Implicit in every ordinary statement is the claim that the statement is true. Here are some non-ordinary statements:
"This sentence is false." Is it true? Can it be?
"There are no absolute truths." Is it absolutely true?
Ordinary statements, like, "The yard needs mowing" or "I'm tired" or "The Lord our God, the Lord is one" have an implied "This statement is true." It would be silly to construe "the yard needs mowing" as meaning "the yard doesn't need mowing."
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I stumbled upon this thread even though it is a week old, I thought what the heck, I would stream my thoughts out onto the sea of ether....
What causes quite a bit of the misunderstanding and chaos surrounding this topic is the understanding that there are no consistantly accepted meanings to the words truth, belief, religion, etc. . . Note that I did not say definitions. One can say that a particular dictionary states that reilgion is a set of spiritual beliefs... you can even look up the word beliefs and spiritual but all of these words are small tokens that represnet larger concepts that can't inherintly be contained by the tokens themselves... to illustrate:
I believe (I do by the way) that all beliefs are silly.
Stating this can be interpreted many many ways, among them some might state that it is an inherently contradictory statement (since I am stating a belief, then it must be silly)... but that depends on a narrow definition of silly i.e. that I consider silly an insult in this context. Also it can be interpeted as a larger insult that I believe that these beliefs are false (i.e. interpreting that in this context silly implies at least false)
Even taking those postulates as true I might have a definition of belief that means it as a filter through which I use to illuminate the world a certain way to understand something, not as something inherintly True or False (certain eastern religions focus on this understanding of belief in many different aspects)
And this is just a minor illustrative point. The words belief, religion, truth, falshood are some of the most disparately understood words because the are tokens that mean to encompass concepts which are to some uncontainable. It is neccesary to use them and to discuss them because the concepts are neccesary to be discussed; but it is very important to remember that what you read in a statement containing those words may or may not mean what you think it meant. This goes for Dirty Geek's original content because OSC's definition of religion and faith and truth and scripture may mean something then you are inteding them to mean; and as well to TL and MrSquicky as they circled around each other for two pages because they seemed not to understand that they each understood the words to mean different things... It even goes to me because I understood the two pages in a way that may not have even been meant by the authors... It also goes to anyone reading this message as I may not understand what I am posting the same way you are understanding it reading...
So just remember 0 sometimes but not always equals 1. Posts: 1 | Registered: Jun 2005
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