Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: ArGee
We refuse to accept that there is a truth whether we can determine it or not. Our job is to continue to try to find it, even if we know in advance we are doomed to fail. The idea that we may be doomed to fail really upsets the arrogant among us.

Exactly.

Of course, if a particular person decides to not pursue finding the truth, that person is free to decide to stop looking.

But they shouldn't use the feeble excuse that, just because they did not bother, or could not determine the truth, that means that there is no truth.

For example, imagine my car's temperature gauge is stuck and reads "Normal" all the time. If I see steam coming out from under the hood I'd better stop and check under the hood. Just because I would find it more "convenient" to accept the reading on the gauge, doesn't mean it's true that the engine isn't overheating. It's either overheating or it isn't. I should take steps to determine the truth. If I decide NOT to take those steps, and decide to ignore the steam, I still haven't altered the truth of the situation.

459 posted on 12/04/2001 9:33:18 AM PST by syriacus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 457 | View Replies ]


To: syriacus
For example, imagine my car's temperature gauge is stuck and reads "Normal" all the time. If I see steam coming out from under the hood I'd better stop and check under the hood. Just because I would find it more "convenient" to accept the reading on the gauge, doesn't mean it's true that the engine isn't overheating. It's either overheating or it isn't. I should take steps to determine the truth. If I decide NOT to take those steps, and decide to ignore the steam, I still haven't altered the truth of the situation.

This is a decent example, but it describes laziness. To be more accurate you would have to shout at the hood, "Hey, who knows more about the temperature of the car, me or some stupid mindless water molecules?"

In other words, our argument isn't with the intellectually lazy who have refused to continue looking, it's with the intellectually arrogant who presume that anything they can't see must not exist.

Such people will not only stand arrogantly by their own reasoning power, they will attack the people who disagree with them rather than attacking their ideas. After all, when you're one of the gifted, those who disagree with you are idiots. Their disagreement is the proof.

Shalom.

460 posted on 12/04/2001 9:42:16 AM PST by ArGee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 459 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson