God may very well forsake us if we do not change our ways.
I was disturbed today by a comment that I read at dKos this morning. The comment contained a quote, attributed by the comment author ‘broui’ to the Paul Tsongus campaign for President. The quote:
Truth is what people are willing to believe.
“Truth is what people are willing to believe.” This should strike fear into our minds, our hearts, into our very souls. Truth is not a relative item whose credibility is dependent on one’s own perception of its veracity. Truth is not complicated. Truth is absolute …factually, scientifically, mathematically, correct.
In today’s society truth has become confused with belief. The former is the absolute; the latter is other information filtered by our own system of internal checks and balances …our biases, our culture, our politics, our thinking capacity, etc. Unfortunately, most of us have a poorly refined capacity to see the nugget that is truth in the information that flows to us each day.
Think about it. If truth were the coin of the realm, that used car that you are about to purchase from Smiley’s Pre-owned Automobile Emporium would have listed on the sticker all its faults as provided [truthfully] from its previous owners and as confirmed by Smiley’s own crack mechanic force. That new V-8, 450 horsepower Whiz-mobile that you covet will have posted on its sticker actual performance data that shows 11.2 miles per gallon as its mileage expectation [not 23 MPG as it currently shows] for highway driving.
Truth, the coin of the realm …not in our lifetime. Deception not truth is the preferred currency. Deceit is what we demand for truth is too limiting. The media, corporations, the government well understand this human need.
The media has learned that truth turns you off. You don’t want to believe that you are so susceptible to untruths that you gladly accept the alternative of half-truths [frequently, outright lies] as believable. This intellectually false pablum spewed-out by almost all of our media outlets is the elixir that keeps our fantasy afloat. Truth would reset us, dash many of the dreams that we base on false premises. We would rather that our false hopes be kept alive until disaster strikes than to have a clear [and truthful] understanding of where our false hopes are leading us. We are suckers for all the snake oil proposals that have come before us in the past …just as frightening, we remain open for snake-oil in the future.
So what is the purpose of this diatribe? It is a call, a plea for Americans to awaken. To open our collective eyes; to reset our minds to a search for the truth …not a relative truth, but for the absolute truth. Truth is not what people are willing to believe. Truth is absolute. Truth is the bedrock of any society. “Truth” being what people are willing to believe is the product of a cynical establishment that will take our country down the path to ruin. Where does your government, your party, your candidate stand on truth? How do each of the aforementioned handle / use the truth? Is truth a relative matter for them or is deceit the preferred method of operation?
Think …in truths, not in beliefs. Beliefs are better left to your view of the hereafter. Truth is the only currency that will guarantee your future, my future and the futures of all men, women and children of today and tomorrow.
As an aside, think of all the people, the professions, the governments, and/or the companies that may be threatened by a total commitment to the truth. Mind boggling, isn’t it? “Truth is what people are willing to believe.” This should strike fear into our minds, our hearts, into our very souls. Truth is not a relative item whose credibility is dependent on one’s own perception of its veracity. Truth is not complicated. Truth is absolute …factually, scientifically, mathematically, correct.
UPDATE: My diary’s target was intended to parse truth, belief/faith, viewpoint, falsehoods, opinion, etc. It is meant to be a shot across the bow to those word-smiths who choose to contaminate our language by substituting different meanings for words that have very clear and accepted dictionary definitions. Unfortunately, in truth telling, one cannot always discern the addition of impurities that shade the truth into something that is less so. It would be wonderful if when the truth has impurities added, that much like the act of altering of the primary colors, the truth would then display a different shade of color, a different atomic mass or some other property that could easily separate the actual truth from its added contaminants….
Cross-posted at DailyKos.
13 comments
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i love your essay, The Ref and hey! where have you been???
might be that truth can be personal and subjective… that’s what i’ve come to believe.
then there’s the facts and, as theevolutionarysieve says, there’s actuality… which can be different from reality (based on perception and perspective as Einstein’s train experiment shows, at least that’s what i see in beside the whole present/past thing)
this happened)… fact/truth morphed into truth/belief. For
those of us who are reality based it’s been an uphill climb
to explain the difference to those who are ‘believers’. The
‘I believe it to be true so it must be true’ folks have no
desire to question their ideals. This issue is at the crux
of our problem trying to make the RW face reality. For way
too long they’ve been happy to live with –
Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?!
“See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” – President George W. Bush
Ayep.
I think here you’re mostly preaching to the choir. Besides, who believes anything Paul Tsongas says? Or McCain? Or the Shrub-in-Chief? Liars, all. If they ever tell the truth, or even indicate that they know what it is, I’d probably drop dead of a heart attack.
The real question, IMHO, is: how can you spread your message to the Great TV Watchers?