The atheist trying to use logic and reason to refute the laws of logic is like the man trying to saw off the branch he is sitting on.
It is incredibly ironic that atheists act like they want to have a rational/logical discussion when they reject the laws of logic (i.e. the axiomatic rules upon which rational discourse is based). It’s like someone saying they want to play football, but they don’t believe a forward pass is really incomplete if it touches the ground before being caught, they believe first downs are all subjective and based on whether the team is enjoying the game, touchdowns are based on whether the team believes the drive was meaningful, there is no line of scrimmage so players can line up wherever they want on the field before the play starts, and they can’t agree on a game clock because they claim time isn’t really something—all the while claiming they want to play football. When you try to explain to them that the game of football itself is made up of these FUNDAMENTAL rules, they question the legitimacy of each FUNDAMENTAL RULE, i.e., they complicate the game with endless quibbling (“How can we ever know for sure if a receiver has ‘control’ of the ball?”) over what even a 4th grader could understand as basic (two feet or any other part of the body touching the ground in-bounds while having control of the ball=catch/possession). When you don't oblige, they claim you're trying to force them down a convoluted, scripted, path to play something they don't want to play, i.e., where their arbitrary rules don’t apply.
For many, the light finally comes on and they realize what they are doing (trying to change all the fundamental rules of the game they claim to want to play) and they just leave from embarrassment; others get tired of trying to convince you to adopt their new and improved version of (anything’s possible) football and leave. As if they haven’t embarrassed themselves enough through all their charades, many have the nerve to take the ball, spike it, and claim that you are a bad football player.
For many, the light finally comes on and they realize what they are doing (trying to change all the fundamental rules of the game they claim to want to play) and they just leave from embarrassment; others get tired of trying to convince you to adopt their new and improved version of (anything’s possible) football and leave. As if they haven’t embarrassed themselves enough through all their charades, many have the nerve to take the ball, spike it, and claim that you are a bad football player.
The following is a discussion we had with two atheists (Michael and Jake) who tried to refute our logical chart, but couldn’t coherently get past level 1. The analogy above should become clear as you read through the discussion. We will provide the entire quotes so we are not accused of hiding anything or taking anything out of context, but we will highlight (so you can skip past a lot of clutter and easily see) the objective truth claims they make while at the same time trying to deny objective truth exists. We will also highlight the major points from our responses that should be remembered.
Atheist (Michael): Watch as theists use a warped, bastardized version of logical reasoning that can easily be picked apart to "prove" christianity! because, y'know, you can totally logic something into existence, into being true even without any real evidence to support it...just so long as you don't scrutinize the "logic" being used, it all makes perfect sense!
P315: Michael, it's one thing to claim something can be "easily picked apart" but quite different to actually do so. With that said, which part of the logical chart do you disagree with?
Atheist (Michael): Other than the whole thing from start to finish being a collection of debunked and fallacious arguments that could easily be looked up if you wanted to know? Let me count the ways...
"Truth" is a philosophical/epistemological concept, a label placed on statements. If you want your model of reality to be as accurate as possible, you should place the "truth" label on statements that you believe most accurately reflect reality. "Truth" isn't a quality that anything possesses, it isn't something that can be measured, a statement is either an accurate reflection of realty or it isn't. "Absolute truth" is a concept you will only encounter in religion and doesn't even make sense. How can something be more true than true, an absolute truth? Like I said, a statement is either an accurate reflection of reality (and thus "true") or it isn't.
"Why is there something rather than nothing"?
I don't know! Wow! What a novel concept: admit when you don't have an answer that can be demonstrated to be true with facts and evidence instead of just asserting something. There's a variety of hypothesis and work-in-progress models of how our universe may have formed but nothing verifiable and demonstrable yet. There are some brilliant people spending their lives working on this great mystery and I noticed you dismissed for no explanation one of the hypothesis about this (vacuum/negative energy). Do you even understand the concept well enough to explain why you dismiss it out of hand or is it just inconvenient that there is some evidence to suggest that virtual particles pop in and out of existence in our universe, seemingly from nothing? Asserting as fact that which you can't demonstrate to be true is dishonest and if you don't have a verifiable answer to a question, it's dishonest to plug in the god of the gaps.
I've only scratched the surface here, I'll have to recheck the list before I continue as I can't do that while typing this comment on my phone but like I said in my original comment, you can't logic something into existence. Even if these arguments weren't fallacious, that still wouldn't be a substitute for actual, verifiable evidence as that is the only way to actually determine the existence or validity of a thing or idea. It's rather late, though, I'm off to bed, maybe I'll pick this up again later.
P315: >>> "Truth isn't a quality that anything possesses, it isn't something that can be measured, a statement is either an accurate reflection of realty or it isn't. "Absolute truth" is a concept you will only encounter in religion and doesn't even make sense. How can something be more true than true, an absolute truth?"
The concept of truth seems to be a bit confusing to you. I don't think I have ever come across someone who thought referring to absolute truth was an attempt to posit something to be truer than true (or more true than true). Most confusion results from lack of clarity between "objective" and "absolute" truth. Though not a direct response to your "more true than true" confusion, I do think clarifying the difference between objective truth and absolute truth will lend a helping hand.
Simply put, the opposite of “objective” is “subjective” and the opposite of “absolute” is “relative.” Now it doesn't require deep thought to see that "relative" (keep in mind "relative" truth and "relativism" are not the same thing) does not mean "subjective." Just because someone might have a moral duty that is relative to his/her circumstances, does not imply moral duties are subjective; that there isn't an objectively right or wrong thing to do in a given situation.
To clarify...
Objective = independent of people's (including personal) opinion
Subjective = just a matter of personal opinion
If there is such a thing as "objective" morality, then in the various circumstances we are confronted with, we are proscribed or obligated to do various actions, independent of personal opinion.
Absolute = regardless of the circumstances
Relative = varying with the circumstances
I think we can agree that it is not "absolutely" wrong to kill another person. Fact is, in some circumstances it is morally justified or even obligatory. However, murder is "absolutely" wrong.
With that said, it should not be too difficult to see why we refer to "absolute" truth at the top of the logical chart. If no absolute truth (or universal truth) exists, the very exercise of attempting to discover truth is a fruitless affair. However, we do know absolute truth exists as evidenced by the existence of the laws of logic, laws of mathematics and laws of science. As the first level of the chart explains, the very denial of the existence of absolute truth is an affirmation of its reality (law of noncontradiction).
>>> "There are some brilliant people spending their lives working on this great mystery and I noticed you dismissed for no explanation one of the hypothesis about this (vacuum/negative energy). Do you even understand the concept well enough to explain why you dismiss it out of hand or is it just inconvenient that there is some evidence to suggest that virtual particles pop in and out of existence in our universe, seemingly from nothing?"
We are familiar the theories advanced by Lawrence Krauss and the like. In fact here is a response taken directly from our page...
Lawrence Krauss cleverly changed the definition of the word “nothing” the same way Richard Dawkins changed the definition of God in his book The God Delusion. The word nothing is a term of universal negation meaning NOT ANYTHING. When someone says it’s plausible that the universe came from nothing, what you would have to mean is it’s plausible that the universe did not come from anything. But this is not what Krauss means. He has simply changed the meaning of the word “nothing” into meaning a quantum vacuum—which is actually something. Therefore, the claim that quantum physics shows something can come from nothing is a deceitful one because this “nothing” has fluctuating energy, is governed by physical laws, and has a physical structure. In short, this “nothing” (quantum vacuum) is “SOMETHING.”
Atheists often claim we "ignorant Christians" are just not smart enough to understand quantum physics. One doesn't need a PhD in quantum physics to understand what is impossible--something CANNOT come from NOTHING--PERIOD! Just because one person, Lawrence Krauss, decided to change the definition of the word "nothing" into a quantum vacuum (which is "something") doesn’t negate the original definition, nor does it nullify the problem that naturalists/atheists have yet to answer coherently and with logical consistency--the idea that something can come from not anything at all.
This idea that something NEW can pop into existence from something unrelated and undetected is nothing new to science. Scientists once believed in "spontaneous generation" because what they observed could not be properly understood by the naked eye. Similarly, just because science cannot yet explain the CAUSE of what we detect today at the quantum level (what appears to be spontaneous actions) does not mean we make the same mistakes scientists in the past made: "We cannot detect the cause; therefore, it must spontaneously generate."
Atheist (Michael): When I hear words like "objective" and "absolute", I think of experiences and facts, not morality, but you keep trying to apply them to morality and I'm just not sure it works that way because experiences and facts can be objective and absolute but morality is essentially an opinion which is formed out of facts and experiences.
Objective as defined by Merriam-Webster:
1 b : of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind (experiences that aren't hallucinations or illusions but are actually occurring and can be perceived by anyone)
3 a : expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations (not letting emotions or bias influence your perception of facts)
It is objectively verifiable that certain things are harmful to us and/or unnecessarily make our lives more difficult but it's technically just an opinion that we wouldn't want those things done to us. A general guideline that most people can agree to is that life is preferable to death, pleasure is preferable to pain, health is preferable to sickness, positive emotions are preferable to negative ones etc. We don't like when harmful things are done to us and it's pretty easy to come to a social agreement of trying to minimize harmful experiences and maximizing beneficial experiences. Some people say that objective morality exists in the sense that certain actions in certain situations will objectively result in the most beneficial outcome with the least amount of unnecessary harm but seldom are any two situations exactly alike and many factors need to be taken into consideration when judging the outcome. I think a relative morality based on objective facts and taking circumstances into account is the only reasonable way to approach any situation we are judging. Yes, murder will always be wrong regardless of the situation because the very definition of murder is the unjustified, unlawful killing of someone. Murder by definition is an immoral act so it's a tautology to say an act that is defined in such a way as to leave no room for it to ever be moral is immoral.
//If no absolute truth (or universal truth) exists, the very exercise of attempting to discover truth is a fruitless affair.//
Sure, the universe operates in a stable, predictable way, it has and will keep doing what it does under natural processes even though we don't understand how all these things work. As I stated previously, "truth" is a label placed on statements that are believed to accurately represent reality, any "truth" we discover is just something that we didn't know yet about our universe but you jump straight from a talk of moral truth to scientific ones with the following:
//However, we do know absolute truth exists as evidenced by the existence of the laws of logic, laws of mathematics and laws of science.//
These laws were not discovered in a coal mine somewhere, they were invented by people making observations and using reasoning skills to develop explanations of natural phenomena that have been tested repeatedly and appear to be a consistent aspect of our universe.>>>P315 note--We didn’t address this in the conversation because there was so much else to address, but will do so here: The laws of logic were not “invented.” They were discovered inductively through logic and reason the same way the laws of algebra were. That is, they were discovered in the realm of the mind, not in the physical realm such as coal mines. Our rational experience is just as much a part of our experience as physical elements we experience in a coal mine. Demonstrating this is easier than explaining it, and we will demonstrate it below.
Excerpt from Wikipedia about Laws of Science:
The laws of science or scientific laws are statements that describe or predict a range of phenomena behave as they appear to in nature.[1] The term "law" has diverse usage in many cases: approximate, accurate, broad or narrow theories, in all natural scientific disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy etc.). An analogous term for a scientific law is a principle.
Scientific laws:
1.summarize a large collection of facts determined by experiment into a single statement,
2.can usually be formulated mathematically as one or several statements or equation, or at least stated in a single sentence, so that it can be used to predict the outcome of an experiment, given the initial, boundary, and other physical conditions of the processes which take place,
3.are strongly supported by empirical evidence - they are scientific knowledge that experiments have repeatedly verified (and never falsified). Their accuracy does not change when new theories are worked out, but rather the scope of application, since the equation (if any) representing the law does not change. As with other scientific knowledge, they do not have absolute certainty (as mathematical theorems or identities do), and it is always possible for a law to be overturned by future observations.
4.are often quoted as a fundamental controlling influence rather than a description of observed facts, e.g. "the laws of motion require that..."
The laws of logic are not something that governs the universe but serve as a foundation for reasoning skills and are only used by sentient beings to help navigate our world.
Laws of math are like a mix of the laws of science and laws of logic in that it is a form of logical reasoning that can be expressed in numbers and the results can be tested against reality.
These are things that we have developed throughout our history, not discovered. The universe is comprised of matter, energy and forces that influence the matter and energy, nowhere does there appear to be some realm where numbers and logic exist that we discovered, there isn't a "2" somewhere in the universe.
//As the first level of the chart explains, the very denial of the existence of absolute truth is an affirmation of its reality (law of noncontradiction).//
I don't know what you mean by this. If someone rejects the idea of absolute truth, how does that prove it exists?
