The Human Choice - 18
Are people afraid of truth?
Are we afraid of truth because we are afraid for our 'SELF'? The SELF; the I of I am, the self I believe to be the real me.
Who am I and why am I afraid? Am I afraid because I see my SELF as the things I believe? I have made the decisions of my lifetime in accord with what I believe. If my beliefs are wrong then my whole life is wrong.
As a farmer once said, "He who kicks my dog, kicks me." The dogs closest to us are our dog-matic beliefs. Each life is a model of a person's beliefs. Our hopes and efforts are moulded out of our beliefs; out of our ingrained assumptions - secret desires - unrecognised aversions. Out of ideas enticed to our minds as children, agreed to because they were the entrance fee to a desired peer group, or taken up because they seemed to suit some need of our past. Ideas were accepted - life's decisions were made in their belief. Self-image is thus formed and becomes defended as our 'self'.
We are, in many ways, the product of our structure of beliefs; our beliefs are our religion. How can we look for the real truth when it might destroy the proud 'self' we have created?
We may have misled and made futile the lives of many others - even loved ones. Academic position and/or social respectability may be on the line. How can we look for the real truth when we may have to face that our life is built on false beliefs and is therefore a dead thing?
So it is easy to see why important new discoveries, where they upset accepted belief, are resisted - and most strenuously resisted by those most educated - those who have most to lose.
We are stubborn! If there is a conflicting reality called truth we impulsively avoid it. Truth is threatening our ego. Our past life could be exposed as futile, or worse. The 'self' we have fought and lived for all these years may have to die and we would be left morally naked to face a new world.
Our subconscious, ignorant, fears force us to ignore the wonder of life's victory to defend worthless pride and triviality.
Jesus; M't.16:24. If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine he must leave self behind.
That statement is not a product of the worldly understanding at the time in which He lived.
Ideologies, religions, cultures and other divisions give us great opportunity to observe just how strongly we resist ideas that pose, or even seem to pose, a threat to our life attitude. People willingly risk death to avoid change - but is it rational?
To further avoid this frightening threat to our false self we allow our children to be taught that there is no social truth. By adopting that belief we can be free to choose lifestyles to suit ourselves; we can hold to beliefs firmly or lightly or bend them when it suits. It is a complete rejection of truth and the ultimate denial of responsibility - but our lives end up empty.
As we deviate further and further from truth the fear of rebirth becomes more and more intense.
The person who seriously seeks truth must be prepared to leave self behind - must become as a child innocent of any pre-formed need except the need for devotion to truth.
The truth seeker will learn that he can only know his true self when he has eliminated false belief and become free to make decisions based on his true identity. The truth seeker needs to accept doubts in order to find greater truths and live life in a process of continual rebirth - he can then put aside his fears and become truly himself. Truth is a living reality.
Truth is life. Truth is a flower innocent of its beauty. Truth is clean water.
Lies are starving children. Lies are hate, injustice, war and suffering.
We cannot escape responsibility. We are responsible for the consequences of our evasions of responsibility. Only by being responsible in our personal day to day living can we avoid responsibility for the consequences of our actions.
Truth is not something esoteric and other-worldly; truth is 2 + 2 = 4. When we look at the Christian Revelation we look at you and me - our lives, our world, here now.
Life is a process from which we can learn. We can learn about ourselves and we can learn about life. We can learn from our own experiences and from the experiences of others. We can pass learning on so that each generation is morally and technically more advanced. That civilizations fail is not because mankind lacks ability to teach and learn but because mankind has always been more protective of 'self' than hungry for truth.
Everything directly related to life is bound by one system of logic - the logic which says that 2 + 2 = 4. This means that any rational, reasoning being in full understanding of a particular matter, will come to the same true answer as any other such being possessed of the same understanding.
Strife is the result of slavery to pride because pride rejects truth - the committal of sin is the mark of enslavement.
There is one common logic that unites all individual truths! We are formed of the earth and our physical being is bound to physical science just as are other physical things.
The difference between biological matter and mechanical matter is that in biology there is a capacity for repair; the human mind has an ability to choose - to make mistakes and to make amends.
We, as a culture, must suffer our mistakes but we also enjoy, and are rewarded by, our successes.
There are two expressions of truth. Were no "thing" created it would still be true that 2 + 2 = 4. The abstract truth is constant and is the WORD that existed before creation began. When the word became matter the second kind of truth was created and truth, in material order, became capable of deformity. choice18.htm