Religion

[formerly known as hf]

I've probably made my views clear on this before. I definately do not believe in a God, or Gods, or spirits or anything religious of any kind.

As for truth. There is no such thing as 'the' truth - there is no single truth, but, instead, we each have our own personal truth. What is true for one person, or one group of people, is a flasehood to others, and vice versa.

Truth is highly subjective, there is no truth that is over-riding of this, that is true for everyone. Many people may feel that way, that their truth is the 'real' truth, and the truths of others are not. This is just not the case. There is no over-arching, fundamental, single 'truth' for people to strive for, even though many people think they have found something resembling a fundamental, single turth.

We all make our own personal truths by choosing what to believe. The search for 'the' real truth is in fact a search for a personal truth that an individual can believe in.

So, in answer to your question. No, I do not think any single religion or belief has 'the' real, perfect truth. Neither do I think that is ever a possibility.
Also, if you ever find something that you feel is the truth, the thing to believe in, be aware that what you might feel is the central, perfect truth, is highly likely to change over time, and you may come to think that it wasn't so true, and start to look elsewhere.

[Michabean]

As for truth. There is no such thing as 'the' truth - there is no single truth, but, instead, we each have our own personal truth.

There either is a God or there isn't a God, farmer. We can't both be right.

[Michabean]

There either is a God or there isn't a God, farmer. We can't both be right. Sorry, I forgot to unquote.

[formerly known as hf]

Yes, we can. We are both right. We are also both wrong.

[deadboy]

As for truth. There is no such thing as 'the' truth - there is no single truth, but, instead, we each have our own personal truth. What is true for one person, or one group of people, is a flasehood to others, and vice versa.

Well that is a pretty stupid thing to say, of course there is "the" truth, the problem is that we have no way of knowing what it is, even if we do work it out

[KiNG KiLL]

Of course there are truths that applies to everyone in the world!

Who is the president of America?
Are there more people living in China than in the Vatican?
Do you read a book?
Does every living person have a body?
Is iron heavier than cotton?

And so on...

These things, we can all agree on, right? These are things we all can feel and appreciate. These are facts.

[deadboy]

Yes there are facts, and I still don't get your point, saying they are facts is just proof that there is a truth

[KiNG KiLL]

Dee wrote:

When I was younger, I seriously considered joining Christianity, mainly because they believed in the same God, and also because I wanted to try something new. But I also wanted to be rational about it, so I read more, understood more, and for me, I decided the true relegion was Islam.

All right, then i realize you at least have considered other religions, that's a very good thing in my opinion...

But why didn't you open up for each and every possibilty? Why only christianity? As you say, it's a similar god, but if you look real hard, perhaps you will find a religon that suits you even more. Why should christianty have it right, because it's a major religon? But one can't go around looking into each and every religon and belif, it would take way too much time. But if one doesn't make a complete search of information, how can one claim that thier religon is the true one? That's what I'm having a hard time accepting.

The reason why one would have to do a complete research in this case is because there are no hard facts on what either religion claims. No book can serve as evidence for something. It's the same reason why one can't say that it is true that there are aliens visiting our planets, just because thousands of people have witnessed it. There are no evidence, no way of proving it. As long as stories or beliefs contains supernatural things, of course we will always respond to it as doubtful. If you wouldn't, there would be chaos.

[KiNG KiLL]

Deadboy, I was responding to what hallucinatingfarmer said. That there is no truth, no single truth. There is.

[Phalynx]

Of course there are truths that applies to everyone in the world!

Who is the president of America?
Are there more people living in China than in the Vatican?
Do you read a book?
Does every living person have a body?
Is iron heavier than cotton?

And so on...

These things, we can all agree on, right? These are things we all can feel and appreciate. These are facts.

The media tells me a man called George Bush is president, I think that's probable.. I don't KNOW it through personal expereince... could be a robot, an imposter etc. etc.

I have no way of knowing how many people are in China or the vatican...

I think I read a book.... however tomorrow I might think I can fly... My daughter when she was three thoughts she was reading a book cos she looked at the pictures.. maybe she was 'for her'...

Do I have a body.... is this all a dream?

Is Iron heavier than cotton, not specific enough, how much, in what form etc...
Even Facts are relative terms....

