Truth or Consequences

When someone tells you a lie and you know they are lying and you believe it anyway; is it still a lie? Now before you roll back your eyes and think that that is a stupid question consider all the lies that you hear on a daily basis, from the news media, your friends, politicians, your boss, your kids and the secrete little lies that you tell yourself knowing that they are not true even when you try to convince yourself to believe them; if not completely true at least true to the point that you repeat it to others. After all, if you repeat a lie without identifying it as a lie and you passed it on as truth, and if you replicate it often enough, will you not begin to judge that it is the truth. There is an old saying, “to be a good liar you need to have a good memory.”

Lies differ from opinion; e.g. you can believe that abortion is ok and it benefits society; I can believe that it is not ok and that it destroys a life. Those are opinions; where the lie comes in is from what information you believe that helps you formulate your opinion. Taking our example of abortion; to believe that it is ok you have to believe that the human fetus is not a human being, that it is just a tissue mass. You want to believe that because you think that it is wrong to murder a person, but it is ok to remove a tissue mass. The flip side is that to believe that abortion is killing a human being you have to believe that the fetus is life and that if left to grow it will become a viable independent person. Which fact is based on truth, and which is a lie based on false information and deceptive agendas? You can say you believe one or the other and that your belief is just as valid as the opposite belief; but that is not true; two opposing set of facts cannot both be true.  If one plus one is two, then one plus one cannot be three; only one set of facts is true and the other is a lie. You cannot have an opinion about one plus one, the truth is that it is always two and never anything else. Back to our example of abortion, the fetus cannot be both a non-human tissue mass and a possible human being at the same time; the truth is that it is one or the other; both cannot be true.

Going back to our original question, when someone tells you a lie and you know that it is a lie; but you believe it anyway does it become the truth for you? Absolutely not; believing or not believing does not decide if something is true. Otherwise, believing a lie does not validate it no matter how sincere your belief is. Looking back six hundred years men were executed for believing the world was round. The flat earther’s were sincere in their belief that the earth was flat; but we now know that it is round. No matter how sincere they were in their belief it was not factual, their belief was based on bogus evidence and the conclusion was not true.  After the first ship sailed around the world there were still many who believed the world was flat because they wanted to believe it; but that did not make it true, even for the non-believers it was round, they were believing a lie.  What conclusions can we draw from this?

First, before we formulate opinions we need to be sure of the facts. With the advent of radio and television we have become a lazy culture in that we rely too much on what hear from others and not on our own research. If you really want to know the true you have to work at finding it, you have to be willing to spend the time and resources to assimilate the correct facts. Be careful; there is a whole segment of our population that wants to keep you lazy, ignorant and believing their lie.

Secondly you have to learn to be able to distinguish  between truth and opinion and that the so called truth is not based on what you want to believe. Our society has become one that thinks it is entitled, that we have the right to demand that our needs and desires be met; as a result we are willing to believe opinions as truth when we are promised a chicken in every pot.

Next, we believe things we know that are not true because of our fear of the truth. For example we live in a drug abuse culture and when a love one becomes addicted we reject the truth because we don’t want a pot-head for a kid. We don’t want to deal with the issues of rehabilitation, the legal problems and pain of a destroyed loved one. More often than not in situations like this we reject the truth until it becomes so obvious that we can no longer deny it. The rule of the day should be, “the truth will set you free.”

Thirdly, if we are to be a people of truth, a people who puts supreme value on truth, a people who sees a lie for what it is; a perversion of the truth, and a feeble attempt to elevate one’s self; then we have to understand that a lie is about self. The most prominent letter in the word lie is “I.” lying is all about self, making “I” self important, making self supreme in the eyes of other men. Lying is about presenting ourselves as a step above all others. Lying is the endeavor to makes ourselves what we perceive as greatness; as “somebody,” as someone that we are not.  How can we ever become a people of truth if we continually lie about ourselves? If we cannot trust our opinion of self then how can we discern the truth of the rhetoric that others espouse?

