This is my swirly thoughts about the concept of absolute truth. (I’ve not taken classes on this, it is based on my own thoughts, reading, observations over a lifetime, and, let’s face it, any philosophy is based on the individual’s experiences.)
A hundred years ago, think about what the world was like. Or two thousand years ago, or 500.
A person grows up in a family, in a community, in a particular area of the world, and that family and community teaches you throughout your life, a set of “truths” that are widely held (in your area, in your time in history, in your community or family) as absolute. Black and white. This is this and that is that. It’s just the way it is.
Consider someone who has grown up in a totally different area of the world than you, in a different point in history, a different family, a different environment entirely. They also were taught “This is truth” or “that is truth”.
Do you think for a minute that these two groups of thoughts and beliefs are the same? Absolutely they will not be. You will find things that other “groups” believe in that are the same, ideas such as, family is important, this is how we seek God, this is how we treat people. Then there will be big differences. One person’s truth, that grew up in India in 1965 let’s say, is going to be very different than the person who grew up in 100 BC or 1978 or 2009. Because their environments, their families and traditions, all that their cultures held dear, has formed each one’s view of “truth.”
For me, I can only believe that “Absolute Truth” only encompasses the largest of broad things such as “the earth is round.” Realizing that for a long time, people everywhere believed it to be absolute truth that the earth is flat.
Most everyone NOW accepts that indeed, the earth is round. Most people agree that UP is UP and DOWN is DOWN. Gravity is real. Certain things we pretty much all agree on.
But the thirty-year old African American woman who grew up a world away from you and I, or the European child, coming into her teens, having been brought up in a totally different community, family, and environment, one must accept that the things they have been taught and likely will be taught to be absolute truth, will be different. Because what we believe is intricately and inescapably drawn from a combination of our backgrounds, where we were born, where and how we were raised, what we were taught to believe as a child and what we have learned for ourselves, out of our experiences and “learning” to be true for us.
So, we can conclude that the young men who were alive in 100 or 50 BC are going to have a completely and totally different view of many things than the woman in a remote tribe somewhere in the year 2000, or different than what you or I believe.
Today, in 2020, there are people all over the world and even my own city, that will argue with you until they turn blue and die about what truth is.
Truth has always only ever been, and only ever will be, a perspective arrived at based on where you grew up, when you grew up, what you were taught to believe, and your own experiences.
Outside of those things we (maybe to a huge degree) can agree certain things are true, such as oxygen is needed to live. The sky is blue. Obvious things, I would call them.
So when people talk about absolute truth, I shake my head and laugh. It’s a funny and interesting term to me. It’s an absolute truth that if we are born here on earth, at some point, we will die. That’s one of a very short list of things I believe to be “absolute truth”.
Your truth and mine absolutely are not the same, and when large groups of people try to take on each other’s truth, well, they must decide for themselves, is this something I genuinely know to be true? Do I agree with everything these people say and do, and if so, why, if I have not experienced these things and do not know them to be true? Do they make sense? Do they serve my or mankind’s best and highest good? Good questions, all.
I cringe when I mention “My truth” or “speaking your truth” and people laugh and scoff. They just don’t get it. Each one of us has our own list of “truths” that we hold dear, for whatever reason. And because we disagree on what those truths or belief systems are…
War. Murder. Fighting. Cults. Anger. Hatred.
We humans have a bad way of INSISTING that everyone else latches on to our own truth and accepts it as their own. INSISTS. And their heads explode when others do not. I am guilty of this myself.
If I have a truth that I hold dear, something that I know that I know that I know, because of my experiences or things I’ve learned, and even something that has been super hard-fought-for, and someone comes along and scoffs at it, it is angering to me. It is to everyone and anyone, I think.
And I guess the only reason I am writing about this is to 1) get my thoughts down about it and/or 2) to see if anyone else thinks about these kinds of super-deep things. If anyone even bothers with deep thought anymore.
I daresay, most people go through life adopting and adapting to the belief systems that are presented to them. Based on all of the things I’ve talked about here. It’s just what we do.
I want to encourage every single person to begin to think more broadly and openly on these things. To realize that your perspective (or mine) are not the only perspectives that are real.
To accept that other people have different experiences and that it is okay. Your truth and mine can be different, it’s okay. It’s really, really, okay. No need to go to war.
This is one thing I mean when I said in an earlier post that I feel as though I once saw life through a peephole (my limited perspective) and now I see it through a globe-sized hole. I still don’t fully see everything Big Picture, but I desire to do so.
If you grew up in a particular culture and those “truths” are dear to you, or adopted that culture, then I would just say, never forget to try and see things broadly, realize that we are very different and we do not have to be the same or think the same as people who are in or come from other backgrounds and experiences. WE DO NOT have to adapt and adopt other people’s truths. Keep your mind switched on and research and read and figure out for yourself what your truth is, and go ahead and hold it dear. But please stop insisting that everyone believe the same thing, it’s never going to happen and it’s always going to cause divisiveness.
I guess that is my point and my conclusion. Think. Have compassion. Don’t adopt other’s views blindly. Do the deep work of digging out your own truth, then speak it freely and often. People won’t get it. Who cares?
Have a deep, thoughtful, wonderful, peaceful day.
Peace Out.
