Faith in truth

Shasta had a post the other day which delt with philosphy and what I consider to be the most maddening aspect of philosophy -- how difficult it is to define truth.

The entire argument of truth is dependent on objectivity: Can any of us truly be objective? Can we trust our senses? Can we trust our minds? What about logic?

Eventually we realize that so much of what we understand about this world is based on faith. Philosophical faith or religious faith or even scientific faith: it's all pretty much the same. If you take something that you believe and you reverse engineer it, you'll realize this: How come I believe the earth is round? Because they told me so in school. Why do I believe it? Because the idea is logical and it coincides with my sensory evidence. Why should I believe my senses? Because I have nothing else to go on...

Like Shasta's friend in her post, I used to have a friend who was mentally ill. I tried to convince her (she was schizophrenic) that there weren't any demons whispering to her, trying to poison her, etc. But I couldn't really prove that to her since it was essentially my word against hers. Her reality made as much sense to her as my reality makes to me.

I believe there's truth out there: absolute and perfect and independent of us or our understanding. Our pilgrimage is to seek it out and to make the most of ourselves while we do so.