Since 1992, we have offered essays, debating forums, mathematical and logical puzzles, speeches, interviews and tutorials to the online community.  The purpose of the Truth Tree is at once political and educational.  Whether you agree with our beliefs or not, we hope you are entertained and informed with each visit.  After reading a position, click on the message board (denoted by on the home page) and read the comments of our honored guests and share your own thoughts, because you are our honored guest as well.

      Like the branches of a tree, each position grows in detail and complexity.  The gardeners make frequent changes to reflect emerging world events and their own evolving views.  People from all over the world post new messages daily.  Relevant comments left by our guests sometimes find their way into the essays.  The Tree is a work in progress constantly growing and being improved upon.  Check back often, daily if you can.

      Our goal is to bring people together to examine their own beliefs and each other's in a friendly environment where a new consensus can emerge.  We discourage name-calling and kindergarten behavior often suffered on the Usenet newsgroups.  That behavior simply drives people away, shuts down discussion, closes minds, and hardens hearts.

      Study the Debating essay if you want to gain a background in the classical art of argument as practiced by learned scholars since the time of Socrates.  In 2000, a college professor in Hong Kong received our permission to distribute that essay to his students, with a brief acknowledgement to the Truth Tree.  One day with the help of technology we may be able to offer translations of the Truth Tree into languages other than English.  The important Debating essay is proposed as a standard for everyone to try and follow--an ideal.  We are not, however, rigid in enforcement of these principles.  No one is perfect, after all.

      Our opinions are based upon an analytic, objective, and rational worldview, and set the starting point for discussion.  Some people think a scientific approach is only valid for technical problems like how to design a rocket ship or build a superconductor.  They say that we must trust in God or intuition or tradition or authority to solve other problems.  Well, we strongly disagree!

      We believe that social, economic, political, religious, moral, ethical, and aesthetic problems are successfully solved through rational, logical means.  That is to say, we form our opinions by getting the best available objective evidence and then using our minds.  This may not sound very unusual, because many would make the same claim.  But consider, many take their opinions unquestioningly from the popular media, from peers or family, their holy book or an alledgedly higher authority.  Such people, no matter how admirable in other respects, may not have seriously questioned their beliefs, but passively absorbed them from their environment like plants absorbing whatever happens to be in the soil (for good or ill).  They have not used their minds to form opinions; only their ears.  This tragic state of affairs is promoted daily and in most walks of life by religious and political indoctrination and by a natural human tendency to avoid questioning any popular belief out of fear of rejection.

      People from all over the world debate in our forums.  We encourage you to participate if you are a good writer and good reader.  Both skills are equally important.  A new user who contributes helpful, insightful messages, or just asks good questions and shows intellectual curiosity (a rare quality that we respect) helps the Tree grow.  Feel free to ask questions about philosophical, religious, scientific, and political subjects here, because the Truth Tree's very reason for being is to attempt an answer for those questions.

      Please respect the dignity of your fellow truthseekers.  Let us not regress to our toddler years by pulling hair or throwing mud, because such tactics detract from the enjoyment and education of others.  Profanity and other forms of abuse drive people away to corporate vendors.  We would prefer that people stay and exchange ideas in a civil manner with one another.  You gain nothing by using profanity.  Other words serve you much better if carefully chosen.  Dare to be original!  Also, try to avoid personal attacks.  The Truth Tree is a polite forum for intelligent, reasonable debate--and when it becomes not so, we may have to remove the participants that make problems, along with all of their messages, and notify their ISP's of the abuse.  For more information about the rules and technical capabilities of our forums click here.  If you are a child or parent, you may wish to review our Parental Advisory.  No pornography can be found here, but we do host public message bases, and therefore occasionally profanity or mention of physical acts may be found.

     One participant wrote, "We seem to be playing with ideas here.  New, old, good, bad, indifferent.  Join the fun, say something 'crazy' and watch the fireworks."

     There is some similarity between the Tree and C-SPAN. Both provide an opportunity for people to come together and freely express their ideas and to have the opportunity of benefitting from the thought and work of others.  Unlike C-SPAN, however, the debates on the Tree do not disappear when the participants stop talking.  Here, the different points of view remain available for anyone who is interested to review at leisure and to think through and ponder some of the knotty riddles of the human condition and the challenges which we all face.

     Science and technology are developing at a breathtaking pace, and it is increasingly difficult to keep up with all the innovations and new knowledge that is appearing daily in scientific journals.  Some of the participants in the discussions on the Tree have special backgrounds in rapidly developing fields such as genetics and can perform a very helpful educational service.

     And there is another very important feature that makes the Tree unique: it will grow.   It will grow in the same way that our fund of knowledge in physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology have grown because it is based on the same underlying methods.  The position statements will be updated as new information comes to light, and new topics will be added just as a tree puts forth new branches.   The Truth Tree is a living entity!  Join us in these great debates!

Bertrand Russell seemed to have a very similar idea in an essay he wrote on his "mental development".   This is what he had to say:

Many matters which, when I was young, baffled me by the vagueness of all that had been said about them, are now amenable to an exact technique, which makes possible the kind of progress that is customary in science.   Where definite knowledge is unattainable, it is sometimes possible to prove that it is unattainable, and it is usually possible to formulate a variety of exact hypotheses, all compatible with the existing evidence.   Those philosophers who have adopted the methods derived from logical analysis can argue with each other, not in the old aimless way, but coöperatively, so that both sides can concur as to the outcome.   All this is new during my lifetime; the pioneer was Frege, but he remained solitary until his old age.   This extension of the sphere of reason to new provinces is something that I value very highly.   Philosophic rationality may be choked in the shocks of war and the welter of new persecuting superstitions, but one may hope that it will not be lost utterly or for more than a few centuries.

     The following is an attempt to re- write St.  Paul's famous essay (First Corinthians, Chapter 13) on faith, hope, and love (or faith, hope, and charity, depending on which translation you prefer) as it would be written by a present day rationalist using faith, hope, love, and truth.   This version recognizes the value of faith, hope, and charity, but proposes that truth is of greater value than any of the others.   The original is indented.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.   And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.

Though I have a charismatic personality and can sway millions with my skills at oratory and in writing, if I don't have truth I'm just a windbag.  But if I have the gift of truth, I will know that none of the following claims is to be seriously believed:  prophecy,  understanding all mysteries,  having all knowledge, and  having the ability to move mountains by faith

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

And though I give everything I own to charity, and conform to all the superstitious religious observances commonly thought to be important in my society, if I have not enough truth to see that giving can sometimes do more harm than good and that superstition is at best a waste of time, I will make little or no positive contribution to the great adventure of life, and my own life will be of little value to myself or to anyone else.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.  

Ignorance of truth can lead to negative outcomes, but truth itself can go unrecognized for millenia, and it never punishes us for neglecting it.  (It is truly long suffering!) Although it is not necessarily kind, truth treats everyone and every situation even handedly.  If you truly know about yourself and others there will be no need for envy because you will recognize it as a destructive emotion which can only interfere with achieving the rational values of promoting joy and fulfillment for everyone.  Likewise, if you see yourself and others truthfully there will be no need to try to make yourself seem better or more important than you are.  Truth will make you free from this mistaken goal, and you won't get all puffed up with self importance.   The more truth you know the less likely it is that you will behave in "unseemly" ways.  Show me someone who is behaving "unseemly" and I'll show you someone who is missing some important aspect of truth.   If you see life clearly and truly you will know better than to attempt to capitalize on "connections" to gain unfair advantage against others.   (Failure to recognize this truth has unfortunately led to a situation in which "truthful politician" is so often seen as an oxymoron.) Truth is not easily provoked.  In fact, it is never "provoked".   Truth thinks no evil.  It only thinks truth, and although truth may not be what you wanted or expected or what you thought would be fair, it is never evil.  "Iniquity" always involves deception.  Deception is the purposeful hiding of truth.   Truth, therefore, plays no part in iniquity.  It values only truth.   Truth stands up to all criticism, no matter how severe.  After all, it's true anyway, no matter what anyone says!  Truth tests all things.   This is much better than "believing all things".  But someone who has an unusually clear perception of truth will be very understanding of all human frailties.  Such a person will display an unconditional positive regard for others in need.  He will indeed "hope all things and endure all things" in the sense that he will be willing to start with another person wherever that person is on the path toward truth and not summarily dismiss him just because he is imperfect or because he doesn't believe some arbitrary dogma or other as religious people have been doing for thousands of years.  He will have seemingly endless patience.

Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

Truth never fails, because if it did it wouldn't be true. But prophecies will fail.  And no one is immortal.  And what we think is true today may be shown tomorrow to be only a partial truth, so knowledge is constantly in a state of development.  Our knowledge is incomplete, and our predictions are only approximate.  But when we improve our knowledge, we can discard our previous misconceptions.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.  That is to say, I thought that the world was somehow subservient to my wishes.  But when I became a man, I put away childish things.  I stopped believing just what I wanted to believe and started believing only those things which I could test and find to be true.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Before we developed a clear understanding of how to search for truth, it was as if we were looking at the world through a dirty window.  But although we will probably never know the whole truth of the world we can at least clean away some of the dirt.  And we have good reason to hope that we can clean up even more of the window and see not only the outside world more clearly but ourselves as well.

And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

And now we still have faith, hope, love, and truth: these four.   They are all wonderful to have under some circumstances, and love is indeed greater than faith or hope.  But the greatest of them all is truth.

Comments will be appreciated.

     In concluding this mission statement let me emphasize that rational scientific approaches to knowledge have reached a critical stage which goes far beyond what most people realize.   For example, in the introduction to his book, God and the New Physics, Paul Davies wrote:

...in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.   Right or wrong, the fact that science has actually advanced to the point where what were formerly religious questions can be seriously tackled, itself indicates the far-reaching consequences of the new physics.