For many Conservatives or religious believers (but not all, of course), there is often a common thread that weaves through most of their ideas, until it doesn't. "It doesn't" when their view of "objective reality," departs from the objectively real, of course, when they insist that miracles are acts of "god," rather than anomalies that illustrate how imperfect we are, and how "objective reality" is neither objective and (since god can arbitrarily change "reality" anytime he likes thru the use of such "miracles") may not even be real.
The belief in an absolute "objective reality" that we can all agree on, as well as the belief that everyone can and does know exactly what constitutes that objective reality, is something both many Conservatives and Christians insist must be true. But even they don't believe this as much as they say, which is why they believe in God, angles & demons, and even miracles.
Miracles, after all, are simply things about reality that 1) we cannot explain (even though Christians insist they can), and 2) happen to be favorable to someone in some way. It's a miracle, for example, if we a blind man can suddenly see or a cripple can suddenly walk, but not if these things were achieved via a good doctor or medicine, of course. If we are at a complete loss to understand how or why someone spontaneously bursts into flames, on the other hand, we don't think of that as a "miracle," but just "bad fucking luck!"
The biggest problem with this view about "objective reality" is not that there isn't anything we can never agree on. Instead, it is the inability to distinguish the difference between facts, like when the Battle of Hastings was fought, and understanding, which deals with how and why the Battle of Hastings was fought. One is fixed and thus objective, while the other is more subjective, depending on who you ask, and what perspective is being offered. But to reduce the entire understanding of the world to mere facts is to reduce the understanding of a single person to simply their skeleton; it completely misses the unique nature of the person for essentially their bare bones.
Objective absolutests confuse their power of observation with the power of perspective, which happens when they assume that the are seeing the world without the slightest tint of confirmation bias, even as everyone else has been fooled, and often blinded, by their own. (How this constitutes a religiously "humble perspective" is a "mystery of faith.")
Yet anyone who holds such absolute certainty in their perspective to absolutely "know" what constitutes "objective reality," who then feels quite capable of proclaiming how everyone should live their lives and what "moral absolutes" must therefore govern everyone, everywhere, and always, has abandoned their own senses and adopted a God's eye perspective of everything.They do not simply assume themselves to be Napoleon of Jesus Christ reborn, but God himself!
The fail to admit or understand, however, just how incredibly different each individual on the planet sees the world from their own unique perspective. Instead, they believe there is this whole "objective reality" to everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - that these absolutests insist everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - agrees on; even though they can't find anyone who happens to agree with them on almost anything at all, let alone everything (except for the belief that there is the "objective" reality that we should all agree on, of course). But you can't explain abstractions to people who think only in concrete absolutes. So I stopped trying to, and now I simply marvel at them, the way people look at babies or goldfish
The belief in an absolute "objective reality" that we can all agree on, as well as the belief that everyone can and does know exactly what constitutes that objective reality, is something both many Conservatives and Christians insist must be true. But even they don't believe this as much as they say, which is why they believe in God, angles & demons, and even miracles.
Miracles, after all, are simply things about reality that 1) we cannot explain (even though Christians insist they can), and 2) happen to be favorable to someone in some way. It's a miracle, for example, if we a blind man can suddenly see or a cripple can suddenly walk, but not if these things were achieved via a good doctor or medicine, of course. If we are at a complete loss to understand how or why someone spontaneously bursts into flames, on the other hand, we don't think of that as a "miracle," but just "bad fucking luck!"
The biggest problem with this view about "objective reality" is not that there isn't anything we can never agree on. Instead, it is the inability to distinguish the difference between facts, like when the Battle of Hastings was fought, and understanding, which deals with how and why the Battle of Hastings was fought. One is fixed and thus objective, while the other is more subjective, depending on who you ask, and what perspective is being offered. But to reduce the entire understanding of the world to mere facts is to reduce the understanding of a single person to simply their skeleton; it completely misses the unique nature of the person for essentially their bare bones.
Objective absolutests confuse their power of observation with the power of perspective, which happens when they assume that the are seeing the world without the slightest tint of confirmation bias, even as everyone else has been fooled, and often blinded, by their own. (How this constitutes a religiously "humble perspective" is a "mystery of faith.")
Yet anyone who holds such absolute certainty in their perspective to absolutely "know" what constitutes "objective reality," who then feels quite capable of proclaiming how everyone should live their lives and what "moral absolutes" must therefore govern everyone, everywhere, and always, has abandoned their own senses and adopted a God's eye perspective of everything.They do not simply assume themselves to be Napoleon of Jesus Christ reborn, but God himself!
The fail to admit or understand, however, just how incredibly different each individual on the planet sees the world from their own unique perspective. Instead, they believe there is this whole "objective reality" to everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - that these absolutests insist everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - agrees on; even though they can't find anyone who happens to agree with them on almost anything at all, let alone everything (except for the belief that there is the "objective" reality that we should all agree on, of course). But you can't explain abstractions to people who think only in concrete absolutes. So I stopped trying to, and now I simply marvel at them, the way people look at babies or goldfish
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