John Page

Depends entirely on your definition of blonde hair. Does a dye job count, for example?
The truth is man's guesses.
As far as I know, we are unable to change the past. However, theories about the past, such as evolution, only come into being when they are thought of.

More fun with the truth in this thread here

Cheers, John

Normal

The only thing implicit is that you are making an assertion. Whatever it makes you as a person is irrelevant to the assertion's true value.

Tazz10m

Well... (spoken in the voice of "The Church Lady") Isn't THIS interesting...

Thanks for all the great responses everybody.

As for "the lie", as far as my so called understanding goes, a lie is something that is expressed specifically in order to deceive. If, for instance, someone says something is true, and they really don't know what they are talking about, it is not a "lie", but rather that they just simply believe wrong, can't see, misunderstand, or are full of crap. (I'm sure i've left a few out.)

Biff the unclean

That Tazz leaves us with the problem of "degree."
In the GRD section, that this thread was bumped from, there is a very common tactic used by theists, Xians mostly but Moslems have adopted it recently. It's about the supernatural. Their claim is that it shows a bias not to believe in the supernatural. They agree that there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that there is such a thing. But, they maintain, such evidence may be found in the future. One even mentioned a machine for detecting angels that the future might hold.
My contention is that this is a form of lying.
They have no evidence.
They understand that they have no evidence.
The claim is based on the future availability of evidence, but they have no way of knowing the future.
All the information they have currently available to them shows the supernatural to be the product of primitive superstition.
So to claim that there is a supernatural is to claim to have information that they do not have. And to ignore information that they do have. Any way you look at it that claim is expressed specifically in order to deceive.

If it turned out in the future that Sony did make an Angeldetectorman that would only be by chance. The person making the claim today would still be lying because they were spreading information as the truth that they had no way of knowing was the truth. And they knew when they said it that they had no proof, which makes it willful deception.

freeth1nker

I think in the end, it is all a matter of how you define truth. For Biff, I think your definition of truth is something like "justified true belief," (with the main emphasis on justification) whereas everyone else is talking about a different kind of truth, an objective truth that exists in itself (yeah, that kinda sounds like Kant's Ding-an-Sich). Most theories of truth in philosophy applies to the proposition, not to the speaker of the proposition. For example, the Correspondance Theory of Truth states that "a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts of the world." Therefore, the proposition "Mr. X has blonde hair" is true if and only if Mr. X does in fact have blonde hair. This criterion of truth applies only to the proposition, and is irrespective of the context or speaker. It doesn't matter who is making the claim, the concern is in the truth of the statement. Consequently, whether the person, who is making the proposition, is telling the truth or lying depends on the proposition's veracity alone, and not on the person's intentions. To my knowledge, this approach of "de nobis ipsis silemus" (of our own person we will say nothing) is used in most theories of objective truth in philosophy.
Anyway, enough with the philosophy lessons.
What I am trying to say that whether a statement is true ultimately depends on what you mean by "true." If you are using the aforementioned criterion (i.e. the correspondance theory), you may call the theistic proposition unjustified, irrational, and ludicrous, but not "untrue," if we judge truth solely by correspondance to the facts of the (natural) world. The theistic proposition cannot then be true or false, as this criterion of truth applies only to the material world, all supernatural propositions is then perhaps outside the realm of truth and labelled by most adherents of this theory as the categorical "nonsense."
I just wanted everyone to pay close attention to the foundations on which we base our "Truth." Perhaps, the theist does not hold logic as a cornerstone of truth, then we have a different dilemma altogether.

Since intention is irrelevant to truth, willful deception is not that much of a problem.
I am concerned with theists who make this ridiculous claim in the first place. Physical evidence for a supernatural claim is in itself a contradiction. Therefore, I don't think we ever will come to the day of the Angeldetectorman and thus no need to take such claims seriously.

Edit: I think I am being a little too verbose.

Volker.Doormann

No. Neither truth depends on your final thinking, nor needs truth to be defined by 'you'. It is still an arrogant thinking. Truth needs only to be recognized and to respect. Truth must be recognized as logic and math must be recognized; only arrogant brains think that logic and/or math could be defined in a final 'philosophy'. That, what is, is not to defined, it is to be recognized. To claim to define is to reject recognition and only authorities in philosophy believe in this egocentric claim.

Volker

John Page

Volker:

Upon what authority do you make such claim, and how can you prove it to be true?

Cheers, John

John Page

Which is why there is the "Law of the Excluded Crap in the Middle".

Cheers, John

freeth1nker

First of all, I find your grammar extremely obfuscating. What the hell are you trying to say? "Truth needs only to be recognized and to respect." "That, what is, is not to defined, it is to be recognized."
Furthermore, what do you mean by "final" thinking and "final" philosophy? Please clarify.
Based what I gathered or what I think I gathered (as a philosopher, I must be meticulous in my wording ) from your post, you seem to be saying truth is independent of the individual (i.e. the "you") but is dependent on what is (i.e. what exists), and only math and logic can tell you that not philosophy. Right? If I have misunderstood you, then correct me.
If you do not define truth first, how will you recognize it? You have simply chosen to define truth as "math and logic" and thus you only recognize things that fit those categories. However, those are not the only truths out there. It is the arrogance of the mathematicians and scientists who fail to see the philosophical naivete in their own arguments that make them think that they hold the exclusive claim to truth. Logic itself is a very narrow branch of philosophy. The 20th century favourtism towards science, mathematics and logic is due to the philosophical movements that arose such as the Analytic Tradition and the logical positivists.

Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't all of logic and mathematics be reduced to Aristotle's Three Laws of Thought? So the answer is that even math/logic are the heirs of philosophy.

I know you definitely won't like that answer.

Volker.Doormann

If one believes, that an authority is a references for truth, he do follow a personal cult, but not the truth itself. Not any authority is a reference for truth, is the recognition of an individual only. As I have written prior in this thread, truth is not to be shown. No one can show truth. From this it is obvious, that there is no prove ever in nature next to the own recognition.

Volker