You Can’t Handle the Truth!

I love that line from “A Few Good Men” because I believe so few people can handle the truth. And I mean that in two ways.
1)Many people can’t cope with the truth. They will hide from it any number of ways, by avoidance, willful misunderstandings, anger, just to name a few methods.
2)Many people can’t be trusted to “handle the truth.” They twist and warp it to their own purposes. (Think MSM.)

At The Dilbert Blog, Scott Adams has an amusing post called Respecting the Beliefs of Others. A commenter responded with

As far as figuring out which is true, I think you’ll be surprised to learn that most faiths don’t believe in a concept of absolute truth. I know this because I asked them all on the usenet about 11 years ago. What they wrote back is at bandtek.com/truth. The exceptions were the fundamentalist christians and the muslims. The fundies told me I would burn in hell for asking, and the muslims said that logic would help me figure it out.

He knows that most faiths don’t believe in the concept of absolute truth because he asked “them.” (Which “them”? There are so many.) All. On Usenet. 11. Years. Ago.

Brilliant!!

Usenet, probably the earliest forum on the internet unless you want to count individually owned BBSs like those I used to dial into with my 300 baud modem. Thousands of people participated in Usenet, completely unmoderated and frequently anonymously. I went to the link the commenter posted, and found, grouped by religion, some of the responses. These responses contained the opinion of the responder, and frequently a link to another website housing their own or someone else’s opinion. The responders were generally practitioners of whatever faith, but not necessarily.

I would classify this person as a type 1 because a serious seeker of truth goes to the source. If you can handle the truth, read the source books; the Bible, the Quran, etc. Invest yourself in the quest. Speak to acknowledged experts on the faith like recognized clergy. At the very least, trusted friends who are long-time practitioners of that faith. Not total strangers on the internet. I’m not trying to mock the seeker; far from it. I feel sure that he was sincere, just extraordinarily unwise to rely on strangers on the internet as a source of religious education.

One nugget admidst the dreck:

I’ll try to be brief. You must read and study the Bible. While doing these two things, you will discover that Christianity is “the one true faith” as you put it. However, your understanding of God will expand and your perception of “the one true faith” will no longer be of importance.

Some may argue that you must read and study ALL religions in order to make that the assessment you desire, but I believe God will speak to you as you read and study the Bible — He will answer this, and all your questions.

Failure to use good judgement can cause you to be unprepared when you encounter type 2 people - those who can’t or don’t handle the truth in a trustworthy manner. (For whatever reason, be it ill will, poor judgement, poor communication skills, whatever.) For example:

If you look around, there are lots and lots of conversion stories floating around. Most are about conversions within Christian denominations…but the end point is clear, wherever the person writing the story ended up…it was the “true” faith.

What’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for you? Want your eternal life to rely on the “truthiness” of a philosophy you read on the Intarweb? I certainly hope not.

Then you have the folks who say, “any claim to ultimate truth is rather arrogant.” That is a copout, and a smug, superior way to make sure you get the last word. By definition, when you hold a belief of any sort, you inherently believe that your belief is correct. If not, you wouldn’t believe it to begin with. You would simply have no opinion on that topic. You may be open to persuasion, but while you believe something, by definition you think you’re right.

If you can handle the ultimate truth, I say pick up a bible. Ideally one in modern English that you don’t have to fight to understand, unless you’re one of those folks who is completely comfortable with Shakespearean English. I believe you will find the truth there. If you want a different answer, ask another girl or ask another question. But I’ll still think I’m right.