Our Age of Truth and Accuracy

I like that response.

In some ways…getting more detailed (the super slo mo)…just seems to show that no matter how much we advance in technology or science…there is still a judgment by humans. There is still a game to be played and referees calling it. Perhaps they are removing some mistakes…but not removing referees. Maybe a better informed judgement, but still processing it as we see it…like you said.

I am more skeptical than I used to be. You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. And LDS.org is on the Internet.

I like the utility approach to truth also

Could we sticky this post for all of GD this year? I’m kind of dreading church history in super slo-mo.

Fair warning before I start spouting off. I’m going to need someone to explain this thread to me in simpler terms. :angel:

I think we really like to have our facts, and our news and stories based on accurate details…like video from cop cars, or survellience video before any kind of jury conviction.

I think we say that we really like to have our facts and for our news stories to be based on accurate details… but we go about like we want information that confirms our existing opinions. I don’t think we want accurate details, we want the things that support our opinions to be accurate details… and in the information age we’ll find facts that support our existing opinions.

I don’t really see this phenomenon as being all that different than before. Maybe we’d say that in the past people had a more uninformed opinion. In the information age we’re quickly learning that there may be no such thing as an informed opinion. Time to study is the limiting factor, not lack of information, that means there’s always more information to consume, meaning there’s an argument that we could always be more informed than we currently are. Do we stop researching the instant our opinion is confirmed or do we continue out beyond that? If we continue out beyond that, how far do we take it? Ending our studies early isn’t always a bad thing, there’s only but so much time in the day.

This topic also feeds into something we discuss here regularly. People have their own truths. The problem I see today isn’t so much of there being a difference of opinion or two competing truths, it’s the insistence by some that their opinion is right and other people’s opinions are wrong. It’s not enough to confirm your opinion, you have to convince other people that they are wrong for looking at something differently. We’ve become a very judgmental people.

As humans, we tell stories. THey aren’t always accurate. Our brains can’t remember stuff all the time. We exaggerate, embellish, and have our biased view. It doesn’t seem to always be done with an evil agenda or malice. Simply, trying to communicate testimonies, trying to retell things in a succinct way, or summarize a situation, or frame it so we can motivate action or gain influence to get agreement by others.

I guess it depends on whether stories are mean to instill fear, hate, charity, hope, etc. What are people trying to accomplish with the stories they tell?

Religion now must survive in an age of truth and accuracy. Not squishy truth, like “it feels good” or “my spirit told me”…but hard facts…like smoking causes cancer, and therefore Words of Wisdom to abstain from it.

I think religion will be alright. If not, then we’ll move on to whatever comes next.

1) Is it better for us to have more facts around religion?

What “facts” do you speak of? Notice something about most religions that are billions strong? They’re rooted in a time when there was a lot less record keeping going on. I think one question is whether a new billion strong religion can rise in the information age. I think the others will go on enjoying their mythological status until long after I’m gone. I do wonder about future generations that find religion increasingly irrelevant, but I’ll leave that up to them to figure out.

2) Prior generations never intended the scriptures to be so accurate…can we still accept them as truth?

They didn’t?

This one is tough. There were the oral traditions people. Did they know that a lot of the numerology and stories were structured the way they were structured to facilitate remembering the story to pass from one generation to the next? Did they know that the stories weren’t 100% literal? Did they know that some of the stories were mnemonics that taught morals or stories meant to maintain the authority of the people in power?

Then there were the scribes. The people that meticulously transferred words from one scroll to another making sure everything was exactly correct. Would they have bothered being that meticulous if they knew the stories weren’t literal, that accurate?

When they put the bible together did they go through a process of vetting the available material to determine what would be authoritative? Some stuff made the cut, other stuff didn’t… in an effort to be more accurate?

I think accuracy has been a concern through all of human history, it’s just that now we think we’ve actually achieved it. 😆

The second part of the question, can we accept them as truth. “Truth” means different things to different people. A story rooted in a literal event. A story that teaches people to be “good.” What is truth?

3) Can details and accuracy of stories go too far?

It depends on how detailed and accurate the person wants their story to be.

This reminds me of an episode of “The Blacklist” with David Spader in which he hired someone called “The Troll Maker” or “The Troll Master”. This person manufactured fake news in order to serve the interests of various people, and then distributed it on massive social media to create panic, scares, and pandemonium. Spader (in his character as “Red”) hired the guy to create a fake news story about a crash/spill/disaster as some other diversion so he could commit a crime.

I don’t think it’s far off the truth. I think it was also a problem back in pioneer times. Information probably got handed down and across until it wasn’t true anymore….

I don’t think the standard of believing Truth however has changed. The missionaries used to teach about distinguishing Truth from error. When it comes to religion, I want the truth. What I can’t verify — I have to make a judgment about whether its worth the investment of my time, money, or other resources. If it can’t be verified, and there is a high cost to it, I see no reason to believe it.

This underscores the importance of our church behaving as an organization with a divine commission should.