This is a pretty cool site, never seen anything like it before. Where did you find it?

Oh okay, well I will take a look at The Present then.

I really like your post and agree with it. It does seem like such a compromise to conform to this world. All throughout my teenage years, I have never really felt like I fit in but just went along with it anyway because I didn't know what else to do. Even what is seen as "rebellion" still seems like a more subtle way of conforming. I would always look around and observe how people behave and think "is this really what I am supposed to be doing?" I have always been really introspective and looking for meaning. Thank you so much for sharing this site.

I just read the first 12 pages of that entry, The Present (universal truth), and it was quite an experience! I actually reacted physically and emotionally to some of the things said, and I don't really know why. :confused:

Some of it didn't make sense to me initially, like the "immortality" stuff on the second page and "the balance of the universe" on page 4, but it seemed to ring true at the same. But that part on page 6 about "how summer seemed to last a lot longer when you were a kid" was really obvious. It seems like one of those things where you just take what you can and move on, even though it might not make sense at first. Maybe it just has to sink in more.

Anyway I am really intrigued by this book and the idea of discussing and defining "truth" in general, so I will definitely continue reading after I get some lunch. Maybe some other people on this forum will check it out too, would make for a great discussion.

Whilst the aim of the website is exceedingly admirable and applaudable (and I hope that what we do here in D&D represents just a little sliver of that human search for truth) I think the most it can ever do is bring us closer to an understanding of 'the truth', whatever 'the truth' might be, rather than actually show us, which I believe is pretty much impossible.

That said, I do this after having skimmed rather than studied the site, so I may be prejudging. But it's an educated prejudging ;).

I don't know it's impossible, I believe so. In fact, you've touched on my reasons. When it comes to the big questions, people generally shrink back into their own belief systems and argue for them and at the end of the day you'll be hard pressed to change many minds.

There are just too many ideas that are disseminated around for it to be easy to pick out what is 'true'. Sure, you may say that the logical argument is the truth, but you can still have two arguments that logically make sense that contradict once they're compared. And because, until there is an overwhelming amount of information and evidence, we have nothing but our own human interpretations of logic, we'll never get beyond arguing with each other over ideas that make sense but refuse to make sense with others.

I spent most of the last few days reading the rest of that top entry, The Present (universal truth). I just couldn't stop reading, I have never reacted that strongly to anything, let alone online text. I was laughing at parts and crying at parts and I have no idea why. It was the strangest experience I have ever had.

I think it is because I am grateful to find this, and I think it is a valuable read. Almost all of it rings true. A lot of the stuff that didn't make sense at the beginning started to become clearer as I read the whole book, maybe it is written that way for a reason. Anyway, I am going to show this to some of my friends and my family, and see what they think.

Esmo, I see what you are saying, but if it is not possible to define universal truth, will our world always live in separation? What is interesting about this book (The Present) is that it talks about two kinds of truth: the intellectual truth, which can be understood by the mind, and the living truth, which cannot be shown in words. It says the intellectual truth is the truth that can be checked, that is supported by the evidence, and it leads to the truth that is beyond the mind. If you get a chance, check it out and tell me what you think.

Wow, that site certainly is ridiculous.

This site is more philosophical than anything, though I'm not saying that it's bad.

Philosophy is subjective, as the definition of it is "a doctrine of beliefs accepted by an authoritative by some group or school". It uses objective concepts, however ultimately the conclusion is mostly subjective.

Truth is objective, in the meaning that even if you believe that the sun is rotating around the earth, it does not affect the actual reality that the earth revolves around the sun.

However, there is a limit of truth that we may never overcome. That is the absolute truth. We cannot know the absolute truth of everything, or anything for that matter. The reason why is because we have a limited rationality and perspective on reality. One person's perspective of an apple is different from another. This concludes that we might know some truths about things, but we cannot and may not ever know the absolute truth of anything/everything.

That being said, I believe that this site isn't really even talking about the truth. It's more of philosophical views that help people unite together. That isn't "truth".

I'll give you some quotes on the site that I don't really find "good" or "true".

"Just the truth: The ultimate truth about life and death can be explained without any reference to religion, and some people may prefer that, but more than half of the human race is involved in a religion. Thus, to be the ultimate explanation of the truth, it must include religion, all religions. It is the only way to unite us all."

It seems as if this quote is leaving out the number of people who do not believe in a god/gods. Why does the truth must include all religions just because people believe in those religions? That isn't the truth. That is just uniting and combining beliefs into a pseudo-truth.

Truth isn't a democracy or "should be combined with other things". There IS only one truth to anything. We may never know the absolute truth to anything/everything but we have the ability to see the truth.

"[B]Without the truth, there can be no real justice, equality, success, progress, intelligence, security, peace, love, spirituality or even survival. Without the truth mankind is lost and heading for certain disaster in the near future."

[/B]This statement makes it so that it seems as if, if we don't know the truth of something, then there can be no love, peace, intelligence, etc.
If this WERE true, then that means we shouldn't have been able to progress when we still lived in Africa.
Today, we can see that we have cellphones and houses and are able to migrate thousands of kilometers, even passing oceans.




Now please don't take it the wrong way. I see that this site is a very inspirational one; however they misinterpret the meaning of "truth" very badly.

Well in that same line you quoted from the book, it says the truth can be explained without any reference to religion, and some people may prefer that. I personally do prefer that, and the shorter version of The Present (the universal truth one) doesn't have any reference to religion or "gods." So it does include everyone, it is just that most of this world is involved in a religion, so it must be explained through religion to unite people, because those strong belief systems are not going to just disappear.

What if now is the time where we do have the ability to know and understand the fundamental, absolute truth of life, of everything? That is what that book says and it makes a strong case. After read the whole thing, I'd say it is pretty clear and complete. I couldn't think of anything to add or say more clearly.


Somewhere later, it says that although there has been a lot of material progress, mankind really hasn't changed in a fundamental way, because we have never collectively known the truth about life, never really known what is going on and why. We may act more civilized because most of us have the basic necessities of life and don't need to struggle and kill each other to survive, but the beast within is just tamed, not overcome. What I got out of that book is, "only the truth can overcome the beast, and now we can know it."



But yeah, this is the most inspiring site I have ever seen. I might submit an entry after I read all the others to see what is there.

I also totally agree.
I don't wish to conform to the norm

reality, the true nature of reality is unknown to every human being alive. We have 5 senses, consciousness can be considered as a 6th sense but we have these 5 senses. We PERCEIVE reality every moment, we see things with our eyes that sends electrical pulses to our brain, we hear things that do the same but we are never actually understanding the true nature of reality. We in fact create our own reality, we paint it in our minds and fabricate our own version of what we think reality is. Technically if you take a human brain which has been taken out of the body and kept in some jar, then hooked it up to a computer which fed it electrical signals to certain parts of the brain, it would think it was a person walking around, smelling eating whatever. This is a fact, and it is also one fundamental teaching of buddhism, that we never know the true nature of reality, nothing exists as we perceive it.

Thanks for pointing me to this site, it's really interesting. Definitely going to give this all a read.

EDIT- This bit I've just read really got to me:

Most people are not aware of the fact that they have two different selves. You have a mind and a spirit (consciousness), and though they seem like one thing, they are separate. The way to realize that this is true is to realize that something has to be listening to the thoughts created by your mind.

What is it that hears your thoughts?