In this piece on truth the importance of it's use in human life will be examined. Truth, in and of itself, is not a separate and mysterious entity that can be identified and/or examined in it's own right. It is a characteristic that belongs to any number of individual propositions and will be dealt with accordingly.

Now I expect this piece to engage it's own host of opponents, some of which will be bull****ters. I also expect for a line of reasoning to be used by them which would entail several different methods of refutation, most of which I will attempt to address prior to avoid the rabbit chases so prone to these forums.

Bull****ters are a danger to the impressionable minds of our youth, which represent the future of mankind. Often a bull****ter will use the method of portraying themselves as someone who is just conveying information. Another common practice is the equating of truth to information as if all information were true. They conveniently or unknowingly leave out the false qualifier for such information. The fact is that not all information is true. False information has no use, in and of itself, in providing a substantive foundational base from which to derive conclusions and thereby take appropriate action. That usefulness is had only by virtue of the information being true.

That fact is quite easy to grasp and nearly impossible for any sensible person to deny. This is the fundamental reason why people should care about truth, the characteristic of being true. It is why it should be held in high regard in life.

Surely the naysayers will ask, " Why is truth important?", or ask me to define truth. This is a common tactic of those who have unsubstantiated arguments. I will address this prior in order to illuminate such possibilities ahead of time, while eliminating that need simultaneously. Avoiding red herrings and strawmen ahead of time makes for a much more accurately ingested topic, and the answer is easy enough to begin with anyway.

As we go about our lives, we engage in affairs that deal with reality, some of which could be attributed to us, but most of which cannot. The success of our efforts will depend upon the different elements and properties of real events and objects that are being dealt with. According to our individual perspective we will make choices that will affect, given the causally relevant features in life, our future and thereby help determine the responses to what we, ourselves, do. This highlights the importance of truth.

Truth possesses an instrumental value because it captures and conveys the specific nature of the realities upon which we base our decisions. Truths consists of and provide us with an accurate account of all that we face, those things that we must consider when we act. Our confidence can only be had if we believe our perspective. Confidence does not equate to truth, however, and the reasonable expectation of success through our choices can only be had if we have relevant information.

Knowing any information is not enough.We must not only know information, we must know about the facts. We must know about the realities that are critical to our goals and/or concerns. How else could one effectively negotiate the validity of such information in order to devise a plan and set out to accomplish our goals?

Relevant facts are what they are,regardless of what one thinks or believes about them. This is the essence and defining character of factuality, of being real. These are the properties and truths which are completely independent of any control by our will. We cannot alter these facts, nor can we affect their truth by dismissing them...

To be continued...

so what are you trying to say?

basically she's trying to say (correct me if i'm wrong) that bull****ters need to stop being bull****ters

What IS Truth ?




or rather ....





WHO Is Truth ?







Jesus said,


" I AM


The WAY...


The TRUTH....


The LIFE.....


NO Man

NO Man

NO Man

NO Man.......


Can Come to the Father


BUT... BY .... ME ...."




Was Jesus LYING?

can you speak your mind without quoting scripture.

There is LIFE......


IN

THE

WORD.

point proven.

Why would you want to avoid the rabbit chases? Just curious.

They do the same thing that any falsehood does, distracts the focus from actual reality and places it upon individual illusion.

That is not to say that everyone else does not have a valid opinion and/or beliefs. It is just to say that there does exist an actual reality, that which is completely independent of the notion of an observer, and it is how accurately the observer registers this actuality that determines the decisions s/he will make as a result.

There is a huge difference between reasons that sound good and good sound reason.

Sure sounds like you're talking about Christians here.

They are certainly a danger to the impressionable minds of our youth. and they always portray themselves as just conveying information. (i.e. Spreading the "word")

But in truth the word they spread comes from the most self-contradicting cannon of stories ever written by mankind.

But I'm in agreement with Misstina.

Do you have a point? Or is this just ranting season?



There are a ton of books written by a lot of very highly recognized individuals who would simply ask you to prove your statement above as being 'true'

You may have convinced yourself that you can prove it's true, but that doesn't prove anything. If you want to publically proclaim this to be the absolute truth you must prove it.

But if you could do that you'd be famous because you'd be the only person thus far in all of humanity who could prove it.

I personally think it's just wishful thinking on your part. It's certainly not a provable concept. It it were, and it had been proven, then it would be science.

Even science can't prove the 'reality' of reality.

So why do you feel that you can claim it to be an absolute truth?

Personally I think your ranting up the wrong tree.

But.................


But...................


there has to be a but.......


There is always a "but"


I just can't think of it right now.

Well, maybe such a reality does exist, but from a strict scientific viewpoint, that premise cannot be falsified and thus has no more or less validity than any other philosophical premise.

Unless, of course, you have some means of producing a scientific demonstration without an observer being involved?

Michael, your truth is your truth... another's truth is theirs, with the potential of becoming yours, through YOUR discernment, experiences, and intentions.

Lies are designed to detract, deflect, and disturb the thinker, speaker, and receiver of these...lies, the ones we tell ourselves and others (masquerading as knowledge) cause all the harm in this world. (My observations ONLY)




I will sit quietly for a while and read... it dovetails with what I am rereading at the moment, (along with The Celestine Prophecies), so this thread sits well with me).

Thankyou Michael.

i would like to add about truth is that im harder than life and hard in my pants

What is truth?
Is truth unchanging law?
We both have truths
Are mine the same as yours?

-Jesus Christ Superstar

YES

I'll be the first to agree with you on this point.

