# Sam Harris forum



## ambush80 (Apr 10, 2017)

Someone said this on the Sam Harris forum.  I thought it was good:

_"I don’t think anyone can know “God” on a shared level, because “God” is just a sound that human beings make with their mouths in reference to an undefined concept about the nature of reality and it’s inception, it has no actual definable characteristics, it’s just a conceptualized idea rooted in our fear of the unknown and need to propagate our own grandiose importance in the universe. Individuals can “know God” because the idea itself only exists within their minds and not in any kind of representational reality. When it comes to God/Religion I’m comfortable saying I can’t answer the questions that no one has been able to answer since the beginning of mankind and I will not make claims about these unanswerable questions no matter the comfort it might bring me. That would be to refute objective truth on the basis of an emotional reaction and the comfort of ignorance is a poor man’s intellectual solace."_

https://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/69508/P15/


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## bullethead (Apr 10, 2017)

Yep


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## Israel (Apr 11, 2017)

The last line includes the the assumption of objective truth. From that assumption comes the dismissal of [mere] emotional reaction, now linked to the comfort of ignorance (am I incorrect in inferring a judgment by comparison in the word "poor"?) as in "a poor man's intellectual solace". 

So that the presumption of the speaker in his statement might appear as one "rich"?

"I am not...like them"?


It's a comfort, I know, to name drop. (I know, I spent three weeks in a jail for the crime of simply not offering my own name...and that name means nothing at all) But the transparency of substituting "objective truth" for "god", at least to such a one that has seen thus, is a game no more inspired than any other.


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## 660griz (Apr 11, 2017)

Israel said:


> The last line includes the  assumption of objective truth.



There is objective truth. No assumption needed. 
Some things are true no matter where you live, your culture, or your religion. 
There are lots of examples(of objective truths) but, I found one sentence that pretty much sums it up.
Communication is only possible when there is one single truth of what is being said for all the people communicating.


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## ambush80 (Apr 11, 2017)

Israel said:


> The last line includes the the assumption of objective truth. From that assumption comes the dismissal of [mere] emotional reaction, now linked to the comfort of ignorance (am I incorrect in inferring a judgment by comparison in the word "poor"?) as in "a poor man's intellectual solace".
> 
> So that the presumption of the speaker in his statement might appear as one "rich"?
> 
> ...



Can you describe how you "have seen thus"?  What did it look like?


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## Israel (Apr 12, 2017)

The typical stuff. 

"Give us something we can all recognize and satisfy us or we will keep you locked up"..."your god shall serve our god" kinda thing.


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## Israel (Apr 12, 2017)

660griz said:


> There is objective truth. No assumption needed.
> Some things are true no matter where you live, your culture, or your religion.
> There are lots of examples(of objective truths) but, I found one sentence that pretty much sums it up.
> Communication is only possible when there is one single truth of what is being said for all the people communicating.



I see that sentence, too.


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## SemperFiDawg (Apr 18, 2017)

ambush80 said:


> _"I don’t think. _




Should have stopped there.


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## SemperFiDawg (Apr 18, 2017)

660griz said:


> There is objective truth......
> Communication is only possible when there is one single truth of what is being said for all the people communicating.



The Living embodiment of your statement is infinitely profound

John 14:6

Jesus said, I am THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE.


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## 660griz (Apr 18, 2017)

SemperFiDawg said:


> The Living embodiment of your statement is infinitely profound
> 
> John 14:6
> 
> Jesus said, I am THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE.



What is it men cannot be made to believe! 
-Thomas Jefferson


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## atlashunter (Aug 8, 2017)

SemperFiDawg said:


> The Living embodiment of your statement is infinitely profound
> 
> John 14:6
> 
> Jesus said, I am THE WAY, THE TRUTH and THE LIFE.



Not a credible source. And no man is the truth. The truth is the truth. Even the gods are subject to it.


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