannot have unity if people cannot agree on facts. It will never happen. The division will remain and only grow.
So why can't people disagree and still be friends like before? Why are ideas more important than people? When did that happen?

Perhaps you're the true extremist when you'd divorce someone over their political views like many leftists encourage people to do.

I know the left is extremist at this point.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Let's just be straight here - unity will never happen. Period. Just commented on another thread why monopolies never work and inevitably fail. Calls for unity have the same problems and will never work and inevitably fail. Unity/monopoly isn't even a desirable state of affairs. Diversity is inevitable and unavoidable. The goal ought to be understanding diversity and learning how to engage in constructive, productive relationships while maintaining and respecting that diversity instead of trying to eliminate it.
 

Onoma

Active Member
Simple. It was coined by the Trump administration by Kellyanne Conway.

Here's an example of an alternative-fact: "The election was fraudulent and stolen"

Completely verified to be consistent with alternative-facts, but not according to those who rely on facts.

Facts and the trust doesn't have a bias. There is only 1 answer.

Ahhh, so an " alternative fact " is what most of us call a " claim "

Carry on
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Well, that's if you ignore the functionalist counterexamples that makes the is-ought problem a bit moot as well as contractual ethics and a bunch of other forms of pragmatic and naturalist ethical schools which side-step the problem completely. Those are answers to the is-ought problem of ethics, but you might nor "like", for lack of better words, these type of answer.

No, I do get them. But my angle is from social work in practice as I am marrying to a social worker and nursing assistant, who works with the second "worst". Those, who are one level away from being in a closed institution. And I one of them social workers deal with. I am insane in a limited sense, because a part of my brain is insane, but I am lucky in that I can most of the time cope with the sane part of my brain.
So in practice here is one of the corner stones in ethics and that is not pragmatic or naturalistic.
Knud Ejler Løgstrup - Wikipedia
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
So why can't people disagree and still be friends like before? Why are ideas more important than people? When did that happen?

Perhaps you're the true extremist when you'd divorce someone over their political views like many leftists encourage people to do.

I know the left is extremist at this point.

No, the left is not just that. I am of the left in the end, yet I am not of that part of the left. You are doing it yourself with your "the left". ;) :)
 

74x12

Well-Known Member
No, the left is not just that. I am of the left in the end, yet I am not of that part of the left. You are doing it yourself with your "the left". ;) :)
Good to hear. I just think that it's concerning how many on the left are becoming this way.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
This boils down to facts vs alternative-facts. Want Unity? One of the following 2 options has to happen.

1. People who rely on facts must start believing and agreeing with alternative-facts.
2. People who rely on alternative-facts must start believing and agreeing with facts.

It's that simple. You cannot have unity if people cannot agree on facts. It will never happen. The division will remain and only grow.
But even more hypocritical than that they call for "unity" after Trump over more than four years has used a "divide & conquer" approach, thus being the most divisive president since the Civil War period.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Good to hear. I just think that it's concerning how many on the left are becoming this way.

Well, the US is right now on a possible course of either a dictatorship of the left or the right, or a civil war. But it is not too late yet, but that requires that enough gather in the center and start doing compromise.

So it is concerning how many are doing it on both the left and the right. Now if you focus too much on one of the sides, you can end up making it worse.
 
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