The “truth” of art is very different from the truth of physics which is less than the truth of mathematics. Awe of art is a personal matter, moderated by current cultural norms, at least. Many of the masterpieces of the past century would have been considered crap by an artist or expert of the 17th century.
Religion can inspire pleasure. I enjoy a mass by Beethoven though I’ve never been a Christian.
But you get into trouble if you claim that your (and my) love of a Rothko represents some sort of objective truth. We can be as inspired by false things as we are about true things.
If those who have religion would keep it in their heads the same way that those who love art do we’d be in better shape. That doesn’t mean they can’t self report. It just means that they accept that the opinions of others can be equally valid.
Interesting its etymology may provide some answers.
The English word ‘truth’ comes from a linguistic history that includes an agreement with fact as well as faithfulness and loyalty. This indicates that it wasn’t merely fact that was valued as being a part of what truth means.
Now you may wish to rephrase and say what meaning do non-factual truth claims hold? They hold all of the meaning of those emotions we hold to be true and real - love, being one. I find that only holding that facts can be true deprives one of the full meaning of truth and reduces the word to utter nonsense. By equating fact and truth there is no meaning or worth to the term truth, which is far more than just fact (let’s not even get to whether objective fact is possible to ascertain or is it merely subjective facts that create a narrative). Just use “fact” then and not bother with “truth”.
Anyone who has watched, or been involved in, a scientific debate knows that there is plenty of emotion involved. Anyone who starts an experiment has some degree of faith the hypothesis is correct, or else they wouldn’t bother. But the first thing a scientist learns is to try to prove himself wrong. The experiment must be conducted so it can fail, and one needs to accept the results. That we as emotional beings can’t sometimes is why there is peer review.
Pre-Galileo science (or natural philosophy) was conducted much like theology. People came to differing views based on differing assumptions and faulty reasoning. Experiments are what showed what results were true and which weren’t. That is how we build a base of provisional truth to stand on. There is no such base in religion.
Likewise, by separating fact from truth (“versions of truth”) and equating truth and opinion the same problem arises-just use “opinion” and not bother with “truth”.
I don’t disagree as much as you may think. Art is used as a stand in for non-logical truth. I do think that both art and religion can represent some form of truth, but we only grasp bits and pieces. Though I’d argue that religion may be a better analogue for politics (as much as it doesn’t fully fit) - I think I’m right (of course, if I didn’t consider my position to be correct why would I hold it), but that doesn’t mean I think I have the entire answer or that I am not able to be shown wrong (as I pointed out, I don’t think faith is a static thing).
Or maybe religion is like art & politics together. It’s akin to a different world view, viewing the world with enchantment and meaning - the world’s a stage or painting, maybe? Though this view pushes forward an idea of how the world should be (promoting love for God & neighbor).
I fully admit that my co-religionists have been boars in attempting to spread truth as we comprehend it. But we are in no way as bad as those folks who tried to spread the truth of the worth of the movie “The English Patient” 
:mad:
Would it have made a whit of difference if you had substituted the word “opinion” for the word “truth” in the above post?
This seems to indicate that there was no ‘provisional truth’ prior to Galileo in science? Do you actually believe that? Religious theology has been hammered out among adherents since the first book of Scripture - people coming to different views based on their readings from the texts and trying to convince the other folks. And it has progressed, obviously - not because it has been dragged along (though in some cases it definitely has), but because people came to the conclusion after debate, discussion, prayer and wondering that something was wrong and fought against it.
You are the one who wants to de-link the word from its etymology, so you change.
Not through scientific method and process?
Have you read any pre-Galileo science? You’ll see that it starts from premises (some times not explicitly stated) and argues from there. They had no way of checking whether or not the premises made sense. Read Aristotle.
Being correct doesn’t mean being right. The arguments of the atomists, for example, were no better than those who opposed them. They were right but for the wrong reasons. So no, there was little if any provisional truth before the scientific method, because for the most part they did not converge on an answer - just like theology.
Note that widely accepted conclusions in theology are not proved so much as voted on. And can be rejected in a second. Jefferson rejected the divinity of Christ. He did not reject the orbit of Mars.
I assume you are not a Mormon. If you want to reject the history in the Book of Mormon, what method would you use? Would you say that your faith trumped their faith? Or would you tend to look at the empirical archeological evidence (or lack thereof) which contradicts their claims?
With relative ease, in my experience. Even discussing a wholly emotional aspect of one’s reaction to a work of art can be done logically and rationally. We can talk about how certain techniques can be used to invoke certain responses, and how the artist employed those techniques, or suggest how they could have been employed better, or whether those techniques should have been applied at all. We can discuss why those techniques tend to invoke those reactions. Or we can just give personal testimonials about how an experience with a work of art affected us, perhaps including how some elements of the work correspond with our personal life experiences, and why the work is important in that context.
I don’t see why the same doesn’t apply to faith - even Ulfreida’s. And my experience has, in general, been that it can be applied to faith. Ulfreida’s basically in the position of someone who walks in on a discussion of her favorite artist, freaks out because some of the people in the discussion don’t like him, and flounces off in huff because those people just “don’t get” the artist.