//One doesn't need a PhD in quantum physics to understand what is impossible--something CANNOT come from NOTHING--PERIOD!//
Citation? I make no claim one way or the other about whether something can come from nothing or not as I have never personally observed "nothing" and have never heard of anyone successfully doing so. Note that I said these particles "pop in and out of existence in our universe, -seemingly- from nothing". I don't understand the physics and science behind his claims well enough to make an objection to it but neither have I heard yet any solid explanation as to why he thinks they are coming from nothing (I should probably get around to reading his book at some point, been collecting dust >.<). It might just be an unexplained phenomenon or it might actually be what he says, all I know is they have evidence of particles appearing and disappearing. I find it strange, though, that you insist that something can't come from nothing but isn't that what you believe as a Christian? A supreme being just -spoke- the universe into existence? Out of nothing? You claim we have to account for how something can come from nothing in order to explain how a universe can exist without a god but your viewpoint requires the presupposition that an infinitely complex, omniscient, omnipotent, disembodied consciousness pre-existed everything and created everything out of nothing (or itself?). The only thing they're claiming is that some kind of (-not- infinitely complex) quantum vacuum energy created positive energy that eventually spawned a universe (basically). It has the fewest extraneous assumptions and has the bonus of being based off observations and highly complex calculations that have proven quite useful in predicting future discoveries. The calculations only give us a tentative explanation for how things work, however, as their predictions can't be verified until they have evidence to demonstrate the claim true. If their calculations were always a perfect predictor and explainer of how reality works, there wouldn't be multiple models of how a universe can form that are being researched which is why I don't accept any extraordinary claim until it can be demonstrated to be true with hard evidence, I don't even accept these "string" and "M" and "multiverse" hypothesis as anything more than a tentative explanation that may or may not be true. I apply this same reasoning to religious claims as well which is why I don't accept that gods or supernatural powers exist because I haven't seen any sufficient justification to accept that they do and the honest, default position to take when dealing with an extraordinary claim isn’t to just accept it until someone can prove it wrong but to wait until it has been proven before accepting it.
Oi, one final thing I forgot to stick in there somewhere but I can't seem to find a spot that I like is this: the various hypothesis and models they try to construct are based on observations and calculations (not pulled out of their ass) made -within- our universe and might not necessarily apply to how a universe forms. Observing how things work within a universe doesn't necessarily mean they work the same way during universe spawning events.
P315: We can talk about relativism vs moral realism, and the universe later, but we need to take this one level at a time. And we can't go anywhere if we can't agree on level one. You disagree with level one correct? For clarification, the "absolute truth" we are affirming is also called objective truth (i.e. mind independent truth). The dichotomy presented in our chart is the basic philosophical debate between absolutism vs relativism (i.e. whether ALL truth is subjective/mind dependent). We tried to use layman's terms to make it easier for the average reader to understand. Btw, we agree with your statement that truth reflects reality (i.e. the correspondence theory of truth), but where we seem to disagree is over whether or not there is some ULTIMATE REALITY that is independent of our minds and make our disagreements meaningful. Let me explain...
When you tell someone, "you are wrong" you are tacitly affirming that somewhere out there exists some ULTIMATE REALITY (i.e. ABSOLUTE TRUTH) and you are closer to it than the person you are claiming is wrong. In other words, you are saying, "My view is closer to ULTIMATE REALITY/ABSOLUTE TRUTH than your view.
You can bring up subjective truths that are mind DEPENDENT to muddle the issue, but whatever strength you think this provides to your view is illusory. You see we are simply affirming mind INDEPENDENT truth (e.g. laws of logic, and mathematical truths) that we all experience and are evidence (through the incoherence of their denial) that absolute truth does exist. This doesn't mean ALL statements are either ABSOLUTELY true or not, because some statements are not absolute truth claims (e.g. my favorite car, or my favorite ice cream) and would therefore fall in a category error. But when you say, "you are wrong," you are making an absolute truth claim. Even though you didn’t explicitly say those words, it was thoroughly implied in your comment.
Any time you disagree with someone you affirm the absoluteness of the laws of logic (you are affirming 1) that there is a contradiction somewhere in their statement, and 2) that contradictions are NOT OK). If the laws of logic are not absolute then why are you wasting your time disagreeing with anyone? And how can anyone have a meaningful discussion if there is nothing absolutely wrong with contradicting yourself or reality? You can't have it both ways. Either the laws of logic are not absolute and therefore disagreeing with anyone about anything is meaningless, or the laws of logic are absolute and disagreements can be meaningful. I believe the laws of logic are absolute, and our disagreement is meaningful because one of us is closer to ULTIMATE REALITY/ABSOLUTE TRUTH than the other. If you agree, let's continue this conversation and find out whose view more accurately reflects reality; if not, we will have to part ways because it will be impossible to reason with someone who denies ultimate reality/absolute truth out of one side of their mouth, and implies our view doesn’t reflect ultimate reality/absolute truth out of the other.
Atheist (Jake): That made my brain hurt with the amount of twisting it had to do to make even an iota of sense. First off, saying, "you are wrong" does not mean that there is a contradiction, it (when applied to facts) means there is an error in the facts- i.e. a penny is worth $.01 in US money is true (right), while a penny is worth $.10 in US money is false (wrong). There is no such thing as absolute truth until there are absolute facts, since truth, by its very nature, is subjective. It is only what is perceived about an object until all sides are observed, and then all points of data lead to a fact. Also, the biggest problem with your logic Project 3 Fifteen is that the logic ends with God. Everything seems to have an origin point (which is logical) but God, and can be a something in nothingness. That immediately breaks the logic and invalidates your point. There could be something else, but tht is the problem- for something to exist, it has to have something to exist in.
P315: So Jake Pizorno was there something OBJECTIVELY WRONG with my comment or is it just not your preference? Is there something OBJECTIVELY WRONG with the logical chart or is it just not your preference? If there is nothing OBJECTIVELY WRONG with our chart or our comment then why are you here? If there is something OBJECTIVELY WRONG with the comment and our chart then thank you for affirming level one. And we accept your apology. Don't worry, pain in the brain is normal when you have been exposed to truth your brain is not used to.
Atheist (Jake): I seem to be missing something here. I never apologized. And, no, that was not truth, that was sheer stupidity. But I used to do those same mental gymnastics when I believed.
P315: For some reason you didn't answer the questions. Perhaps the pickle you are in is starting to materialize in your head. Don't feel bad. Even PhDs still argue for the position you are defending.
Greg Koukl, a Christian apologist, debated Dr. Marv Meyer over the issue of absolute truth. The title of the debate was, “Is Truth True?” Greg Koukl defended the resolve “Objective truth exists and can be known,” while Dr. Marv Meyer took the opposite.
Dr. Meyer tried to argue against Koukl’s view and in favor of his own. What Dr. Meyer didn’t notice was that with each argument for THE TRUTH of his view, he was actually sawing off the branch he was sitting on. Koukl pointed this out to the audience. He mentioned that Dr. Meyer was forced by the nature of debate itself to make use of the very thing he was denying in the debate, dooming his effort to failure from the outset. Just by showing up, Dr. Meyer had implicitly affirmed the resolve Koukl was defending, effectively conceding the debate to him from the beginning.
