Do athiests actually ask what is truth? Or I refuse to believe your truth? (Page 3) StuckInTheSixties: Encarta Dictionary: English (North America) truth something factual; the thing that corresponds to fact or reality  LiptonCambell: >>>I wonder if becoming religious is something like experiencing a Gestalt shift. Know what I mean? Like that picture which can be viewed either as a vase or two people facing each other, but not both at the same time. How the picture is seen can be strongly influenced by expectations. If the subject is told he/she is going to be shown a picture of a vase, he/she will almost always see a vase (at least to begin with), and vice versa. Astounding. Truly insightful. StuckInTheSixties: I think you're probably right. Perhaps the religious person sees the world through the lenses of their religion, thus, they perceive "significance" that otherwise wouldn't be perceived.  ewarner1: Websters, which I hope can be accepted as having good definitions says this, it is not a simple definition or a simple concept, number three would certainly cover religion. plural truths\ˈtrüthz, ˈtrüths\ Definition of TRUTH 1a archaic : fidelity, constancy b : sincerity in action, character, and utterance 2a (1) : the state of being the case : fact (2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality (3) often capitalized : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true <truths of thermodynamics> c : the body of true statements and propositions 3a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality b chiefly British : true 2 c : fidelity to an original or to a standard ewarner1: I am not that familar with the concept of the Geshalt shift, but if I understand it, I think your thought is a profound one, my thinking certainly underwent a huge change, perhaps the way of looking at it can be explained like this: A man is badly burned, in fact he is fighting for his life, he is not religious. A prayer chain is started in his community and eventualy hundreds of people pray for him. He survives and has never felt as strong as he was battling his pain, for his life. As a non believer he believes he felt strong because he, himself, found strength within himself. The religious people believe he was stronger because the prayers to God were answered. Each finds the answer they want by looking at the events and finding the answers. Same facts, different conclusions, both cannot be truly the truth however. One answer is the truth, which we truly cannot know.  Lucifera: Thawalkingman asked me to give my definition of what I believe "truth" is. To me, "truth" is something that I can relate to because it turns out to be reliable, consistant and according to proven facts. This fits poorly with "religious truths", I'm afraid, because those are based on faith and conviction rather than facts. Actually, some ardent theists don't recognise fact-based truth even if it flies in their face and bites their nose so hard that it hurts [aka "wilful denial"]. LOL  CoIin: You might also say that we bring as much "baggage" to any experience as whatever the thing "out there" does. This is why I said we must be very wary. This is how people can get hurt badly. CoIin: Truth?? Sigh I've posted this before, but it needs to be aired as often as possible:- Whenever you think you have a handle on the truth, look in the mirror and say, "I may be wrong. I may be very wrong. I may be hopelessly and irretrievably wrong." And in that, you may be right. -- Daniel N Robinson (a very wise man) Yes, that goes for all of us, not just "them". It may turn out that the problem is not how to identify a witch. It may be that there ARE no witches. Oh, you say we know better than that now? ewarner1: I tend to agree, athiests would say that religious people blind themselves to all thoughts, ideas, concepts that tend to deny God or faith. However, religious people would say that athiests tend to do the same thing, which has been my experience as well. Athiests tend to hang out with and associate with other athiests as much as Christians do, if not more. In fact these forums tend to become athiest support networks more than anything else. A truth seeker does shy away from those arguments which seem the strongest against his or her side. Lack of an alternative viewpoint makes us stagnent. I would never suggest that all athiests are fools, after all I was at one time one, just mistaken. Likewise I think you could say of the 2 billion + Christians in the world, not all of us are dunces. (Post deleted by staff ) ewarner1: Agnostics have always had my respect, what you say is my mind is open. I started this post to test my theory. Do most (I would never say all) athiests show a truly closed mind on the topic of God and the answer is yes. I remember this from my own days as a athiest. I have known far more athiest zealots than I ever knew Christian ones. CoIin: @ Ewarner..... here we go again LOL. You emphasize the importance of being open-minded, so....Do you believe in Zeus? Or do you assume an agnostic position? How about the New Guinean pantheon? We have hundreds here in Taiwan too. Would it be silly to believe in these? Would it be silly to maintain an open mind? Just a thought.... nothing makes a god more ridiculous than his/her loss of followers. (Edited by CoIin) level11: None whatsoever, unless you have a strong desire to let somebody or something else control your life... Juno: Innit amazing how a christian can turn the tables and call an atheist close minded? The truth is God does not exist...there is no proof. I have researched many religions in my time trying to seek my own truth. Before you say that you cannot prove that there is not a God I give you this quote from Ayn Rand "You are never called upon to prove a negative" An atheist does not need a security blanket like religion. That is a TRUTH. StuckInTheSixties: ewarner1 says: “Agnostics have always had my respect …” Gee whiz! Thanks! ewarner1 says: “what you say is my mind is open” Precisely! Well … sort of. My way of thinking is sort of two-faced … erm … dualist. There’s a sort of absolute way of considering things, and there’s a looser, pragmatic way. In my way of thinking, in the absolute sense, pretty much ANYTHING is possible (including Zeus). But I also see things not just in terms of what’s possible, but also, what’s probable. And not everything has a great deal of probability (such as Zeus … and Jesus … and Allah, etc.). And because I don’t wanna be acting like a contract attorney every instant of every day, I’ll speak loosely at times, which makes me seem more like the atheist that is absolutely convinced that there is no God, especially when I'm responding to irrational religious dogma. But truly, I’m uncertain about it. And not particularly concerned about it. (Edited by StuckInTheSixties) (Post deleted by staff ) (Post deleted by staff ) StuckInTheSixties: BoredBeyondBelief says: "... at least two or three tales in the bible have absolutely, positively no evidential support." Two or three? There's little in the Bible supported by any thing reasonably called "evidence." There are some people, and some places. Some very generalized events, such as Roman colonization of Israel and other places. There's some stuff like that. But most of the major figures have barely anything about them that could be considered "evidence." Not unless you want to contort the meaning of the word. BoredBeyondBelief says: "The denial of death is as natural as the desire for sex (etc etc the rest of that paragraph)." Well put. (Edited by StuckInTheSixties) CoIin: The greatest irony of all is that it's only because the world is so imperfect that gods are needed. If the world was perfect, why would we need gods? Who's going to pray when all is well and all will always be well? The more suffering there is, the more doctors are required. I'd be wary of making Heaven too nice if I were Him... (Post deleted by staff ) | Religion Chat Room 32 People Chatting Similar Conversations |