Truth and evidence

This is a response to this post by a Christian blogger in Singapore:

The word ‘truth’ in its essence, is already an absolute. But because we live in a post-modern world, we are obliged to asseverate the words ‘absolute truth’; not to prove that we are desperate in being over-emphatic, but to prove that today’s world has murdered truth in its essence.

What is truth? I define truth as follows, “Truth is an objective reality that is transcendent over man’s subjectivity and bias.”

No major disagreement here. Simply defined, truth is the state of objective reality.

So let's get to the meat of the post.

What about the myriads of conflicting ‘truths’ out in the world today? It seems that truth has been reduced to mere subjective perceptions. The problem, however, lies not in truth, but in what our standard of truth is. Our standard of truth forms our perception of reality;

I think I understand what you are trying to say here.

Truth has not been reduced to mere subjective perceptions. Rather, what people believe to be the truth is necessarily informed by their perception. What a person perceive to be true is dependent on their criterion of truth. In religion, different religions effectively indoctrinate their adherents with their criterion of truth -- faith, revelation and scripture are often amongst them.

to an Evolutionist science is the standard of the truth of man’s existence, however to a Christian, the Bible is the standard of truth in which God is the truth of man’s existence. Two perceptions, but there can only be one reality. Therefore to know if our perception of reality is true, we have to examine if our standard is the actual, objective, transcendental and indisputable truth.

Once again, there seems to be a grave misunderstanding. To "an evolutionist" (this label is frankly as stupid as "a newtonian" or "a germist"), science itself is NOT the standard of truth. 

The term "evolutionist" here seems to be referring to people who accept the scientific method and its findings. These people, scientists, lay people and everyone in between, accept that evidence is an important, if not the most critical, criterion of truth. Science is a method that fulfills that criterion. As such, it would seem that an "evolutionist" is using science as a standard -- but no, we're just going where the evidence leads.

Now on to the idea of using the Bible as the standard of truth. To me, or any evidence-based truth seekers, that's a huge unjustified leap. To even begin using the Bible as a standard, any sane person must first justify with evidence why that should be the case. Without evidence, any book would be as reasonable as any other to use -- ie, not reasonable at all.

And the historical and archeological evidence indicate that the bible is: a translation of several books written by different authors, who are believed to be divinely inspired, decades after the events which they purport to describe by non-eyewitnesses whose stories were transmitted by hearsay in the intervening decades. Some books were anonymous and had their authors ascribed to them by the Church based on belief/conviction, and there are variants of these books from different time periods displaying textual changes both due to error and deliberate action indicating forgery. These books also contain both internal contradictions and contradictions with known historical and scientific facts.

I'll chuck the whole compilation instead of using it as a standard for anything at all.

It's not science versus the bible. It's just evidence -- the most critical tool of verification. What better way to find truth than with pieces of reality itself, evidence.

Consider this example. On one side, there are people who deny immortality and claim that when we die we just cease to exist. At the other camp, people are declaring that we will spend eternity in hell unless we believe in Christ Jesus.

Again, we, scientifically minded people, are not necessarily asserting a case like religions do. We are merely concluding based on the evidence we have.

Every piece of evidence we have gathered about the mind and the brain indicate that the mind cannot exist without a living brain.

By the way, we don't deny immortality -- we just don't believe in your kind of supernatural immortality. Biological immortality may be a possibility within the decades to come.

Two perceptions, but there can only be one reality. Therefore I urge you, to thoroughly examine your standard of truth because if not, you might one day find yourself in deep trouble for being so obstinate.

I've done that.

And excuse me, is that an allusion to hell?