Quote:

"If relativism was true"

and

"nothing in the universe was absolute"

are two different statements, and it is not the fault of others that you can't see the difference.



Excuse me. "If relativism is true and truth is relative." That's basically what I meant. Now if you're going to tell me that the accepted definition of relativism is wrong because its devastating to your philosophy, then do me a favor and don't waste my time.

Quote:

It is your problem that you state that relativism is an absolute statement, not that of relativistic thinking people. A statement isn't necessarily absolute. It is only your claim.



I don't think its an absolute statement. In fact, I only believe its relatively true. For some people, relativism is true. But just because its relatively true doesn't mean it isn't absolutely false.

Anyway, I'm only using your guys' arguments. Either you're a relativist and you think that relativism is a universal truth (an absolute), or you're not and even if you don't know what they are, you admit there are absolutes.

The best position you can take is that even though there are absolutes, we can never know what they are, so we should just give up and live with the knowledge that we're left with our own relative constructs of truth. Including morals. However, a fundamental belief in relativism is nothing but intellectually false, or just plain dishonest. Whether or not you're willing to admit it.

Besides, this is yet another post by a relativist where nothing but an opinion is stated. I would love, just once, for one of you to actually back up your opinion with some logic or reasoning, instead of just stating your opposition to my view.

P.S. its seems to me that you're trying to establish that relativism is only relatively true. But that's actually true of my absolutist philosophy. To me, I see some people who agree with relativism and some who don't. So its relatively true, but absolutely false. In the sense that while its the truth for some people, its still a false philosophy because humans are fallible and can believe things that aren't true.

You might not like the sound of that, but consider the fact that you take similar positions if only subconsciously. To you, even though Naziism was the truth for Hitler and the nazis, you know it to be wrong.

This goes back to some of my earlier statements. I'm sure you guys do believe in absolutes (Naziism is wrong, slavery is wrong, etc), its just that you want to be the ones to decide what those absolutes are (i.e. man determines truth, not God). Of course, that's just my opinion, so feel free to disagree if you want.

edit: Let me try and get you into a logic train that will expose the fallicy of your argument. I'll start with this statement.

Quote:

I'm not trying to make fun of you, but you still don't get it. If something is true, then it's still not necessarily absolute. Infact, I would say quite the contrary, since like I said before, truth is based upon what we know and that's limited and thus relative.



Ok, so to you relativism isn't absolutely true, truth is just what man determines it to be but it never gets above that level. Its all relative.

Now, I take the opposite position, i.e. there are absolutes which directly opposes what you believe. So the only thing keeping my opinion from overriding yours is that its only relatively true (to me). Do you believe this?

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 09/18/06 01:16.
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