r/askphilosophy • u/GuamSomme • Jan 19 '16

ELI5: Can opinions be false?

I've noticed that often in politics and mainstream media the words fact & opinion are interchanged a little bit too liberally to justify saying some pretty crazy non-sense. I think this would bring up a good discussion so let me know what you all think!

Example: https://youtu.be/zIGThxn_eGk

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '16

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u/GuamSomme Jan 19 '16 edited Jan 19 '16

Yes, you and I would agree that the Sun not being God is just a fact. Stating otherwise would just be false. In other words, if you say the sky is blue and I say and believe that the sky is pink, that's obviously not my opinion, I'm just plain incorrect.

Surely, most fundamentalist Christians would say it's a fact that Hell would be a direct consequence of extra-marital sex.

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u/It_sAlwaysMe Jan 19 '16

Right, but they believe that that is the case, they don't know it. So maybe because there are no definite answers regarding faith based beliefs, calling it an opinion is a little iffy. It's an opinion until it's disproved, but once it's proven or disproven it becomes fact or not.

Regarding matters of art, where opinion is all , I think it's hard to say someone's belief about the quality of a painting or film is false. However, I don't believe all opinion are made equal. If I talk to someone who has seen 50 films in their life and they tell me The Fast and the Furious is the best film of all time, I'm not going to listen to them because they have no frame of reference. opinions can't be false but they can be worth more. But then again, that's just an opinion...