Excluse me, but it's all true

I now turn to another area of life, religion, to see how the relative view affects it. The view I will focus on is the view that religion is essentially "internal"; whatever religious view you hold is true to yourself. To make this topic easier to explain, I will mostly discuss views involving spiritual belief, and not atheistic views.

There may be different reasons for holding a relative religious view, such as the desire for someone to tolerate people of different faiths and the fact that "people of faith" universally seem to feel a peace due to their religious beliefs. Thus, in this last reason, it does not matter what specific religion a person follows; religious peace a person finds internally is what matters.

I thought I was going to start with talking about relativity, but I will actually now talk about exclusivity.  One definition of this word is "Excluding some or most, as from membership or participation" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/exclusivity. 

Try thinking of a hypothetical belief system that would not contain an exclusive religious view. An example I can think of is a system with the central claim that "all people who believe there is a spiritual essence (i.e. whether belief in one or multiple gods) follow a true religion". I'll call this the "all true" system.

This belief system has potential to work at first thought. If you believe in spiritual things, as people of all religions do, you are following the truth. There's no exclusivity (again, barring Atheism). That is... until you look at specific central claims of religious systems. 

For example, some religions have a claim that religious truth is only contained in one specific god (let's call this the "one true" view). Therefore, if truth is NOT contained in that one god, a person holding this religious belief is incorrect. And if truth IS contained in that god, then someone who denies this god is not following truth. A person holding the "one true" naturally disagrees with the claim that "all people who believe in a spiritual essence follow a true religion".

What does this mean? the "all true" system is exclusive, just like any other belief system. It implies that a person does not believe there is only one true spiritual being. However, there are people who hold the "one true" view, which automatically excludes them from following the "all true" belief system. 

Why is this important? It's an example that religious views are exclusive. There is always an underlying claim that people can accept or deny. You can also extend this point to atheism, as that system implies a general disbelief in spiritual things. However, you are excluded from this system by believing in a spiritual being. 

Turning back to relativity, is it possible for the relative religious view to hold up? In order to answer this question, we need to look at the foundational claims that a particular religion makes. It is possible that religious relativism is true, as long as the "all true" or a similar system actually describes reality. But it is not true if a "one true" system actually describes reality. 

I'm thinking the next question to ask is "What do these 'one true' systems or other systems actually claim?" In other words, we need to look at the systems themselves, not just what a person believes about a religion internally. Also, can the "all true" relative system hold up in light of these claims?

And the next important question is "What reasons are there to believe a particular claim describes the way the world actually is?" To say the least, these questions demand much more than one or two posts.

Million Dollar Madness

In my last post, I explained that there is objective truth in the world. I have only talked about complete objective or complete subjective truth thus far, but there are "shades" in between those two ends. Some people believe there is some objective truth, and they could be wrong about some things, but certain areas of truth are dependent on an individual's views.

One of these areas is morality. Even if relative morality can be argued, there is still one main issue with it. A person holding this view cannot logically enforce their views of morality on others! Since the setandard of what is correct changes from person to person, someone is justified to do anything they want to if they believe it is justified. The act remains justified no matter what someone else's view about the morality of that act is, especially since there is no "outside" standard to determine whether the act is moral or immoral.

For example, Bob has a million dollar check that is his. He holds a relative moral view. Jake comes in, picks up the million dollar check, and walks away. Bob starts an uproar. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?! YOU CAN'T STEAL THAT FROM ME!", screams Bob.

Jake tries to calm Bob down. "Dude, it's all good", Jake says, "I'm gonna cash this check and give it all to that one foundation that builds a bunch of wells in Nigeria. You were just gonna use the money to expand your world-record Twinkie collection. Taking the check seems right in my eyes".

In this simple example, Bob holds a relative morality view, yet seems to enforce what he believes is wrong (stealing the check) to Jake, even though Jake believes that stealing the check is right/moral in this situation. So, Bob suddenly appears to hold much more of an objective view of morality (that there's some sort of moral standard that everyone should follow). In this case, the standard would be "stealing something from me is wrong".

This example shows how difficult holding a strict relative moral view would actually be. You cannot enforce what you believe is moral, even if someone performs an act that is clearly immoral. Besides, there is nothing that is "clearly immoral", because there is no absolute standard available to determine what is moral/immoral. Relative morality ends debate on what is good/moral, because a person's view on what is moral is automatically correct.

