Determining Truth

What is truth and how it is determined is a hot topic.  Universities talk about it, our religious organizations discuss it and very few people can agree on it. We live in a world infested with relativism. There is no truth, except the truth that you have for yourself.  You should not tell someone, that they are wrong, because that is intolerance of their opinion and view. 

The question we must ask ourselves is if that is true?  Is there really no absolute truth in our universe.  Are our views determined based on where we were born or how we were raised?  If you're born in Utah you believe as the Mormons, in the Bible belt Christianity, the Middle East Islam, India Hinduism, China Buddhism or in Europe agnosticism.

If our beliefs are relative and there is no such thing as absolute truth, why did the Bible give us the command to go forth and take the Gospel to all the world? Maybe that is just something someone thought would be a good idea to promote their belief system?

I believe that there is absolute truth.  In John 14:1-6 Jesus is talking to his disciples about His death and going to heaven to prepare a place for them.  Jesus makes the statement that they know the way to which he goes.  Thomas says, hold on a minute we do not know the way.  At that point Jesus says I'm the Way, the Truth and the Life no man comes to the Father but by me. 

Either what Jesus said is true or He is a lunatic and a false prophet like David Koresh, Jim Jones or Charles Manson.

Truth in its simplest form is an accurate description of reality.  Truth is exclusive, since anything that does not accurately represent the object or description is excluded from being true. Therefore, if you're sipping water from a glass you're holding in your right hand, it would not be true if someone said you we're drinking lemonade from a glass with your left hand. The truth excludes all things which do not align with reality.

It is important that the statement made earlier that there is no such thing as truth, is a self refuting statement.  Since if there were no such thing as truth, the statement that their is no such thing as truth would have to be false.

Second, truth is not determined by consensus. If you disagree with the truth, it does not make the object any less true. How a person feels or believes has no bearing on truth. You can accept truth or reject the truth, either way the truth did not change.

Another description for truth, is that truth must meet the following criteria.

>	Truth must be true for all people.
>	Truth must be true in all places
>	Truth must be true for all times.

A simple example of this is to think about the Earth. It was not too long ago that many people believed that the Earth was flat. However, through space travel and science we know without any doubt that the reality shows the Earth is round sphere. However as few as 500 years ago this was not the world's view. Just because it was widely accepted that the Earth was flat did not make it true. As time progressed the Earth did not change shape because we now believe it is round, it has always been round. This simple example demonstrates that truth is not relative, it is not determined by consensus or opinion; truth is an accurate reflection of reality.