Define 'Fact"

Anything that comes into your head????

Heh heh. . . . .



I won't go there.

From a SPIRITUAL Point of view? Woah dude......thats Tripping meh out....

Especially since im not spiritual.....but i'll give you what i think it may be.....

Fact From a spiritual point of view is What i would imagine to be Something That YOU to beleive is 100% True. i say YOU because With spirituality It can vary from person to person and What YOU Honestly beleive in be it god Or Something in the bible or that your prayers will come true Then that person would define it as a fact.....

Others may agree or disagree but thats what i think...


did that just make ANY sense?

Re: Define 'Fact"
You want to know that which has factual accuracy from a supernatural point of view?

You seem like a decent enough fellow, so I'll give you a snippet of factual accuracy from a supernatural point of view: there are many people who believe in the supernatural.

So, Chumly, are you speaking from YOUR supernatural point of view?

Or what you believe is someone else's supernatural point of view?

"..what is a fact?"

I don't think we've gotten the definition of "is" down yet.

I am speaking from the amassed information at hand, indicating with reasonable likelihood, that the claim "there are many people who believe in the supernatural" has a factual basis.

The Gallup Poll conducts yearly polls asking the question: "Did you, yourself, happen to attend church or synagogue in the last seven days, or not?" They reported the following attendance levels. 6 The margin of error is ±2%:
1992: 40%
1993: 40%
1994: 42%
1995: 43%
1996: 38%
1997: 40%
1998: 40%
1999: 43%
2000: 44%
2001: 41%
2002: 44%
2003: 41%

However various studies in recent years have cast a grave doubt on the 40% value as the question "How many people lie about going to religious services" addresses.

Hadaway, Marler, and Mark Chaves counted the number of people attending four Protestant churches in Ashtabula County, OH, and in 18 Roman Catholic dioceses throughout the U.S. In their 1993 report they stated that actual attendance was only about half of the level reported in public opinion surveys: 20% vs. 40% for Protestants, and 28% vs. 50% for Roman Catholics.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

Re: Define 'Fact"

From a 'spiritual' point of view? I don't know. I guess you need to define "spiritual point of view" first.

"FACT" is anything that the magical talking book "The Bible" tells them, otherwise "FACT" is your own personal percieved reality, that may or may not be shared by others...

Fact from a spiritual point of view? I don't understand why you would say that Neo. Isn't a fact the truth?

Is spirituality a fact?

I would think so - though I would call it natural rather than supernatural.

Of Course, one would probably have to define spirituality.

How about 'spirit exists' (of course, now we'd have to define the term 'spirit')

Not to me... truths can be different for anyone, facts are facts. If you read a book like the bible and decide that what is in it is true, then its true for you, but that does not necessitate that its fact. If you met a Mormon, you might concede that the Book of Mormon is truth to them, but not fact to you. Someone told them that Jesus came and preached to the Native Americans and they hold that as truth.

Defining fact is tough. I try to look at it from a human (fallible) standpoint. I think that facts exist and we have tried to discover them. It might be fact that my computer is using electricity, but the best we can do to prove it is use equipment that tests it. We can't see electrons flowing through the computer, but research has shown us that its the most likely source of energy. Is it a fact? who knows. For now, though, its truth based on what we know.

History is filled with truths that have been replaced with fact or simply newer truths. Scientists used to believe that frogs spontaneously were born every year from mud. They watched frogs crawl out of the mud in the spring and made a logical assumption. We know now from further observation that some frogs hibernate by burying themselves in mud and simply re-emerge in the spring.

There reaches a certain point where some things become considered fact. I would wager that (since it has been so well observed and documented) that the hibernating frogs scenario is fact. If you get cut, you bleed. If you light a match its hot. If you jump in the water, you get wet. Those things become as close to fact as you can get from observing truths over and over.

I think faith comes from when your truth attempts to explain how certain commonly-held facts aren't true. I think its possible to jump in the water and not get wet if you have the right kind of faith.

Re: Define 'Fact"

I'm not sure how Christianity came into play and I am not sure what is meant by a spiritual point of view but I agree with your last remark...

We all create our own realities.

I think this is a quote from the matrix. right?...

Stop thinking you are fast and just know you are fast, Neo.
-Morpheus.

Probably jumping the gun a bit with the religion thing, you just expect it on here you know "The bible says this, that, etc and thats fact", anyway Matrix was a very good film, and no i didn't take anything from it, i believe it is quite a spiritual film based though roughly on the gnostic belief system of duality, prison, evil god etc etc.

Agree with you 100% about self realities, the problem is where does it stop, at the end of the day i could be posting this in my imagination and all replys are created by myself. I suppose anything is possible when you travel down that route, and all possibilities are equally viable. Making fact negligible as its only factual when one wishes it to be.

If tomorrow i wish to believe that Thor is a factual being, then to me he would be as he was with ancient vikings, i suppose its the same as creating an english speaking weatern white mesiah figure who comes from the middle east. Fact is in essence, fictional because even if experienced it will become mixed up in your mind with your belief system and faulty memory recall.

hence the term,
"to each his own".

exactly

In case any one has yet to notice, I posted this same question in Science, Philosophy and Religion Forums

The differing points of view are interesting, but not yet enlightening, IMO.

Enlightenment would involve experience or for you to repeat an event that didn't happen until your own mind begins to believe its true, this would become fact within your realm of reality, which you could speak of in a factual kinda way, and maybe if others believe what you say, then you could start a cult in which all the members give you all their money in the hope that they will achieve your salvation.