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Post by sblomietheinsane on Mar 23, 2005 13:51:49 GMT -5
Yeah... I agree with that very last statement. Silver, I'm really sorry if you feel like you're being slammed. I personally will try to keep my tone down. I don't think this should be a debate. A dscussion is preferable.
...... Why think otherwise? I really am confused. Why should we question that oxygen is oxygen? No matter what you call it, it still is itself. Names don't make a thing... or person for that matter. you can call a cow a horse, but that doesn't change what it is, right? These are real questions, too, not rhetorical.
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Post by SilverSergyon13 on Mar 23, 2005 14:56:09 GMT -5
I was just basing my answer on an example. I don't really think that Hydrogen is not hydrogen, but what I was saying is that if someone wanted to believe otherwise, how would you stop them? If they believe so strongly otherwise, there is no wway you could change that, unless of course they are willing to change their beliefs.
Really the example could be anything. Like you said, If I wanted (hypothetical of course) to call a horse a cow and I believed a horse really was a cow, how would one go about stopping that?
Basically what I am saying is that the mind is a powerful thing. For example, if one goes through life truly believing they will get cancer, or some other disease and they truly truly believe this, the mind can make it true. I've seen it happen to people too, so I know how powerful the mind is. Pretty much, if someone believed they were just going to die and they believed that so much that it became absolute truth, the mind would make it true, and eventually would shut your body down. Now of course that person would have to make this belief their life and always think about that and truly believe it without doubt.
I know a lot of you guys are writers and you probably make up a lot of things in your head to use in stories. A lot of these things can become real to you, and in your mind's eye (In your imagination), it is truth. I'm a big believer in the concious and subconcious so it gets somewhat complicated, but your subconscious is like your imagination. In the subconscious anything is possible. Like, have you ever just sat down and had a great idea for a picture, story or poem, so you write it, but when you go back and look at it you think "wait a minute, I wrote this?" When something like that happens you have tapped into your subconscious. The subconscious is where dreams take place and where anything can be true.
The subconcious world is just so amazing and mysterious!
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Post by sblomietheinsane on Mar 23, 2005 15:36:00 GMT -5
But, even if you believed, really, really believed a cow was a horse, with all your heart soul and mind... would that change what the cow was?
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Post by Master Warious on Mar 23, 2005 16:07:48 GMT -5
Random thought: If you called a skunk cabbage a rose would it smell sweeter?
(note: must know whata skunk cabbage is, think roses smell pretty or have read Shakespheare to understand that thought)
Sorry if you feel bashed. Bad week...I apologise for my rude behavior.
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Post by SilverSergyon13 on Mar 23, 2005 17:41:37 GMT -5
Nah, tis ok. It just seemed like everyone was ganging up on me, but tis better now ^.^
If you thought a cow was a horse, it wouldn't physically change what it actually was, but I think it would change in your mind. If I was to say "horse" to that person, they may picture a cow. Its kind of like teaching a dog. When I say "toy" to my dog, he pictures his toy (or if you would rather, he thinks of it). But when that dog is young, if you were to hold up say...a boot everytime you say toy, he would know that as his toy. Pretty much its all in the mind. Truth is somewhat an element of the imagination I think
I guess smells are opinion though. One example is with my friends and I. I like the smell of pickles, but one of my friends hates pickles.
However, in this case I think if a person thought a rose was skunk cabbage, when you say "rose" to them, they would think of a horrible smelling plant, but then skunk cabbage would be the beautiful thing others know as a rose.
Does that kind of make sense? I know I can be confusing at times.
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Post by Jandalf on Toast on Mar 23, 2005 21:08:53 GMT -5
Okay, I can see where everyone's approaching this from. I agree with a lot of different statements said previously coming from different people here.
I'll try to put down how I see it as a sort of analogy that I've thought over quite a bit on its own, and fit it into this.
Colour is a part of our everyday lives, even for the vast majority of those who experience colour blindness, since complete colour blindness is extremely rare. But that's not important at the moment. (grins) I'm going to assume everyone here can at least see a few shades of colour.
Let's say I see red. One day, I got the idea: what if red to me is something completely different to someone else? What if what I call red is more like what I call blue as perceived by someone else? They still call it red, but I would call it blue. And what they see as blue, I might call yellow. Even so, the emotional and subconscious response to your blue and my blue are the same—countless studies have already proven that, even if my idea is true.
Taken into scope this way, one could most certainly argue that truth is relative and varies between me and you, since what I call yellow isn't yellow to you. Right?
Not the way I see it. Because your blue and my blue invoke the same response, it doesn't matter if I'd call it something else. In essence, they are the same. And that's why I see truth as absolute.
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Post by sblomietheinsane on Mar 29, 2005 14:49:17 GMT -5
Well said, Jandalf.
Truth is what something is... Not what you believe something to be. That's why I say truth is absolute and not relative.
No matter what you call something or think about something, it does not change.
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Post by Master Warious on Mar 29, 2005 17:40:13 GMT -5
Why can't I ever put anything so concisely? Thanks for putting it that way Jandalf.
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Post by Jandalf on Toast on Apr 6, 2005 18:10:54 GMT -5
Heh. I can hardly ever get the point across if I don't use an analogy. Perhaps that's why I like the parables so much.
