I've noticed a lot of times on this site, in the discussion of "Nothing" and "Consciousness" or "Religion" "God" or lack thereof, even in sociology, there is this huge sense of EGO in the debating. Its as if people hold on to THEIR own personal version of the truth and call it THE TRUTH.

We often see for example in debates "The truth is there is no truth" or "Well XYZ expert says" and while I can understand when people hold to their own personal version of the truth I don't understand why people refuse to admit, that something they don't understand that they think is not true might be true to someone else.


Examples that I see this in:


Homosexuality. A straight person saying "Its not natural you can't be born that way" Why? If the gay person is telling you they would not choose this, and (Three words for ya Rich ARD Simmons ok? Come on) there are people who are obviously Gay gay gay, why do people insist that this is a life choice?


Or God. I say there is no God. I am open to the possibility that there is God to others. Not sure what it means. I'll take their word for it in their life. But in mine NO GOD. So why is it that people try to insist that there is a God universally or that there is not a God universally.


People often think I'm a wacko Christian supporter, I don't support Christians as much as oppose this insistance that ones own personal reality translates to a universal one.


Is there anyone else out there that thinks like this? I see my reality as true. But I don't think it is THE TRUTH.

Does this make any sense?


I get so sick of people insisting that their reality is the TRUE ONE>

Disagreements seem to be a natural consequence of the philosophical process, each person espousing their ideas as the truth. How else could ideas be exchanged, if no one believes their thoughts are valid?

All the points you mention, you're refering to their ideas as ego, but then you mention how those conflict with what you feel to be true. Maybe they could post something similar. It feels like many people online discuss things with a bit of stubborn enthusiasm. You have to love what they say or you don't love them.

I feel what is true to me is true to me alone though. I mean in beliefs though, the rest is too big of a discussion.

But in what I believe. Not what is provable but what I personally accept as provable.


Though I will fight for what I believe for me, I won't insist that someone else agree that I am right.

For example I will debate with Christians over my view that God is a blood thirsty evil creature if he exists and so I doubt very much his existance but for me he doesn't.

Although I will insist I am right in what I believe, I won't insist they are wrong in what they believe.

Why do people try to prove the other person is wrong for believing what they do?

That's what I don't understand.

Our minds and our perspectives are so different and limited that it is worthwhile to discuss different ideas but debating "YOU ARE WRONG" is stupid in my opinion.

Edited to add, I've said flat out to people that they are wrong when they make generalizing statements. I'm not talking about that I'm talking about telling the other person what they think.

Ex.

You hate gay people because you think they are sinners.


NO I don't


Yes you do

on and on and on.


Then I would say "You are wrong about another person's perspective" but how can a person be wrong about their own perspectives and beliefs?

I would agree that ego has alot to do with this, or insecurity of one's ego. Also, when one identifies one's self with their religion or belief, in asserting their self they are asserting their belief, and anyone who disagrees or believes something different, their sense of self is challenged. In another way, if someone's belief system includes intolerance, the believer will be intolerant. It comes with the territory.

it's the blind men describing the elephant

one says it's like a tree (feeling a leg), another says it's like a rope (feeling the tail), both are correct in their own way, but both are wrong.

Is there a fundamental truth? I think so *imo*.

That means, not all "truths" can be correct, and saying it's a tree or a rope makes one wrong, even though from limited perspective it seems true it's not... it's an elephant.

I think there is a "The Truth"... not saying I know what it is, just that I think it exsists, whatever "it" is.

And everything we can observe is flawed due to limitations of our 3D physicality, so we may never be able to pinpoint this "truth" in this state of exsistance. Doesn't mean there isn't one tho.

Reality is change on the backdrop of the unchangable.

Maybe hehe.

I agree with this.

For my own part, as I posting in the "What is time?" post, I believe the reality we percieve (matter, time etc) are just tools for visualising what actually goes on around us in a way we can understand, in the same way a computer screen bares no relation whatsoever to the electrical inner workings of a microchip, yet represents it. I believe time falls into this catagory.

