Are There Absolute Truths?

So we start with a small list, but some things are unprovable; so we throw in some things to decide those unprovable statements. But then we’re right back where we started; Godel’s theorem still applies, and we still have unprovable statements.

Any accepted truth must require faith by the believer. It is an act of faith that I accept what scientists tell me that the world is made of atoms. Even if they show it by deduction, I must accept their premises. If they use scientific data, I must have faith that my eyes arent faulty, that instrumentation works, and that the world is a rational place.

Yet LOGIC dictates that if your claim is not absolutely true, then there are absolute truths. In other words, your statement is self-refuting. That’s what pure and simple LOGIC says.

And you have yet to explain why something must be explained in simpler terms, in order to be accepted as factual (i.e. true). You are apparently positing it as a given, yet I see no reason to accept it as such.

Not if that frame of reference is self-contradictory… and it is. It would be like saying, “Let us posit a universe where there are no rules.” The statement “There are no rules” is itself a rule, and thus, such a universe is logically incoherent and can not exist, except in a madman’s imagination.

Y’see, you keep dancing around the concept of truth, not realizing that this destroys any validity in your arguments. If there is no absolute truth, then we can not accept your own claim as being absolutely true either… and so your own claim disproves itself. It’s like saying “This statement is false” or “All claims are wrong.” Logic dictates that such assertions refute themselves, and are thus logically inconsistent and incoherent.

Only tautologies, and all tautologies, are absolutely true.

There are absolute truths but no way to prove them to you in the way you desire. I believe God and what He says in His word are truths, but I can’t prove this to you. It’s faith.

In the physical world there are absolute truths also, such as the law of gravity, physics, etc. But, of course, I believe that God can suspend these laws whenever He chooses as He created them to start with.

EVETYTHING I TELL YOU IS A LIE!
EVEN MY LAST STATEMENT!

EVERYTHING*

Norman coordinate!

Is that a Star Trek (TOS) reference?

Absolutely.

Let me get this straight… So because there is no absolute truth, his statement that there is no absolute truth cannot be absolutely true, thus there actually is absolute truth? :confused:

One time, in a trial I was called in for as a reporter (as in journalist, not court reporter), they had a witness called in to testify.

He was being treated as a hostile witness, so they gave him truth serum to loosen him up. Then they had him swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Only, someone jostled the nurse giving him the truth serum and he got too much. Way too much. He started telling “the truth, the WHOLE truth”… Oh, the humanity!

It was enough to drive one mad. Or, like me, half-mad (I’m a journalist, you see).

I wish I had written some of it down, because now, I can’t remember hardly any of it.

Except that were some good bits about frogs. Boy! I’ll never look at frogs the same way again, let me tell you!

Anyone seen Arthur Dent?

It must be true, no one has disputed/or disproven it yet.

That’s right. Pay close attention, now.

If there is no absolute truth, then his claim (“There is no absolute truth”) is not absolutely true. This means that there IS absolute truth, somewhere. Ergo, the claim is self-refuting.

It’s like saying “All statements are false.” Well, if all statements are false, then that statement must itself be false. Ergo, the statement refutes itself.

This logical process is known as reduction ad absurdum – that is, showing that a statement contradicts itself, and is therefore incoherent and false. It is commonly employed in both mathematics and philosophy, but is sadly unfamiliar to many an armchair philosopher.

Preface any statement with the words “I think” or “I believe” and the resulting statement will, if the speaker is not intentionally lying, be absolutely true.

Problem being that your logic is also self-refuting. If there is absolute truth then the absolute statement “there is no absolute truth” is validated, since the statement was only invalidated in the first place by the statement being true. It’s the same problem encountered when trying to refute the liar’s paradox: the claim “I am telling a lie” cannot be proven to be true or false using just logic even though it is self-contradictory, just as “There is no absolute truth” cannot be affirmed or refuted with logic alone.

If you provided an example of a statement that was absolutely true, then the statement “there is no absolute truth” would be demonstrably false. But by using just logic to refute the statement you’re engaging in a performative contradiction – in proving the statement to be false only serves to affirm the statement.

Bloody lack of an edit function: that last sentence should read “…contradiction – proving the…”

I came up with an example of the difference between “truth” and “fact.”

Let’s say there are three friends A, B & C. On Monday A and B make plans to meet for lunch on Wednesday at 12:00 and A agrees to call C and pass along the appointment time.

Then on Tuesday A gets a notice of a meeting Thursday at 12:30. Tuesday is a hectic day and A gets a little disorganized. Later in the day A calls C and says lunch will be Wednesday at 12:30, confusing the times for lunch and the meeting.

So on Wednesday, B is sitting in a restaurant for a half hour before A and C show up. When questioned C says that A said 12:30. A says they had agreed on 12:30. Then A remembers the meeting and realizes the error.

So, did A tell the truth? Yes. Did A report a fact? No. The truth was in the belief that the times were correct, when in fact they weren’t. There was no intention to mislead anybody, simply an error. An error is not a lie. An error that is believed is still true, even if it’s later proven to be factually incorrect.

So, to me, a truth is a statement of belief, whereas a fact is a concrete provable statement.

That’s not a Star trek reference…ITS A BALLYS PARK PLACE REFERENCE!

ONE…TWO…THREE…FOUR…FIVE… THAT’S " ERE-BUH "!!!:wink: