When it comes to the question of truth, and who decides bout truth, it is by default most fruitful to use a statement of some creationist and then follow the reactions of atheists.

A post on the blog Ultimate Atheism Collection is a good example. The statement of Pastor Peter LaRuffa from Grace Fellowship Church goes:

If, someone within the Bible, I were to find a passage that said 2+2=5, I would believe it, accept it as true and then do my best to work it out and understand it.

I will not quote reactions since they seem pretty obvious.

While I certainly do not claim that 2+2=5, I will try to explain why the black and white world of radical atheists has some serious problems.

Radical atheism

What I mean by radical atheism or radical rationalism is the following reasoning: science says that 2+2=4. And since every sane person knows that 2+2=4, it follows that if science says that a given global warming theory is approved, it should have equal validity as 2+2=4. But such a conclusion is false. 

Scientism

The conclusion that everything and anything science says is absolutely valid has become an axiom in Western society. Anyone who questions this or that “scientific truth” gets a religious, creationist, subjectivist, voodoo, witchcraft, or at least “wacky” label.

There are many instances on this blog where I have addressed the objectivity fallacy from various angles. This one is new. It stems from the fact that truth is not subjective in the sense that it lies in our heads, irrespective of external reality. If subjectivism were right, pastor Peter LaRuffa could even be right. It is precisely this objective reality that helps us resolve the “grey world” in which truth is objective but not only scientific.

The pressure of the real!

The rationale is quite simple:

I would leave Pastor to believe that 2+2=5. I would then say to him that I agree and that following his truth, I will give him 2 times 2 million Euros, and he will give me back 5 million Euros since 2+2 equals 5.

My point is that one does not need either State, Science, or God to get feedback from reality, to know the real truth. One might believe that objects do not exist in reality, but after a couple of painful bumps, he will take the real world into account, believe it or not. He will take 2+2=4 concerning my interests. He will take physical reality into account for objects. A God might tell him that 2+2=5, but he will accept reality after he experiences 1 million loss. Believe me. God, State, Ministry of Truth (Orwell) might prophesy many “truths”, but they cannot prevent a normal person from checking such truths facing the real world around him.. The Truman Show happens, but sooner or later, the leading actor touches the edge of the bubble that the director of the show induced him to believe in. The presented reality crumbles when he touches the real, the glass barrier.

But that does not mean that truth is one and objective.

Truth is relational/intersubjective 

This simple fact poses tremendous problems to all sincere scientists and also to prophets of global warming and all other ideologies pushed by any imaginable collective “ministry of truth”. Even if it is not a collective Orwellian Ministry of Truth, one can easily find examples that denounce the objectivity of science. It was Albert Einstein who renounced the possibility of entanglement as a “spooky action at a distance”. At the same time, we now know that entanglement is something that can be proved regardless of being counterintuitive.

To conclude: Richard Dawkins’ fight against religion with the use of examples like the one I have used for this occasion is not only pathetic but also anti-scientific. People are checking the real (truth) all the time, all over their lifespan. Because there is no absolute truth to be found or understood. Truth happens in each instance in relation to another human, to another object. As the oldest wisdom on earth says, one person alone cannot pronounce truth, but the truth (the word) can only be pronounced in sequence by two persons. Truth happens in relation only. It is memetic.

Truth is, though, objective in the moment of relation only, but is not objective as absolute, as a kind of revelation from a God or a Ministry of truth. It is not what science says about global warming, but what zillions of global interrelations have to say about. (I did not say that the truth comes from the average of opinions! Individual opinion has nothing to do with relation!) Interrelation is not subjectivism since it relies on hard checks of the real.

Truth as a quantum entity

Truth emerges from relations. It happens in the same manner as a measurement of quantum particles. They do not exist (for us) until measured. Only when measured do they emerge for our perception. They exist outside our measurement/perception but have no meaning for us. As much as the truth might exist as some objective reality, it has no meaning for us. It emerges as meaning only in an interaction, whether with an object or with another human in communication.

Truth is not absolute, as Richard Dawkins would like to impose, but it is constantly changing as complex systems in the universe change. All those who cannot adapt to such changes perish. Albert Einstein perished despite his magnificent work at the beginning of the 20th century, and Richard Dawkins perished after the year 2000, when he abandoned his magnificent theories from the previous century.

I really hope that the truth about the relational objective substance of truth is now settled forever. (Joke, of course!).

The sacred truth

Finally, we must address the Pastor’s quote about the Biblical truths. 

My initial proposal of how to address the claim that “he (pastor) would do my best to work it out and understand it” was not correct, not even from the radical atheism’s point of view. Why?

Because the Bible does not convey truths about objective reality, but rather, starting points for our symbolic elaborations. The books of Leviticus and Numbers in the Old Testament, which appear most factual, are only starting points for us to “work them out,” as LaRuffa states, or to “symbolize them,” as I would say. Sacral texts are eternal not because they convey eternal truths, but because they help us to transcribe symbolic messages for today’s use. 

Can you find a prescription hot to use ChatGPT anywhere in the Bible? 

If you are a naive atheist, scientist, or reductionist, then your answer would be “no”. ChatGPT and 99% of the environment we live in at the moment did not exist when the biblical text was written. Therefore, no direct (objective) references to ChatGPT or to the other 99% of contemporary material can be found in the Bible. 

However, the correct answer is: yes, you can find references to 100% of the things we live with today in the Bible and other sacred texts. You only must do your best “to work it out”. And if you expect me to find a reference instead of you, you are wrong. No one can symbolize for you. I could verbalize my symbolization, but I cannot symbolize yours as much as I cannot live your life. 

If a sacred text, therefore, does not convey truths, how then are truths about our reality constructed? Please note the difference between the real (bumping a wall with the head) and reality. The difference is fully elaborated in my recent book, Memes Beyond Genes, The Hidden Code of Culture. For a shorter explanation, please refer to my paper Fake News and Construction of Reality.