OK, done that. But even after reading the CofS thread and cleaning myself up that sentence still seems self-defeating - if there are no absolute facts then that is an absolute fact in itself right? Does that fact get some kind of privilege or what? I've never heard a satisfactory argument against that problem - although obviously it's the first objection that springs to mind whenever someone makes the claim that there are no facts so there must be some consideration of and response to it.
Belief in Absolute Facts, as such a term is generally understood, presupposes that their is some Ultimate Reality (ie a God), and furthermore that such a reality is
directly accessible in some way by humans (a fallacy both of many scientists and of fundamentalists alike). It assumes not only that there is some underlying structure and order in the world but that such order can be grasped and fully understood by - Man (man in the image of God). It isn't that there are no "facts" but that there are no ultimate ones, no final Truth, no objectivity, these latter beliefs serving merely as ersatz Gods. This is why most atheists - those who could never accept that there is any such thing as a God, theistic, naturalistic, supernaturalistic, whatever, but who STILL believe in such notions as Truth and Absolute Facts - are not actually atheists at all.
Stating that "there are no absolute facts" is NOT to state an absolute fact, it is both to point to a paradox and to face up to paradox itself, to chaos and contradiction, to lack of order, to a lack of any centre to the world, to a lack of "facts"; it means having to face the extremely difficult task, fraught with uncertainties, of having to create one's own values, otherwise a slipping back into belief in God and order is
inevitable - so at a very fundamental level, belief in some God for these very reasons is enormously important for most of the human race, including - if not especially - those who claim not to believe, for such a belief is not something that can simply be "abandoned", is not something that can be summarily dismissed or refuted, and then everyone simply continues on as before, continues as though
nothing had actually happened, like its nothing more than some kind of trivial, consumerist "lifestyle choice" ("This week its Buddhism, next week I'll try Catholicism, then a bit of witchcraft, followed then by some atheism" etc, naively confusing the imaginary with the real). And this is why someone like Richard Dawkins
is not an atheist, he still believes in a God, in Ultimate Facts, in Laws of Nature, and - more disturbingly - that a dogmatic worshipping and literal global application of a one-dimensional scientific empiricism will enable him and his (fundamentalist version of) science to - hubristically - grasp and master ultimate reality.
Men think themselves free inasmuch as they are conscious of their
volitions and desires, and never even dream, in their ignorance, of
the causes which have disposed them so to wish and desire. [Also] men
do all things for an end, namely, for that which is useful to them,
and which they seek. ...
Further, as they find in themselves and outside themselves many
means which assist them not a little in their search for what is
useful, for instance, eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, herbs and
animals for yielding food, the sun for giving light, the sea for
breeding fish, etc., they come to look on the whole of nature as a
means for obtaining such conveniences. Now as they are aware, that
they found these conveniences and did not make them, they think they
have cause for believing, that some other being has made them for
their use. As they look upon things as means, they cannot believe them
to be self-created; but, judging from the means which they are
accustomed to prepare for themselves, they are bound to believe in
some ruler or rulers of the universe endowed with human freedom, who
have arranged and adapted everything for human use.
They are bound to estimate the nature of such rulers (having no
information on the subject) in accordance with their own nature, and
therefore they assert that the gods ordained everything for the use of
man, in order to bind man to themselves and obtain from him the
highest honour. Hence also it follows, that everyone thought out for
himself, according to his abilities, a different way of worshipping
God, so that God might love him more than his fellows, and direct, the
whole course of nature for the satisfaction of his blind cupidity and
insatiable avarice. Thus the prejudice developed into superstition,
and took deep root in the human mind; and for this reason everyone
strove most zealously to understand and explain the final causes of
things; but in their endeavour to show that nature does nothing in
vain, i.e., nothing which is useless to man, they only seem to have
demonstrated that nature, the gods, and men are all mad together.
Consider, I pray you, the result: among the many helps of nature they
were bound to find some hindrances, such as storms, earthquakes,
diseases, etc.: so they declared that such things happen, because the
gods are angry at some wrong done them by men, or at some fault
committed in their worship. Experience day by day protested and showed
by infinite examples, that good and evil fortunes fall to the lot of
pious and impious alike; still they would not abandon their inveterate
prejudice, for it was more easy for them to class such contradictions
among other unknown things of whose use they were ignorant, and thus
to retain their actual and innate condition of ignorance, than to
destroy the whole fabric of their reasoning and start afresh. -Spinoza, Ethics
your giving me joke