Question to the non-believers out there about truth...?

Question

Do you think that truth is something you find (but it might not be in a religious book), define (by ourselves), or that simply there is no truth, only things we percieve? I'm very interested to know what you think!
If you define it, where do you get your truth from? Do you search yourself as a human being or is it from experiences in your past?

Thanks for taking the time to answer. It seems the Christians in the house get bombarded with questions attacking our belief and we don't seem to get you atheists or agnostics a chance to explain anything you believe. So please.... "enlighten" us.....


p.s. no matter what your answer... Jesus loves you still.

Thanks for the tip, JackBauer, but I wasn't trying to push any specfic doctrine. I wanted to know what the atheist and the agnostics (the ones who either don't believe or can't settle on a specific God) think. Islam still gets its truth from God. But these guys have nowhere to get their truth, they must find it in other places or make it up. I just wanted to see what worked for them. It's interesting to me to see what other people see as truth and how they arrived to that.

But as always, JackBauer, you keep me on my toes, my friend :)

Answer 1

Im not sure what is meant by 'truth'
If I wanted to find out if something being said to me was true, I would reflect on my own experience of people, I would inquire into what is being said. ask questions. get detail. If no details are available by the person telling me, I would assume liying, but not always.it depends on the nature of the claim.
i am struggling to answer this question.
it is a very good question though..... you should get 10 points (-10 for being a christian :) joking)
.
I get 'truth' from observing life and people around me at all times. i am lucky, I have been doing it most my life.

Answer 2

There is no such thing as truth in terms of religious beliefs because it is a belief, and nearly everyone throughout the world believes in something different no matter how insignificant it may be.

As there are so many religions how can you be certain yours is the correct one? Look at Christianity. . . how many different forms of that are there?
I believe in evolution and Science because in MY OPINION it has been proven and seems the most logical.
Where as Christianity there are many varying forms where they all believe in different things when reading the same book!

Having looked into different religions my self they most common theme among them is the money being made from it and how rich and powerful these religions have become. Why should you pay for your own beliefs and to worship your God? Love is free right? Just look at how rich and powerful the Catholic Church is, and the Mormon Church.

Read the bible. . .Jesus does not love you!

Answer 3

I think that you are confusing non-believers with non-christians. This question means something different to everyone who answers.

Atheists and agnostics are not the same

Atheists have FAITH. Atheism is a faith. An atheist must make the same leap of faith that any Deists make (christians included). Their faith is that god does NOT exist.

Agnostics are "seekers" of truth. Typically, agnostics will explore many avenues of data collection. Some agnostics are simply participants in a given religion, but want to find the personal attachment of that religion to them.

Truth is not "gotten" from somewhere. Truth is an abstract concept that is differnt from each persons perspective.

Truth to a christian may be that "Jesus was physically resurrected".

Truth to a non-christian may be that "Jesus was excommunicated by the Pharisees and returned to his rightful place as the Priest-King in the dynastic succession of the House of David after three days of isolated penitential cleansing"

It all depends upon your perspective.

Answer 4

In my way of looking at things there are three different 'truths'. There are factual truths, logical truths and conventional truths.

In the case of factual truth, we advance a proposition, devise a way of testing it by making an observation, measurement or by performing an experiment and then see if it's true.

Logical truths are rather trivial and self evident but sometimes the logical structure of a problem is complex enough to warrant investigation. Even in this case, however, no observation, etc, is necessary.

Conventional truths are things we have decided are the way we are going to do things (eg the definition of a word) so they are also rather trivial.

If a proposition does not fall into any of these categories, then it is either meanigless or at best an opinion. Most religious statements fall into this category

Answer 5

Atheists are just as believers as religious people are. They say "because there are evidences" but in fact, usually all their knowledge is from books, so it's simply that they chose another belief. How can an average person tell there was a battle at Hastings in 1066? He/she learnt it at school or read in a book. Wow, this is much more convincing than the Bible, isn't it? LOL

Personally, I follow this belief too. As for transcedental truth... I don't know. I just don't care if there is a deity or not. I will definitely care about it when I'm burning in Hell... LOL

Answer 6

Okay, how can I explain this. You see, I'm Pagan, and, WE ARE NOT EVIL. Just thought I'd let you know that. I used to be Christian, but it just didn't seem right to me. So I thoughroly (pardon my spelling) search through 7 religions before finding Paganism.