The audience would vote on who won the debate. Koukl pointed out to the audience that every vote cast for Dr. Meyer as the winner of the debate meant the voter had been persuaded that Dr. Meyer’s view was (objectively) true and Koukl’s was (objectively) false. Therefore, every vote for Dr. Meyer was really a vote for Koukl.
The audience laughed, but the point wasn’t lost on them. When the final tally came in, Dr. Meyer got only one vote. What you and Michael have confirmed is that if you were at this debate there would be an additional 2 votes for Dr. Meyer.
Atheist (Jake): Wow, that is some serious gymnastics there. Belief alone does not make something true, and there are a great many things that are readily believed that are false. Also, objective truths are actually impossible since we are not machines. To be persuaded by opinions requires a certain pull on the emotions, as one must put value to the arguments. Here is what the word objectively means, because I do not think it means what you think it means- not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion. intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book. All arguments rely on emotion, not facts. Therefore, you lose.
P315: Jake Pizorno Is the statement "all arguments rely on emotion" factual?
Atheist (Jake): Maybe I slipped into fallacy territory on that one. Point is that truth is neither universal or absolute, as not even facts are universal or absolute.
P315: "Point is that truth is neither universal or absolute, as not even facts are universal or absolute.">>> Is this statement absolutely true?
We can keep having fun with this and asking if any statement you make is objectively true, but I'd rather help you see what you clearly can't see. I've written about this in one of our blogs titled, "Don't disregard the obvious for the sake of the mysterious." You see, the major flaw in the reasoning of the relativist is they are using what we don't know to interpret the obvious ("since we don't know X, how can we know ANYTHING absolutely?"). In short, they disregard the obvious for the sake of the mysterious. What if we did this in all areas of life? We would then disregard all the mathematical truth that has been discovered (trigonometry, calculus, etc.) because of all the unsolved (mysterious) problems of math that we are not absolutely sure how to answer. We don't do that because we see the absurdity that follows.
So how can we be so sure about ANYTHING with so much uncertainty? We have all taken multiple choice tests and have been faced with questions that we did not know the answer to. But there were usually some answers that were obviously false, and by eliminating them you were that much closer to the right answer. As Sherlock Holmes says, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." You cannot have a married bachelor--that is impossible. That is an absolute truth because its antithesis is IMPOSSIBLE. You start with the basics (mathematical truths such as 2+2=4, logical contradictions that must be ABSOLUTELY false). Once you have demonstrated that some truth (math and logic) is absolute, you know that absolute truth exists and some things are closer to it than others.
The bottom line is: we don’t disregard the obvious for the sake of the mysterious--we interpret the unclear (what we don’t know absolutely) from the clear (what we do know absolutely).
Additionally, the reason we establish absolute truth on level one of our logical chart is because as much as you can try to help someone see that absolute truth exists, if the relativist refuses to acknowledge the obvious (there is absolute truth) then it will be impossible to reason with them further. Talking about God, the Bible, and life's fundamental questions (origin, meaning, morality, and destiny) is calculus level stuff meant for those who are not calling into question everything we know about the most basic laws of mathematics. If someone doesn't accept the most basic laws of math as true, how will they understand the complexity of calculus? Similarly, if someone denies the most basic axiom of thought and reason (the laws of logic are objectively true), how can you reason with them on matters as deep as God?
Those who don't accept the law of non-contradiction as absolute are stating implicitly that they have no problems with contradictions. No matter how much logic and reason you use, those who deny absolute truth (and with it the law of non-contradiction) can shamelessly contradict themselves with reckless abandon. Additionally, they will inevitably pull the relativism escape hatch whenever the light of truth becomes too much for them to bear. And just like that, the conversation will dissolve into meaninglessness. It is simply impossible to have a meaningful and coherent discussion with someone that considers contradictions just as viable and useful in conversation as logic and reason (i.e. the person who makes an absolute claim that there are no absolutes).
Some atheists claim “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." I disagree. I believe a more accurate statement is, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually short-sighted atheist." Postmodern relativism, on the other hand, has made it possible to be a comfortable, intellectually BANKRUPT atheist. Why are they comfortable in such intellectual bankruptcy? Some people are more interested in legitimizing a worldview that allows them to be their own god than actually arriving at the truth.
Atheist (Jake): And you fell at the finish line. The problem with this train of thought is that it takes some "liberties" with the truth versus facts. Your own words discredit you. First, you say that nothing can come from nothing. That means that everything has to have a point of origin. This logic must also apply to God. And speaking of morally bankrupt, your God has condoned slavery, rape, murder, incest, and a whole slew of other things. He is guilty of both vanity and wrath. Also, speaking of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, that thinking only applies to a closed space, one that remains static, which the universe is not. The more space, the more heat is needed to transfer. And if space grows faster than the heat, the argument falls on its face.
P315: I'm sorry Jake, you must have mistaken my last comment as an invitation to continue the debate. We can continue when you can answer this question: "Point is that truth is neither universal or absolute, as not even facts are universal or absolute.">>> Is this statement absolutely true?
Atheist (Jake): No. It is a fact. And facts are different than truths. Facts operate differently than truths, as facts are correct regardless of belief, which is what truths are based on.
P315: It is an [absolute] fact that "not even facts are universal or absolute"? Do you see the contradiction here?
You make a distinction between facts and truth based on belief. There are a couple of ways this distinction is described:
1. Objective truth vs subjective truth
2. Mind independent truth vs mind dependent truth.
The mistake you made in your last response is that you treated ALL truth as subjective/mind dependent.
Fact, mind independent truth, objective truth are all synonymous. In fact, the dictionary uses "truth"/"what is true" throughout the definition of "fact." The definition would be incoherent if truth was always mind dependent (based on belief).
Atheist (Jake): Truth is only what is perceived to be true, since many lies can become a truth if one believes them enough. How do you think scams work? And you are delving into philosophy here, about how one thinks. Either way, you are still pulling off some major Olympic level mental gymnastics. Also, why do you not believe in Thor, or Zeus? Don't they have truths about their existence?
P315: Is your last comment a fact, or just a belief? If the Olympic level mental gymnastics are just your BELIEF, do you BELIEVE they are gold medal level?
And btw, yes we are "delving into philosophy here", hence the name "Logical chart". Logical, meaning most in line with the laws of logic which are rooted in philosophy. If philosophy is irrelevant to you then the laws of logic (that are rooted in philosophy) will be equally irrelevant to you. The laws of logic are not based on the scientific method of experimentation and observation; the laws of logic are philosophical axioms of thought that give us a basis to have a rational discourse. The only way we can have a rational discussion is if we both agree that the laws of logic are absolutely true and to violate them means our statement is necessarily false.
