I know that I exist.
I believe there is objective, knowable reality. Only that which exists, exists. That which is not real does not exist and will not exist no matter how much you wish it, no matter how many of you wish it. Your wishes do not have the power of creation.
I have a right to my life
I am a free man. I have a right to my liberty. A free man can dream-up projects, and he can carry them out. He can think in many directions and pursue his happiness in any number of professions and arts. When a free man succeeds, he does so by virtue of his own ability. He owns his success. When a free man fails, he has no other to blame, and therefore no escape. There’s no escaping the truth when you are free.
I have a right to pursue my own happiness.
As a man, I seek the truth. Truth is not determined by majority vote. Truth is that which exists in reality. It is identifiable. It is definable. If the majority fails to see the truth, the truth remains, still, unaltered. Truth is knowable. It stands firm, unchanging, uncompromising. Man can know truth and falsehood—like good and evil, like black and white. If something seems to be "a gray area" that is only because presently we may lack some knowledge essential to full understanding or we may have erred in our interpretation of the data. Our failure presently to solve the problem does not alter the solution. The solution—the truth—is there for us to discover. In other words, whether we know the facts of reality or not, the facts of reality do in fact exist.
I have a hierarchy of values. I will never sacrifice a higher value for a lesser one. For example: Some argue that faith and a belief in life after death is comforting to mankind, that the belief [however unsubstantiated] gives man hope. They argue that hope is the greater good. I disagree. They have sacrificed a high value, truth, for a non-value, their wish. Truth is what I aspire to. To seek the truth is what I teach my children. To exist in reality, to exist as free people, to be happy through the achievement of real self-esteem… these are our family values. The well being of my five children and my wife ranks as high as my freedom, my happiness and myself. In fact, they are integral to my definition of “my happiness,” and therefore, it is my right and my self-imposed responsibility to protect their lives and their liberty as I would my own.
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2 comments:
"If something seems to be "a gray area" that is only because presently we may lack some knowledge essential to full understanding or we may have erred in our interpretation of the data."
I really like this especially when looking at history. "Subjective" history and different perspectives on historical events has always frustrated me. I feel like history should be a topic easy enough to find a singular truth in. However, what tends to happen is there are several different interpretations of the same event. Especially in archaeology, the archaeologists must piece together their findings to, in a way, create history. Their interpretations determine how a civilization lived and behaved. It makes me wonder how we will be interpreted when our time as a civilization has passed.
Actually, I was speaking to the laws that govern nature...gravity, entropy, etc. Metaphysical existence is not subjective. There is a rational explaination for everything in existence. With regards to the past, I can say with certainty that bread did not fall from the sky. I can't, however, tell you anything about Moses' motives, the color of his eyes, or the sound of his voice. We can't "know" the past. The further back we go, the less certain we can be.
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