Harry Truman once said, "Intense feeling too often obscures the truth". This is also something I disagree with. Some of the few things I know for 100% sure, no doubt involve my emotions. I know that I love my husband. I am not going to touch on religious notes here regarding truth, but I do have some pretty strong inclinations that way that are almost entirely emotional. I think that it is naive and incredibly pretentious to assume that because something is based in intense feeling and emotion, it is not true. Now, on the flip side, I sometimes work myself into a tizzy (me? never . . .) and I have to let myself calm down to analyze a particular situation. But that doesn't mean that once I have calmed down, I don't still have strong feelings regarding a subject.
I think often of how important the truth really is. Did you know that Copernicus was the first to suggest that the earth and planets revolve around the sun, however, he delayed publishing his findings because he didn't want to incur the wrath of the catholic church? So Galileo beat him to the punch, and, as we know, he ultimately died for that. (Galileo's Religion by Olaf Peterson) I sometimes wonder what the truths are that I would be willing to die for . . . hmmmmm . . .
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Great tv series to watch: Buffy The Vampire Slayer -- oh how I love thee, let me count the ways . . .
It's nice to know what we do know through our religion. But the subject of truth is an interesting one. That's why there are so many philosophical branches dealing with who we are, what we are, and what we know (namely ontology and epistemology).
ReplyDeleteThe notion that truth cannot evolve from emotion and personal "feelings" is one I disagree with as well. Even if we take the philosophical approach, how can an argument be made that truth comes from experimentation and observation? For example: marine biologists say that there are x amount of species of fish in the ocean. It's written in a scholarly journal as a fact. But what if a new species is suddenly discovered? Did that fish not exist before it was seen? No. Truth cannot be proved by the world, but some people rely on that idea.
But can everyone just develop their own truth? No, there would be chaos and anarchy. A perfect system would be one which people are given a set of potential facts and have an opportunity to prove it for themselves (maybe you can see where I'm going with this :))
I definitely see where you are coming from. It is an interesting subject, yes? turns your mind around . . .
ReplyDeleteI love your blog
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