“You can bend it and twist it... You can misuse and abuse it... But even God cannot change the Truth.”
Michael Levy
~~~~~~~~~~
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
Galileo Galilei
~~~~~~~~~~
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

“Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
Oscar Wilde
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness.”
-unknown
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.”
Mark Twain
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”
Albert Einstein
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"
-"Ode on a Grecian Urn" John Keats


Good truth and bad truth

Maybe there isn’t good and bad truth. I think it’s more of a question about what you want to know about the world. Some people love designer sneakers and would hate to hear the ugly truth, that they were made by some kid in a sweat shop. Is that truth? I don’t know, it might be, I don’t have evidence proving that, but in some cases it probably is true. If we chose to not recognize the “ugly truth”, then we can remain in an ignorant bliss.

As you said Troy, the truth is what we make of it.

“I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.” -Pietro Aretino

“The truth hurts.”

That’s something we hear when says something and they know it is going to harm you. But the truth doesn’t hurt; it’s what you make of it.

I asked people about truth and received a lot of the same answers: truth is relative to experience, it’s subjective, it’s culture, your family, BLAH BLAH. It was all the same answers.
One person told me that truth is GOD! Some may agree with her, some would not, that does not make her statement any less true to her. Truth is personal.

I received a written response and will share some of it.
“the truth is honest and of integrity. the truth is anything without doubt, any traces of doubt. things can be real and true, or unreal and true. one can have truth w/o reality but there is something more difficult about swallowing reality w/o truth. love is true and real; so is hate…the past is true, it’s changeable.”

But what about this big mess of calling peoples opinions and morals Truth? Not everything is a search for truth and we need to realize that. Some of this debating can get down right annoying. Someone saying that they have THE BEST dog in the world is not truth. I feel like that belittles the word. Truth truth Truth truth Truth truth…..It loses it’s meaning.
Just like love.
The word is thrown around so much. We give different things the same title, but to different degrees. It’s enough to make me crazy….(that word is over used too)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTES: These are some things I took down as I watched your video Troy.
Pragmatism
Looking for evidence that truth is truth
Perspective, there can be more than one truth
Useful cuz true, true cuz useful
Idea corroborated by facts if truth
One great truth?

You crave something to grab on to.

Oxygen, can’t see it. Bottle it to see it
Invisible things exist!

This whole idea of Pragmatism is cool and now I think I have some things to work off of. Evidence…..proof. People need that. They need something concrete, but not necessarily tangible, like religion for instance. Some may argue that aspects of their religion are observable as evidence, like their holy books, miracles, prophecy, so that’s proof enough for them. So they win. Then people who disagree come along and counter their argument and prove that religion is nothing bug hogwash. Now they win.
But neither will recognize the other’s victory, because they’re both right.

Truth is what you make of it….and is ever elusive.

I keep reminding myself of this: I may not have the answers, but asking questions gives me a reason for living. The pursuit of truth is more important than the acquisition of truth.
The pursuit of truth is not a competition, it is a collaborative effort. That’s why I’m glad I’ve had an opportunity to work on this with you, Troy. You’ve opened up my mind to new concepts and idea that I’m sure will plague my thoughts and dreams. I love/hate you for that. 

Truth is nothing.
Truth is everything.

So I will end on this: Let us live harmoniously and accept each other. Love everyone, and find your truth. Let others live their truth. Just don’t hurt anyone.
I end on this “hippy” note because I think it’s a truth that people should live by. But I’m just full of it, and so is everyone else.

So Johnny Cash gets the last word.





**I originally had a video response, but as I was editing the 20-30 minutes of footage I accidentally deleted it all. What a wonderful world**