How does one know that what one believes is the truth?
I grew up going to church every sunday, being constantly reminded that if I do not believe the "holy" bible I will be tortured in hell eternally.
Most people have a problem. We have a belief that the things we believe are true, and any knowledge that disagrees with our fixed beliefs is to be rejected and fought against. It's particularly difficult to consider new information if you have something to lose, like if you're a preacher, who earns his salary because of his beliefs, or as I mentioned earlier, you've been threatened with some kind of godly punishment. Jehovah's Witnesses have their friends and family at stake.
I think the technical term for this "truth" defence problem is called cognitive dissonance.
To prove that it's a problem that at least 70% of the world faces, if you google "religions chart", and you'll see that the biggest group of religious believers is approximately 30% of the world. Assuming that group to be right would mean that the other 70% of the world believes a bunch of nonsense. If a smaller group is right, then a higher percentage of the world believes nonsense.
This is one of my favourite videos, because it illustrates the sheer ridiculousness of this problem: a Muslim trying to prove that the Earth is flat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wppjYDj9JUc
Besides religion, this problem also occurs in politics. My grandfather and great uncle refused to talk to each other because of their different political opinions. The were both VERY kind to me, so I guess they both had good intentions, but believed too strongly that they were right.
The following is from Anthony Robbins' book, "Awaken the Giant Within":
'...People were asked, "How would you define communism?" An astonishing number of the respondents were terrorized even by the question, but not many could actually define it - all they knew was that it was horrifying!'
Another point he makes in his book is that in a war, Chinese communists used people's strong desire to stay true to their identity in order to convert captured American soldiers to the communist point of view. After tiring out the soldiers they asked them to write down answers to questions about communism, and somehow managed to get the soldiers to answer in a way that made communism look good. After the process was complete, they had succeeded in converting the Americans, because people like to stick behind what they've said, and stay true to their identity. However we see ourselves, we try to defend that identity.
Since many Americans have been brainwashed to believe that capitalism is the way to go, and Chinese people have been brainwashed to believe that communism is right, can we actually trust our own thoughts? Perhaps the answer is that neither are perfect and the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Interestingly, if you google the Chinese government, if seems that they're called the Communist Party, but they political system used is not actually communism.
Sorry about getting so stuck on communism here, but there does seem to be a lot of misunderstanding and brain washing about it, but I just want to make one more point, if Jesus would have voted, and he had the option to choose communist or capitalist, which do you think he would have chosen? Based on his teachings, that one should give to those who ask, and stories that early Christians shared everything they had, I would think that Jesus would have voted for the communists. I think this idea would confust a lot of anti-communist Christians.
So, can one ever know that one knows the truth?
There are two important topics that I want to mention with regard to finding out the truth: open mindedness and the scientific method.
Here is a really good video on open mindedness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI
There is also very good book on open mindedness, called "Software for your Brain", which is available as a free download from
http://www.schoolofthinking.org/software.pdf
It teaches the reader to try and see things from different points of view.
The scientific method, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is mostly about testing things to see if they're true or false.
From Wikipedia:
" Define the question
Gather information and resources (observe)
Form hypothesis
Perform experiment and collect data
Analyze data
Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results
Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
The iterative cycle inherent in this step-by-step methodology goes from point 3 to 6 back to 3 again."
So, if we were to use the scientific method to test whether or not God exists, it might go something like this:
- Define the question (make it simple and unambiguous): Does a god exist who is completely loving, and can do absolutely anything he wants?
- Form hypothesis: The world is an absolutely fantastic, perfect place, and everyone wakes up every day, excited and happy.
- After testing to see if the hypothesis is true, publishing the results, and asking other scientists to retest, we can determine that the hypothesis is false, in which case the answer to the question is "no", or that the hypothesis is true, in which case the answer to the question is "maybe".
Lets try another one: Does God answer prayers?
- Define the question: Are people more likely to be healed if they pray to God, than if they don't?
- Form hypothesis: More people who pray are healthier than the number of people who don't pray.
- Test the hypothesis... you can try to lookup stuff like this on the net.
OR
- Define the question: Do people who pray ever recover from things that people who don't pray recover from?
- Form hypothesis: There are numerous accounts of people whose lost limbs have grown back after praying, or numerous accounts of people who have recovered from other illnesses after praying that no-one who didn't pray ever recovered from.
- Test the hypothesis... you can try to lookup stuff like this on the net.
OR
- Define the question: Is the Jehovah's Witness religion true?
- Hypothesis: Armageddon occured in 1914 and 1975, wiping out everyone who was not a JW.
etc..
In order to become open minded, and allow oneself to see things from different points of view, one should be careful about putting a label on ones identity. For example, someone labelled a Christian, or Athiest, or Communist, or Capitalist, will try to stick to that point of view.
So, for me, I am not a Christian, I am not a Muslim, I am not an Athiest, I am not a Communist, nor am I a Capitalist: Instead, I am constantly testing things to see if they are true, I am constantly learning, growing, finding out new things, and seeing things from different points of view.
Any thoughts?
Anyone have something to add to this, on ways to journey closer to the truth?