Atheist (Michael) : I was starting to look up some philosophical material relevant to the discussion but it seems this has devolved into an Eric Hovind/Sye Ten style bullsh* fest. Instead of having an actual discussion, you're trying to force someone down a convoluted, scripted, non-sequitur path. An fyi, while I certainly can't speak for all dictionaries, the Merriam-Webster that I just checked does not use "truth" as part of its definition of "fact", also "truth" is primarily a philosophical concept while "fact", which does have philosophical musings, is more relevant as a scientific concept.
P315: Nobody is trying to force anybody down anything. I am simply trying to have a rational discussion. But in order for a discussion to be rational there must be some axiomatic rules. In science we have the scientific method, in philosophy we have the laws of thought/laws of logic (law of identity, law of non-contradiction, law of excluded middle, and law of inference). If someone doesn't accept the laws of logic as axiomatic (absolutely true) then I am not going to waste my time trying to reason/use logic with them. Every statement can be dissolved by subjectivism (e.g. "well that's true FOR YOU but not true FOR ME”). It would be like having a wrestling match in mid-air, or arguing over whose favorite ice cream is better.
Atheist (Michael): Watch as theists use a warped, bastardized version of logical reasoning that can easily be picked apart to "prove" christianity! because, y'know, you can totally logic something into existence, into being true even without any real evidence to support it...just so long as you don't scrutinize the "logic" being used, it all makes perfect sense!
P315: Michael, it's one thing to claim something can be "easily picked apart" but quite different to actually do so. With that said, which part of the logical chart do you disagree with?
Atheist (Michael): Other than the whole thing from start to finish being a collection of debunked and fallacious arguments that could easily be looked up if you wanted to know? Let me count the ways...
"Truth" is a philosophical/epistemological concept, a label placed on statements. If you want your model of reality to be as accurate as possible, you should place the "truth" label on statements that you believe most accurately reflect reality. "Truth" isn't a quality that anything possesses, it isn't something that can be measured, a statement is either an accurate reflection of realty or it isn't. "Absolute truth" is a concept you will only encounter in religion and doesn't even make sense. How can something be more true than true, an absolute truth? Like I said, a statement is either an accurate reflection of reality (and thus "true") or it isn't.
"Why is there something rather than nothing"?
I don't know! Wow! What a novel concept: admit when you don't have an answer that can be demonstrated to be true with facts and evidence instead of just asserting something. There's a variety of hypothesis and work-in-progress models of how our universe may have formed but nothing verifiable and demonstrable yet. There are some brilliant people spending their lives working on this great mystery and I noticed you dismissed for no explanation one of the hypothesis about this (vacuum/negative energy). Do you even understand the concept well enough to explain why you dismiss it out of hand or is it just inconvenient that there is some evidence to suggest that virtual particles pop in and out of existence in our universe, seemingly from nothing? Asserting as fact that which you can't demonstrate to be true is dishonest and if you don't have a verifiable answer to a question, it's dishonest to plug in the god of the gaps.
I've only scratched the surface here, I'll have to recheck the list before I continue as I can't do that while typing this comment on my phone but like I said in my original comment, you can't logic something into existence. Even if these arguments weren't fallacious, that still wouldn't be a substitute for actual, verifiable evidence as that is the only way to actually determine the existence or validity of a thing or idea. It's rather late, though, I'm off to bed, maybe I'll pick this up again later.
P315: >>> "Truth isn't a quality that anything possesses, it isn't something that can be measured, a statement is either an accurate reflection of realty or it isn't. "Absolute truth" is a concept you will only encounter in religion and doesn't even make sense. How can something be more true than true, an absolute truth?"
The concept of truth seems to be a bit confusing to you. I don't think I have ever come across someone who thought referring to absolute truth was an attempt to posit something to be truer than true (or more true than true). Most confusion results from lack of clarity between "objective" and "absolute" truth. Though not a direct response to your "more true than true" confusion, I do think clarifying the difference between objective truth and absolute truth will lend a helping hand.
Simply put, the opposite of “objective” is “subjective” and the opposite of “absolute” is “relative.” Now it doesn't require deep thought to see that "relative" (keep in mind "relative" truth and "relativism" are not the same thing) does not mean "subjective." Just because someone might have a moral duty that is relative to his/her circumstances, does not imply moral duties are subjective; that there isn't an objectively right or wrong thing to do in a given situation.
To clarify...
Objective = independent of people's (including personal) opinion
Subjective = just a matter of personal opinion
If there is such a thing as "objective" morality, then in the various circumstances we are confronted with, we are proscribed or obligated to do various actions, independent of personal opinion.
Absolute = regardless of the circumstances
Relative = varying with the circumstances
I think we can agree that it is not "absolutely" wrong to kill another person. Fact is, in some circumstances it is morally justified or even obligatory. However, murder is "absolutely" wrong.
With that said, it should not be too difficult to see why we refer to "absolute" truth at the top of the logical chart. If no absolute truth (or universal truth) exists, the very exercise of attempting to discover truth is a fruitless affair. However, we do know absolute truth exists as evidenced by the existence of the laws of logic, laws of mathematics and laws of science. As the first level of the chart explains, the very denial of the existence of absolute truth is an affirmation of its reality (law of noncontradiction).
>>> "There are some brilliant people spending their lives working on this great mystery and I noticed you dismissed for no explanation one of the hypothesis about this (vacuum/negative energy). Do you even understand the concept well enough to explain why you dismiss it out of hand or is it just inconvenient that there is some evidence to suggest that virtual particles pop in and out of existence in our universe, seemingly from nothing?"
We are familiar the theories advanced by Lawrence Krauss and the like. In fact here is a response taken directly from our page...
Lawrence Krauss cleverly changed the definition of the word “nothing” the same way Richard Dawkins changed the definition of God in his book The God Delusion. The word nothing is a term of universal negation meaning NOT ANYTHING. When someone says it’s plausible that the universe came from nothing, what you would have to mean is it’s plausible that the universe did not come from anything. But this is not what Krauss means. He has simply changed the meaning of the word “nothing” into meaning a quantum vacuum—which is actually something. Therefore, the claim that quantum physics shows something can come from nothing is a deceitful one because this “nothing” has fluctuating energy, is governed by physical laws, and has a physical structure. In short, this “nothing” (quantum vacuum) is “SOMETHING.”
Atheists often claim we "ignorant Christians" are just not smart enough to understand quantum physics. One doesn't need a PhD in quantum physics to understand what is impossible--something CANNOT come from NOTHING--PERIOD! Just because one person, Lawrence Krauss, decided to change the definition of the word "nothing" into a quantum vacuum (which is "something") doesn’t negate the original definition, nor does it nullify the problem that naturalists/atheists have yet to answer coherently and with logical consistency--the idea that something can come from not anything at all.
