There is no such thing as absolute truth

... and I am absolutely sure of it!

Some of you find that amusing, but that's just because you're being polite. You think I'm joking, and you're flattering me with a faint smile. But I'm not joking. That is essentially the creed of the relativists and they are dead serious about it.

The irony of it, and its fatal flaw, is that the statement "there is no such thing as absolute truth" is a perfect oxymoron, being itself a statement of absolute truth. And try as I might, no matter how much I've poked at it, picked it up and shook it till it rattled, I can't get anything but an oxymoron out of it. It is a self-refuting statement.

And yet this fuzzy thinking is the new orthodoxy. There is hardly a more offensive statement you can make to relativists (and there are a LOT of them out there) than, "I have the truth." They will take issue with you for thinking there is anything like THE truth that can be found. And most especially, for claiming to have found it.

If you don't believe me, try claiming to have the Truth online somewhere. This works better than trying it face-to-face, because residual manners crumble much more easily in an online environment. Unless you make this statement on a religious (and specifically Christian, Jewish or Muslim) site, you will get attacked quite vigorously for daring to think you've found it.

Then they will undermine their own case by finding fault with the truth you have found. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but when someone starts with a premise that is fatally flawed and then proceeds to undermine it every chance he gets, he doesn't have much to stand on. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

If there is no such thing as absolute truth, the only answer to anybody's belief is "If it makes you happy." You have surrendered the right to debate its validity. Any protestation is both heresy and hypocrisy.

If absolute truth does indeed exist, then you can argue if you like, based on objective criteria. You can argue that someone else has found lies instead of truth, or that he has misunderstood the truth. But you cannot argue that there is more than one truth. Just as only one physical body can occupy a given space at any one time, so only one absolute truth can exist. Our understanding of it may be relative and mistaken in any number of particulars, but none of that affects it. The earth remained round no matter how many medieval minds were oblivious and even hostile to that fact. Nobody ever fell off the edge, regardless of how fervently they believed in the possibility. Truth is unaltered by our opinions and beliefs.

This is, of course, another great inconsistency of those who say they don't believe in absolute truth. They apply this doctrine in a highly selective manner. I'll bet you won't find a flat-earther among them. Objective criteria for determining truth are fine when it comes to something physical and concrete. But what about magnetism? Or sub-atomic particles? Gravity? The weak force? The vast majority of us take the existence of these things on pure faith. You won't find too many relativists - if any - doubting their existence or even giving you the choice of doubting them.

If we are prepared to believe in the truth of such abstract, invisible things without taxing astrophysicists with arrogance, why do the rules suddenly undergo such a violent shift when it comes to metaphysics? If we believe there is a physical truth to be found, why not a metaphysical truth? And when someone thinks they've found it, why not examine the validity of the criteria used, rather than upbraiding them for looking at all?

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