These threads are always so funny. It has gotten so far afield from the original “question” and just devolved into yet another general religious belief v. unbelief thread.
But I’ll echo the original response. Many (though certainly not all) Christians, and in fact many people of other religions, just don’t think about the religious texts in that way, that a discrepancy in details throws off the entire show. Heck, there are much more important discrepancies in my opinion, things that theologians have actually debated about, like whether salvation is attained through good works or through faith. I mean, I’m being pretty literally truthful when I say that issue has split the church. And you’ll probably say this just illustrates the contradictory nature of religion and religious texts, and I won’t disagree, but it does, I think go a lot of the way to answering the original question: people get out of religion what they want to. Christianity is not just based on the bible (true to a greater or lesser extend depending on the sect). An individual’s religion flows from their religious texts (especially in Protestant denominations) along with commentary from their church hierarchy, from theologians, from their congregation, from tradition.
Faith versus good works isn’t any sort of a contradiction (and some dispute the need for salvation at all.) It just represents inadequate information. You’d think a deity would get it right the first time, but the Bible definitely needs a new rev.
I quite agree with you about religion evolving - which is just more evidence that people made it all up. We’re getting further and further away from any sort of divine inspiration, aren’t we?
Only if you believe that when religion evolves people don’t go back to Scripture to make their arguments. After all, the Protestant Reformation 1500+ years A.D. made their arguments based on the fact that they were going back to divinely inspired Scripture rather than mere tradition (though I would argue that tradition and the movement forward in reading Scripture comes from divine inspiration itself - Pentecost’s fires continuing to burn, ie the Holy Spirit). Do you think that those in Christian denominations who argue that homosexuality is not sinful are simply arguing that the Bible is old and doesn’t apply? Because their arguments actually come from Scripture itself, though, of course a different interpretation of the text (which, as alluded to, doesn’t particularly damn anything, no pun intended, because Christians have been interpreting and re-interpreting Scripture since the very beginning of the Christian faith - its part of the process of trying to understand God).
Or perhaps all of that is merely a fancy way of saying most Christians (or Jews for that matter - I’m sure other faiths would fit in as well though I don’t know them as well) find that the faith evolving doesn’t come close to suggesting to them that people simply made it up.
Of course they all go back to Scripture. And they find that Scripture says A and Scripture says ~A. You give an excellent example. There are parts that say homosexuality is sinful (the act anyhow) and part that talk about loving one another which can be interpreted to say it is okay. (Or so I’ve seen. The religious groups accepting SSM don’t do so because they say the Bible is old.) We decide what we think is right, and can often find justification. True for plenty of religions, not just Christianity.
We Jews have a long tradition that you can’t just read the Bible - but I don’t recall any of the commentary being considered divine or inspired.
Sorry, as for Christianity, I don’t see why God would play whisper-down-the-lane with our salvation. I know the Bible is not a science book, but if he wanted us to actually believe in it, he could at least have excluded the cockamamie stories that are in there. As it is, it looks like stuff a bunch of guys made up.
Okay. I would like those around me to take care of me when I am old and sick. Not providing this same comfort to those important to them makes them very unlikely to do this. Boom. Logical, reasonable argument. Now, how to extend this to the whole of humanity takes a few more steps, and some of them are questionable. It comes down to perpetuating a social meme - “we’re humans, no human is an island, we take care of each other”. This thought is one of the single most helpful thoughts for the survival of the species, and for me as an individual as well.
Are you for real? We’re talking about a debate where the definition of the word is phenomenally important, and you appeal to the dictionary? Here’s a tip for you. Basically every single time someone says “Well, that’s what the dictionary says”, they’re missing the point.
I have it on good (bad in my opinion) authority that God does not change. Ya know, they quote the Bible, God’s actual words on it.
No amount of debate, discussion, prayer or wondering that something was wrong changes the fact that God approves of chattel slavery, declares that homosexuality is an abomination, and thinks the Amalekites got off lightly (He could have “blot(ted) out the name” of Amalek all by Himself but He chose other, less effective, means).
Jesus never said “Dad, well I actually, was wrong about some things”. If God was actually wrong about certain things on what grounds do you/we have to think that God got it right on certain other things other than personal preference?
If different views based on reading the text lead to different religious theologies how do we know which reading agrees with God’s reading of the text . . . and why hasn’t He made it clear which one is correct? I do understand that used to be one of His abilities.
CMC fnord!
I don’t get how an argument about what a word means, which devolves into “the word means X”, “no it means Y” doesn’t benefit from the actual etymology of the word. I mean, that WAS the point.
The underpinning is just as based on logic as it is emotions. Empathy without logic would be random. We’d feel emotionally exhausted by misplacing some loose change, and utterly unmoved by a close friend being shot in front of us. And then the next minute the opposite.
One of the central ideas of Christianity is that of the New Covenant, the new agreement and promise between God and Man. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.”–Hebrews 8:8-9
By definition, a new covenant implies change.
Some of the more recent Christian change-of-heart about homosexuality, e.g., is based on the notion that the “abomination” part is from the OLD covenant, and has in effect been repealed (as have the rules about shellfish and cloth of mixed fibers).