This idea that something NEW can pop into existence from something unrelated and undetected is nothing new to science. Scientists once believed in "spontaneous generation" because what they observed could not be properly understood by the naked eye. Similarly, just because science cannot yet explain the CAUSE of what we detect today at the quantum level (what appears to be spontaneous actions) does not mean we make the same mistakes scientists in the past made: "We cannot detect the cause; therefore, it must spontaneously generate."
Atheist (Michael): When I hear words like "objective" and "absolute", I think of experiences and facts, not morality, but you keep trying to apply them to morality and I'm just not sure it works that way because experiences and facts can be objective and absolute but morality is essentially an opinion which is formed out of facts and experiences.
Objective as defined by Merriam-Webster:
1 b : of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind (experiences that aren't hallucinations or illusions but are actually occurring and can be perceived by anyone)
3 a : expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations (not letting emotions or bias influence your perception of facts)
It is objectively verifiable that certain things are harmful to us and/or unnecessarily make our lives more difficult but it's technically just an opinion that we wouldn't want those things done to us. A general guideline that most people can agree to is that life is preferable to death, pleasure is preferable to pain, health is preferable to sickness, positive emotions are preferable to negative ones etc. We don't like when harmful things are done to us and it's pretty easy to come to a social agreement of trying to minimize harmful experiences and maximizing beneficial experiences. Some people say that objective morality exists in the sense that certain actions in certain situations will objectively result in the most beneficial outcome with the least amount of unnecessary harm but seldom are any two situations exactly alike and many factors need to be taken into consideration when judging the outcome. I think a relative morality based on objective facts and taking circumstances into account is the only reasonable way to approach any situation we are judging. Yes, murder will always be wrong regardless of the situation because the very definition of murder is the unjustified, unlawful killing of someone. Murder by definition is an immoral act so it's a tautology to say an act that is defined in such a way as to leave no room for it to ever be moral is immoral.
//If no absolute truth (or universal truth) exists, the very exercise of attempting to discover truth is a fruitless affair.//
Sure, the universe operates in a stable, predictable way, it has and will keep doing what it does under natural processes even though we don't understand how all these things work. As I stated previously, "truth" is a label placed on statements that are believed to accurately represent reality, any "truth" we discover is just something that we didn't know yet about our universe but you jump straight from a talk of moral truth to scientific ones with the following:
//However, we do know absolute truth exists as evidenced by the existence of the laws of logic, laws of mathematics and laws of science.//
These laws were not discovered in a coal mine somewhere, they were invented by people making observations and using reasoning skills to develop explanations of natural phenomena that have been tested repeatedly and appear to be a consistent aspect of our universe.>>>P315 note--We didn’t address this in the conversation because there was so much else to address, but will do so here: The laws of logic were not “invented.” They were discovered inductively through logic and reason the same way the laws of algebra were. That is, they were discovered in the realm of the mind, not in the physical realm such as coal mines. Our rational experience is just as much a part of our experience as physical elements we experience in a coal mine. Demonstrating this is easier than explaining it, and we will demonstrate it below.
Excerpt from Wikipedia about Laws of Science:
The laws of science or scientific laws are statements that describe or predict a range of phenomena behave as they appear to in nature.[1] The term "law" has diverse usage in many cases: approximate, accurate, broad or narrow theories, in all natural scientific disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy etc.). An analogous term for a scientific law is a principle.
Scientific laws:
1.summarize a large collection of facts determined by experiment into a single statement,
2.can usually be formulated mathematically as one or several statements or equation, or at least stated in a single sentence, so that it can be used to predict the outcome of an experiment, given the initial, boundary, and other physical conditions of the processes which take place,
3.are strongly supported by empirical evidence - they are scientific knowledge that experiments have repeatedly verified (and never falsified). Their accuracy does not change when new theories are worked out, but rather the scope of application, since the equation (if any) representing the law does not change. As with other scientific knowledge, they do not have absolute certainty (as mathematical theorems or identities do), and it is always possible for a law to be overturned by future observations.
4.are often quoted as a fundamental controlling influence rather than a description of observed facts, e.g. "the laws of motion require that..."
The laws of logic are not something that governs the universe but serve as a foundation for reasoning skills and are only used by sentient beings to help navigate our world.
Laws of math are like a mix of the laws of science and laws of logic in that it is a form of logical reasoning that can be expressed in numbers and the results can be tested against reality.
These are things that we have developed throughout our history, not discovered. The universe is comprised of matter, energy and forces that influence the matter and energy, nowhere does there appear to be some realm where numbers and logic exist that we discovered, there isn't a "2" somewhere in the universe.
//As the first level of the chart explains, the very denial of the existence of absolute truth is an affirmation of its reality (law of noncontradiction).//
I don't know what you mean by this. If someone rejects the idea of absolute truth, how does that prove it exists?
//One doesn't need a PhD in quantum physics to understand what is impossible--something CANNOT come from NOTHING--PERIOD!//
Citation? I make no claim one way or the other about whether something can come from nothing or not as I have never personally observed "nothing" and have never heard of anyone successfully doing so. Note that I said these particles "pop in and out of existence in our universe, -seemingly- from nothing". I don't understand the physics and science behind his claims well enough to make an objection to it but neither have I heard yet any solid explanation as to why he thinks they are coming from nothing (I should probably get around to reading his book at some point, been collecting dust >.<). It might just be an unexplained phenomenon or it might actually be what he says, all I know is they have evidence of particles appearing and disappearing. I find it strange, though, that you insist that something can't come from nothing but isn't that what you believe as a Christian? A supreme being just -spoke- the universe into existence? Out of nothing? You claim we have to account for how something can come from nothing in order to explain how a universe can exist without a god but your viewpoint requires the presupposition that an infinitely complex, omniscient, omnipotent, disembodied consciousness pre-existed everything and created everything out of nothing (or itself?). The only thing they're claiming is that some kind of (-not- infinitely complex) quantum vacuum energy created positive energy that eventually spawned a universe (basically). It has the fewest extraneous assumptions and has the bonus of being based off observations and highly complex calculations that have proven quite useful in predicting future discoveries. The calculations only give us a tentative explanation for how things work, however, as their predictions can't be verified until they have evidence to demonstrate the claim true. If their calculations were always a perfect predictor and explainer of how reality works, there wouldn't be multiple models of how a universe can form that are being researched which is why I don't accept any extraordinary claim until it can be demonstrated to be true with hard evidence, I don't even accept these "string" and "M" and "multiverse" hypothesis as anything more than a tentative explanation that may or may not be true. I apply this same reasoning to religious claims as well which is why I don't accept that gods or supernatural powers exist because I haven't seen any sufficient justification to accept that they do and the honest, default position to take when dealing with an extraordinary claim isn’t to just accept it until someone can prove it wrong but to wait until it has been proven before accepting it.
