Are faith and truth interpreted?

[Amorphos]

Are faith and truth interpreted? I.e. can we know the voice of god except as part of our minds interpretive process.

To quote from another forum… we were debating the idea that some people claim to hear the voice of god [or any deity] in their mind and thence use it as a basis for morality. For this debate let us imagine that they are actually hearing a voice [I think its internal but anyways] in their minds….

quote;
If we are silent enough to listen to our god, would we be open to hear the answer, or are we just wanting to hear what echoed through our mind?
> Could we tell one from another - in an echo-chamber?
> Not unless the person knows which one is which, not by the sound or pitch of the voice though. (I don't know my self since that's something I haven't ponder fully on).

One usually knows what is ones own voice in terms of ordinary thought, and I think we can only know another voice when its echo is in our thoughts. We cannot know what is not brought into the minds eye, hence the end of the communicative process is always of and interpreted by our minds.

If we have ‘faith’ in that process then it is at least partly false ~ interpreted, one would have to have faith in the inner voice even though it cannot be perceived directly and without our interpretation for faith alone to have substance. Though I cannot see how it is possible to know what is not part of our thoughts, unless it is written on a tablet by god/s, but even then we must interpret its meaning.

[Ludicus]

some people claim to hear the voice of god [or any deity] in their mind .

Well, religious delusions are common symptoms of schizophrenia.

[Amorphos]

Well, religious delusions are common symptoms of schizophrenia.

You could be right, in a sense we may be hearing what is in our minds anyway, but our perspective is delivering it as if to be outside of us. That is if the inner voice is not part of a universal mind. How would you define mind as anything other than universal?

[Vizsla]

The way is see it you can only call something ‘the truth’ if it has been proven. If it has not been proven it is just an idea.
Faith is a different way of looking at the world. Faith asserts that something is the truth regardless of the evidence.
Trying to create a dialogue between these two philosophical approaches is a waste of time – see EMM.

I’ve only ever heard the voices of my own mental projections inside my head. So I am not qualified to judge whether people can hear anything else in there. I’m waiting for evidence.
It does seem like any idea that enters a mind must be interpreted by that mind. So naturally even a perfect theological ideal would end up being perverted by human nature.

[Helm]

The way is see it you can only call something ‘the truth’ if it has been proven. If it has not been proven it is just an idea.

Or you can faith in the truth of Jesus Christ our Lord who died for our sins. You'll find the proof right here, it's the word of God.



Well at least for Christians we're not talking about an "idea", you're the one with the rationally thought out idea. They could do the same thing but have chosen to, it would be like yourself trying to formulate the logic rationality as to why you love someone using evolutionary theory relating to the biochemistry of your brain.

[Amorphos]

Viz

Well the point is to say that faith and belief are part subjective and the ‘knowledge’ derived is interpreted. it is impossible to know gods truth even if he exists.

For most people [unless a tad insane] the voices are not actually voices, more intuitions.

[scarybandit]

Or you can faith in the truth of Jesus Christ our Lord who died for our sins. You'll find the proof right here, it's the word of God.

"Although it is quite true that the existence of God is to be believed since it is taught in the sacred Scriptures, and that ... the sacred Scriptures are to be believed because they come from God ... nevertheless this cannot be submitted to infidels, who would consider that the reasoning proceeded in a circle."

- Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650), dedicatory letter in Meditations, neatly summing up the weakness of your argument here.

Well at least for Christians we're not talking about an "idea", you're the one with the rationally thought out idea. They could do the same thing but have chosen to, it would be like yourself trying to formulate the logic rationality as to why you love someone using evolutionary theory relating to the biochemistry of your brain.

" ... an idea is whatever is before the mind when one thinks." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea

Love, like any emotion is expressed through biochemistry. You are truly still dwelling in the Renaissance if you maintain an epistemological position that there is a separation of Mind and Body.

But regardless, the fact that such noble emotions are physically represented increases their value, surely.

In point of fact, any ontological* argument worth its salt will claim a real thing has more value than that which is only imagined. Ontological arguments aren't considered much use these days for the purposes of Christian apologism, but some of you here seem to think so, thus I mentioned it.

* Conicidentally, Descartes developed a famous ontological argument for the existence of God. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology. He also happened to hold a Dualistic belief on the Mind/Body question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes#Dualism

[Helm]

"If you talk to God you're praying, if God talks to you you're schizophrenic." I'm not sure who said that.

[JJDXB]

Both of them yes. The "truth" depends on how we view it. One could say that black is a colour (a simple "definition"), or that black is not a colour but merely the absence of colour (a more detached, objective definition). Semantics, I know, but there are very few truths that are absolute. The only things I consider to be "truths" are that which have a number or value attached. Like, "it is exactly one metre high". Unlike the colour example, there is a set scale that makes the semantics redundant, seeing as we also acknowledge that we are likely to be innacurate or wrong with measurements. That is not the case with word definitions, where things evolve over time and the meaning depends greatly on the person. Anything more complicated than definitions and measurements (i.e. observations, analysis and conclusions) is philisophical in nature and thus is not an absolute "truth".

Even the exact meaning of the word "true" differs between languages, and the concept of truth varies greatly between cultures. Veritas in Latin (and the descendant Romance languages) refers to something that can be proven, the Greek word strictly refers to something that stays unchanged over time, and in English, truth is something that remains steadfast and faithful. Because of this, it is ridiculous to suggest that truth is not interpreted.

Faith is interpreted, because what you choose what to think and to do with regards to the "message" changes from person to person.

Again though, this is my conclusion, and such is not an absolute truth

[Amorphos]

"If you talk to God you're praying, if God talks to you you're schizophrenic." I'm not sure who said that.

Indeed. I watched a documentary on atheist who went to a Jesuit retreat to practice ‘silence’, and the priest there said that it is like a law of the universe, that if you maintain silence for long enough you will find god! My immediate reaction is that pagans and Buddhists etc also find their core [ceugant, nirvana] and hear/perceive its wisdoms. It is probably wrong to even say that it is a voice, the intuitions only gain voice in ones own mind but that is not a schizophrenic thing its just you thinking and such intuitions are a source of that just as the earthly senses are. We wouldn’t say that ordinary thought is schizophrenic would we.

The only things I consider to be "truths" are that which have a number or value attached. Like, "it is exactly one metre high".

If you cut an orange in half is that then half an orange or a whole object? See even in math the cardinality is interpretive. Some philosophers feel that we cannot know anything as absolute things, because the brain always interprets them ~ even if corroborated by experiment we simply share the same mechanisms of perception, so we will all see an object in a certain way etc. there is something of this in QM.