I've been reading a lot about quantum physics recently, and it states that there isn't a fundamental truth to anything, everything we observe is relative to your position and situation, and until that point is in a state of limbo.

They mainly speak of fundamental particles in this manner, but everyday objects also have the same properties, its just their "probability wavelengths" are so small we don't notice it.

*Aaaaargh* does my head in.

Reality is very easily understood but modern man has mostly lost touch with it!

When we say we "understand" a person, we mean we know what they will pro-
bably do in a given situation. The better we understand them the more likely
our predictions are to be accurate. We might even manipulate individuals and
groups if we truly understand the nature of the person or people.

The exact same consideration applies to our knowledge of reality. But it is pat-
ently obvious that we can almost never anticipate anything from the most mun-
dane to the most important. Whether you're predicting when a mouse will get a
kernal of corn or when ATT will split, you'll be wrong everytime. It's also patently
obvious we never will know anything important about the future. There are too
many variables, there are too many harmonic processes, and there is too much
chaos. Only the most carefully crafted experiments are predictable and even these
often give unpredicted results which often leads to new knowledge.

Modern man has forgotten that he is not the creator of all he surveys. He has for-
gotten that whether one believes in an unknowable god or an unrevealing science
that he is still individually and collectively ignorant. He has forgotten that religion
can reveal nothing and that science can predict nothing. We are in this alone with
no recourse except to seek answers when even the questions are not always known.

Reality is what exists when we ignore our preconcieved notions. Reality is the sense
of awe at merely being conscious. Reality is the taxes between the cradle and the
grave.

Some individuals and even whole socities fight reality but reality always wins.

You are waaay closer then the majority out there. The atom is an illusion that is the basis of what you percieve to be reality. The building blocks of the percieved universe, as all the scientist's agree. What you call matter does indeed simulate what you experiance as time.

Yet the atom itself is a manufactered illusion, the make up of your percieved reality. It is also being shaped. What those foolish enough to call creation, and assign a omnipotent horror fantasy made up from there own fears, as the controller of all. Or by those ruthless enough to kill and murder, to build power bases from.

When you realize that, like you yourself say, you can begin to see the clue's which confirm this. Only on a personal experiance level though. Nothing in the so called real world, will support vital understanding's nessasary to make those connections outside a movie or religious fantasy. And the religious are so wrong to do what they do, because of their beliefs which are so wrong and empty for people who call themselves human.

But suppose what pass's for proof here is found? That people are exactly what i've been trying to say they are, in my own post's. They would connoct another horror fantasy based on nothing but what they themselves think. To control the rest of you. Which has nothing to do with truth.

There really is no time or motion in your mind, an effect of that would mean no distance either. Using your own desciption from your post{and assumtions with it} Would'nt that also support your own idea? If your percepted self is nothing but an autominous program, to experiance your percieved reality, and intellegence is nothing more then data gleaned from your percieved enviroment{which is shaped by the illusion of atoms, controlled} with variance's that allow what the scientists think as far as mutation, and what they call natrual development, then what would you think? being a program with no reality except the one you were made for{artificial}

Add further those who had made the program, would'nt they be able to control what they made? Angels and demons, and aliens, and giant bug's, and all the rest of it, to make you busy, so you don't notice that you are a program. Your shared reality as illusionary as your percepted "self" is.

Having said that, in order to be able to make such an abomination, you would need the mind of some one who is real, to generate it all.

What you think?

Probably out of some variety of selfish fear.



That is the problem. Nobody will tell us what they mean by God, but they still expect us to say whether or not we believe in it.

Any God I can define is probably not worth "worshipping." God is some vague (yet personal) power that is other than me and greater than me, and the whole damn point is that it is beyond my understanding. How can I gesture at such vagaries and demand to know whether you think them true or false? It's ridiculous.