Oi, one final thing I forgot to stick in there somewhere but I can't seem to find a spot that I like is this: the various hypothesis and models they try to construct are based on observations and calculations (not pulled out of their ass) made -within- our universe and might not necessarily apply to how a universe forms. Observing how things work within a universe doesn't necessarily mean they work the same way during universe spawning events.
P315: We can talk about relativism vs moral realism, and the universe later, but we need to take this one level at a time. And we can't go anywhere if we can't agree on level one. You disagree with level one correct? For clarification, the "absolute truth" we are affirming is also called objective truth (i.e. mind independent truth). The dichotomy presented in our chart is the basic philosophical debate between absolutism vs relativism (i.e. whether ALL truth is subjective/mind dependent). We tried to use layman's terms to make it easier for the average reader to understand. Btw, we agree with your statement that truth reflects reality (i.e. the correspondence theory of truth), but where we seem to disagree is over whether or not there is some ULTIMATE REALITY that is independent of our minds and make our disagreements meaningful. Let me explain...
When you tell someone, "you are wrong" you are tacitly affirming that somewhere out there exists some ULTIMATE REALITY (i.e. ABSOLUTE TRUTH) and you are closer to it than the person you are claiming is wrong. In other words, you are saying, "My view is closer to ULTIMATE REALITY/ABSOLUTE TRUTH than your view.
You can bring up subjective truths that are mind DEPENDENT to muddle the issue, but whatever strength you think this provides to your view is illusory. You see we are simply affirming mind INDEPENDENT truth (e.g. laws of logic, and mathematical truths) that we all experience and are evidence (through the incoherence of their denial) that absolute truth does exist. This doesn't mean ALL statements are either ABSOLUTELY true or not, because some statements are not absolute truth claims (e.g. my favorite car, or my favorite ice cream) and would therefore fall in a category error. But when you say, "you are wrong," you are making an absolute truth claim. Even though you didn’t explicitly say those words, it was thoroughly implied in your comment.
Any time you disagree with someone you affirm the absoluteness of the laws of logic (you are affirming 1) that there is a contradiction somewhere in their statement, and 2) that contradictions are NOT OK). If the laws of logic are not absolute then why are you wasting your time disagreeing with anyone? And how can anyone have a meaningful discussion if there is nothing absolutely wrong with contradicting yourself or reality? You can't have it both ways. Either the laws of logic are not absolute and therefore disagreeing with anyone about anything is meaningless, or the laws of logic are absolute and disagreements can be meaningful. I believe the laws of logic are absolute, and our disagreement is meaningful because one of us is closer to ULTIMATE REALITY/ABSOLUTE TRUTH than the other. If you agree, let's continue this conversation and find out whose view more accurately reflects reality; if not, we will have to part ways because it will be impossible to reason with someone who denies ultimate reality/absolute truth out of one side of their mouth, and implies our view doesn’t reflect ultimate reality/absolute truth out of the other.
Atheist (Jake): That made my brain hurt with the amount of twisting it had to do to make even an iota of sense. First off, saying, "you are wrong" does not mean that there is a contradiction, it (when applied to facts) means there is an error in the facts- i.e. a penny is worth $.01 in US money is true (right), while a penny is worth $.10 in US money is false (wrong). There is no such thing as absolute truth until there are absolute facts, since truth, by its very nature, is subjective. It is only what is perceived about an object until all sides are observed, and then all points of data lead to a fact. Also, the biggest problem with your logic Project 3 Fifteen is that the logic ends with God. Everything seems to have an origin point (which is logical) but God, and can be a something in nothingness. That immediately breaks the logic and invalidates your point. There could be something else, but tht is the problem- for something to exist, it has to have something to exist in.
P315: So Jake Pizorno was there something OBJECTIVELY WRONG with my comment or is it just not your preference? Is there something OBJECTIVELY WRONG with the logical chart or is it just not your preference? If there is nothing OBJECTIVELY WRONG with our chart or our comment then why are you here? If there is something OBJECTIVELY WRONG with the comment and our chart then thank you for affirming level one. And we accept your apology. Don't worry, pain in the brain is normal when you have been exposed to truth your brain is not used to.
Atheist (Jake): I seem to be missing something here. I never apologized. And, no, that was not truth, that was sheer stupidity. But I used to do those same mental gymnastics when I believed.
P315: For some reason you didn't answer the questions. Perhaps the pickle you are in is starting to materialize in your head. Don't feel bad. Even PhDs still argue for the position you are defending.
Greg Koukl, a Christian apologist, debated Dr. Marv Meyer over the issue of absolute truth. The title of the debate was, “Is Truth True?” Greg Koukl defended the resolve “Objective truth exists and can be known,” while Dr. Marv Meyer took the opposite.
Dr. Meyer tried to argue against Koukl’s view and in favor of his own. What Dr. Meyer didn’t notice was that with each argument for THE TRUTH of his view, he was actually sawing off the branch he was sitting on. Koukl pointed this out to the audience. He mentioned that Dr. Meyer was forced by the nature of debate itself to make use of the very thing he was denying in the debate, dooming his effort to failure from the outset. Just by showing up, Dr. Meyer had implicitly affirmed the resolve Koukl was defending, effectively conceding the debate to him from the beginning.
The audience would vote on who won the debate. Koukl pointed out to the audience that every vote cast for Dr. Meyer as the winner of the debate meant the voter had been persuaded that Dr. Meyer’s view was (objectively) true and Koukl’s was (objectively) false. Therefore, every vote for Dr. Meyer was really a vote for Koukl.
The audience laughed, but the point wasn’t lost on them. When the final tally came in, Dr. Meyer got only one vote. What you and Michael have confirmed is that if you were at this debate there would be an additional 2 votes for Dr. Meyer.
Atheist (Jake): Wow, that is some serious gymnastics there. Belief alone does not make something true, and there are a great many things that are readily believed that are false. Also, objective truths are actually impossible since we are not machines. To be persuaded by opinions requires a certain pull on the emotions, as one must put value to the arguments. Here is what the word objectively means, because I do not think it means what you think it means- not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion. intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book. All arguments rely on emotion, not facts. Therefore, you lose.
P315: Jake Pizorno Is the statement "all arguments rely on emotion" factual?
Atheist (Jake): Maybe I slipped into fallacy territory on that one. Point is that truth is neither universal or absolute, as not even facts are universal or absolute.