I think that "the truth" is something we see ourselves. We all have different reasons for having different beliefs. It's like a word problem. One person might see the answer one way, another might see it a different way. It's impossible to tell who is right, but I think many people would rather believe something because it makes them happy and they are a better person because of it, rather than being a certain religion because they're scared of something that may happen if they're not.

Answer 7

Here is my atheist answer for you.

When a baby is born, (human or Animal) It follows and copies what its parents do. The world is too dangerous for a child to be experimenting and finding out its own answers. This is how we learn.

Nearly all religious people have parents who are religious, whether that be their biological parents or close friends that helped bring them up. The word for this is indoctrination. You believe what your parents tell you. If your parents tell you from the day you are born that there is a bearded chap sitting in a place called heaven, you are going to believe it.

Atheists are usually brought up to make their own minds up about such things as religion. We are not predetermined to "believe" because our parents have not said to us that this is the truth.

So, when the question is posed to us, or we begin to think about religion or God, we look at it from an unbiased angle, looking at the evidence for and against. We are able to see the contradictions and fallacy's within religion that a person from a religious family/ group wouldn't see or would ignore.

When you look at God from this angle, you begin to see that either a) Its wild fantasied and none of it is true, or b) Even if it were true, we are better than to worship an egocentric, vengeful, existentialist God who's social ideas are something to be pitied rather than worshipped.

Of course there are variables, and there are some who come from atheists family's who have found God and some from religious family's who have turned to atheism, however, when you look at the social structures of these people and the events of their lives, you see there is still indoctrination on both sides. No one on this earth who is of sound mind would decide that Christianity, Islam or any of the other religions were right and true without being influenced by others.

When Christians, for example, try and defend their beliefs, they will use examples like the fact we have a moral code is proof of God. Yet humans are social animals and family structure, and being nice to one another is seen all over the animal kingdom. It's a survival mechanism.

When an atheist asks why God will not show himself, a Christian will say " its about faith. God will not offer proof of himself because without faith he cannot exists" yet they still go on about God appearing to them and causing "miracles". The fact that we know about God is proof of his existence is it not? And as Douglas Adams wrote, The fact that God said to man that he will not offer proof of his existence IS proof of his existence and God promptly disappears in a puff of logic.

Answer 8

The truth doesn't change it's just what you believe to be the truth that changes and the can either be right or wrong. If you have a brain the truth comes from looking at evidence around you and using logic to draw a conclusion that can withstand criticisms.
p.s. no matter what you believe jesus was a magician who died almost 2,000 years ago and is never coming back.
Say No To jesus.

Answer 9

Truth is something the heart reveals, it is not down to logical thinking and being just responsible for ones life or the people you care for.
Truth is a moral fibre in your own existence, it sets the ground rules for your own characteristics and plays a large part in the person you become.i find that honesty is the truth of life and that if we where all a bit more honest with each other and didn't keep secrets the world would be a better place!

But sadly freewill enables us to lie and cheat, deceive and keep secrets which only add turbulence and trouble to our lives We only perceive our surroundings and the situations we find ourselves in.
What we do is told to us by a panic button in ourselves, the path is ours to take its just a question of which one, be it truth or lies....

Answer 10

Truth is something that exists - tangible - for which you will have physically evidence or Probability.

Belief depends on Faith - not on truth.

You get truth from evidence - simple - not through faith or belief.

You can search your self only by learning your self - you have to do it by your self - Some body can only guide you to do it - not do it for you ! To know you, you need to look in to you and then figure out the reasons for your existence.

No harm intended on Christians - you seem to be lost in the bible and not learn about your existence, but about a God's existence and a faith on a God who is going to save you - but from what ? Is it from your own self ? What is the reason of you living, if you have to depend on someone that you actually don't know (reality - it is a myth) to save you ? You never give your self a chance do you ?