--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote:
<snip>
> As it turns out, my "challenge" is an old
> and famous one, one that actually had an
> answer. It was proposed (at different times,
> obviously) by the Biblical King Solomon and
> by Abraham Lincoln, who challenged someone
> to produce a saying that would be true at
> all times and in all situations.

Nuh-uh, that wasn't your challenge. Here's your
challenge:

"Put up or shut up. Your 'non-relative truth' can
either be produced or it cannot. And producing it
only in terms of the relative or in comparison to
the relative or from a relative point of view
is...duh...just one more example of relativism."

 The pro-
> posed answer to THAT challenge was, "This
> too shall pass,"

But this doesn't meet the terms of *your*
challenge.

<snip>
> I just found it interesting that those who
> were unwilling to even *try* to produce an
> example of an "absolute truth"

You're making a "reading error" if you think
all of us who challenged you were arguing for
absolute truths. I certainly wasn't.

 were so
> willing to claim that me thinking that one
> was not likely was in itself a claim of
> "absolute truth."

Well, "not likely" wasn't what you said to
begin with, but of course it doesn't help you
wiggle out of your logical jam here; it's still
a claim, and it's still self-contradictory.

 Especially because I went
> out of my way to say that I was open to 
> someone coming up with an example of one,

Doesn't help, sorry.

> and knew ahead of time the "answer" to the
> koan I was proposing.

You didn't say that, but it wouldn't help
anyway.

> Perhaps the "absolute truth" we are search-
> ing for is, "Those whose only joy in life
> is to play intellectual 'gotcha' games with
> one of their perceived 'enemies' will do 
> anything to convince themselves that they've 
> 'gotcha-d' him, even lying to themselves and
> others."

Barry Wright, Master of Inadvertent Irony.

(I imagine he'd claim playing gotcha games with
his perceived "enemies" isn't his *only* joy in
life, but it's kind of odd that he would assume
it's *their* only joy in life when he doesn't
know anything *about* their lives.)


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