Truth

Question:: 
How do you define Truth?
Atheist Answer: 

With a dictionary. Specifically dictionary.com.

1. the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2. conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
3. a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4. the state or character of being true.
5. actuality or actual existence.
6. an obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
7. honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
8. (often initial capital letter) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life.
9. agreement with a standard or original.
10. accuracy, as of position or adjustment.
11. Archaic. fidelity or constancy.
—Idiom
12. in truth, in reality; in fact; actually: In truth, moral decay hastened the decline of the Roman Empire.

I do not think that the statement "God exists", for example, is necessarily the truth. It might be true, but we don't know whether it is. If a definition of Truth were to emerge such that the statement became necessarily true, I would not immediately trust that definition.

That tends to be the purpose of such discussions: to attack statements about the existence of gods by screwing with the basic terms in use like truth, reality, logic, belief, faith, rationality, evidence and so forth. It really only tends to be theists who take this tack. Fairly often it will win them an argument, but rarely will it convince anyone.

I'm not saying such arguments do not have merit, but it's worth looking really closely at each one to see whether it does have any.

- SmartLX

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semantic theory

If you have a background in modern anglo-american philosophy or in linguistics, let me direct your attention to "the semantic theory of truth."

Alfred Tarski, 1944. The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4.

The basic notion is simple, but oddly hard to understand. No wonder it took a genius of the first order to bring any new light to bear on a hoary subject.

Search related terms above, there's a lot on the 'Net.

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