Truth Isn’t Relative 👉 Open Thread 👈

 

Relative = something having, or standing in, some relation or connection to something else.

Saying that the truth isn’t relative seems such a simple fact. Yet in the world we see around us it is increasingly rare.

We are astounded when someone we know who has lied or distorted or ignored the truth tells us a truth. Our perception is that that person or entity is a liar and not to be trusted to tell the truth. Thus our perception becomes our reality. That doesn’t make it the truth.

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ” ~ Winston Churchill

The further we as a person, as a nation and as a people stray from the truth the more peril we face. Lies are dangerous. Lie are pernicious. Lies taint and harm a people and a country. Problems cannot be solved with a lie.

Greater minds than mine have struggled with the truth since mankind moved beyond the struggle simply to exist.

I have learned and read and come to believe over the years is that Truth is fact. It is not based upon opinion or preference. It is not changed by circumstances or situations. It does not have to be flattered and it is not moved by insult. It is not a philosophy, a belief or an idea. It is what it is in spite of these things.

The paragraph above explains what I see as truth with words I borrowed from someone else because they simply, elegantly express what I believe better than I can.

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” ~ John F. Kennedy

I read that some believe that everyone has their own truth. That truth is an objective reality at the present time. Thus truth is flexible and changeable. This philosophy believes that because we at some time believed something that was false to be the truth that truth cannot therefore be immutable.

Others believe that in their reality is the truth. They believe that what they perceive as truth is the truth. How very convenient. That easily is truth perverted.

I saw a good example of how quickly and easily truth can be perverted yesterday as I was listening to the Glenn Beck program. Beck was telling a story, as he often does, about Germany in the 30s. A few minutes later he explained that Twitter was lit up by people outraged that Beck was saying that Trump was Hitler.

Beck pointed out, and I knew it was the truth because I had been listening carefully, that he hadn’t mentioned politics or Trump. What he was talking about and trying to educate us about was how religion allowed itself to be perverted in Nazi Germany. He wasn’t talking about Trump in spite of the fact that his supporters seem to think the Sun revolves around him, he was talking about the church. He told us that in Germany at that time 80% of the people that called themselves Christians believed that Adolph Hitler was the head of the church and not Jesus Christ.

Some cretins on Twitter took that and made it all about Trump as a way to smear Beck. Fools who take what they see on Twitter as truth will pass the lie on. The lie will become their truth even though it is untrue.

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The sad part about having access to more information that any generation before us is that much of that information is nonsense. Twitter and other Social Media are prime examples of “truth being relative”. Fools that think they find truth on Twitter have neither the time or intellect to be able to tell the difference between truth and another fools opinion.

Twitter and other Social Media remind me of a game we used to play when I was a kid. We called it telephone. You would sit in a circle – the more players the better, and one person would whisper something to the person sitting to the left of them and then it was passed around the circle each person whispering to the next. Not surprisingly each person passed on not what they were told but what they heard. Thus when the sentence came back to the originator it was usually distorted out of recognition. Twitter is, IMO, the modern equivalent.

Simple Definition of truth

1. the truth : the real facts about something : the things that are true
2. the quality or state of being true
3. a statement or idea that is true or accepted as true

The truth is that truth is not as important to people as it should be. How do you operate in a world where the truth can be whatever someone wants it to be? That’s been tried. Many times. It always ends in disaster.

“Truth in Social Media” 

👦 Did you hear that Facebook just made a bid to buy Twitter?

👧 Where did you hear that?

👦 My buddy just blogged about it.

👧 How does he know it’s true?

👦 Duh! He read it on Twitter.

The truth is. It often isn’t what I want it to be. Sometimes it’s hard to accept the truth when the lies being told are what you want to hear. I get that. That’s how I sometimes feel. Momentarily. Lies that make me feel good for a moment only make the truth harder to accept. Give me the truth. Straight up. I can take it. Anything else is just a placebo.