Lastly, we are no longer a people who can think critically. Thinking critically is the ability to weigh the desire to believe against the consequence of miss-belief. We must not let desire rule our ability to collect and discern the facts. Desire is a powerful motivator and if not careful it will lead us to self-deception; i.e. wanting something to be true so greatly that we will believe the lie thinking that a lie will make it happen. The consequence of a lie is that we become the victim of our self-deception. We lie and we lose relationships, we lose virtue and thus we lose value as a person. We are no longer respected and trusted by those we use to call friends. Is the cost; i.e. consequences of lying worth the benefit of achieving a desire?

There was a national survey taken some years ago that asked if you were a liar and how often you lied. The results revealed that about 70% of the American people lie on a regular basis. The irony in this is that 100% said that they did not want to be known as a liar. There is an old saying that the easiest mark for a salesman is another salesman; could it be said that a liar is the easiest person to lie to?

What’s the point? The next time you listen to a politician think critically about what he/she is saying. Evaluate the words based on truth and not on what you want to hear. Think critically about what a politician tells you no matter how much you desire what he/she is selling. Below is a list of top ten issues that politicians are selling; behind each issue is a promise that you will be better off if only this or that happens. As you read through the list and the promises, ask yourself, is this true, are there facts to support this, if this is made into law will the world really be a better place or will there ultimately be consequences.

10. Global warming is the result of carbon and if we can reduce our carbon footprint we can save the earth. We need to sign on to the Kyoto treaty and pass cap and trade. Green energy is the answer and will ultimately reduce the cost of living for everyone and will elevate the societies in third world countries.

9. Our freedom of speech is being put into jeopardy by certain elements on talk radio, TV 24 hour news, and the internet. We need more regulation to control what is being said by these elements. Truth is relative to the situation and sometimes truth is more destructive than it is helpful.  We can get more done for the good of the people if we control the truth.

8. Abortion is freedom of choice and a women’s right to chose. Families are stronger when women are allowed to make this choice. We need laws prohibiting protest by those who disagree.

7. Homosexuality hurts no one and should be legalize allowing homosexuals to marry and to be openly gay in the military. This is important in a free society in that we should be tolerant of all sexual orientations. Homosexuality has greatly benefited other societies in the past.

6. A truly compassionate society would want government health care for everyone. We need to keep the healthcare law because it will ultimately make healthcare less expensive and will insure better health outcomes. Doctors and insurance companies are driven by profit, and a good healthcare law will control this.

5. Euthanasia is a compassionate way for a person’s life to close. Euthanasia would reduce pain and suffering and the cost of caring for the terminally ill. We need laws that will demand that doctors perform mercy killings when deemed appropriate.

4. Social justice is taking from the rich and giving to the poor through higher taxes. We need to tax the rich and corporations at a significantly higher rate. When we do this our economy will grow and people will be better off economically.

3. Guns kill people and the constitution clearly says that only a well regulated militia should have weapons. We could greatly reduce crime and murder if guns were made illegal. We need laws that will remove all guns from population at large.

2. Socialism, communism, and Marxism are just other ways of looking at government and in no way jeopardize our rights and privileges as citizens of a constitutional republic. The fact is that history tells us that the average person would be better off in one of these forms of government. It would be wrong to make laws that would deemed this views as illegitimate.

1.  Our constitution guarantees the freedom from religion; therefore religion should be taken out of the secular work place and government. The principles of religion are hurtful and should not be allowed as a view in a tolerant society. However, all people should be allowed to worship as they chose, even if their religion demands destruction of a constitutionally free society. We need to allow this so that the world will see the United States as a just society; then they will love us.

 A free society is nourished and grows from people demanding the truth. The next time you hear a politician pontificate get off your lazy butt and do your own research, thinking critically about what he/she is saying. Don’t buy into it just because you like what they are selling. More often than not the consequences of their lie is much more damaging then the promise is beneficial.