you can take a picture of something that happens now. by the time you can look at the picture it's a depiction of something that happened in the past.

indeed. a belief cannot be verified to be true for all. requires faith.

not what i said. i said that were i to experience what the claimant said was true would make the claim true to me as well. short of my experiencing what the claiment says he experienced makes the claim possibly untrue. so his truth is not my truth until and unless i experience what he experienced. of course i can say it's true that he made the claim. i experienced him make the claim but that is moot as regards the claim being true for me. question everything.

an absurd statement. firstly, the death penalty is not punishment for the sake of punishment which is the comment you replied to cowboy. secondly, i too am against the death penalty but i at least realize that nobody who might 'run for government' would ever be in a position to have the power to 'rid the usa of the death penalty.' the only government body that could do that and has in the past done that is the supreme court made up of nine justices none of whom 'ran for government.'

but andy, didn't you read the opening post? there have been reports and many consistent rumors.

to give a fair answer i'd have to blow suds off a few cold ones with the guy. you know, hear his side of the story. you're buying the beer.

so if i do not believe that racism is good for mankind, which i don't, i should not participate on a skinhead forum?? what is a forum if not for the free and open discussion and exchange of views no matter how different the views? i happen to think that religious dogma is a detriment to humanity. that many dastardly deeds have been comitted "in the name of god" and absurdly excused as "god's will" and i'm not alone in this thinking. so where if not a religious forum should i express my views on religion and god??

i've little information about anybody here BUT myself, jeannie.

i didn't say i don't make judicious use of the benefit of the doubt, red. big difference in thinking that something said to me is highly plausible because of the credibility that i afford that particular person and concluding that because he/she said it it must be absolutely true. to think it absolutely true i would simply be taking everything someone tells me on faith alone. we're talking a very fine line here for the purpose of discussion. i can reach a conclusion that what someone close to me tells me is resonable without having faith that it is absolutely true. i see nothing scary about that. i simply think that truth is within each of us and only within each of us as individuals.

it's not a truth to me unless i check myself. experience it myself.

it's only true to the claimant who observed the cup on the table. everybody else would need rely on faith in what the claimant says is true.

i've answered that i don't know how many times. to experience it makes it true to the one who experienced it.

okay. so someone observes the cup on the table. is he telling the truth if he tells someone who did not observe the cup on the table? how can you know? it's true to the observer but it would require faith in what he's telling is truthful for another to BELIEVE that it's true, no? in this case, the sense of sight was required. in the case i presented a sense of hearing was required. so lets go back to the forrest and say that there was somebody there to experience the noise made by the falling tree. that he claims he head a falling tree to someone who wasn't there mean that the falling tree actually made a sound? how could you know he was even truthful when he said he was there to hear it without faith that what he says is true?

truth exists only within each of us. MY truths are only those things i experience myself. to think otherwise would be to BELIEVE which i never do. question everything.

the point? that i've seen nothing to suggest we've lived past lives. like these easy ones, jeannie.

i've seen nothing that suggests we've lived past lives.

in other words, if you experience that the cup is on the table then and only then is the statement true, no? not unlike the proverbial tree falling in the woods. if nobody is there to hear it then it doesn't make a sound. yes, the falling doesn disturb the air but sound only happens when that disturbed air affects an eardrum or a device like a microphone. no ear, no mic, no sound. only disturbed air. which wasn't heard. why wasn't the falling tree heard? because there was nobody around to hear it. nobody to experience the falling tree as making a sound.

sure, if you have faith.

no claim can be taken to be ABSOLUTELY true. the best we can do is theorize:

'a good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested. if the predictions agrees with the observations, the theory survives that test, though it can never be proved to be correct.'

stephen hawking, the universe in a nutshell.

so if something is true means that it's been proved to be fact then nothing other than what we've experienced can be called factual. to think it true would require faith of which i've none.

ah, but the social convention in saudi arabia would suggest that women should not drive. if that's not a matter of opinion why do women drive here????

not so, red. at least in my case. soul doesn't lend credibility to my saying this but i've no faith in anything or anybody. i may conclude that something told to me or that i read is highly feasable based how i judge the credibility of the person and a likely explanation, but i never believe it to be fact.

you say 'we begin with a theory [belief]'. a belief is not a theory by any stretch of the imagination. we begin with a postulate and from their form a hypothesis. the theory follows later when a test or tests can be conducted and shown to produce predictable and repeatable results in support of the new theory. i've posted this before:

'a good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested. if the predictions agrees with the observations, the theory survives that test, though it can never be proved to be correct.'

stephen hawking, the universe in a nutshell.

so even the best scientific theories should not be believed to be fact, proved or even provable according to hawking. sure it's passed every test of the decades or centuries but nobody knows if it will pass the next test. scientists never take anything on faith alone. they love to one up the other guy. always trying to challenge a theory using scientific methodology to see if the theory will hold up to the latest test. in science we investigate to disprove a theory knowing that any attempt to prove it would be wasted time.