If we are dust, only truth remains

1.1 The hedonism I showed back in December 2010 would be fine, except that life is actually full of pain. We get sick, disabled, and we shrivel with age and we die. I cannot even enjoy sex anymore; Peyronie's and impotence have taken that from me. So "let us eat and drink" is false, not true.

1.2 I cannot find a reason to live, unless there is a transcendent nature. All else is dust. All good we do, all our efforts, resolve to dust in the end. And eventually this earth will also resolve to dust. As I said over 10 years ago, when a Christian: if all we are is chemistry, with no transcendent nature, then life is meaningless.

1.3 So I say "agnosto theo": to the unknown god. I have studied mounds of evidence for Near-Death Experiences (NDE's), past lives, and other phenomena, and have also read the skeptics' responses. I conclude that I simply do not have enough evidence to decide whether I will live beyond this (diseased. disturbed and disturbing) life; at the end of the day I do not know if I have any meaning.

1.4 One thing I know: I love truth. I love it more than any religion or political ideology. Truth is more than my life.

1.5 What is truth? It is the most reasonable conclusion from the best available evidence. For example, if we find fossils of organisms becoming gradually more complex as the rock strata ascend toward the present, the most reasonable conclusion is that life has evolved from simple to more complex forms.

1.6 Special creation and "intelligent design" are not conclusions from evidence. They are religious ideas which people try to support by abusing the evidence. They are prejudices which deny the truth. In fact, creationism is a pernicious lie which retards human progress.

1.7 I will stand for the truth, because it is all I have left. I will stand for truth, because it is the only hope for humanity. I will stand for the truth, because it is greater than my life.

1.8 Mahatma Gandhi said, "There is no God higher than truth." Therefore all gods and our most cherished ideas must be subject to the rule of evidence.

1.9 There are actually two kinds of truth. Some truths are subjective. For example, "lobster tastes like stone crab" is a subjective truth. So is "I saw God, angels, ghosts, etc." This may be true in my mind, because of personal experience, but it cannot be shared with others. Objective truth, on the other hand, is based on reasoning from evidence. It can be shared with others, and so is useful for humanity.

1.10 If someone says, "there is no objective truth," I will drop a rock on his foot. This will establish two truths: the law of gravity, and that rocks falling on the body cause pain. Truth is established by such simple means, or by elaborate experiments and studies.

2.1 Since truth depends on evidence, and new evidence may become known, I must accept that any of my "truths" may be disproved by new evidence. This is why scientists and others who live by reason must be humble: we must give up our cherished beliefs; we must love truth more than anything else.