Thoughts about what truth is or isn’t

[almostgone]

Hi,

I am new to this forum so I’m sure this may have been discussed before. From my readings it seems like may users on this forum having varying ideas of what truth is or isn’t… Here is an idea or thought that came to me today. I don’t necessarily adhere to this, but I needed to share this idea.

What if all truth is up to the individual? What if we are able to choose for ourselves what God is or isn’t? What church is true? What commandments we follow? If choose to believe in God or not. Essentially according to LDS teachings all the ideas I presented are true because we all have our freedom to choose. The difference is the church and the scriptures claims to have all the truth and they give consequences for disobedience. If there really is no absolute truth then they are teaching a lie.

Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Not trying to simply justify, or make everything muddy and meaningless — what if the “lies” are simply misunderstandings of how our personal truths fit into the grand eternal and absolute reality?

What if our current personal “broader” understanding is a misunderstanding as much as the “narrow” view? Can we be open to new truth while at the same being confident in our personal views?

[Anonymous]

Orson wrote:

Not trying to simply justify, or make everything muddy and meaningless — what if the “lies” are simply misunderstandings of how our personal truths fit into the grand eternal and absolute reality?

Too deep for me… :crazy: Elaborate a bit more.

[Anonymous]

If there really is no absolute truth, or if “absolute” spiritual truth is too evasive to nail down then does that mean any doctrine preaching a “one and only” truth by default is a lie?

Can the answer be yes AND no?

Does everything depend on perspective and assumptions/definitions?

I sometimes wonder if the reality of physical truth tends to blind us to the potential of spiritual truth.

My opinion on the first question is our reality regarding spiritual things is defined by our understanding of those same things. It gets confusing when we’ve walked around our entire life looking at the world and assuming everything that we experience is real – in an “absolute” or physical/universal way. Meaning if we see purple flowers we assume anyone else that comes along will see purple flowers. If they are in fact purple then that truth will be apparent and uncontested.

I just can’t see spiritual truth in the same light. If we define physical/universal truth as a set that encompasses all the known universe we most often expect to define spiritual truth in a similar way; imagine a bubble around the universe to define the “physical” set. If the evidence points to spiritual truth being centered around each individual, it may be helpful to imagine a bubble around each individual or smaller groups/communities. “Universal” in this case then applies to the realm of that truth, or the bubble in which the “truth” is found. You can’t say they are lying when you also exist within that sphere, your “universal” spiritual truth in that case would confirm the claim. On the other hand you would truthfully confirm your view of a “lie” when you exist in a different set.

I see big reasons for both the 11th article of faith and: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways not your ways.”

Does that help at all?

[Anonymous]

Thanks Orson,

That was helpful. I might also look at it like art. I might feel that a particular (and very well done) piece of art is the best. I might develop a following that also feels this way. I can have experts analyze the painting for specific features that I then use to bolster my claim that it is the best. Perhaps I even amass a majority of the human race in feeling that my painting is the best.

But can my painting ever really be the best? What of the minority that feel that some other work of art is better? Are they lying? Are they delusional?

It seems that God set up this life in a way that allows different people to authentically came to different conclusions of spiritual truth and then have confiming experiences that tend to solidify that position. The experiences are real, the conclusions are real (as real as any other conclusions), it is the why that we wrestle with.

Am I right while everyone else is wrong?

Are we all just firing synapses without purpose?

I choose to believe something less than the first, something more than the second.

[Anonymous]

almostgone wrote:

…What if all truth is up to the individual? What if we are able to choose for ourselves what God is or isn’t? What church is true? What commandments we follow? If choose to believe in God or not. Essentially according to LDS teachings all the ideas I presented are true because we all have our freedom to choose. The difference is the church and the scriptures claims to have all the truth and they give consequences for disobedience. If there really is no absolute truth then they are teaching a lie…Any thoughts?

If God really worked the way the Church claims then I would expect to see more consistency and accuracy over time than what we do at this point. As it is, I don’t believe revelation really works this way to provide true knowledge that should be considered more reliable than other sources of information. To be honest, I think truth is overrated because people can easily believe things that are completely false without experiencing any negative consequences as a direct result of this error in judgment and in some cases the false beliefs could actually make them feel better than giving up these beliefs would.

I just don’t believe truth should be treated as if it is automatically more important than other considerations like happiness, peace, getting along with others, etc. On top of that, what people call “the truth” is generally at best personal opinions, oversimplifications, and half-truths and at worst based mostly on popular myths and/or completely distorted views of reality. So that’s why I don’t think it’s very realistic to expect everyone to believe the same thing in an intolerant way because people will often look at the same basic information and interpret it differently based on their own personality, background, and preferences and the ones insisting that this or that is completely true don’t necessarily know better than the ones they are convinced are completely wrong.

[Anonymous]

I want to know as much as I can, but I think in our current Mormon culture we over-value knowing and under-value believing and having faith.

I believe in absolute truth, but I don’t believe we have the ability to understand it very well. In other words, I believe we see through a glass, darkly – and all that is required of us is to live according to whatever we are able to see, regardless of how accurate it is in comparison to absolute truth.

Accepting that simple belief has set me free in a very real way.

[Anonymous]

I think truth depends greatly upon our point of view.

I also believe different realms of knowledge use different tools to work with them. Truth about mathematics is different than truth in the spiritual world. You don’t use the same tools for explaining both.

Often truth is like the “true north” – it is where it is pointing us towards, not absolute at that moment or place.

