Introducing myself with an explanation of basic terminology like objective and absolute

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

The most recent one I could even order on inter-library loan is “Truth to tell: gospel as public truth.” Did that. Will will see in 6 to 8 weeks if either of these orders get me anything.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

There is an admirable air of humility about the statement that the truth is much greater than any one person or any one religious tradition can grasp. The statement is no doubt true, but it can be used to neutralize any affirmation of the truth.

True, but I am doing more than that. I am distinguishing between objective truth and subjective truth, where only the former provides a reasonable expectation that other people should agree.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

How does the speaker know that the truth is so much greater than this particular affirmation of it – for example, that “Jesus Christ is the truth”? What privileged access to reality does he have?

In the case of the objective truth of science there are written procedures which anyone can follow to get the same result. This removes it from the area of privilege to one of simply being willing to do the work. But in the case of subjective truth this is spot on and it is why there can be no reasonable expectation that others should agree.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

As Polanyi has trenchantly put it: “The emphatic admission of our fallibility only serves to re-affirm our claim to a fictitious standard of intellectual integrity … in contrast to the hidebound attitude of those who openly profess their beliefs as their final personal commitment” (Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, p. 271).

Our fallability only applies to subjective judgements. Science reaches beyond this by continually testing its conclusions with written procedures anyone can follow to check that they get the same results. There is nothing fictitious about this kind of intellectual integrity. But of course people often claim objectivity and integrity when in truth they have nothing but pompous opinion which none of their credentials give any justification of real substance. Just because one has a science degree doesn’t mean one is living up to the ideals of science in all of ones activities – and we shouldn’t expect this. There is a difference between science (founded on objective observation) and life (which requires subjective participation). Therefore some discernment is required to determine which a person is doing at a particular time.

@Mervin_Bitikofer

He goes on in much of the book to knock holes in the prospect that any truly secular program could even exist at all, since there is no such thing as a platform that has not itself appealed to something and pushed it as a necessarily universal truth (unsupported starting point, no less!).

He seems to be confusing secular with objective. It is a choice to live in a free society, not the result of some scientific experiment. But you have the platform in a set of ideals once you make the choice and thus impose tolerance and religious liberty, which certainly requires considerable limitations on what religion is allowable (e.g. human sacrifices are not acceptable).

@Mervin_Bitikofer

That it would refrain from calling itself a religion does not shelter it from the charge that it arrogantly promotes its own Truth as the highest context within which all other citizens may scrabble about with each other regarding their lesser, privatized values.

Just because something insists it is not religion doesn’t mean it isn’t subjective and thus subject to the same limitations in a free society. Atheists often like to play this right-by-default game with special pleading for negative positions, so they can push all the burden of proof on religion. This of course must be rejected as dishonest rhetoric through and through.

But if we choose to live in a free society then we agree to put tolerance and religious liberty on a somewhat higher pedestal with a social contract requiring all citizens to accept these limitations.