by cappytan 35 Replies latest jw friends
Mathematical truths are absolute because they are tautologous.
Other stuff isn't absolute. That's classic JW thinking. How we view things and describe them depends on our perspective. Things look different from different perspectives. The only way to maintain absolute truth is to claim that one perspective is better than all the others: God's perspective, or science, or Marx or so on. If you accept that more than one perspective on reality is valid the you can't maintain absolute truth.
This is the essence of critical thinking.
By the way, If truth was absolute, no need of critical thinking ;)
If someone is talking about their height and claiming to be tall "absolutely," it could easily be proven "true" or "false" by looking at statistics.
They aren't claiming to be "tallest," they are just claiming to be "tall."
If someone is talking about their height and claiming to be tall "absolutely," it could easily be proven "true" or "false" by looking at statistics
Statistics about what?
No, just someone claims "i'm tall absolutely", I laugh, because it's a non-sense!
The word truth in of itself can have different meanings that are not exactly the same.
If we were to throw the word out and use some other meanings in its place, it may change our discussions.
Is it fact?
Is it reality?
Is it authentic?
Is it the opposite of falsehood?
Again I think we all take a word and try to squeeze it into one meaning. We (and the witnesses) can get into semantic debates about "truth", but should we? or should we take everything piece by piece then apply what kind of truth we are trying to associate with it.
otherwise you get into these practices of silly details. Is the sky blue...yes... what about at night...no...but you said yes... i meant during the day looking up from earth on a cloudless clear day... OY VEY
there are many truth theories, and if a witness ever played this card, you just need to stop using the word "truth" because as we already know, witnesses have their own proprietary definition of what that word means, truth is whatever they say it is right or wrong!.
607 doctrine, is it fact/reality. NO!
and on and on and on
"I'm tall" on it's own contains some assumptions - most reasonable people would assume you're talking about humans, in the locality, with the commonly accepted view of what constitutes "tall" and really mean "most people would consider me to be tall" (based on these assumptions).
To make something binary true / false means we need to include all the extra detail. Normally, we don't do this - we make assumptions with language all the time otherwise a simple conversation would be tiresome.
The internet has given a place for people who want to be tiresome, pedantic and irritating. They can anonymously come out with nonsense such as "ha, I was talking about tall from the perspective of a giraffe" (or an ant).
A true thing is true, a false thing is false. The hard part is making sure you fully understand the question.
My message has always been: "what are you afraid of?"
Read 1 John 4
"A true thing is true"
Of course if you make the hypothesis that the thing is true, then it's true. A "true thing" is always true..
But the hard part is not so much to understand the question, but to don't forget to question the hypothesis : this thing that's called "true thing", it's really a "true thing" ?
And even it's not really the point of the talk. Your point is clearly that a true thing is true. My point is, yes, but it's never absolutely true. Your message explain very great by itself why it isn't and why it can't be!
I told a weak witness recently to examine his religion. I said to him that the truth can stand up to research.
Crossing my fingers that he listened to me. If he drops the cult, he will have huge relief from his guilt issues and never, ever being good enough despite decades of trying.
The truth CAN stand up to research, if it's true. And if it doesn't, it's false, and doesnt deserve to be called truth anymore. Name me any type of ANYTHING that it wasn't beneficial to research outside material about before signing up for. What company you might want to work for, what insurance company you might want to get, what stock funds you might want to buy, what school you might want to send your kids to, how to build a house most efficiently, what car to buy, what shoes to buy...suddenly when you are choosing a religion, witnesses expect you to do NO outside research. This thing that controls your life and affects you in every way, you aren't supposed to research outside info on. This thing that is going to consume almost all of your free time....you aren't supposed to do outside research on before signing up. This thing that controls your WHOLE. LIFE.
TRUTH CAN STAND UP TO RESEARCH. Isn't it eye opening they feel so threatened by research? Doesn't that tell you something?