But what is "TRUTH".

Do you want to know what truth is?

I'll tell you want truth is.

The truth is that no body knows what the true nature of reality is, and nobody knows whether there is any spiritual essence to reality or not.

That's the truth.

The truth is that nobody knows anything.

And I agree with you that people should speak the truth, especially to the youths who will become the leaders of tomorrow!

I was lied to by my family, my society and everyone in the congregation of my church.

They told me that they know god is real. That, my friend, is a boldfaced lie. It's a like because in truth they don't know.

They also told me that the Bible is the word of God. Again, a boldfaced lie because they can't know whether this statement is true or false. If they had any moral values at all, they would have confessed that they don't have a clue!

That would have been the truth my friend.

Real truth is hard to accept for some people. Real truth is that there are some things that simply can't be known.

Religion itself is a lie in this very sense. Specifically religions that claim to have books that are supposedly the word of their gods.

No one can know, and therefore to even make the claim it is the word of a god is a lie.

People aren't interested in truth Creative. They much prefer to lie.

They would much rather say, "God said this, and God said that", rather than telling the real truth that they have no frigging whether there even is a God much less that it might have actually said something.

If religious people would tell the truth this would be a very different world.

If they told the TRUTH they would be forced to say, "Well, we have this ancient mythology that claims to be the word of a god, just like a whole bunch of other mythologies and there's truly no reason to chose this one over any other.

In fact, if they were truly interested in truth they'd face the fact that the most likely scenario is that no ancient doctrines were ever inspired to be written as the word of any supernatural being.

So yes, Creative, I'm in total agreement with you here.

The real TRUE answer to most questions truly is, "I just don't friggin know".

That's about the only real TRUTH we can know.

About the closest we can come to truth, is the scientific method of investigation. That's the best shot we have of discovering truth and even that system of inquiry has its own limitations.

Any spiritual 'truths' that we accept for ourselves are our own personal truths between us and our spirit.

Everyone needs to learn to find their on truths in that realm and quite trying to push mythologies onto people as though they are truths.

The term "Truth" has been used in religious circles since it's inception. Make it known that my position does not refer to truth in a moral, ethical, nor an epistemological way. It is used in a descriptive way regarding the relation between conclusion and actuality. Truth does not equate to validity, substantiation, nor warranted assertibility(justified). To give meaning to an expression it must be used in a consistent and therefore predictable way. For those who missed it in the OP...



The ability to make the distinction between that which is true and that which is false is contained within one's perceptual faculty. Now, if you would oblige, I will take this assertion little deeper into a line of reasoning...

When one speaks of a "personal truth" this refers to a product of individual experience which equates to all that one has previously accepted as valid. I would think that we can all agree that each of us weighs the validity of new information against old. It is a requirement for good reasoning and critical thinking skills. That personal value assessment is the hallmark of our individuality. While I am more than willing to accept the notion that we each possess our own set of "personal truthes", I must also highlight the fact that these are based upon an actuality which is completely independent of us. Those truthes represent our own interpretation regarding that which we experience, and therefore do not necessarily represent the outside world.

If we are to invoke a personal truth then must not we also acknowledge that to which it refers? The personal truthes necessitate the existence of a source from which to be derived, that which the personal truth translates. That source is actuality, actual reality. If we follow this line of reasoning it is clear that our perception of what is true and what is not is self-contained. I would think that there is not one of us here who would attempt to dispute this claim without using their own personal truth as evidence.

Now with this in mind, the notion of a personal truth, while being completely valid, does not equate to being correct(true). The fact that a statement or belief is true is a simple fact. It is a semantic relationship between itself and actuality. It is not, in and of itself, dependent upon a general consensus.

An assertion is correct if, and only if, it is true. Any rational person if s/he should discover that what s/he believes is false, must change their belief. A person who admits that s/he believes in something for any other reason than the fact that it is true is irrational in some sense or does not have a genuine stance stance regarding the matter. Who among us would be willing to admit that what we believe is untrue?

One who does not understand that a correct assertion or belief is a true assertion or belief, and that s/he must satisfy this condition in order to have rational beliefs in order to be able to utter his/her assertions correctly is missing the essential relevance of truth and actuality - that which is real...


I hope this helps to better outline the notion at hand, thereby allowing others to address directly that which I have written without the need to bring up completely irrelevant material.

Truth and reality follow common sense , logic and evidence . Lies and manipulation are part of politics and religions . People ought to be careful when it comes to school of thoughts and ideology .

So Creative,

For the sake of a cleaner discussion, what if we relegate "truth" to be the definition of "personal" only. If one has a truth, acknowledges a truth we will call it a "personal truth". Just for the sake of discussion, can we say there is no truth but that which is personally held.? (*1)

The other side of the coin we can call knowledge.

These two ideas can become highly confusing when discussing the validity of 'reality'.

By separating them, we know that if someone is discussing a truth - it MUST be of a personal nature.

So what is knowledge? How do we gain knowledge? Can knowledge be shared, can it be believed? Can knowledge alter personal truths? When is knowledge more effective than a personal truth?

(*1) As we go along discussing knowledge, we will, no doubt discover that some people mistake "truth" for knowledge. When they do, we will be able to sort it out. As you say, to sort out the false.

So what do you think. Anyone else? If this is agreeable would we begin with the questions I posed?

what is knowledge? How do we gain knowledge? Can knowledge be shared, can it be believed? Can knowledge alter personal truths? When is knowledge more effective than a personal truth?