But I can tell you with confidence that without any belief or faith whatsoever, I tried (at someone else's suggestion) praying to the best concept of "God" that I could come up with, and I got results that seem exactly as if this "God" were real and benevolent, and these results had not been obtainable any other way that I have ever been able to discover. That experience would be consistent with the notion that a thing we may choose to call God exists, and although we may not understand what it is, it is a useful concept because appealing to it gets results that we cannot readily obtain otherwise. In short, the proposition here is that "prayer works." More specifically, I'd say prayer of a certain kind works in a certain way that defies naturalistic or materialistic explanation. That's not a demand that others acquiesce to some vague statement of "faith." That's actually a thing you can try for yourself.



Maybe they are afraid of a world that isn't butt-simple. They don't have the skills to cope with ambiguity or ambivalence. Face it-- teaching people how to think is not a priority in this culture.



Right, pardon me while I die laughing.

I know you've been tarred with that brush, but nobody could seriously think that.



Yeah, we're called Unitarian Universalists. Look us up in the Yellow Pages under "churches."

very good point. I agree whole heartedly.

I can't say I agree with this, I believe someone may be able to convince themselves that , that which is not true, is truth, but that does not make it truth.

we cannot clearly say that all of our belief is true or not

maybe some people out there say something which most of us think that he is wrong but in truth he is saying true
but how can we say that it is truth?

respect others belief because we don't even know if what we believe is true and what they believe is true

we cannot just jump to conclusion

and were should we rely on others belief or on your own belief?

Adolph Hitler believed that non-Aryians were inferior and their genetic material
could polute the race. He believed that those who were slow witted or disabled
impeded progress and diverted resources that could be better used elsewhere.
The various religions have believed that those who hold other beliefs will go to
hell and are barbarians, infidels, or heretics who need be put to death.

People believe what they want to believe. It seems critical that we believe what's
true or leads to the good rather than things which lead to the bodies stacking high.

The world and its economy is more fragile than it once was. There are more peo-
ple to feed. There is far more to lose when beliefs get in the way of what's prac-
tical and what's common sense.

There is Universal Truth...and I know what it is...

....but you're going to have to pay me for telling you...

TRUTH IS...
if you want to know...pay me three times your asking price...
I give you a spice now ofwhat is Truth...Light and Darkness..What do you get?

Correct. But your open mindedness is your version of what is right, so you are doing the exact same thing.
The only people who are 100% right are nihilists because they reject moral values,
and understand that man has no say in what is right or wrong.

Truths of life sets them free, so they accept their truths.
From a human's perspective, some have reached a 'level' of a acceptance.
Truths they declare are as what their capabilities can accept. If it is for and in goodness. No prob.
It is life. Accept good truths, in realities, in practicalities, in all. And use them for goodness sake. No prob in that, huh?
Leonardo has seen and studied life as simple anddiverse as it is. His reality, His Truth...is accepting and following...life as simple and diverse as it is...and it served many a good thing for generations.
As simple yet as diverse as life it iself, Truth is simple and diverse as is life. Just chew it. Be happy.

Imagine the world if everyone accepted that their view is nothing more than opinion and was in no way any more right than anyone else's. No one would ever take a stand for anything.



Isn't this statement in essence saying that "the universal truth is that truth is relative"? Why should anyone accept that over anything else?




By your own reasoning though, is the the statement in quotes not just as valid as your assertion that it is natural? Is it not reflective of a personal truth? What makes this statement incorrect? What makes your view (which is in opposition to your example) correct?




How does one entertain a possibility of a notion that is rejected based on personal experience?




Sure, but does that make them right?


Then what is it? What is "THE TRUTH"?




But are you not in essence doing the exact same thing by insisting that the personal interpretation of reality is not true?

It seems that a lot of your issue lies in the debate of abstracts (such as truth). The only evidence that can be offered of an abstract is through discussion and debate. While some debate in the effort to convert, others simply debate to show that there is another side to the story. Often we learn exactly why we reject certain notions when the opposing view is presented, sometimes we learn that our position isn't very solid at all and wonder where we got the idea in the first place.

That was excellent Rev.


edited to insert quote

Reality is infinity

Evry1s truths are partial truths of looking at the same thing, the ultimate truth? I dont know. I believe in the flying spaghetti monster, that's my truth

lol the existance of truth does not exist - it is a social constuct (a thing created by society), just like the idea of time or (as the title says) reality - if enough people in socity decide on a different truth than reality changes ( ).

