The Importance Of Truth

There are many different ideals that people can have and hold. I've talked about some over the years on this blog, and about their importance to me. Today, I want to talk about the importance, and significance, of truth.

But first, I want to define the sort of truth that I'm talking about. Perhaps the simplest way to think about it is "absolute truth", rather than "relative truth". I'm not talking here about things that you might consider true for you, or that I might consider true for me. Though these are important concepts in their own right that can shape our perception of reality and experience, these aren't what I'm wanting to talk about.
No, I'm wanting to talk about absolute truth.

Part of the trick, though, with absolute truth, is that you can't ever really know when you've arrived at it. How do you know that something is absolutely true? Some things might be self-evident (water being wet, and fire being hot), but many things are not. Everything can be questioned, and often is questioned by somebody.
But just because absolute truth is hard (or sometimes impossible) to find, doesn't mean that we can't head towards it, or have it as a goal.

Speaking truth is where we start, and this is radical in itself. We live in a world where white lies and deception are often the norm. Social media, of course (as well as online presence in general), is a perfect example of this. We craft and shape what people can see according to what we want people to think. Now, of course, there's an element to this that is important, in terms of safety - we don't want everyone knowing where we live, and neither do we want brief acquaintances knowing intimate details of our lives, more often than not. And that's okay - that's just being wise about who you share aspects of your life with. But people will often go a level beyond that, crafting a persona online that's very different to who they actually are.
And so when we speak the truth - we are cutting through all of this. We are displaying honesty, integrity, realness - and these are things that are desperately needed in our world. People are hungry for it, as is evidenced by the continuing trend in that direction. We're seeing more and more celebrities opening up about "life behind the curtain", giving glimpses at what reality is like, because people are realising the power of honesty. They're realising the power of truth.

But this is only the start. It's not enough for us to only speak truth ourselves. We also need to encourage it elsewhere - and perhaps more so, call out falsehood and deception.
People are quick to cry "fake news" these days, and point fingers, and click on bait. But we're seeing less real sources, and more handwaving - or presenting sources as credible that often aren't. And scams and shams are almost part and parcel of our online world these days. Some people will know how to recognise and avoid these - but many don't. People will listen to what others are saying simply because it sounds nice, or because it's coming from someone in a position of authority, or because it's speaking to their fears or desires. And they get taken advantage of, much too often, and much too easily.
A great thing to keep in mind here are the logical fallacies, and the cognitive biases. Those two sites aren't an exhaustive list, but they're a good place to start. Unfortunately, our psychology is often working against us in these sorts of things. So it's important that we are calling out what we are able to recognise as deception and falsehood, and champion truth.

Of course, there's a big difference between what is true, and what is good. Something can be true and bad, or good and false. Too easy examples are Hitler and unicorns. But often, trying to hide from a bad truth can make its impact worse - it can seem as though you're denying its badness, or denying its reality, rather than just trying to escape that reality. We see that today with Holocaust deniers, for instance, but there are plenty of other places you can see it. Denying that we're sick, or struggling with mental/physical health, can stop us from getting help/treatment that we often need, for instance.
On the flip side, lies are often at their most potent when they are mostly true, or have a truth within them. A very, very simple example of this is the number of products that advertise as having "no sugar" - but then don't really tell you much about what other sweeteners they put in instead. And so figuring out what is true, and what is not, is often extremely difficult.

But I think that it's a goal worth fighting for. It's why I try to fight against the biases that I've grown up with or learned over time, and work to make sure minorities are heard more clearly so that they can be understood and not misjudged. It's why I engage in discussion and debate. It's why I constantly evolve my ideas about who I am, what God is like, what the Bible is saying. Because my understanding of the truth develops and grows. I don't pretend to ever know the complete, or absolute truth, fully - I don't think anyone can - but I hope that I keep heading in the right direction. And I hope that you do too.