This started of as a rant to my Bible teacher after a relatively thought-provoking class last week, and has now turned into my first blog post in months. Happy reading, and I'd love to hear your feedback on how effective I am in disproving Erwin Schrödinger. Yes, he was the man with the cat and the box. Looking forward to any radical, intelligent conversation this (paper?) evokes.
There is no such thing as “the truth.” –Well, at least not in this realm anyway.
Me: What or who do you believe, or at least in accordance with the philosophy you teach, decides where we’re born and the conditions of our lives? I mean, who dictates that I’m born in Tanzania to certain parents with a certain income and I’ll look this way? And who dictates that this baby will be born to Prince William and will be the future king of England?
Bible Teacher: [Something about God deciding]
Me: Well, then does that mean that a baby born to Buddhist parents, something God chose for it, will automatically be going to hell, whether it dies in infancy or grows up in the same religion, because it failed to “accept Jesus” and the live the way a Christian should? I, myself, am Catholic and I’m this way because of the family I come from. I was baptised as a Catholic and have been going to Mass my entire life. Yes, of course as we grow older, we begin asking questions and making our own decisions on what cast/denomination/religion we belong to but in essence, where we’re born and how we are brought up influences this greatly, if not completely. So does and will God truly hold you against a decision he made based on his will; a decision you had no control over?
As a Catholic, I believe my religion to be infallible and the “right, true one”. As a Protestant, you [Bible teacher] most likely believe the same of your religion. Had I been born to Muslim parents, I’d probably have the same belief of Islam i.e. the Qur’an is complete truth and would have been a die-hard Muslim (pun not intended). But as you [Bible teacher] yourself said; believing something is true does not make it true. You can have all the faith in the world and believe something with all your heart, mind, and soul but ultimately that doesn’t make it true. Caitlyn Jenner believes he’s a woman with all his might and so do millions too, but that still doesn’t make it true. I believe in purgatory, for example, when people die that’s where I believe they initially go and I pray for their souls to be saved. From purgatory. You clearly don’t believe that. Hindus believe, again with all their might, that when they die, they will be reincarnated. There are some with such powerful beliefs that they will gladly commit suicide, solely to prove that they WILL be reincarnated as a cow. But even with those immense degrees of belief, it still simply does not make it true. Even with Christianity, we believe in the divinity of Jesus and are gladly willing to sacrifice all for his sake. Others will argue that no, Jesus was simply a prophet and it’s blasphemous to call him God. Others will say that no, Jesus of Nazareth was just an ordinary man and the only thing special about him was his talent to be a believable, chronic liar and was probably romantically linked to Mary Magdalene, anyway. Christians can refute these claims bitterly but ultimately, that’s all we have; faith. Something my dad’s always told me is that when you start asking too many questions about religion, it reaches a point that reason and logic become inapplicable e.g. when explaining miracles, yes you can believe that Jesus turned that water into wine but you don’t know how, you simply have to accept it and have faith in its credibility.
In class yesterday, you talked about “the absolute truth.” In terms of religion, this is absolutely true i.e. ultimately there is only one religion that’s true however nobody can say that “Unlike others, I am not claiming that my religion is true simply because I believe it’s true but rather that I believe in my religion because it’s true.” This is because ultimately we can’t know. Despite what we, as Christians, believe and no matter how strong we believe it, we, to the core of it can simply claim it’s true because we believe it to be so. Judaism could after all be right and Jesus could just have been an ordinary man. Yes, we can argue this but what are we arguing with? Faith. In the divinity of Jesus Christ. We can’t know what’s out there ergo no one, absolutely no one, can claim they do because then they’re not telling us what actually is but rather what they believe actually is. Even as a Catholic, a priest can stand up on the altar and read the Gospel from the Bible and tell us what he believes to be true and we can soak in his words and also start believing what he taught us, but that simply does not make it true.
So, what is true? I can respond to that by saying God and the Bible and the Church. Billions will agree with me, billions will not. We make these statement, have these arguments, on the belief and faith that what we’re saying is true but that does not make it so. Ultimately, yes, we can’t all be right. We can’t live in a universe where both the Holy Trinity and Vishnu and the Big Bang Theory and the Torah is right (I mean we could since God can do anything but my point still stands, there is only one truth). So yes, somewhere out there, the heavens or oblivion or whatever it is your faith leads you to call it, there is absolute truth but we don’t have it here, in the material realm, we only have faith… not knowledge. And ultimately there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that per se, since religion is driven by faith not actual knowledge and certainty (even if you claim what your saying is backed up with knowledge and certainty, you’re simply saying that you believe what your saying is backed up with knowledge and certainty). Therefore, we there is no such thing as “absolute truth” in this realm. And yes, others can argue that ultimately one of the religions we have here on earth is true and if it’s true in the spiritual realm it’s also true in this realm. This is true but we don’t know which one it is and what is actually true since we, again, only have faith and beliefs. So, yes, let’s assume some of us are right and Christianity turns out to be the one true faith but it will only become the “certified truth” when backed up with knowledge and certainty. Right now, in this very moment, even if it turns out to be true, in our realm, it’s simply “a possibility of the truth many people believe in.” And I know, others will argue that just because we don’t know whether it’s true or not does not change its credibility and this argument makes sense e.g. just because a colour-blind person sees red as green doesn’t mean that it stops being green when the colour-blind person looks at it since he doesn’t know it. What’s green will always stay green. What religion is true will always stay true. What changes is that if you put another colour-blind person besides the initial colour-blind person and the 2nd one sees purple instead of green, neither one of them can claim their colour is right. Bring in a third person with perfect vision who ends up seeing the green, they also can’t claim that it is green because they don’t know the truth, they simply have the faith that it’s green. So, similar to religion, until the truth has been revealed by God (a statement I make with faith, not certainty), we don’t know what’s true so we can’t claim we do. Our hypotheses may be right in the end but at this point, it’s simply a hypothesis until it’s verified.
I understand my philosophy bears resemblances to Schrödinger’s cat, who Schrödinger claimed was both alive and dead simultaneously when put in a confined box. I disagree. The cat is simply in a box and one can believe if it’s dead or not but until the box is opened, the claim cannot be made. Just because we don’t know the condition of the cat, it doesn’t change the possibilities of the condition of the cat. The cat is not both alive and dead, nor neither; the cat is one of them, but we can’t claim which one, yet. Yes, later on, one of them will be right but in the moment, when the box is still closed, the cat’s condition cannot be classified as “the truth” since no argument can be backed up with knowledge of “that” truth. Therefore, until the box is opened, the entire notion of “absolute truth” vanishes and does not exist. Hence my thesis stands, “absolute truth”; a definitive statement bearing the ultimate, factual truth, does not exist. Well, at least not in this realm, anyway.
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