Posted on Monday, 2nd February 2009 by Maritzia
It’s been a busy few weeks, but I’ve finally gotten back to this series on Discernment. In my last post in this series, I talked specifically about my religious background, just to give you an idea of who I am and where I come from in this discussion. In the next couple of posts, I’d like to share a bit about the hows of my spiritual evolution.
I don’t want to get into a long discussion (or argument) about whether or not there are universal, fundamental truths in the world. I believe that each person has their own subjective view of what is truth, and each person’s truth should be honored by others. I don’t want to try and convince anyone that their truth, though different than mine, is wrong. We each must find our own truth in this world, and that truth may or may not agree with anyone else’s truth.
Are there objective truths in the world? I don’t know. At this point in my life, I don’t even want to know. When I was much younger, I wanted there to be hard, concrete truths that were the same for everyone. Why? Because it was easy. If there are objective truths, you just figure those out and believe in them. The are no questions, no arguments, the truth just is. Except that it isn’t. If you study science, you’ll see scientists accepting principles as being truth, and a few years later having everything they’ve accepted turned on it’s ear by new research. The more we learn, the more we truly understand just how much we don’t know.
It took me a long time to accept that we just don’t know everything, and it’s likely that, in our current lifetime, we still won’t know everything. That was when I realized that I would have to learn to define my truths for myself. And thus started a long journey from which I still cannot see the end.
Posted in Religion/Spirituality | Comments (2)
February 7th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Hi, I think there are concrete objective truths…the tricky part is we really don’t know exactly what those truths are. We have to guess most of the time. That is really true with spirituality. How can anyone say with confidence that they know the One True Spiritual Truth?
Davids last blog post..The Ghosts of Starved Rock
February 8th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I do believe there are concrete truths in the universe. But as you say, it’s hard to know what they are, which is why I generally avoid arguments as to whether or not they exist (because invariably it does lead to an argument). And since I’m not convinced that any of the beliefs I hold as truth are, indeed, truth, I tend to come out on the side of no objective truths until proven otherwise. Yes, I do play both sides against the middle. Why do you ask? *grins*