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TRUTH
Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? If so, that is why we must begin our existence in a world where error is present and always possible so that we can learn to distinguish between truth and error.
Truth is relative and expanding; it always lives in the present, achieving new expression in each generation -- even in each human life. Factualized truth, fossilized truth, the iron band of so-called unchanging truth, holds people blindly in a closed circle of cold fact. One can be technically right as to fact and completely wrong in the truth.
Physical facts are fairly uniform, but truth is a living and flexible factor in the universe. People are only partially wise and relatively true in their understandings. They can be certain only as far as their personal experience extends. You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you experience it.
Material science is indispensable to the intelligent discussion of the material aspects of the universe, but such knowledge is not necessarily a part of the higher realization of truth or of the personal appreciation of spiritual realities. Not only in the realms of life but even in the world of physical energy, the sum of two or more things is very often something more than, or something different from, the predictable additive consequences of such unions. The entire science of mathematics, the whole domain of philosophy, the highest physics or chemistry, could not predict that the union of two gaseous hydrogen atoms with one gaseous oxygen atom would result in a new and qualitatively different substance -- liquid water. The knowledge of this one phenomenon should have prevented the development of a purely materialistic philosophy and mechanistic cosmology.
Concerning the accumulated writings which various religionists hold as sacred books, it is often not only believed that what is in the book is true, but also that every truth is contained in the book. If one of these sacred books happens to speak of the earth as being flat, then, for long generations, otherwise sane men and women will refuse to accept positive evidence that the planet is round.
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