What is truth?

 

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John 18

New International Version

Jesus Arrested

18 When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.

2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. 3 So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.

4 Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?”

5 “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.

“I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) 6 When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

7 Again he asked them, “Who is it you want?”

“Jesus of Nazareth,” they said.

8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go.” 9 This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: “I have not lost one of those you gave me.”[a]

10 Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)

11 Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

12 Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him 13 and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. 14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jewish leaders that it would be good if one man died for the people.

Peter’s First Denial

15 Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, 16 but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there and brought Peter in.

17 “You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you?” she asked Peter.

He replied, “I am not.”

18 It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself.

The High Priest Questions Jesus

19 Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

20 “I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. 21 Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.”

22 When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby slapped him in the face. “Is this the way you answer the high priest?” he demanded.

23 “If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, “testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?” 24 Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

Peter’s Second and Third Denials

25 Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, “You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?”

He denied it, saying, “I am not.”

26 One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?” 27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.

Jesus Before Pilate

28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”

30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”

31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”

“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. 32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.

33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”

35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”

40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.

Footnotes

1. John 18:9 John 6:39

Truth by stephen crane

 

Truth

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"Truth," said a traveller, "Is a rock, a mighty fortress; Often have I been to it, Even to its highest tower, From whence the world looks black." "Truth," said a traveller, "Is a breath, a wind, A shadow, a phantom; Long have I pursued it, But never have I touched The hem of its garment." And I believed the second traveller; For truth was to me A breath, a wind, A shadow, a phantom, And never had I touched The hem of its garment.

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  The Democratic National Committee

  To:  me · Thu, May 29 at 11:13 AM

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  Timotyh, In just a few days, we’ll close the books on our most important FEC fundraising deadline since the last election. When this deadline ends, we will be required to report how much money we’ve raised, along with the number of donations we’ve received. Here is the truth: Everyone will be looking to see our total. If we report a big number with lots of donations, Trump and his allies will see that there is serious opposition to their attempts to hand a giant tax cut to the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. If we file a weak report, then Trump and Congressional Republicans will assume there’s no meaningful resistance to their agenda. That’s why this FEC deadline matters. So if you've been looking for something meaningful to do to stop Trump, here it is: Please use this link to make a contribution to the DNC today. By the time you’ve reached this point in the email, lots of Democrats will have pitched in, and they’re counting on you to join them. If you've stored your info with ActBlue, we'll process your contribution instantly. Donate $3   Donate $25 Donate $50   Donate $100 Donate $250   Other Amount Thank you, The Democrats

LIFE OF A JOKE

 LIFE OF A JOKE

Birth: A Freshman thinks it up and laughs out loud in chapel.

Age 5 minutes: The Freshman tell it toa Junior who says it’s pretty good, but he’s heard it before.

Age I day: Flumor editors use it as their own.

Age 2 days: Editor thinks it 1s terrible.

Age 10 days: Editor has to fill in space in a magazine, so the joke is printed.

Age 1 month: Thirteen other school magazines reprint it.

Age 3 years: Monitors reprint it in “Lighter Vein.”

Age 10 years: Seventy-nine radio comedians discover it simultaneously and tell it, accompanied by howls of mirth from the orchestra ($500 a howl).

Age 100 years: Teachers start telling it in class.

VERY TRUE

 VERY TRUE

This book is a great invention : MWumor The school gets all the fame, The printers get all the money, And the staff gets all the blame. Pat: (seeing Mike with his arm in a sling) “How’d you break your arm, Mike?” Mike: “Well, I was riding along in my car, and a guy in a big car goes by me so fast I thought I was standing still, so I got out to crank’ the thing.”

Dad: Didn’t I hear the clock strike three when you came in last night? Margie: Yes, Dad. It started to strike eleven, but I stopped it so you wouldn’t be disturbed.

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From Email to the Universe: and other alterations of consciousness

 

Email to the Universe: and other alterations of consciousness

Chapter 49: The Relativity of “Reality”

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The Relativity of “Reality”

 

      1. From the viewpoint of semantics, “reality” is a multi-ordinal concept, having different meanings on different levels of abstraction. On the lowest level of abstraction “reality” refers to immediate sensory consistency. “Is there really a kangaroo in that chair?” can be answered by obtaining the consensus of the group; or, if everybody is stoned, by bringing in some objective observers with objective instruments, etc. On the highest level of abstraction, “reality” refers to logical consistency with a body of established scientific fact and theory. “Is entropy real?” can be answered by consulting a reliable textbook on thermodynamics. Between the level of kangaroo and the level of entropy, there are many other levels of abstraction and, hence, many kinds of “reality.”

      For instance, “Is the Gross National Product real?” is a question on a certain level of abstraction; and if equally intelligent people can, and do, argue about this, it is because they are talking on different levels of abstraction and are not aware of the fact that there are different levels of abstraction and different kinds of “reality.”

      I call this the semantic relativity of “reality.”

      2. Every tribe has its own “reality — map,” or worldview, or What is “real” to the Eskimo is not what is “real” to the Zuni Indian or the Congolese or the Japanese Buddhist or the German businessman or the Russian commissar, etc. If you travel around the world with the naive assumption that everybody is living in the same “reality,” you will make numerous embarrassing mistakes, insult countless people unintentionally, make a splendid ass of yourself and generally contribute to the worldwide belief that tourists are a Curse of God sent to punish people for their sins. To recognize that every culture, and sub-culture, has its own “reality” is the prerequisite of sophistication, tact, and true tolerance. Otherwise you come on like the Englishman who claimed all Chinese understand English if you just shout loud enough.

      I call this the anthropological, or cultural, relativism of “reality.”

      3. Every nervous system creates its own “reality.” Out of the billions, or billions of billions, of energies intersecting the room in which you read this, your brain, performing 100,000,000 processes per minute (almost all of them unconscious to those circuits called the ego and recognized as “me”) arranges a few hundred or thousand into the Gestalt which you experience as the “reality” of the room. To demonstrate this, in my Info-Psychology classes, I will have the students describe the hall outside the lecture room; no two will describe exactly the same hall.

      Or, I will have everybody write down what they hear in the room during a minute of clock-time; no two lists of these sounds will be identical. A variety of chemicals introduced into the nervous system, or direct brain stimulation with electrical impulses, or yoga, etc., will create an entirely different neurological “reality” while you are still sitting in the "same” room.

      I call this neurological relativism, or the relativity of perceived “reality.”

      4. Two scientists moving at different accelerations can measure the same phenomenon with equally accurate instruments and obtain totally different readings of its extensions in the space and time dimensions. (Einstein, Special On the quantum level, a variety of different philosophical reality-maps, or “models,” describe equally well both the experimental data and the mathematical equations that are known to “fit” the data. Any attempt to get around this by adding more sophisticated instruments leads to adding still more sophisticated instruments to monitor the first set, and so on, forever. (Von Neumann’s “catastrophe of the infinite regress.”)

      I call this physical Relativity, or the relativity of instrumental “reality.”

      In conclusion, “reality” is a concept borrowed from the theologians who, being bankrupt, are in no position to loan anything to anybody. We would do better to restrict ourselves to questions that can be answered. Such questions take the form, “At this date, with the knowledge presently possessed by humanity, which model best accords with the facts?”

      When it turns out, as it usually does these days, that several models work equally well, we might then ask: which models are most amusing? most optimistic? most worthy of our time and energy? most elegant and esthetic? And we can keep in mind, too, biologist J.B.S. Haldane’s warning, “The universe may be not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think.”