In summary, the relative moral view is almost impossible to hold practically, and leads to contradictory views about the same topic. This contradiction issue is the same one found in the relative truth view. There is some kind of objective standard of morality. A person can have a wrong view about what is moral. 

Although I have not backed this next statement up yet, I believe there is a standard that applies to all people. Once again, I am discussing "extreme" views - total relative/objective morals. There are other views, like societies determine morals, but I will hold off on them right now. I have also not discussed the foundation of objective truth.

Since I don't want to make these blog posts too long, I will split up this topic and relative religious views (my next post). I also plan to add website sources to reference once the topics start getting more complicated.

The True Question

This post marks the beginning of a blog I am hoping to write to weekly. If no one reads the posts, it is still worth it for me to be thinking about some important topics and to have a future reference to look to. I am going to attempt to write this first post using two assumptions: that we have the ability to use logic and have the ability to draw reasonable conclusions using that logic.

What is truth? This question is very important to consider. To show why, I am going to explain the two "extreme" viewpoints of what truth is and then describe the implications of these two views.

1. Relative truth - truth is what you want/think it to be. It depends on the individual and can change from person to person. It comes solely from the "inside" or "heart" of an individual. 

Basic example: I find it true that the temperature was 45 degrees in Green Bay, WI at 3 PM CST on 1/5/12. You find it true that the temperature was 65 degrees in Green Bay, WI at 3 PM CST on 1/5/12. We are both correct about the temperature since our statement is true to us individually.

2. Objective truth -  Truth is universal and timeless, no matter what an individual thinks or feels about a particular topic. Truth is "outside" of an individual and does not change based on one's viewpoint. A particular truth is true for everyone, everywhere. A good definition of truth would be the correspondence to the way the world actually is.

Basic example: The temperature was actually 45 degrees in Green Bay, WI at 3 PM CST on 1/5/12. I am correct about the temperature (45 degrees) since my statement reflects an objective reality in the world. You are incorrect that the temperature was 65 degrees no matter how much you believed it was true; your statement did not correspond to reality. This situation holds no matter where you are in the world or when you lived after that date. In the year 3000 the temperature will still have been 45 degrees at that time and at that location.

There is a flaw in the relative truth example above. The two statements on the temperatures contradict each other; in other words, they reflect two different potential realities. Using logic, we can determine that two contradictory statements about the same reality cannot both be true (i.e. the temperature could not have been 45 AND 65 degrees at the exact same moment in the exact same location). Therefore, one or both statements must be false.

How does that example relate to relative truth as a whole? First of all, the relative truth viewpoint leads to the possibility of two contradictory claims to be true. In fact, a strict relative truth view allows an individual's statement to ALWAYS be true (at least to that person)! Also, the statement "all truth is relative" is contradictory in itself because that statement claim refers to a reality that is true for everyone (more could be said about this, but I want to limit space).

 What are the implications of a person with one of these views about truth? If you hold the relative truth view, then what you find to be true for yourself is in fact true. So, is little need to challenge what you believe is true if you KNOW that you are always correct. There would also be no motivation to tell others what you think is true; whatever you believe (even if it's different than what they believe) is true to you. 

If you hold the objective truth view, you think your view does not necessarily correspond to reality/truth. So, there is much more reason to "search" for what is true and to discuss views with others, especially on topics that are important.  

This truth question is important because it could affect many things you do in life, and would especially affect the way you view the world.

A person can still claim "what I believe is true for me", but based on some of the issues above, it is more reasonable that there is objective truth outside of an individual's belief in a statement. 

That is all for now! I will end with a few side comments:

This point may not hold for everything. For example, a person has emotions that only he can know, so there may be some "relativeness" there (i.e. I believe I am happy so I am happy). However, I am mainly referring to a statement about reality that is outside of a person's thoughts and feelings. For example, the statement "I believe the temperature was 65 degrees" may be true (referring to a person's thoughts), but saying "the temperature was 65 degrees" would be false (referring to an "outside" reality).

There are also degrees of belief within these two extreme viewpoints (i.e. certain topics like religion and morals being relative) and other views about truth (agnosticism). I will likely talk about these views if I post again.