Quote:
Some things are True, even if you can't explain them.
And unaffected by wind, waves and chanteys, there is a fathomless connection between what is True and what is Real.
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Wow,
mark12_30, I can tell I will be lying awake tonight pondering that one!
I believe you are right in your first statement... that's pretty much what religion is. And as for the second statement, I think that a "Truth" is more of an idea than a thing. It is something which cannot be changed. It trandscends everything else, and you can detect its absence even if you do not know what the Truth is. These ideas and ideals exist in our world and are therefore present in a world comparable to our own (or, indeed, supposed to be our own), here meaning Middle-earth.
On the other hand, reality is relative. We consider things to be "Real" as we perceive them, or as we would like to think of them. To keep this from getting into a massive spiritual debate, let's use a little quirk of mine as an example. I believe in fairies. No, really. I do. I don't expect to see any in my backyard, or ever, actually. Perhaps it's just that I'm a romantic at heart, and the idea of these beings is so endearing to me that I have come to consider them Real. They are out there, somewhere, but I just can't see them. Now, whether such beings actually exist can be argued forever, but as I said before, Reality is individual. No two people share the same Reality... so I suppose in my version of Reality, fairies do exist. You can substitute any personal belief into this argument and it should get my point across the same; I just don't want to bring any heavy stuff into this.
So now, the connection between what is True and what is Real, would, I suppose, be Belief. When we take Truths and apply them to any Reality, we get a world, and to believe in that world is to make it Real in your own mind.
Well, whoo'da thunk I'd end up pondering deep spiritual truths, huh? When I turned on the computer I was planning to write an essay... but not on this!
I'd love to hear your thoughts.