Truth is not revealed; Truth is discovered.
Truth is not revealed to a chosen few but discovered by the relentless pursuit of reason. To say otherwise is to surrender human dignity to the tyranny of dogma. Revelation pretends to be a shortcut to ultimate knowledge: a holy book dropped from the heavens. This prophet alone hears the voice of God, a priestly caste entrusted with truths too sacred for ordinary mortals.
This vision flatters the faithful, but it insults the intelligence. It asks men and women to accept secondhand authority, to stifle their doubts, to obey instead of question. Revelation claims to end the search by declaring that the answer has already been given, once and for all. But every age and every society that has chained itself to revelation has stagnated in superstition, violence, and division.
Reason works differently. It admits no monopoly, no chosen few, no sacred geography. The laboratory, the classroom, the public square—these are its temples. Reason is the great democratizer: it allows the shepherd in the field and the mathematician in the academy alike to ask, “What is true?” and to test their answers. It requires no miracles, no mysteries, no oracles. It demands only clarity, evidence, and coherence. Revelation declares “believe or perish.” Reason says, “Show me.” One stops the conversation, the other begins it. One chains the mind, the other liberates it.The evidence of history is devastatingly clear. The Bible, the Qur’an, the Torah, the Vedas—all claim to be revealed, all contradict one another, all demand submission. If revelation were the highway to truth, mankind would not be divided into warring sects, each hurling its holy book as a weapon against the other. By contrast, the discoveries of reason—heliocentrism, gravity, evolution, the germ theory of disease—have united humanity in ways revelation never could.
The laws of physics hold in Jerusalem, Mecca, and Benares alike. Antibiotics cure the devout Muslim, the skeptical atheist, the Hindu priest, and the Christian evangelist without discrimination. Truth discovered by reason is universal. Revelation is parochial, tribal, and often lethal.
Revelation thrives on fear: fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of divine punishment. Reason thrives on doubt: the willingness to say “perhaps we are wrong,” the refusal to sanctify ignorance. Revelation is jealous and violent—kill the heretic, burn the apostate, excommunicate the blasphemer. Reason is patient and relentless—it corrects itself, refines its methods, abandons errors, and builds upon successes. That is why revelation gave us witch hunts and inquisitions, while reason gave us science and democracy.
To defend the thesis that truth is discovered by reason is not to deny mystery, but to insist that mystery must be confronted, not worshiped. The stars once terrified mankind; reason turned them into astronomy. Disease once seemed divine wrath; reason transformed it into medicine. Even morality, once chained to divine command, has been refined by reason into a recognition of universal human dignity. Where revelation divides, reason unites. Where revelation blinds, reason illuminates. Where revelation enslaves, reason emancipates.
Truth is not the private property of prophets or priests. It is not a whispered secret in the deserts of Sinai or the caves of Arabia. It is not locked in an ark or bound in a book. Truth is the hard-won prize of the human mind engaged in its noblest activity: the relentless pursuit of reason. And it belongs not to a chosen few, but to all of us.
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