Politics : I hate when people misuse the word "fact."

I hate when people misuse the word "fact."

A fact is something that is objectively true for everyone: and its acknowledgment has no bias among different groups of people. Whether someone is a democrat, republican, atheist, Christian, scientist, Quaker, whatever, all acknowledge the same facts and they don't argue about them.

Basically, if you make a statement that you consider is a fact, and people may disagree, then what you're stating is most likely not a fact.

For example, I was chatting with this pastor one time, and I told him "The existence of God is not a fact."

Then, he goes into defense mode, automatically assumes I'm an atheist and agonistic, and attempts to talk with me about evidence of God's existence.

But he misunderstood, as I lot seem to do. I was merely stating a fact with the claim that "God is not a fact." That's not the same as saying God isn't real. That's not the same as saying God isn't truth. Debating whether God exists or not is a whole separate argument. Regardless, it remains true that his existence is not a fact. One could be huge right-wing Christian pastor, and still acknowledge that fact. You can believe something to be true, while still acknowledging that it's not a fact.

If the existence of God was a fact, then our laws reflective of that. And not a single person would have a problem with that, because everyone would know God exists and supports those laws, and there'd be no atheists. The reason we have freedom of religion is because it's not a fact, and if it were, we wouldn't need freedom of religion. We wouldn't want it. There'd be no point.

Before you claim something is a fact. Ask yourself, is there a 1% chance I could be incorrect? Is it open to disagreement and denial by others? It's not a fact.

Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being, and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin.
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