I have always been fascinated by the universe and how it operates. I think about Truth and what that might look like if I ever got a glimpse of it. I also try to fathom the eternal scheme of things from the perspective of an omniscient being. The imagination is, of course, based on perhaps the arrogant premise that my mind could conceive something so grandiose as omniscience. But my "omniscience" is tamed by a dose of compassion and grace for those who see Truth differently--after all, knowing everything perfectly would incite the most proper emotions for those who disagree. Whether people are defending their own truths, their pride, or identity, they feel fully justified in asserting their beliefs and opinions as the right ones. Perhaps, I am not so arrogant in asserting this imagined omniscience. Maybe we all operate within our own cosmos of omniscience however hallucinatory it is.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. What is true and what is not? And how does my construction of the cosmos affect the belief system I adhere to? How does this affect my integrity and happiness? I have been grappling with these thoughts a lot. I may have something more insightful to say in a couple of weeks or so after some more thinking and reading. Life is a never-ending enigma...
1 Kings 19:12
ReplyDelete"And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."
Jon McFerson
The term for this exploration is "epistemology," what can you know and how can you know it? Protagoras says, "Man is the measure of all things." Ursula K. Le Guin says, "Truth is a matter of the imagination . . . the tale changes with the teller." Journalists used to have to have two sources for every fact, and the people who worked for the advertising department had a separate entrance from the reporters in the newsroom and worked on a different floor. No longer, I fear. Most academics in the humanities think that reality is socially constructed, and even in physics, it is unclear exactly what "truth" might be. Aside from Bible fundamentalists, it is hard to find someone who believes in "truth" these days. Truth is actually a rather dangerous concept which can lead to extreme actions based on dubious certainty, as when the Cistercian monk, asked how to tell the heretics from the Christians, said, "Kill them all; God will know his own."
ReplyDeleteHave fun with this!
Jon: Only if it were as simple as that... If that was all it took to decipher truth, then all spiritual leaders would agree on everything. This is what I meant when I said people operate within their own cosmos of omniscience.
ReplyDeleteGuitarsophist: Yes, I have been grappling with these metaphysical and epistemological questions ever since I have been exposed to these ideas in my philosophy classes in college. I am tackling these questions from a religious point of view, more specifically Mormonism. I was born and raised in the religion and I am now slowly coming to the conclusion that one's claim of sole proprietorship to truth (as does the Mormon church)is an arrogant and dangerous proposition.
true...but are you looking for the truth...or the truth within the truth? what mechanism will be used to find it? Jon
ReplyDeleteIf the project is to test religious dogma against other ways of knowing, it is indeed a serious and complicated endeavor. In my experience, religious teachings generally contain a considerable amount of social wisdom backed up by metaphysical explanations that are probably best considered as metaphorical, but are often taken literally by believers. You might want to start with Plato's Phaedrus. It has been debated for many centuries whether the Phaedrus is about love, knowledge, rhetoric, or writing, but when the character of Socrates begins to lay out his version of truth in his second speech, he clearly labels the presentation as metaphorical, not to be taken literally.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think that truth, at least with a lower case letter, is something you find when you are not looking for it, something seen in a sideways glance when the eye is tracking something else. If you take this quest too seriously, you will not find what you are looking for. But as they say, your mileage may vary.
Watch out, when I started having these thoughts, my journey took me out of Mormonism, with a brief stint in Christianity, to finally (as far as I can tell) settle in agnosticism. I personally believe most supernatural religious beliefs crumble under critical analysis.
ReplyDeleteThere is a documentary on Netflix called "The Nature of Existence." Basically a guy with a list of prepared questions (and they're good ones) goes around and interviews hundreds of people all over the world, of various ideologies, religions, philosophies, etc. The divergence of thought is quite interesting when viewed all at once.