You say that it will fail "in the light of reality." But that's just another way of saying that it's a false claim.
All claims, by definition, are claims about "reality" (there's nothing else to make a claim about). Whether I make a claim about Bob Hope or about Zeus, my claim is either correct or incorrect. We may not be able to ascertain which of those two it is, but it cannot be both.

Truth can't be invalidated by definition. Invalidating the correctness of your claim assumes that there is correctness to begin with. At this point this account is an unsubstantiated claim. It can not be said to be correct for lack of contrary evidence with no evidence to back it up in the affirmative. Then there are other creation accounts given in religion. Your creation account is contrary to them. They all can't be correct.

I gave you an accepted definition of correct which conforms with reality. You may say that there are multiple deities. Some religions hold to one only. Others believe that there is no god. These all can't be correct.

You don't have to walk outside the realm of your claim for it to be incorrect. Reality either makes it correct or not correct, belief doesn't change this.

You will have to elaborate on the impossibility to invalidate truth if I'm to address it. I simply don't understand why you'd say such a thing. As for the latter part, there is correctness to begin with if 1., there is no possibility of resolving the truth, and 2., if I say so.

It's more than that, - it's an unsubstantiable claim. There is no way to substantiate the essence of the claim, i.e. the existence of godhead. Therefore it's as true as any other claim of godhead. It's a priori as you said previously.

Yes, they can. This is like saying that 4+16, 5*4 and 100/5 can't all be correct. In the instance where the truth must be taken a priori, they can certainly be true each and all. As said, my hypothetical crowd of gods will be just as true as your hypothetical batchelor god. If you declare the Christian god to be true then he or she is true, darnit, and there's nothing I or anyone else can say except: "No, he or she doesn't exist". And then that's just as true. That's the whole deal with a priori, - it needs no factual reference, evidence or experience, - only a statement, the truth of which is only possible to take at face value.

I didn't say that it would resolve the truth to walk outside the realm of my claim. On the contrary. I was saying that if the claim can't be resolved by reality then I'll get my ass kicked if I think it can. And no, reality makes nothing correct or incorrect if reality can't deal with it.

The best thing you could possibly do with your day is to stop reading this ridiculous thread and go give blood. Or go donate a few bucks to a charity. Or go through your closet and round up all those clothes you no longer wear that are still good and give them away. Or go serve meals or work at a food bank for just one evening.

Enough with "correct religions". Make it your religion to actually do right by others and the world will change dramatically and quickly.

Go help people and stop patting yourself on the back for the words you utter on Sunday which you fail to live up to the 6 other days of the week.

To stay with the terminology that Steerpike brought up in a previous post, it will fail because it becomes a posteriori. Sure, that's the same as saying that it's a false claim but the point is that it is possible to resolve the truth. The a priori claim does not "enjoy" that privilege.

Claims about Bob Hope as a wordly character are a posteriori. Claims about Zeus as a supernatural character are not.

Please finish these statements:

Something is true when it isn't f....

Love is the abscence of h.....



What do you mean, leading the witness?!

Nonsense, people in ancient Greece made posteriori claims about Zeus all the time. They began with some accepted knowledge base (as we all do in regard to everything), made some observations, and combined the two together to the best of their reasoning abilities.

For example:
I know that Zeus crafts and hurls lightning bolts.
I have just seen a lightning bolt hurled into my neighbor's hut.
I conclude that Zeus is mad at my neighbor.

I perform the exact same process with regard to Bob Hope.
I know that Bob Hope was born in 1903
I know that the first US President was elected in 1789.
I conclude that Bob Hope was not the first US President.

Notably, I "know" the birthday of Bob Hope for precisely the same reason the Greek "knew" Zeus made and tossed about lightning: I was informed of it by a source I felt to be trustworthy. If that alone makes all derived claims "a priori" then ALL claims of ALL sorts are "a priori" and we might as well dismiss the distinction.

For this one, I'll grant you that the idea of "truth" as a thing presumes that one has the idea of falsehood. But conceivably one could live in a world where there were no false statements or thoughts ever made. In that world, no one would ever have bothered to think about what "truth" meant, but there would be no falsehood.
This is distinct from forgiveness and sin, for example. Without sin, there can be no forgiveness, because there's nothing to forgive.
A world full of forgiveness but lacking any sins is nonsensical; a world full of truths and lacking falsehoods is not (though it might be just as unobtainable).

This one, however, I can't give you at all. Love most certainly is not just the absence of hatred; that would meant that I loved everyone I was indifferent to and deeply loved everyone I'd never so heard or thought of.
"Love" is, of course, a difficult term. But even if we just take a very simplistic view of it (perhaps "love" is wishing someone well and "hatred" is wishing someone harm), it is entirely possible to imagine a world completely absent of hatred but still containing love.
Furthermore, unlike the truth/falsehood example, it would be possible, in such a world, to recognize and define love as a distinct concept. In such a case, "love" would be defined as "the absence of indifference." And people would still tell you to "love your neighbor" even if the concept of hating them had never entered anyone's mind.

