unpopular truth....

...isn't truth at all. truth is defined as what is accepted as being, not what is. it was true that the sun revoled around the earth, that the earth was flat, that milk and red meat was good for you (some people still believe cows milk is good for you, even nutritionists who don't understand that their manuals were funded,in part, by the dairy council, but I digress), that you could go blind from masturbation. Since nobody can agree on what, exactly, is the truth, then truth is subjective. since truth is subjective, beleif is truth to the one that believes it. when this believe is accepted by more than one person, the argument that it is "true" increases in credibility, at least to the one who believes it, making it more true. if enough people believe it, it becomes undeniably true. even though, to a more informed population, it might be obviously untrue.

this begs the question: what is "undeniably true" to us, but is "obviously untrue" to a more informed population? it would be more than a little arrogant to think that there are no such things. the only way out of this is to be completely agnostic in every thought that comes your way. that's not much fun. so what do we do?

we might not be able to understand truth. but what about freedom? freedom is pretty abstract as well, but, i think, more spiritually tangible than truth. well, maybe we should care more about freedom than truth? Jesus once said "know the truth, and the truth will set you free". I disagree. I think that you should be free first. free from ideology, from dogmatism, from external pressures, from the "tyronny of abstractions". only then can you fully pursue the ideal of absolute truth.