The Absolute Truth

[FallentoReason]

Because the Bible is a text, it means that the meaning derived from it will be subject to the person reading it. This arguably means that there will be as many interpretations of the text as there are people reading it. How is it possible then to ever think that the Bible is the Ultimate Truth, since truth is binary in nature (i.e. something can be true or false). We seem to have a whole spectrum of what God made a reality (and hence the truth) according to the broad range of interpretations, but only one interpretation will have the right combination of true/false propositions.


To sum up (assuming God exists):
P1) God exists
P2) Truth depends on what God decided to be a part of reality or not
P3) There are an endless possibility of interpretations of what this reality is
P4) There is only one correct interpretation of the truth
C) Therefore, the probability that the correct interpretation is the one the believer holds is 0

James 3:1
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

Assuming this verse means to say that anyone who teaches falsehoods will be punished, it then follows that pastors all around the world are leading their sheep astray (since the probability that their interpretation is 0) and they are earning themselves spanks on the bum for teaching these falsehoods.

To sum up: a book whose truth-value depends on time, place & culture for it to be verified and deemed as the plausible Ultimate Truth should always be discarded. A more reasoned approach to seek for truth is in nature, because nature isn't dependent on time, place & culture. Therefore the truths found in physics, maths & philosophy can always be verified and tested unlike the scribblings of a culture long gone.

P3) There are an endless possibility of interpretations of what this reality is
- If this is true, then your post is self refuting, because there is an endless possibility of interpretations of the reality that it expresses

I should have clarified I meant "...an endless possibility of interpretations through the Bible..." because this whole thread is about Biblical interpretations.

The reality is that texts have multiple interpretations, but there is not an endless number of possible interpretations, there is maybe 5 or 6.

I disagree. There's 7 or 8.

This leads to maybe 30 or 40 different main theological movements

I think you meant to say 40 to 50..?

that share the core themes and a bunch of other heretical movements that significantly deviate from the main movements, not because of differences in interpretation but because their theological methodological is totally different (e.g. reliance on philosophical theology over exegesis and/or acceptance of liberalism as an authoritative belief system).

Irrelevant. Plus, who are you to say there's only 5 or 6 interpretations. Where the hell did you pull that one from??

The matter of the fact is that we get nutjobs such as yourself claiming that God kisses your butt, and then we get elitist nutjobs like Drich claiming we have to kiss God's butt in order for things to happen. I'm not having any more of this bullshit...

I would suggest that a healthy dose of common sense could strengthen your understanding of the world.

LOL.

I would further argue that the Bible does not really require 100% theological accuracy. Jesus says "you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free"

Arguably every denomination will tell you they have "been set free" despite these goddamn fundamental differences! Can you PLEASE open your eyes for just one second??

but if you study the life of Christ, he explicitly rejects the Pharisiacal obsession with law. The New Testament is not a book of law, and adherance to Biblical morality does not really revolve around knowing every single theological issue perfectly. It does matter, and there are sharp disagreements about Christians over doctrine. But this is admist a continual reminder that Christians should center their lives around the love of "love your neighbor as your self" and not be like the Pharisees, who deified the law, sort of like todays intellectuals, and made all sorts of complicated formulas and ethical statements to require people to do all sorts of things that departed from the simple teachings of Christ, really, the teachings that each person is born with and knows instinctively from their relationship to the world.

You're turning a blind eye to the issue at hand; I can summon two different Christian friends that I know in real life and one will tell me through the Holy Spirit I can heal people and the other will tell me those days are over -- that miracles only happened in order to spread Christianity in the early days. These discrepancies highlight the fact that no one has the slightest clue what's going on because the Judeo-Christian god doesn't exist. If a certain doctrine was actually true, then the world would look a lot more like what the Bible describes it to be like, you know, like demons here and there, people actually being healed in church, born again Christians acting like Christ as opposed to living the same old life... the supernatural is embarrassingly lacking and absurdly shy because it doesn't exist.

Christianity is not really about knowledge of absolute truth, God says 'the secret things belong to the LORD our God but the things He has revealed belong to us and to our children forever'

God never said a word. The term "revelation" by definition means a message spoken from God to a person. What is the Bible composed of? Words from one mammal to another, therefore it is not the revealed "Word of God" but rather the testimony (whether true or false, not relevant) of one mammal about his experience with his tribe/culture's god to another mammal.

Deu. God hides things, God does not give people the original manuscripts of scripture, YHVH hides many difficult teachings from people.

Because your religion is one of the oldest Multi-level Marketing scams there is.

The proposition "Christianity is true" does not require a complete understanding of the full nature of Christianity any more than "America is a nation with many cities" requires visiting every city in America to verify that maps and past experience and testimonies of different cities are accurate. If there was a map that contained some inaccuracies, that would be an issue, but that would not change the fact that the proposition "America is a nation with many cities" is true and verifiable independently of errors in maps or gaps in travel.

If Christianity is the Truth of the Cosmos, then I demand that you explain yourself. You claim to have a two-way relationship with the being that created us all. Christians seem to take this little detail for granted. Interrogate the CREATOR and get back to me when you have some credible explanations for the confusion amongst Christians, the lack of supernatural phenomena & the apparent non-existence of your god altogether.

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So, the circular reasoning belongs to you my friends. And those who refuse God.

You're joking, right?

You claim to know of the "absolute truth". Go talk to Drich about what Christianity is. Get back to me once you can both express what Christianity is without consulting the other.

So much for "absolute truth".