Truth would have no meaning if it wasn't an issue. It would never be a concept then. The concept exists solely because something can be false. And vice versa.

No, if that was the case, I would have asked you to finish the statement: "I love when I don't h..." As you correctly point out, that would mean the things you say (and include all you didn't specifically hate). But that wasn't the statement.

Dilettante, can we agree that when you love A (and only A) then you don't hate A (and only A)?

Truth is by definition true. There is not correctness. There is nothing to substantiate the claim. If there is no possibility of resolving the truth, then the claim can not be declared true. Again, just because you say so doesn't make something true. There were those who said that the earth was flat. Saying so did not make it so.

Again you are presuming truth. "As true as any other claim," this assumes all are equal and valid. If there are multiple views regarding a godhead and they are not identical, then they can't all be true. So far as a claim being unsubstantiable, that would not make it correct or incorrect. It could be either but not both at the same time. We don't know a priori that there is no way to ultimately substantiate this claim.

Those mathematical expressions are a priori equal. The instances discussed with regard to religious claims are not all a priori equal. Let's look at the example of Bob Hope and George Washington. Let's assume we don't know who was in fact the first President of the United States. We have these two names placed before us. We are talking about the first President. So it can be only one individual a priori. Therefore, both of these names can't be simultaneously correct. This principle will apply with regard to supernatural as well.

No. Your hypothetical crowd of gods is true only if they actually exist. Declaring a god to be true doesn't make it true. If the entity doesn't exist, declarations to the contrary will not change that. Religions are claims about reality and it is reality which determines correctness.

Reality does make it correct or incorrect based on what actually is. Just because man may not have empirical knowledge of all of reality doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

That was indeed nonsense. It's not the claims but the truth of the claims that's the objective. I had a brain fart. Sorry.

I meant to say that the truth of claims about Bob Hope as a worldly character can be resolved a posteriori. The truth of claims about Zeus as a supernatural character cannot.

I agree. But the key word is "concept." The concept of "darkness" would not exist in a world where there was no light; but it would still be dark, even if no one ever thought about it. The concept of "truth" would not exist in a world where there were no lies or errors; but the assertions of that world would still all be truthful.


I'm not sure I understand the "and only A" parentheticals. But I think I can agree that when you love A then you don't hate A.
But of course, when a ball is red then it is not blue. That doesn't mean that red is the absence of blue or that you cannot have red without having blue.
Love and hatred are conflicting positives. You may love or you may hate or you may do neither.

Of course truth, by definition, is true. And of course something can be declared true if there is no possibility of resolving the truth. Just as something can be declared false. That's how we make games. There is no way to resolve the truth that a flush beats a pair so it's simply defined that way for the sake of our convience or, in this case, entertainment. And it's henceforth declared as truth that a flush beats a pair. There ya go.

The shape of the earth belongs to our shared reality. We did not define the shape as we did the rules for poker (in the utmost, we may have defined the shapes that it can be described as, though, but not that its actual shape is similar to one of those shapes). Any claim of the shape can be substantiated by means of our shared reality.

Of course I'm assuming truth. I define it as true since there is nothing that can declare it false except the truth that I just defined.

I almost refuse to adress any more examples from our shared reality. If you at least were to provide Bob Hope or G. Washington with some supernatural attributes then it would be interesting.

Bob Hope's existence and G. Washington's existence are both a posteriori. We have historical records, artifacts and whatever else historical methodology needs in order to construct a truth for all practical purposes. And no, they could not have been President at the same time unless we are able to use the same methodology to provide evidence of the fact that, at that precise time, two persons could hold that particularly office at the same time.

This does NOT apply to the supernatural. If you think otherwise, and apparantly you do, then please provide examples from the supernatural world.

But they do exist. I've just defined the truth of their existence. I had to since they can only exist a priori.

Sure, as Dilettante said, and I agree, all claims are about reality but not all claims can be resolved by the means of reality. We humans can imagine an awful lot.

Absolutely true (no pun intended), - what we have or don't have of knowledge makes no difference whatsoever as to the existence of something. The issue is solely what is knowledgeable and what is not knowledgeable. And something that transcends our reality is, per definition, not knowledgeable. Please look up the prefix "super" as in supernatural.

How can something be true if it is not real? It can be declared false when either it is impossible for it to be true or is a posteriori proved false. Example: Someone states that a dog is a cloud. We look at what a dog is and what a cloud is and can conclude that this statement is false. Religion is making claims about reality which is not subject to human belief (reality).

We don't determine whether there actually is or isn't a deity. We determine our belief in that. Belief is not equal to fact. If this entity exists, then that existence is not dependent on belief.

That is a logical fallacy called, Begging the question. If these claims are about reality, then you don't define truth, reality does.

Under one belief system, some believe that when people die they are re-incarnated in some form as an animal or person. Christianity says that they either end up in heaven or hell with no re-incarnation in the picture. These are opposing views with regard to after death. They both can't be correct.

Some religions hold to one diety. Some to polythiesm. These are at odds with one another and can't both be correct.

No. If they do exist in reality, then they can exist in reality.