Why Truth Matters

Google Image
I recently received a letter that appeared to be “official.” It had the clear plastic windows on the envelope you would expect from an official source, a return address saying it was from the “Vehicle Services Department” and in red print, “Important Vehicle Notice.”

Genius that I am, I wasn’t fooled. I knew it was another piece of deceptive advertising mail that comes almost daily. But out of curiosity, I opened it.

In the envelope was an official looking document on pink paper that listed features of our 2010 Nissan Altima. The pitch was for an extended warranty on the car, something that I have determined is a waste of money in any case. The satisfying part of the letter was that we haven’t owned that car for several years and so for the sender, it was a waste of time and money.

We’ve all become so accustomed to such misleading mail and propaganda that we think nothing of it. I wrote about this subject back in February when there was so much publicity about “alternative truth.” I then used as an illustration a telephone solicitation, similar to the misleading – and therefore fraudulent – letter from the “Vehicle Services Department.”

Reflect Public Climate?
Do these misleading forms of advertising reflect the public climate that appears to no longer value the truth? The pace and extent of public dishonesty appears to be accelerating, mostly due to social media through which people can instantly broadcast rumors, exaggerations and downright lies and move on to more of them before the earlier ones are exposed .

And, wrote Charles J. Sykes in a recent America Magazine article, “…Cable networks, radio hosts and web sites continue to peddle bizarre conspiracy theories even after they have been debunked.” America, by the way, describes Sykes a “conservative commentator.”

Some of you may be thinking, “What does this have to do with the search for God?”

“…One of the most consequential questions we now face,” writes Sykes, “is whether truth matters anymore.” And if the truth doesn’t matter, our search for God doesn’t either.

Sincere believers may differ with non-believers on whether God exists, on the questions of how best to find God or other questions of science, theology or philosophy, but if the truth doesn’t matter, neither do any views on any side.

Google Image
And if the truth doesn’t matter, no one has a right to complain about lies. Has your spouse lied to you about his/her relationship with another person? Doesn’t matter because the truth doesn’t. If you don’t believe there is an objective thing called truth, you have no standing to complain.

What are the stakes in the apparent loss of respect for the truth?

The story of the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, the provincial Roman authority in Jerusalem, gives us a hint. In a dialogue with Jesus, in which the procurator was trying to relieve himself of responsibility for Jesus’ death, he asks Jesus, “What is truth?” Implied in the question is that the truth is what Pilate says it is - basically what despots through the ages have wanted us to believe.

If there is no objective truth but only “my truth and your truth,” our search for God is a waste of time and effort because searching for God is searching for the truth.

It should be obvious to readers of these blogs that there’s something personal about them. I have regularly questioned my faith, believe that most believers do – though they may not be willing to admit it even to themselves – and that writing the blogs helps me and hopefully, my readers, deal with doubt.

Help My Unbelief
I see no conflict between faith and doubt. Like the father of the boy in Mark’s gospel who had convulsions, my frequent prayer is “I believe, help my unbelief.” I think non-believers, and people who have given up on God and religion also have their doubts and that these blogs can help them think through them. All of us must accept uncertainty.

But we still seek the truth. Does God exist? How can we know him/her? What difference does it make whether we do or not? What role does religion play in the search for truth? What can help me in that search?

These are some of the questions I try to help myself and others answer, knowing that no answer is likely to be definitive. But they are among the most important questions human beings can ask. And if we become people who accept lying and deception, such as in the letter from “the vehicle services department,” our search for God should be called off, and, of course, there’s no use reading this blog. 










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gospel of The Little Prince

Image
  Attention all those concerned only with “matters of great consequence:” Is it possible that you’ve become someone you didn’t want to be, having strayed far from the innocence and simplicity of childhood? That’s the main question asked in The Little Prince, which Netflix, the streaming video service, has added to its repertoire of movies and TV shows. Though not a big fan of animated flicks, I was a big fan of the book, The Little Prince, back in the 1970s when it became extremely popular in the U.S. It was first published in French and English in New York in 1943 as a novella by French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery , who disappeared while piloting a Free French Army plane the following year over the Mediterranean Sea. Nearly Two Million Copies “The novella is the fourth most-translated book in the world and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France,” says Wikipedia. “Translated into more than 250 language...
Read more

‘Spiritual but Not Religious,’ Revisited

Image
Google Image I’ve expressed several times in these blogs my skepticism about declarations by some of our contemporaries that they are “spiritual but not religious.” Much of the skepticism results from the false dichotomy this entails, as if the spiritual and religious are mutually exclusive. Spirituality, after all, is the whole point of being religious. With the exception of some forms of Buddhism, all the major religions aim to bring people closer to God, who is “spiritual.” St. Paul, among the earliest leaders of Christianity, wrote that he is imparting a teaching “not taught by human wisdom but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.” But Daniel Horan, Franciscan priest, theologian and author, wrote in a recent edition of the National Catholic Reporter: “What if our starting point in thinking about what it means to be a person in communion with God, oneself and the world was not reduced to external expressions of institutional belo...
Read more

Clinging to Archie Bunker's God

Image
Google Image Archie Bunker, the character masterfully played by the late Carroll O’Conner in the 1970s TV comedy “All in the Family,” had his own take on the traditional Christian doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. “God don’t make no mistakes,” declared Archie. “That’s how he got to be God.” For those too young to remember Archie, who in 2005 was listed as number 1 on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters, Wikipedia says Bunker was characterized by his bigotry towards “… blacks, Hispanics, "Commies," gays, hippies, Jews, Asians, Catholics, "women's libbers," and Polish-Americans….” Bunker was presented as a Christian, however, and “… often misquotes the Bible. He takes pride in being religious, although he rarely attends church services ….” An Anonymous Contributor Sister Mary Matilda, my eighth grade teacher, would accuse me of being uncharitable but I imagine that an anonymous contributor to a recent newspaper column is an “Archie Bunke...
Read more