The root cause of conflict appears to be the argument over truth and reality (e.g. holy wars or civil wars etc) and as reality is relative, conflict will always happen as long as humans have egos and freedom tho thing freely

That's a neat way to look at it! Angles, dimensions, perspectives, components, derivatives, locality, function. That could be some other ways to look at the same thing. There is a complete picture. Then, there is how I see it, how you see it, how they see it. It is still one picture. I see it from a certain angle. You see it from a different angle. At the quantum level, the whole picture is a reflection of atoms. At my angle, some atoms may be reflecting differently than your angle. It is still the same picture, but your angle may have something covered, something that is there but you don't see it. An example would be a car wreck with 3 witnesses. The first witness saw the two cars smash into one another. The second witness from across the street saw a dog run out in front of the cars causing one car to swerve and hit the other. The third witness saw a big truck ahead of the cars turning and slowing dow the traffic and since one driver was talking on a cell-phone didn't notice the slowing traffic but was scared by the dog running out there so he swerved to dodge it and hit the car.

I belive that the truth is hard to find but easy to understand. or?

And could some1 please put up their own defenitions of "truth", I would apreciatte it


___________________________________________
A 15 year old who cant get enough of knowledge.

How about considering that the reality of the Whole is the ultimate truth: The ‘Absolute Truth’.

However, if there were such a thing as a reality of ‘Absolute Truth’, it would have to be true everywhere and everywhen. Anything that is not the Truth would be untrue and therefore unreal or an illusion, which is the implication of Bohm’s undifferentiated Whole.

This notion raises an interesting paradox, for example. What mind would be able to observe such a reality without being separate from the Truth and therefore an illusion? Not only would time and space be meaningless, reality would be beyond perception and understanding; an infinite abstraction - Hm? That sounds like a definition of God?

Shadowland,
Wouldn't mind be an intrinsic part of Absolute Truth and therefore experiencing itself within this AT? I think a mind separate from this Truth would experience the illusion and would exist in the infinite abstraction. This would be beyond our perception, as you say, and would be a reason for our existing only in the Absolute Truth and the inpossibliity of separateness.

This is my own opinion so please put away the pitch forks and torchs.

There is nothing life is a well developed illusions a mind traps so to speak. What we see is not really what we see. A blind man see in sound and touch. A deaf man hears in sight and touch. Reality is a individual perception of a greater illusion built by our minds. What were we before entering this life and what will happen after. Death is feared by those who are to caught up in their blindness. God is just a word. Religion is just a form of control, something to attach one's self to. Do not try to bend the spool, there is no spool.

You can get the pitch forks and light the torchs now. LOL

The spice must flow.

WONDERFUL POST and yes I feel the same way.

It's strictly up to each person to decide what or what not to believe. I wouldn't judge either any different. We are all humans and deserve to be heard (however not in crazy fights or outbursts - that does not help make a point - it just gets people angry and bitter and then it's a pissssssing match).

To answer the question on your post title: Reality is what one believes it is. No two people are alike; even if you have a set of IDENTICAL twins - they may not believe the same to be true or not true.

All I want is a safe place to discuss and learn about both myself and others. I would NEVER judge someone based on their beliefs.

To me, that's like saying well I believe chocolate tastes better than caramel and then fighting it out...ridiculous. Some of the heated debates... ugh. Some I try to stay FARRRRRRRRR away from.

Each person on here has the right to state what they believe without getting sandblasted. Simple as that.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just my opinion.

Jody

Right on! - now that's the truth

An arguement could be that ,"A Universal Reality would translate to all personal realities."
It would have to if it was defined as "A Universal Reality" - a reality that governs infinity.

,and logically the reverse would be true, "All personal realities do translate to the universal reality."
Reality can only exist to those with a personal reality. It is the whole sum of personal realities that would define a universal reality.

Therefore a personal reality percieved through the concept of the universal reality would be the translation of, "THE TRUTH".