>> "And I believe absolute truth is not to be found in the visionary dreamings of ancient men and their books of wishes."
That's an absolute statement, and as such constitutes a contradiction on your part, because you claim to be a relativist. There, I found it, do I get a cookie?
Only if you go buy your own. I've made a statement of opinion. I don't claim absolute truth for it (even on my own, still less handed down on tablets of stone or strange dreams).
A relativist can believe things, state things, affirm things. He (or indeed she) also recognises that he may be mistaken, and that his opinion is just that. It may be better backed up by logic, by observation, by the witnessing of others, by evidence... it may even be backed up by natural law, inescapable physical truth, in which case it's rather foolish to doubt it.
I'm not relativist about gravity, for example.
But I don't claim the right to dictate others' feelings, beliefs or wishes, and don't claim truth overriding them.
Your astronaut might or might not see god if s/he tried breathing vacuum... you say yes, I say no, neither of us can actually *know* - no one can. But believe it or not, said cosmonaut will still freeze, die and be subject to gravity. Those are absolutes.
Now continue to worship at your own shrine. Try not to be smug about your belief, it's very unbecoming in a messiah. Still more so, of course, if you're not possessed of absolute, revelatory truth... |