If I read the bible/Qu'ran (insert text here) I can choose to accept it as fact, or not - who knows what real and true!

[formerly known as hf]

You're misunderstanding me.

kingkill's 'Facts' are not the same as 'truths'. (although I have similar arguments about the subjectivity of 'facts', they are, by and large, less subjective than truth.)
Edit: Phalynx heplfully picked the obvious holes which I was gonna do, but decided not to. I would agree with the point, that facts are subjective in themself, and far from universally true in being believed.

I was dissussing truth as in the belief of the reality of something, without, or even with, widely acknowledged facts.

the problem is that we have no way of knowing what it is, even if we do work it out

You kinda just argued against your first statement that there is a universal truth there.
As long as we do not know for certain - and we can never know for certain - whether there is or isn't a God or Gods, there is no possibility of a single, universal, true belief.

As such, there are multiple truths, multiple falsehoods, which overlap and contradict.

[Phalynx]

But I think in essence we are talking about the boundary between 'knowledge' and 'belief' or 'faith'...

[The Sociologist]

Truth only exists in mathematics and formal logic. Even established scientific statements are merely said to be well corroborated. "The earth is round" is a very highly corroborated statement, and is most unlikely ever to be refuted, but it is still not "true." However, theorems of geometry are "true" in that absolute sense because of the way in which they are deduced.

This is the other side of the coin of the moronic nonsense in the US, especially on the part of certain politicians who are either really dumb or else think their voters are: "Evolution is only a theory" Obviously it is! Newtonian physics is likewise a theory. All such theories become established to the degree in which the statements comprising them are corroborated and not refuted. Both the above theories are very highly established indeed.

There yet is another kind of language, of course, in which one can speak of "moral truths". This is tricky because in a sense such truths are found deductively and not necessarily subject to scientific testing.

Now, in the light of that I voted "No" to (1), (2) and (3). It is plausible that most world religions hint at many moral truths, unlikely that any of them hint at all such truths, and in any case they all come with a load of accreted baggage that may even do positive harm on occasion.

Finally, I would however point out that "secularism" in the West is itself a religion. It operates in exactly the same way, having its own positive beliefs, its condemnations (heresies), its prophets and so on. For example a jail sentence for denying the holocaust is a clear example of a heresy, since the holocaust is one of the various "icons" of belief that have been erected. Various other kinds of "political correctness" are likewise raised to iconic status. Indeed, Western "Secularism" shows all the signs of a religion in the making. In its triumphalist version it is used to lambast Islam, which is great news for the warmongers. So everyone should be careful there. Triumphalism is a dangerous thing, rather like fascism.

[Dee]

That's right, we have no proof for God. But we have brains, and we use them. If you read the Qur'an, you will find miracles. It was a book that was wrote more than a thousand years back, and everything in it is so true. The words in the Qur'an were said by Allah himself, and we go back to it whenever we want to know what to do about something, it's all there in the book.

What proves that the book has miracles, a lot of people have wrote about the scientific explanation for the Qur'an, about all the scientific facts that were mentioned in it, and people are just discovering it today, they were not known a thousand years back. It's a book full of mysteries, that once are solved, you believe more and more in it. And when you believe more in it, you believe in Allah, because it was Him who said those words, so he must know better than all of us. Therefore He is God.

King Kill, that's why I considered joining the Christianity, because they believed in the same God... I knew there was Allah, but I questioned Islam itself.

I have a book that is a scientific explanation of what was mentioned in the Qur'an about the Earth. Unfortunately, it's in Arabic. I don't know if there are any translations of the book. I haven't yet read through it all, but when I will, perhaps I will be able to give you examples. It might help.

[Joshuamonkey]

Uhh, Dee.... Do you really think that's the only book with miracles in it? Bible...Book of Mormon.
Joseph Smith:

Shouldn't there be one religion that's right for all?

Maybe...Those miracles are true in the book you're talking about...So maybe they're true in the books I'm talking about too. Even if different religions are talking about the same "being" their beleifs and morals are different. By the way, do you know how much power presidents of religions have?
If Gordon B. Hinckley said no caffeine or something like that, I would no longer use caffeine. (lol, its true, Mormons have a no caffeine policy)