Zan:
To quote you:
"Who am I to conclude their truth is any less valid than mine?"
That is something you not only do every day, all day, but is something you have to do - it is your responsibility to evaluate the truth claims of everything around you. Is the person talking to me telling me the truth? Are they wrong on their facts? Or on their conclusions? Are they trustworthy? Are they safe to be around?
The foundation of exercising your free will is evaluating truth claims of other people and things.
The humility contained in your rhetorical question is also essential: we have to be skeptical of our own truth claims as well, for we can be just as wrong as the next person. But when someone tells me they know something - anything - I still have to check it out for myself before I can claim to know anything.
Once I have drawn provisional conclusions about whatever they claim, I can compare their claims to what I think is true, and then make an evaluation. Some claims are dubious, but not yet proven wrong - some alternative medicine claims fit here - some can be proven logically impossible - think of the claims of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent god - and some are just silly - Scientology.
So, Zan, I submit that on reflection, you do measure the relative truth strength of competing claims. I submit that you have to, just like the rest of us.
Pangloss
Agreed. Partially. Lol.
I think now we may be treading on semantic ground, but I do see this as a different
sort of truth. In the example you cite, there is an array of semi-tangible tools with which to base a conclusion upon: instinct, body language, facial expression, tone of voice, etc.
Arriving at an esoteric ‘truth’ is something in a different ball park altogether, to me. It is never going to be verifiable for starters, and to my knowledge is a truth that is expected to have some fluidity – subject to change through out an individual’s lifetime… at least I should hope so. This truth should imo, never be assumed as a done deal… it should be a constantly growing, evolving process, not an end result. It should incur some changes as further experience and reflection adds dimension to it.
What you seem to want here is an empirical explanation for views that are by nature NOT empirical – they are truths seated in subjectivity… and so when you quote me, and leave out the portion of text that qualifies my statement, my comment no longer makes sense in a discussion on the issue of truth – as ‘truth’ in this case is being used to assign ‘what works’ for some vs others in issues of spirituality, god, religion.
What I said was:
Who am I to conclude their truth is any less valid than mine? (This I believe is the ultimate arrogance of organized religion – the assumption of truth on behalf of any other being.)
Now in trying to explain why the semantics matter in this instance, I’m finding myself getting caught up in justifying my use of the word ‘truth’ – this is futile, if we’re going to use a dictionary definition…
So let us avoid further confusion by agreeing that I should have used the word ‘belief’ and I’ll take that slap on the wrist and make note to be much more careful in future discussions on spiritual BELIEFS.
So, Zan, I submit that on reflection, you do measure the relative truth strength of competing claims. I submit that you have to, just like the rest of us.
Yes. Again we agree, yet not. In matters of spirit, I don’t see how one can possibly arrive at anything that resembles a ‘personal’ truth without basing it almost entirely on experience – and that would be ‘personal’ experience… therefore my experience is going to provide me with a different conclusion (truth) than yours, or hers or his, or anyone else’s… and ‘my’ conclusion is valid… FOR ME, and ONLY for me… to assign a conclusion based on MY experience to you or anyone else is, as I said, the height of arrogance.
So again, I take liberty with the word truth, as it pertains to the discussion of matters of spiritual belief.