P315: "Point is that truth is neither universal or absolute, as not even facts are universal or absolute.">>> Is this statement absolutely true?
We can keep having fun with this and asking if any statement you make is objectively true, but I'd rather help you see what you clearly can't see. I've written about this in one of our blogs titled, "Don't disregard the obvious for the sake of the mysterious." You see, the major flaw in the reasoning of the relativist is they are using what we don't know to interpret the obvious ("since we don't know X, how can we know ANYTHING absolutely?"). In short, they disregard the obvious for the sake of the mysterious. What if we did this in all areas of life? We would then disregard all the mathematical truth that has been discovered (trigonometry, calculus, etc.) because of all the unsolved (mysterious) problems of math that we are not absolutely sure how to answer. We don't do that because we see the absurdity that follows.
So how can we be so sure about ANYTHING with so much uncertainty? We have all taken multiple choice tests and have been faced with questions that we did not know the answer to. But there were usually some answers that were obviously false, and by eliminating them you were that much closer to the right answer. As Sherlock Holmes says, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." You cannot have a married bachelor--that is impossible. That is an absolute truth because its antithesis is IMPOSSIBLE. You start with the basics (mathematical truths such as 2+2=4, logical contradictions that must be ABSOLUTELY false). Once you have demonstrated that some truth (math and logic) is absolute, you know that absolute truth exists and some things are closer to it than others.
The bottom line is: we don’t disregard the obvious for the sake of the mysterious--we interpret the unclear (what we don’t know absolutely) from the clear (what we do know absolutely).
Additionally, the reason we establish absolute truth on level one of our logical chart is because as much as you can try to help someone see that absolute truth exists, if the relativist refuses to acknowledge the obvious (there is absolute truth) then it will be impossible to reason with them further. Talking about God, the Bible, and life's fundamental questions (origin, meaning, morality, and destiny) is calculus level stuff meant for those who are not calling into question everything we know about the most basic laws of mathematics. If someone doesn't accept the most basic laws of math as true, how will they understand the complexity of calculus? Similarly, if someone denies the most basic axiom of thought and reason (the laws of logic are objectively true), how can you reason with them on matters as deep as God?
Those who don't accept the law of non-contradiction as absolute are stating implicitly that they have no problems with contradictions. No matter how much logic and reason you use, those who deny absolute truth (and with it the law of non-contradiction) can shamelessly contradict themselves with reckless abandon. Additionally, they will inevitably pull the relativism escape hatch whenever the light of truth becomes too much for them to bear. And just like that, the conversation will dissolve into meaninglessness. It is simply impossible to have a meaningful and coherent discussion with someone that considers contradictions just as viable and useful in conversation as logic and reason (i.e. the person who makes an absolute claim that there are no absolutes).
Some atheists claim “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." I disagree. I believe a more accurate statement is, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually short-sighted atheist." Postmodern relativism, on the other hand, has made it possible to be a comfortable, intellectually BANKRUPT atheist. Why are they comfortable in such intellectual bankruptcy? Some people are more interested in legitimizing a worldview that allows them to be their own god than actually arriving at the truth.
Atheist (Jake): And you fell at the finish line. The problem with this train of thought is that it takes some "liberties" with the truth versus facts. Your own words discredit you. First, you say that nothing can come from nothing. That means that everything has to have a point of origin. This logic must also apply to God. And speaking of morally bankrupt, your God has condoned slavery, rape, murder, incest, and a whole slew of other things. He is guilty of both vanity and wrath. Also, speaking of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, that thinking only applies to a closed space, one that remains static, which the universe is not. The more space, the more heat is needed to transfer. And if space grows faster than the heat, the argument falls on its face.
P315: I'm sorry Jake, you must have mistaken my last comment as an invitation to continue the debate. We can continue when you can answer this question: "Point is that truth is neither universal or absolute, as not even facts are universal or absolute.">>> Is this statement absolutely true?
Atheist (Jake): No. It is a fact. And facts are different than truths. Facts operate differently than truths, as facts are correct regardless of belief, which is what truths are based on.
P315: It is an [absolute] fact that "not even facts are universal or absolute"? Do you see the contradiction here?
You make a distinction between facts and truth based on belief. There are a couple of ways this distinction is described:
1. Objective truth vs subjective truth
2. Mind independent truth vs mind dependent truth.
The mistake you made in your last response is that you treated ALL truth as subjective/mind dependent.
Fact, mind independent truth, objective truth are all synonymous. In fact, the dictionary uses "truth"/"what is true" throughout the definition of "fact." The definition would be incoherent if truth was always mind dependent (based on belief).
Atheist (Jake): Truth is only what is perceived to be true, since many lies can become a truth if one believes them enough. How do you think scams work? And you are delving into philosophy here, about how one thinks. Either way, you are still pulling off some major Olympic level mental gymnastics. Also, why do you not believe in Thor, or Zeus? Don't they have truths about their existence?
P315: Is your last comment a fact, or just a belief? If the Olympic level mental gymnastics are just your BELIEF, do you BELIEVE they are gold medal level?
And btw, yes we are "delving into philosophy here", hence the name "Logical chart". Logical, meaning most in line with the laws of logic which are rooted in philosophy. If philosophy is irrelevant to you then the laws of logic (that are rooted in philosophy) will be equally irrelevant to you. The laws of logic are not based on the scientific method of experimentation and observation; the laws of logic are philosophical axioms of thought that give us a basis to have a rational discourse. The only way we can have a rational discussion is if we both agree that the laws of logic are absolutely true and to violate them means our statement is necessarily false.
Atheist (Michael) : I was starting to look up some philosophical material relevant to the discussion but it seems this has devolved into an Eric Hovind/Sye Ten style bullsh* fest. Instead of having an actual discussion, you're trying to force someone down a convoluted, scripted, non-sequitur path. An fyi, while I certainly can't speak for all dictionaries, the Merriam-Webster that I just checked does not use "truth" as part of its definition of "fact", also "truth" is primarily a philosophical concept while "fact", which does have philosophical musings, is more relevant as a scientific concept.
P315: Nobody is trying to force anybody down anything. I am simply trying to have a rational discussion. But in order for a discussion to be rational there must be some axiomatic rules. In science we have the scientific method, in philosophy we have the laws of thought/laws of logic (law of identity, law of non-contradiction, law of excluded middle, and law of inference). If someone doesn't accept the laws of logic as axiomatic (absolutely true) then I am not going to waste my time trying to reason/use logic with them. Every statement can be dissolved by subjectivism (e.g. "well that's true FOR YOU but not true FOR ME”). It would be like having a wrestling match in mid-air, or arguing over whose favorite ice cream is better.