By Elroy
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Truth cannot be found in facts. It can only be derived from removing everything that cannot be true and seeing what is left. If indeed truth could be found in facts, then everyone who looked at the same facts would come to understand the same truths. This does not happen. A hundred people looking at the same facts can come up with a hundred different truths to explain what the facts mean.
This reality, however, does not stop each of us from believing we have found the better truth, the more accurate interpretation. People everywhere believe they have found the corner on the market of truth, and everyone else must be wrong. People will stand before each other, pound their chests and proclaim for all to hear that they know the truth that others have missed. But each of these people's truths are different. How can they all be truth if they contradict? How can people be so passionate about their brand of truth when the guy next to them is just as passionate about his brand? Such logic fails to budge the true believer. He or she will believe it more intently than anything else because it's a truth made up of their most basic beliefs and values. They believe their own truth because real truth has big missing pieces of information in it, making it fuzzy, uncomfortable, and even dangerous. Their own truth is more palatable because they have filled in the missing parts with their own information, values, and beliefs, and it, therefore, makes more sense in their eyes. In essence, they have used their own, often unprovable presumptions as a key or blueprint for how facts should be interpreted. This key is called the "Basic Assumption." It defines how we see information. It defines how we see the world. It quite literally defines how we see everything. Let me show you how it works: In the United States we have been able to create fake diamonds for many years now. Whereas a real diamond takes millions of years under the earth's relatively low pressure to change carbon into the clear stone adored by men and woman around the world, a fake diamond can be manmade in a few hours by taking that same carbon and putting it under intense pressure. Though made in different amounts of time, and though they have different sale values, both are diamonds. If you take a fake diamond, which can be distinguished from real diamonds because they are too perfect, to an American jeweler and ask him how old it is, he will identify it as a fake and tell you that it is only a few hours old. If, however, you take that same manmade diamond to some village gem maker in a remote village in the deepest Africa, a place where modern technology won't reach for many more years, and then ask him how old the diamond is, he will probably tell you it is millions of years old. Why? Because his Basic Assumption is that humans can't make diamonds. He will be forced by his own beliefs, therefore, to conclude that it is a real diamond, made in the natural pressure of the earth, and is, therefore, very old. Our Basic Assumption is what defines how we interpret the facts around us. And as our example shows, different assumptions can create wildly different truths from the same facts. Basic Assumptions fill in the gaps when we're forced to interpret what the facts mean. But more than that, they link the facts together into whole realities that make sense to the person doing the interpreting. It's no wonder people can't agree on anything. We all think we know the truth, but all of our truth's are mutually exclusive. Well, not all. Sometimes we band together into groups of people who share the same Basic Assumptions, and thus, the same interpretations of truth. But rather than diminish our differences, by grouping together we only provoke bigger conflicts between groups of people with different Basic Assumptions. With a group surrounding us and telling us our interpretations are correct because they agree with their own interpretations, the members' Basic Assumptions are fortified and given an even greater role in creating a reality palatable to the interpreter. The group's truth becomes an absolute truth in the minds of its members. And everyone else's truths must be interpreted as falsehoods, misconceptions, or downright lies. In such a scenario, Muslims think Christians are tools of the Devil who spread across the globe with their "missions" in order to subvert the truth of Allah. Likewise, Christians think Muslims are living in deception, no doubt also from the Devil, and that their militant faith is a threat to God's people, both the Jews and the Christians. In both cases each religion gives its members a huge set of Basic Assumptions that are used to create completely separate realities for their members. And these realities don't just exclude other religions. In America, people who believe the Bible to be completely accurate in every word have vastly different Basic Assumptions that the rest of society. They will interpret current events and find a way to fit them into biblical prophecy. Suddenly every headline becomes an omen of the end of the world; every non-biblically-based political organization is a tool of Satan; every cultural trend not in line with the New Testament is called a "decline of our Nation"; and the protection of freedoms that don't fit their beliefs is called "a loss of national morals." And just as they test the world against their interpretations of truth based on their group's Basic Assumptions, they will even test their own people to make sure they are actual members, and not infiltrators wishing to dilute their beliefs. Anyone whose interpretations of current events are not the same as the group's will be labeled a heretic or an unbeliever. Christians call these people "Backsliders." Muslims call them "Tools of Satan." Jews call them "Secular Jews." Conservatives call them "Closet Liberals." Liberals call them "Moral Conservatives." And every other group whose presence is formed around a communal Basic Assumption has its own way of perpetuating its truths in their most "pure" form. Alas. Human conflict is a self-perpetuating problem. How much better it would be if we could just remember that our Basic Assumptions are just that: assumptions. We do not know for a fact that anything is true because we are humans, and our minds are interpretive machines. We may believe something with all our hearts and still be wrong. We might fight and die, or even kill, for our interpretation of truth, but it won't make it any more true. All we can do is learn as much as we can and then remove everything that cannot be true and start seeing what is left. It'll never be a perfect truth, but at least it won't be a self-created one based on our personal or our group's own Basic Assumptions. |
This article was written by
Brian
Elroy
McKinley
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Email: el@elroy.com