How I know Truth, Honesty and Justice are objectively real qualities.

Kerry from Glenbervie

Some years ago I posted an excerpt of an address by Ravi Zacharias on Youtube to which very recently someone had posted a comment. So I went back and had a look. A previous comment from a couple of years ago had also appeared and which I have no recollection of. So I went to respond to that, and was given the message that my response failed to publish.

Lots of times...
I tried various ways to work around it, none of which worked.,

So I post both of them here because they bear a relation to what I have been posting on Neighbourly recently. But this also demonstrates how easy it is to live with internally contradictory beliefs.

For any that are interested, Youtube videos can be viewed and listened to quickly by speeding up to 1.5 times normal speed if you are pressed for time. And also, they have a transcript that can be opened at the same time as playing. Words, once spoken then disappear and don't always leave a lasting impression on the mind, so a transcript is great to catch a point and ponder it. One will have to do some editing to get it accurate as it seems automated.


dab0331
2 years ago (edited)
"Ravi has a very shallow understanding of Eastern mystic philosophy. I has nothing to do with "non-contradiction" it has everything to do with reality.
We know you can't have a square circle. But we also know that you can't have black without white.
And there are seemingly contradictory things in life that do unite. Such as white being the color of all the colors of the spectrum mixed together.
How do you know for sure that Ravi's skin is brown? A dog would perceive black and white. Is his reality an less valid than Ravi's who THINKS his skin is brown? Life and reality is relative. The Matrix is the prime example of this.

If Ravi had ever debated Sadhguru, Osho, or Alan Watts (instead of the previous knuckle head) he'd of quickly dropped his nonsense."

Now imagine the gall of someone from the West telling someone from the East that he doesn't understand the Eastern mindset! Religious pluralism in India is just how life is in that part of the world.

My response-

So you think The Matrix is real? You say: "Life and reality is relative" that is an unqualified claim to objective truth, but if everything is relative- how can that be known objectively? How can you know it? If everything is relative, then so is your statement or proposition of truth. So then I can take you seriously, or I can take you as a sound signifying nothing, and either way is completely valid- on your view.

Did you not hear him? When you denounce something, you are already assuming that you are speaking about some objective reality. You have already presupposed some objective reality, by which to distinguish what is relative. However, if your statement is objectively true, then why can't other statements be objectively true? Therefore, it would seem- that by the impossibility of the contrary- objective reality exists, is knowable, and communicable,at least to some extent, (although the obtuseness which is sometimes evident does make one wonder about that!).

As to your analogous reference to how a dog perceives the colour of his skin. What the dog sees, is objectively true for the dog- and all dogs everywhere and at any time if they are colour blind, and it is just as objectively true for all people everywhere and at anytime who know that dogs don't distinguish colour.

Since truth is so related with honesty, because that is the virtue by which every party in a dispute wish to exemplify, we can point to objective morality as standing on solid ground.

And since Youtube will not let me publish this response on my own video excerpt, after having tried the fixes suggested by others multiple times, here I am asking for justice!

youtu.be...