Free Flight, Free Speech

Note that depending one' views on The Theory of Relativity of time and space the Last option in that poll could be voted on even if you are the most traditional creationist, so long as a beginning implies time.

There is another funny thing, MigPilot: Since millennia all believer's in absolute truths warn people that not believing in the same truths is the way into insanity, doom, oblivion, warts on noses and whatever bad things come to mind. Mental chaos is only one of the list. However, a lot of people doubting the absolute truth sold to them lived long and relative healthy mental lives. Examples are Albert Einstein, Robert Ressler, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King who didn't buy in the absolute truth that races have to be segregated till he was killed by quite confused follower of the absolute truth, Pythagoras (who also was haunted by followers of another absolute truth). The problem with "absolute truth" is, it has too much of a similarity with snake oil for my taste because it comes without prove and it demands not only faith (I can accept faith as a personal conclusion, nothing wrong with that) that is forced on people and, most of it, there is an infinite number of such "absolute truths" out there which kind of defies the idea of anything "absolute".

Truth is relative, namely relative to the set of rules you apply something to. Within science a statement is true if it fits the rules of science. If it does not, it is false. Within christianity a statement is true if it fits the rules of the bible, and within the muslim belief if it fits the rules of the koran.

Al rulesets are in the end based on a belief. If you go all the way back to the origin of a rule,you come to a point where there is an unprovable assumption people have faith in. Even in science. Pythagoras assumed a2 + b2 = c2 out of many measurements. If he had measured a millimeter different, we would now live with a rule like a2 + b2 + 1 = c2.

So in a sense we can say that science is a form of belief too. Namely the belief in that the assumptions at the base of the rules are correct and universally applicable.

Truth can not apply to a whole rule set, because in the end rule sets are all based on assumptions. The assumption that there is a god, that Pythagoras measured correct, etc...

How would you think of this situation? There are two games. One game has a rule to do 2 steps per eye of the die and the other does 3. Someone who plays the 2 steps game a lot can not go about claiming the 3 steps game is wrong. Only within a game truth applies. If you play the one game then 2 steps are true and if you play the other game 3 steps are true.

Also it is impossible to prove a rule set is right by number of people that believe in it. The majority can be mislead by misinformation. In Germany during ww2 almost all Germans believed their leader was the truth. Does that prove that the few that opposed were wrong? Galileo was one of the few that believed in helio centrism. The majority under leadership of the christians believed the earth was central. Was Galileo wrong because he was in a minority?

In the end it is all about choice which rule set(s) people want to believe in. The assumptious nature of the rule sets implies that there should be some humbleness about the rightfulness of the rule set you choose. Respect the choices that others make. That does not mean you cannot challenge them respectfully with arguments.

Kind regard, Vincent

MIG29pilot wrote:

IAHM-COL wrote:

MIG29pilot wrote:Excuse me, I thought this was supposed to be a debate on the origins of the Universe

Fair point MiG29.

But there is not such debate.

You said that you believe in creation. That's an undebatable truth. No one can't use arguments to prove proponents wrong. It is the proponents' faith. Thus, causing an end of topic. On faith issues everyone is right on their own house.

If you want to go to the Science explanations instead. Those are not thruth. Those are frameworks of study, bound to hypothesis and tests. We don't get to believe in them. We get to understand their premises. These are debatable. But on your particular positions, these are also uninteresting. Therefore, if you are interested on binding to the scientific discourse, and understand the origin of the universe (outside of the faith), beware, you aren't speaking about thruth, and thus, everything is debatable.

Excuse me, but he who doesn't believe there is absolute and unchangeable truth is (just to give you fair warning) heading straight for mental chaos. Just so you know.

You know I really didn't want to get dragged into this as it can turn into a hundred page thread that changes no-one's minds.

You Mig on the other hand, seem to relish causing confrontation and conflict, which I found a particularly heinious bit of ass-hattery for someone so young.

P.S. I also wish there was a 'Like' button because JWocky has been posting a lot that resonates with me.

Heading straight for mental chaos?
While it is possible to have absolute truth (everyone agrees a tornado blowing through a scrapyard can absolutely not build a Boeing 747 with the software, cabin, etc installed - in essence as a factory would do it. That is going too far).
But tomorrow, someone may make a discovery that may rule out something man thinks...
But it will not be denying a God. It is an axiom (perhaps I have used the wrong word.) It may not be proved or disproved, yet it is logical and self-evident when we look at the DNA, or the eye that someone designed this.
I mean, perhaps a tornado may blow parts of metal into a 747 fuselage (but will not weld it together), but with software installed? With a cabin in place? Painted?
Software being DNA. Cabin and paint being eg the complex systems of the body.

What is that thing about mental chaos? I am completely not worried about that, as i am not worried about christianity or science.

If you want to know, i believe in completely nothing, not god, not science. Does that bring me in mental chaos? I would not say so. I have a very good life.

Kind regards, Vincent

LesterBoffo wrote:P.S. I also wish there was a 'Like' button because JWocky has been posting a lot that resonates with me.

+1

As far as absolute truths go, and that is far from absolute since we can't even define that term ...

1.) We can rely on the fact, that a certain part of the scientific knowledge of today is the mistake of tomorrow. We only don't know which part.

2.) We can't scientific prove the existence of God nor can we prove the non-existence. Often, people with a good half-scientific education think, that the impossibility to prove the existence would mean, this would be an automatic prove of the non-existence, but in fact, it is merely bad math to assume this. Mathematics for example knows explicitly for this the term of an indeterminable statement.

3.) I don't know whether my beliefs are correct. I have faith in them. You don't know whether your beliefs are correct, but you have face in them. There is no deity known in human history who ever appeared in person and demanded to bash the heads of followers of other belief systems in. Those orders came always from mortals who spoke without any prove of legitimization for deities.

4.) A discussion about evolution or intelligent design is a side show. Sorry, I know, a lot of people think, it is important, but honestly, ... even if one could prove intelligent design, you can't prove who did it and even if you prove it was all evolution, it wouldn't dismiss the existence of God, it would only shift the question how such a complex system in which evolution actually works can pop up. So we end at the same point and turning in circles for eternity isn't a good thing, neither in a concept of intelligent design nor in terms of evolution.

Those are the four truths, I personally consider as near to absolute as a mortal mind can imagine. Others may have other sets.

Oh well. Time for the second armistice, I think. We will finish this discussion after I have finished my physics course at Oxford, if ever I get there.