How Do We Explain Truth?

Truth is simply a true perspective, or a true picture in all proper proportions, of what exists.
– Gordon C. Olson

Truth reveals reality, and reality can be described as what we humans run into when we are wrong, a collision in which we always lose.
– Dallas Willard

There is nothing more necessary than truth, in comparison with it, everything else has only secondary value.
– Friedrich Nietzsche

If you shut up truth and bury it underground, it will but grow.
– Emile Zola

Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.
– Winston Churchill

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
– Flannery O’Connor

Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie.
– Miyamoto Musashi

A writer who says there are no truths, or that all truth is “merely relative” is asking you not to believe in him. So don’t.
– Roger Scruton

God’s truth is not simply one among many perspectives, but the truth about each and all perspectives.
– Miroslav Volf

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.
– Blaise Pascal

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
– C. S. Lewis

Those who seek the Truth, seek God, even without knowing it
– Edith Stein

Everyone that is of the truth hears My Voice.
– Jesus Christ

Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.
– Simone Weil

How Do We Explain Moral Relativism?

If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other,
there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to
savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality.
– C. S. Lewis

If all positions are of equal intellectual merit,
then cannibalism is only a matter of taste.
– Pope Benedict XVI

A system of morality which is bases on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
– Socrates

A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative,’ is asking you not to believe him. So don’t. Deconstruction deconstructs itself, and disappears up its own behind, leaving only a disembodied smile and a faint smell of sulphur.
– Roger Scruton

The assumption that all ideas are equally true is false. Philosophically it is very easy to demonstrate that falsity. Any society however sincere that believes in the equality of all ideas will pave the way for the loss of the good ones.
– Ravi Zacharias

If you depart from moral absolutes, you go into a bottomless pit. Communism and Nazism were catastrophic evils which both derived from moral relativism. Their differences were minor compared to their similarities.
– Paul Johnson

If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable.
– Benito Mussolini

No culture in history has ever embraced moral relativism and survived.
Our own culture, therefore, will either:
(1) be the first, and disprove history’s clearest lesson, or
(2) persist in its relativism and die, or
(3) repent of its relativism and live.
There is no other option.
– Peter Kreeft

Unbiased Seekers of Truth?

Did you imagine that science was
a disinterested pursuit of the truth?
Well, you were wrong.

― Dr. David Berlinski,
The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions

Only Science?

Dealing with Facts

An Imbecile Habit

An imbecile habit has risen in modern controversy of saying
that some dogma was credible in the twelfth century, but is
not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a
certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot
be believed on Tuesdays.

– G. K. Chesterton

Colliding With Reality

Truth reveals reality, and reality can
be described as what we humans run into
when we are wrong, a collision in which
we always lose.

– Dallas Willard

Reality Is Stubborn

Three Major Paradoxes of Atheism

by Neil Shenvi

Historically, one of the most attractive features of atheism has been its claim to stark realism. No matter how unappealing a godless universe may turn out to be, atheists claim to be committed to adhering to the truth at all costs. However, in this essay, I would like to show that at the very heart of atheism are several extremely unexpected paradoxes, areas in which atheism is shown to be in tension with a commitment to realism and a life consistent with truth…

I want to summarize the paradoxes I believe are inherent to the atheism.

1. Truth-seeking. If a truth-loving God doesn’t exist, then truth-seeking is neither intrinsically good nor morally obligatory. Therefore, paradoxically, the Christian has grounds to urge all people to seek the truth and to claim it is their moral obligation to seek the truth whereas the atheist has no grounds to urge others to seek the truth or to claim it is their moral obligation to do so.

2. Moral reflection. Suffering and evil in the world is so prolific and horrendous that we instinctively avoid thinking about it to preserve our happiness. If Christianity is true, then all suffering and evil will one day be destroyed and healed. If atheism is true, suffering and evil are pointless and will never be rectified. So, paradoxically, a Christian gains the emotional resources to reflect honestly on suffering by reflecting on reality (as he perceives it) while an atheist gains the emotional resources to reflect honestly on suffering only by ignoring reality (as he perceives it).

3. Moral motivation. If Christianity is true, then all of our moral choices have tremendous, eternal significance. If atheism is true, then none of our moral choices have any eternal significance. So, paradoxically, the Christian gains the motivation to act morally by reflecting on reality (as he perceives it) while the atheist gains the motivation to act morally only by ignoring reality (as he perceives it).

None of these observations imply that atheism is necessarily false or that Christianity is true. But I hope that they do cause atheists some serious reflection. At least in these three areas, there is a conflict between the general perception that atheists live a life of realism, facing the truth about reality squarely, and the philosophical and psychological reality of atheism itself. In contrast, Christianity not only provides a basis for the idea that truth is of intrinsic value, but provides resources to enable the Christian to conform his beliefs and behavior to the truth. I would like to gently suggest that those who value truth-seeking and realism should consider whether atheism can justify or support either of these ideals.

To read the entire article, go to:
https://jamesbishopblog.com/2017/11/20/scientist-neil-shenvi-on-the-three-major-paradoxes-of-atheism/

Deeper Meaning

Deeper meaning resides in the fairytales
told me in my childhood than in any truth
that is taught in life.

–Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller,
German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, and playwright