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Post by Jareth on May 18, 2005 12:53:20 GMT -5
I agree with Soc too. it's like someone telling me my eyes aren't blue because it's a matter of opinion, like saying that George Washington wasn't the first prez of the US....
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Post by Joan Omnipresent on May 19, 2005 19:28:46 GMT -5
In some ways, what a person believes become reality to that person. But "truth" and "reality" aren't synonyms in the way you are discussing them. All good discussion comes down to a matter of how we define things... *ponders Matrix quote on reality*
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Post by Master Warious on May 20, 2005 14:48:30 GMT -5
That is a very good point Joan. *what was the quote?*
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Post by Joan Omnipresent on May 20, 2005 15:11:49 GMT -5
I had to look through the script to find it...but this quote is worth the effort.
"What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about your senses, what you feel, taste, smell, or see, then all you're talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain. "
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Post by Master Warious on May 21, 2005 12:17:27 GMT -5
Thanks Joan. Hey Dudes, I looked up Truth in the dictionary. Here's all the definitions I found.
Truth as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary: 1: Truthfulness, honesty 2: The real state of things 3: the body of real events or facts: Actuality 4: a true or accepted statement or proposition 5: agreement with fact or reality Correctness
In light of the Dictionary definition Truth is not Changable. Truth is Absolute fact.
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Post by SilverSergyon13 on May 21, 2005 16:09:10 GMT -5
Ok, here is an interesting question. I can't give an explanation until I get an answer though.
Would you agree when I say it is TRUE that the color yellow exists in our world? You can see yellow, It is here, therefore you would say the truth of the matter is that yellow exists?
As soon as I get an answer I will explain the madness behind this question.
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Post by Jandalf on Toast on May 21, 2005 17:36:53 GMT -5
(grins) And therein lies the flaw with my analogy, since colour isn't really a state of its own, only a light wavelength. But I wasn't intending to get that technical with it. Anyway. In my perception, I would agree. Yellow is a reality to me in the way I see this world. I think that while truth remains absolute, reality can differ from person to person because perception differs, and we know this. It's obvious even in the fact that debates exist. In this way, someone might be in a state of mind to accept truth as relative and not absolute, or vice versa. They would make that their reality, whether it would be true or not. As for myself, I want to continually improve my reality by making it closer and closer to truth, so that from what I have set as a reality for myself, I can determine what I'm actually correct in and what I need to change. That process, taken into Christianity, defines the road of discipleship in a way.
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Post by SilverSergyon13 on May 21, 2005 19:19:55 GMT -5
Ok, well I guess I can give an explanation with that answer. It's not quite the one I need, but it'll do. I don't mean to be technical or anything. Just giving an example that some may be able to understand.
Yellow is not a wavelength, nor is it a color at all. In the world, the color yellow exists no where else except in the human mind. But then how come you see yellow? I shall explain.
You are not seeing yellow at all. In fact, it is all in your head...literally. The human mind makes up the color yellow from the wavelengths reflecting off of the object we see as yellow. There is no yellow wavelength, just a mix of some of the others.
Yellow in a way is like religion. Yellow is a thing percieved in the mind, as is Christianity. There are things that we say proves yellow exists and there are things we say proves that Christianity (and all other religions) are the right religion. How then, can one say that Religion is truth and the color yellow is reality?
From what everyone is saying, no one knows the absolute truth. However, some have said they wish to live closer to the truth. How can one know what truth is, if no one knows what truth means in the first place? How can everyone think they know what truth is, if everyone's else's perception of truth is different?
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Post by Joan Omnipresent on May 21, 2005 20:03:43 GMT -5
First, hats off to Jandalf for another concise, absolutely correct statement.
The Bible is the key to the truth. As we learn to understand it, and Holy Spirit helps us to discover new meaning in its verses, we come closer to truth. Truth is the standard by which we measure everything. We can't make sense of the world without it.
Silver, please don't think I'm picking on you...you're handling yourself wonderfully, and making as much sense as one possibly can while denying the basis of logic. : ) But I'd like to ask you...are you saying that absolutely no one knows absolute truth? Do you believe you can be absolutely correct in saying there is no absolute truth? Are you absolutely sure your world can hold together when you make those kind of...*gasp*...absolute statements? I need you to explain...I want to understand, but the logic is foreign to me! *helpless*
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Post by SilverSergyon13 on May 21, 2005 21:26:25 GMT -5
Ah!! I've gotten myself in another debate!! The temptation was too strang I guess :-)
Ok, I will have to think up an answer. My brain has gone ker-splat as of the moment....
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Post by Faust-Dark Lord Reborn on May 22, 2005 11:37:37 GMT -5
Random thought: If you called a skunk cabbage a rose would it smell sweeter? Yes, but A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell Just As Sweet. Its all perspective. Truth, as is religion, is altered by a person's view. I think differently about religion but does that make my views wrong? Not to me it doesn't. And for a oddlook at religion (and god, and religous ideas) watch Dogma with Chris Rock and Jay and Silent Bob. Its really interesting and provokes a fair amout of thought.
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