I believe truth can all be channeled to one great whole. We may not be able to partake of it all in this life, but we can have faith we are truly moving towards it.

[Anonymous]

One thing that author Patricia Polacco said when asked if her books were true stories.

Paraphrasing from my memory:

Quote:

Of course they are true, but they may not have ever happened. The truth of a story is in the telling of it, between the teller and the hearer, the author and the reader. The bond that stories create between people are the truth of them, whether they ever happened or not.

This is pretty profound, an idea that I could think about a long time before understanding the depths of it.

[Anonymous]

I’m not trying to make this metaphysical here, just add my $.02. Our current understand of physics teaches us that our perceptions of everything around us are relative. Time, speed, distance, mass, energy – they are all relative to other factors. If this is true – if the “straight” line a photon travels can be warped by the gravity of a planet; if relative time can be affected by the speed at which we travel, etc. – then why can’t “truth” be relative, too? Can the deep calm and peace a Mormon feels in the celestial room and the rapture a Hindu feels during Diwali both come from the same god(s)?

[Anonymous]

[Harry Potter SPOILER ALERT – although if you don’t know this by now, you aren’t likely to read the books and see the movie:]

Near the end of the final Harry Potter book and movie, Harry asks Dumbledore if what they are experiencing is real or if it’s all in his head. Dumbledore responds by saying, to the best of my memory:

Quote:

Of course, it’s all in your head – but that doesn’t make it any less real.

There is a really powerful principle in that quote, relative to a lot of things we discuss here.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

It seems that God set up this life in a way that allows different people to authentically came to different conclusions of spiritual truth and then have confiming experiences that tend to solidify that position. The experiences are real, the conclusions are real (as real as any other conclusions), it is the why that we wrestle with.

Let me preface by saying I am not intending to be confrontational, just discussing.

Why “God set up this life in a way . . .” Why does it have to be God? There are people all over the world who believe God or gods or spirits or nature . . . based on their experiences. I often come back to one concept both in the New Testament and referred to in the Joseph Smith story:

Quote:

1 Corinthians 14:33

For God is not the author of confusion . . .

Joseph Smith History 1:10

. . . Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?

If there really is only one God, why would he allow or encourage so many divergent understandings of his “truth” to be appropriated and sometimes diametrically oppose some others’ faith traditions who are as SURE of “the truth” as the others are. This has never made sense to me. If there is a God, and he is indeed the source of TRUTH, and if he has sprinkled it throughout the world such that parts have been picked up in seemingly distressingly contradictory ways, how can this be evidence for God being the source of that truth? Our experiences with him? What of those of us who do not have experiences with him? Who cry out “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

God may not be the author of confusion, but I am confused.

[Anonymous]

A truth according to my perception and interpretation is a subjective truth.

There are objective truths — facts — that are not subject to interpretation.

I exist: that is not a subjective truth. It is objectively provable and falsifiable.

The Book of Mormon exists. That is an ontological reality. Whether the book of Mormon is the inspired word of god is a subjective value judgment of what I define the word of god to be.

Whether or not god objectively exists, depends entirely on my subjective definition of him/her/it.

There are also potentially objective truths (or nontruths) that cannot be verified. Did Christ visit the Americas? Is there an afterlife? Are there three degrees of glory? These objective ontological statements cannot be proven, and no amount of subjectivity can make them true if they are not.

I have issues both with those who claim there are no objective truths, or place provable and proven objective truths in the same bucket as “it is all relative”. Joseph Smith did not translate the words of Abraham from a papyrus written in abraham’s hand. It us probably, objectively false. No amount of faith can change that fact. It does a disservice to our integrity when we claim otherwise.

Likewise to make an objective statement or claim based upon subjective evidence is harmful to our integrity.

I have no issue with making a subjective claim.

[Anonymous]

Maybe it’s the Mormon in me, but I have a difficult time understanding and believing that truth is subjective. I want what is true for me to be true for everyone. I hate the idea that God allows everyone to have their own personal truth or subjective truth. What sense does that even make? Why even have commandments? Everyone live how you want and it doesn’t matter in the end!

[Anonymous]

almostgone, nobody here is saying everyone is right in doing whatever they want to do because there is no truth. I think everyone is saying there is objective, absolute truth (even very important, valuable, critical truth that all should understand) – but do you really want to be telling everyone else exactly what they have to believe and do?

In Mormon theology, there were two plans: one that dictated beliefs and actions (and, as a result, allowed no growth) and one that left it up to each individual to decide what to believe and do (and, as a result, allowed greatness and depravity). The good news is that this theology also posits an intervention by which sincere efforts to believe and do good things are rewarded, no matter how they align with objective, absolute truth. Not everyone in the Church understands how “liberal” that theology is, but it’s there in spades.

I know how hard it is to deal with the ambiguity on which such a theology rests, as evidenced by how many members (including leaders) can’t accept it fully, but, personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want others to be able to force me to act against the dictates of my own conscience, so I have to be willing to accept that I and mine can’t do the same to them.

The type of truth that I believe all should accept and follow is wrapped up in principles and characteristics and focus, not detail. I don’t really care how someone describes charity, faith, hope, compassion, love, forgiveness, etc., as long as they are describing and trying to live them. I don’t care if I see lots of the details differently, as long as I am working with others according to those characteristics. I really do believe that the “Gospel” is incredibly simple and “universal truth”; I just don’t put much else that I can understand in that category. Pretty much everything else is more blurry or dark to me, so I don’t get hung up on it when someone else sees through the mists differently than I do.

[Author]

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