Thank fuck for that, someone who will agree to disagree with me.

I could have done with that hours ago from someone else who I won't name.

http://www.luvthat.com/wp-content/upload...nicorn.jpg

Why can't we just be nice...and happy and smile. Sigh

Truth is like an object sealed in an impenetrable box. All we have are clues as to what that object might be.

I'm glad the OP has discovered that we, atheists, can't escape absolute truth.

It absolutely exists, and using the right methods, it can be known to greater or lesser degrees of clarity and depth.

And as neither atheists nor theists can deny its existence, it's time to own up to the fact that only one of us has an effective method for the discovery of it, absolute or otherwise.

It's called... naturalism.

Truth is like a little bubble... one prick and it's all gone.

No wait, that's virginity.

(October 3, 2015 at 4:50 pm)Delicate Wrote: In a different thread, an atheist indicated that absolute truth is a difficult view to give up. He's right. 

But it's worse than that: It's impossible to give up absolute truth.

The reason is, in any conceivable universe, operating under any given specification of natural laws, if we reject absolute truth, we reject the ability to say anything meaningful about these possible universes. The very claim "In universe1 there are no absolute truths" is either true or false, and absolutely so. Once you jettison absolute truth, your statements about this possible universe become meaningless.

But the problem goes further than that. If you simply want to reject absolute truths in our world, you demolish the foundations of reason and science, which are irreparably dependent on absolute truth.

Hitting closer to home, the claim "There are no absolute truths" held as a claim cannot be rationally affirmed or denied if it is true. 

Thus, atheists cannot escape absolute truths, on any level.

Are you, a human being, claiming sufficient knowledge to establish anything as absolute?
If so please cite your sources and reasoning in full.

(October 7, 2015 at 12:20 am)Delicate Wrote: Well, I'm tempted to agree with anything John Searle says- I mean it's Searle! And frankly, it makes sense that one can study subjective facts objectively, just as one can treat the statement "I like vanilla ice-cream." in a third-person, objective, analytic way.

But this doesn't collapse the difference. Nor does it say subjective truths are true objectively.

It merely means that one can be viewed in the perspective of the other. It works the other way around too: Objective truths can be studied subjectively.

I don't think what Searle is getting at is "All truth is objective."

It's objectively true that matter attracts matter with a force, proportional to its mass.

Or is it? After all, we could just be brains in a jar, imagining or being fed this 'objective' truth. The Cartesian foundation applies here. It's intellectually honest to understand that even our most established 'truths' are open to assumption therefore error. 'Absolute' truths cannot be established, honestly consequently it's a redundant term. Instead we should simply ignore it and move on with what we can demonstrate, pragmatically, empirically and logically as 'truth'.

(October 7, 2015 at 3:10 am)Losty Wrote: Why can't we just be nice...and happy and smile. Sigh

You're my proxy. 

Ain't being nice having someone tell me what I believe. That always stirs up unpleasantness.

(October 7, 2015 at 3:10 am)Losty Wrote: Why can't we just be nice...and happy and smile. Sigh

I've got a vertical smile for you. However, it's not always happy.