How do you determine truth? What is truth? Does truth evolve? What's one thing you know for sure?(Note: The main question is "How do you determine truth?" Then there are "Dig deeper" supplementary questions that follow, and those questions are "What is truth? Does truth evolve? What's one thing you know for sure?" From now on, my format will be this: The main question first, and probably as the title of the post, and the supplementary questions following.)
I don't think it's always possible to determine truth. There are somethings that we will probably never know. For example, is there a god? I believe so, but I can't prove it to be true. I can't prove it to NOT be true, either. For some questions, there's just no way of knowing whether or not it is true.
I believe that what is actually truth and what we believe to be truth can be two different things. As I've said, there are something we will never know the truth about. I also believe that there are probably somethings we THINK we know the truth about, but actually don't. We may or may not ever find out that we are wrong. An example of this is when people used to think the sun revolved around the Earth. They truly believed that to be truth. For a long time, people really did believe it to be true. Now of course, we have proven that it's not true. But who's to say that there aren't other concepts we believe to be true that really aren't?
I don't think truth necessarily evolves. I do believe that what we humans believe to be true can and does evolve. I also believe that circumstances can change, making something that was once true no longer true. To explain: in 2002, if I had said "George W. Bush is the current president of the United States," that would have been true. If I said the same statement today, however, it would no longer be true. So in that vein, truth evolves.
I think there are different kinds of truths, too. There are truths that are more synonymous with facts (ie the Earth is round, the grass is green, the computer I'm typing on right now is powered by electricity) and then there are truths that are more personal (ie I love my little sister, I feel excited for whatever comes after college, I miss certain friends who I don't see very often).
What about controversial topics? How do we judge those by truth? I don't really know. For example, if someone asked me whether the statement "capital punishment is wrong" were true, I would say yes, but I know lots of people who would say that it is not true.
That kind of makes me think that maybe truth CAN evolve, even though I just got done saying I don't think it does. For example, in the 1700s in America, there were lots of people who thought the statement "it's OK to own slaves" was a true statement. In America today, it is a generally accepted truth that slavery is not OK. Does that mean the truth evolved? Or has it always been true that slavery is wrong, and people just didn't believe it until now?
For me, I feel like that would depend on your spiritual beliefs. I believe that there is some sort of higher power, connecting us all maybe, some sort of all-knowing, benign, moral power. Not all-powerful, not necessarily able to affect what happens in the world. But a kind of moral compass that people can tap into almost? I don't know. I haven't solidified those beliefs yet, and that topic is for another day! But anyway, with that belief in mind, I would say that slavery has always been wrong, that this spiritual being would not have approved of it even when humans did. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I believe that there is a set wrong and right, a set true and untrue, that the universe somehow knows even if we as humans do not yet know it. However, someone who does not believe in a higher power might disagree with me and say that because it was generally accepted as true, then it was truth.
I'm not sure if I can answer the "What's one thing you know for sure" question. Well, I can, but not without silly answers. I know for sure that I'm 20 years old, that I live in Beloit, things like that. But other things...well every so often, I'll wonder, "Is this thing that I believe to be true really true?"
That kind of reminds me...something I think about every so often is the accuracy of history. How do we know that everything we believe to be true history isn't just something someone made up? The further back in time we go, the more and more I think this. It's like, no one living was alive during, for example, 450 CE, so how can we be sure that the things we know about that period in time aren't all completely false? (And I just pulled that particular year up out of thin air...do we actually have things written down about that time period? Probably but I can't think of any right away. But thats not the point).
I think I'm going to leave it there for now, but I will probably add to this as I think of more points or questions. This topic especially is interesting because in one of my classes right now, we are reading Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. We're on "Golden Compass" right now, and JUST started talking about the alethiometer, and Lyra, and truth, and Philip Pullman's beliefs about childhood vs. adulthood, and all that good stuff, so I'm sure I'll get some interesting ideas from class discussions about truth, and maybe I'll add those.
If you've got anything to say about anything I've said, or about the questions in general, feel free to leave a comment! I'd love to hear other people's thoughts (although, don't comment on the very last thing I said, about the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, quite yet. We've only just finished reading "The Golden Compass", so wait til after I've finished the series because I don't want spoilers!)
-Beth
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