Is truth absolute or relative?

Question

If relative, then it's okay to rewrite history. Yes?

Answer 1

Truth, by definition, is that which best reflects reality.

Relative truth is fact found by you for you in your situation and may not be true for me in that situation because I am not you. But The Truth [with a capital T], or The Absolute Truth, say that which is from God's perspective (since he knows it all and nothing is hidden to him), can be hidden to us and needs revelation at times. Some truths can be discovered by scientific methods (weight, balances, heat, air, space, etc.) and math is definiately Truth. Gravity is Truth and engineers rely greatly on Truth to blueprint, plan, build and construct.

If by truth YOU mean Truth, then yes, it is absolute--anyone and everyone should see Truth meaning the same thing...perhaps applied differently, but meaning the same thing...for example: two people have to come to terms that gravity is truth on this planet and if you do certain things to try to go against it, regardless of your belief or how realtive you think it is...the truth is, what goes up must come down!

And, no, it is never right to rewrite history!
--peace/shalom

Answer 2

It would help to define our terms. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "truth", "absolute" or "relative".

By one common definition, absolute truth refers to the fact that, while we may or may not be able to prove anything beyond doubt, any statement that contains truth value (i.e., a statement which asserts a fact, and therefore may be regarded as either true or false) has one absolute truth value. Either it is true, or it is false. There is no other possible "middle value".

There are some philosophers and logicians who maintain that in fact, there is no absolute truth, and such statements don't actually possess traditional "truth value". The statement may be neither true nor false, or both.

There are others who maintain the "law of excluded middle", which states that these statements must be either true or false. In this sense, there is an absolute truth, even if it is impossible in practice to determine with certaintly what that truth value is.

On another understanding of "absolute truth", there are those who believe it is possible to know things with certainty. Recall in the previous definition, it does not depend on knowledge; only the mere fact that one or the other opinion is the truth. The difference here is that we now are asserting a power of the human mind to "know" something which can't possibly be false. Very few contemporary philosophers would hold to an extreme position, where absolute certainty is possible. (Even such simple questions as whether or not we exist are not considered to be known absolutely!)

As one poster mentioned, the Special Theory of Relativity is a bit of a misnomer, because Einstein did posit the speed of light to be an absolute--even at the cost of bizaar results which contradict common sense. However, this type of absolutism is entirely different. Einstein only proposed a theory which, when the speed of light was assumed as absolutely constant, predicted our experimental results better than any previous theories. He did not to say that either the speed of light or his theory as a whole was impossible to doubt or was true with absolute certainty. Far from it. The enterprise of science is constantly subjecting theory to test: all science is "relative" to the results of experiment and verification.

With regards to rewriting history, this is done all the time by historians, as new facts come in or the attitudes of society change. If new research shows that our previous versions of history were incorrect, we rewrite history to account for new information.

Einstein's theories are a good example of this: he revolutionized our theories of the world, and "rewrote history".

To say that truth is relative can mean simply that "truth" is relative to our current understanding. In this sense, yes truth is relative, and yes, we are always rewriting history.

Suppose you see a person jump out of a 10 story building. You immediately assume that the person is either suicidal or crazy. This, to you, is the truth. Later you learn that the person was actually pushed out of the building. According to these new facts, you revise your own history of the truth, and conclude that the person was actually quite normal. (The crazy person was the other guy who pushed him out of the window.)

This is a trivial example, but basically the same thing that happens in philosophy or science--or anywhere. Even when something seems very obvious or absolute, you never know when a new theory will pop up that completely changes the way we think, and rewrites history.

Answer 3

OK This is a good one ...

If it is relative then there are as many truths or realities about history as there are people. So it is perceived from a relative point of view and therefore different.
.I understand that Iran is now deciding that from their viewpoint that the 6 million Jews who died in the 1940's from the Nazi Holocaust never happened! The concentration camps never existed!
.. Ya changing of our history happens all the time and politics comes in with its relative opinion too!!!

Truth is also Absolute ...(not the vodka one)
My truth is absolute to me.
I can change it but no one else can, my belief in how things are is absolute.

So is this a juxtaposition? or a paradox or a perplexity or what?...that the truth can be two very real things at the same.

time?

good luck with the answers & thanks ...

Answer 4

Truth is relative to an individual. But, history is history and we can't change it or rewrite it, we only take it as it is with proofs and others materials that will support that it is the truth, and have faith to those documentaries/historians of the past, and hope they wrote what truly transpired and they don't give biased accounts and they didn't add or subtract on the events. But, some people are also rewriting/claiming some piece of history by making study and research, and disproving that what was written wasn't truly transpired.

Answer 5

some truth is absolute, other relative

most historical facts are absolute truth, many interpretations are relative

in physics, the speed of light being a constant is an absolute truth, the length of a moving object is relative

( Theory of Relativity could well be called a theory of Absolutism as there are many things there that are absolute. The fact that main concepts like space and time became relative led to its name.
so, do not be misled -- not everything is relative, both in nature and life, "thou shall not kill" is a good example for an absolute truth in social life. )

Answer 6

you ought to really attempt something basically first, like what's reality or might want to i comprehend it if I said it, or is it fairly only a unmarried body of reality or are there separate truths about many stuff. basically, a lot of human beings discuss reality in an exceedingly non secular style without fairly information what it skill in that experience, wondering that their utilization skill each little thing, or comprehend it yet misapply it in different meanings. There are time that reality is relative, as an party once you recount something that exceeded off to you or testify in courtroom, you'd be telling the reality as you comprehend it, yet that couldn't tournament what fairly exceeded off. reality is often absolute in that the actuality "evolution is a actuality" is authentic. yet once you're saying that a deity is the reality, then you commence to really lose sight of what reality skill. Edit: i might want to assert that absolute reality about a subject matter isn't expressible through an uncomplicated actuality.

Answer 7

Truth is relative

Fact is absolute

example: "it is night".........true for me but on the other side of the globe its day making that statement untrue, truth is relative.

Fact: the earth spins relative to the sun causing day and night relative to your position on the earth.

History is best listed in facts and everything else as presumptions siting the reasoning behind it, not truths.

Answer 8

It's absolutely relative

Answer 9

Truth is supposed to be absolute. But what is truth to one might not be the case for another.
As we are human beings, human nature is bound to interpret truth in different ways . Sometimes truth is adapted to suit one 's way of thinking or belief; so quilt will be absolved.
So you hear the saying there are three sides to truth. Your side, my side, and the real truth. So in this case, truth is made relative. But technically, truth and the real truth, so help me, God , is the absolute truth.

Answer 10

Most of it is relative, but there are some absolutes. The problem is in discerning the absolute from the relative -- it's almost impossible.