Veering off the highway into questions of deep meaning, I’d like to answer Theological Corner. Mike Veronie, soul proprietor, posed this question to me (in response to my earlier question to him):

Do you believe there is such a thing as objective truth, which is true regardless of human opinion? And if so, what is its foundation?

I’d like to start with a passage from Alan Watt’s essay What is Reality?

We tend to think that the universe consists primarily of stars and galaxies. They are what we notice. The space containing them is sort of written off, as if it weren’t really there. What one has to realize though, is that space is an essential function of the things that are in it. After all, you can’t have separate stars unless you have space separating them. [The Culture of Counter-Culture, p. 34, Tuttle, 1998]

I believe in subjective truth (read, reality). I believe in balance. I believe that whatever fills in those spaces between stars – be it God, Brahman, the karmic wheel or the space in between, maintains that balance by acting simultaneously as a generative and destructive force for all that we see and experience.

God works in mysterious ways.

But, I believe also that, given human fallibility (which Mike and I, I’m sure, can agree on), we can only hope to experience reality, or truth, objectively. That’s why we’re having this discussion: I see truth as x, whereas Mike sees it as y. To me, this explains the hundred-fold paths of religions, all of which profess similar destinations.

That fallible nature gets us up in the morning striving to act better, be nicer to our fellow man and point our compasses toward Zen. Unfortunately, that same nature keeps us out the night before killing brain cells.

It’s an indirect answer of sorts, and it may prove a circular one bringing Mike and I back to my precious humanism. But, that’s one thing I love about the Internet; used for good, it can set the stage for the civil discourse that proves all-too rare these days.

And, for the record, if I’m stellar at the St. Petersburg Times, I am a very small star within this massive constellation. Thanks, though, for the kudos.