Is truth relative? or is it fact?

Question

OK R Scott J I believe everything you have is mine.... does that make it so? Bring it personal folks. It cannot be both ways.

Answer 1

if it's relative, can someone jump off a building and fly if he believes he can?

Answer 2

What Is the Truth?
At John 17:3 Jesus is praying to his father, and He says "you are the only true God." He spoke the truth.

So let us leave the murky waters of relativism and examine briefly what the Bible describes as the pure waters of truth. (John 4:14; Revelation 22:17) In the Bible, “truth” is not at all like the abstract, intangible concept over which philosophers debate.

When Jesus said that his whole purpose in life was to talk about the truth, he was speaking of something that faithful Jews had valued for centuries. In their sacred writings, the Jews had long read of “truth” as something concrete, not theoretical. In the Bible, “truth” translates the Hebrew word “’emeth',” which signifies that which is firm, solid, and, perhaps most of all, reliable.

MANY religious organizations claim to have the truth, and they offer it eagerly to others. However, between them they offer a dizzying profusion of “truths.” Is this just another evidence that all truths are relative, that there are no absolute truths? No.

In his book The Art of Thinking, Professor V. R. Ruggiero expresses his surprise that even intelligent people sometimes say that truth is relative. He reasons: “If everyone makes his own truth, then no person’s idea can be better than another’s. All must be equal. And if all ideas are equal, what is the point in researching any subject? Why dig in the ground for answers to archeological questions? Why probe the causes of tension in the Middle East? Why search for a cancer cure? Why explore the galaxy? These activities make sense only if some answers are better than others, if truth is something separate from, and unaffected by, individual perspectives.”

In fact, no one really believes that there is no truth. When it comes to physical realities, such as medicine, mathematics, or the laws of physics, even the staunchest relativist will believe that some things are true. Who of us would dare to ride in an airplane if we did not think that the laws of aerodynamics were absolute truths? Verifiable truths do exist; they surround us, and we stake our lives on them.

Truth is Truth, you cannot change it

Answer 3

There are facts, and there are absolutely false statements. The notion expressed by the statement "Chicago is north of New Orleans" is true, and the notion expressed by the statement "Chicago is south of New Orleans" is false. There's nothing relative about that. The same thing holds for more complex notions: global warming is true, creationism is false, it is true that people in general tend to repeat behaviors for which they have been rewarded, and it is false that the moon landing was a hoax staged in a movie set.

Unfortunately the notion that truth is relative seems to have firmly taken hold, largely because people are so attached to a variety of false religious beliefs and do not know how to interpret the world around them except through the lens of those beliefs, and at the same time insist on a kind of "tolerance" that they believe requires others to act as though those false beliefs were true (often protesting "but you can't prove they're not!").

Answer 4

Many things we call "truth" are relative in that they are incomplete.

Simple example: PI = 3.14 This is true and usable on an everyday basis. Is it perfectly and exactly true? No. You can reach, with effort, closer and closer approximations to the "true" value of PI, depending on how accurate you need it to be useful for your purpose.

"Truth" is something of a fractal nature... to get progressively truer, one much explore increasingly more ramifications, special cases, exceptions to the rule, exceptions to the exceptions, historical background, level of technology to examine truth, etc.

This "truth" is the truth of Jurisprudence; the "truth" of Psychology; the "truth" of the Middle East crisis; the "truth" of Economics, etc., actually of anything in the real worth. There is an elementary school level of truth, as in "parallel lines never meet" and there is a university level of truth, which discusses Riemann space.

I first thought about this in study of molecular spectroscopy, and the saying "a formula is either too good to be true or too true to be good".
That means, you can get a simple approximation of the answer with a relatively simple formula. To get more accurate, more factors have to be brought into the equation, and at a certain point, only a supercomputer can handle it! Of course, we get progressively better computers in each generation.

The "truth" of science is exactly like this. Some people deride it and say "science is always changing". Indeed it is. When I went to school, Saturn had only 9 moons--- that was the "truth". Nowadays, that "truth" has been greatly augmented! And yet, the mathematics of Newton is still perfectly good for most any engineering applications. The change of progressive growth of "truth" usually amplifies, rather than repeals large pieces of the corpus of knowledge.

I would suggest that the "truth" of philosophy and religion is not basically any different! There are limits to what any one mind can grasp, however brilliant, yet the corpus of knowledge itself is still expanding rapidly, as is our ability to work with it (i.e. expert systems, etc.). And another factor is that human evolution is not just something that happened 50,000 years ago and is done with. There is evidence of genetic change even within the historical period. The human being of 50,000 years in the future (if we can avoid creating our own extinction) will surpass us in ways that are quite difficult to even begin to imagine.

Such is "truth".

Answer 5

There is a True, No Kidding, Objective Truth. It is found within God.

For example, if I whole-heartedly, truly sincerely believe that F-16s are made of Jell-O, does that in any way make it true? Of course not.

The same applies to ANY belief, INCLUDING Christianity. Truth is not true BECAUSE we believe it. The objective Truth is objectively and unalterably True whether we believe it or not.

This is why the wise among us SEARCH for Truth, because the wise among us realize that we cannot CREATE Truth simply by believing in something.

Those who do are self-deluded fools.

Answer 6

Lets see.
2+2=4 but if the state, or goverment ordains it
2+2=5 then so be it!

is this true? if so then there is no truth! or truth is relative.
but if you still hold that 2 and 2 are till 4, then there is truth, even unto death.

It is the same with the word of God.

Answer 7

Truth is not relative.

Relativism, the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference.

Your question is, is truth absolute? Yes Truth is absolute. A person believing are not believing does not alter truth.

Answer 8

The only Truth is God's Holy Inspired Word.

Answer 9

There is absolute truth and there is relative truth. Absolute truth exists in an unmanifest state, and can be experienced but not known. When absolute truth becomes manifest in knowledge, it becomes debatable, and bound by contradictions.

Answer 10

All things are relative (Expect light). The real question is, "How subjective is the truth?"

Some philosophers have theorized that nothing is objective enough to be agreeable to everything. But most philosophers agree that everything is objective enough to be agreeable to enough people to make most things practical.

Hope that helps.

Answer 11

If I say "I love you." and it's true, then it's a truth that is relative. If I say I have a car, that is a truth that is a fact.