Do I believe something because it is true, or is it true because I believe it?

 This blog is something that I felt compelled to start way back in early 2018. I had no idea why, I had no idea what I was doing (I still don't), and it went nowhere fast, just to end up lying dormant for almost two and half years. Now I am writing again, but I still don't know why.

 I like to learn, and I like to share what I have learned with others. Maybe that's the point of this blog. I also tend to have an aversion to going with the flow. When I see everybody around me going left, I tend to stop and look right to see what people are walking away from. If I see something that interests me, then I'll move closer to investigate. As it turns out, as I investigate I am often intrigued by what I am finding and I gravitate more so to the alternate option. I don't understand this compulsion; it just is what it is. I do not do this blindly though. If what I am finding is logically untenable, that's it, I'm out of there. That being said, there are people that believe that my theological beliefs are logically untenable and they will likely write me off. Okay. I am not hear to tickle anyone's ears or to try to win a popularity contest, and that has caused some people that I have loved and admired to turn their backs on me.

 These tendencies, while opening my mind to a wealth of new information, have also introduced me to other people who also tend to look beyond the common narrative. These are intelligent people: some are educated, others have nothing beyond secondary school, such as myself. But these are people that desire to know the truth, regardless of whether or not that truth is popular. That leads me to our current situation.

 I have recently started blogging again, out of necessity more than anything else. With everything Covid-19 right now, I have been fairly active on Facebook, and more recently on Parler and MeWe (looking to leave FB) pointing out logical inconsistencies in the reporting of the legacy media, in the restrictions placed upon us and in the information being disseminated by the experts. I felt compelled to write my positions regarding Covid in one place, citing my sources, so that if anyone was so inclined, they could see one dissenting view on multiple aspects of this "pandemic", inspect the evidence presented, and be able to make a, hopefully, somewhat better informed decision about what they will believe. The problem was that there was too much that I wanted to touch on and too much information to share to put it all in one social media post. The dilemma of how to share what I wrote reminded me that I had a ready-to-go platform that I could use, hence I posted my opinion piece to my blog page and now I feel compelled to continue writing.

 The problem then becomes, "What to write?" I am a people watcher, always have been. Now I tend to watch people digitally rather than in person, but I still like to sit in a mall every once in a while and just watch people go about their business; watch them interact with those around them. That practice may be over now though if we are no longer allowed in public. So I will write about what I see and what I believe.

That is really what our world is all about now, isn't it? Not what is true, but what do you believe. I try to base my beliefs on truth, or what I believe to be true, but now we are getting into a conundrum. Do I believe something because it is true, or is it true because I believe it? This is something that we need to make sure that we get right. Something does not magically become true just because it aligns with our thoughts, our morals or our biases. We must learn to mine the truth out of the information that we are presented with and align our beliefs with the truth. But now, what is the truth?

Everybody seems to have "their own truth" now. It is not uncommon to hear from a dissenting voice that "Just because that is true for you does not make it true for me."

What!?

Since when did truth become subjective? If something is true, then it is true. If something is not true in it's entirety, then it is not true. If a statement is mostly true with just one small untrue fact, then the statement cannot be proclaimed as truth. The untrue "fact" corrupts the entire statement which makes the entire statement untrue simply on the basis that the entire statement cannot be taken as fully truthful. At the same time, an untrue statement is not necessarily entirely untrue. Did you follow that?

Take this as an example. Let's say I told you that I took the day off of work and went fishing where I caught a Master Angler Walleye. If I went with someone else that verified that we indeed went fishing and that I did indeed catch a Master Angler Walleye, you would be inclined to believe everything that I said, right? 

 What if I did not take the day off of work but instead called in "sick"? Technically I did take the day off, but I did not book the day off with my employer as one would immediately suspect I had done due to my statement. So was I lying? Some would say that I wasn't, that my statement was truthful. But I wasn't telling the truth, so my statement was not true. I misled you with the words that I chose. Words matter. Truth matters. Factual information and the ability to verify it matter.

Why does any of that matter?

 You see, the problem with our modern world is that we are too smart as a whole, or at least we think we are. Thanks to the internet we have literally a world of information right at our fingertips. Do you want to know the mating rituals of the Bottle Nose Dolphin? Look it up! How far is the Earth from the Sun? Just "Google" it. This access to information has become so much a part of our lives that the name of the most popular search engine has become a verb! But, is a having a plethora of information at our fingertips, even on the go, a blessing or a curse?

I think it may be more of the latter. As a person that loves facts and truth I find that it is becoming harder to discern truth from fiction than it used to be. That is the case for me and everybody else. Who can you trust? Who actually knows what they are talking about? Is there an unknown bias or ulterior motive for this "expert" to say what they are saying? It is nearly impossible to tell. Add to that the scourge that is social media and the infamous "fact checkers" that label anything outside the mainstream views as "incomplete information", or "false information". And what is their source for their decision? Another expert. A professional in the area of science or medicine or finance who disagrees with your expert. So we have doctors refuting doctors, scientists refuting scientists and lay people caught in the middle with no idea of whether they should be turning left or right. 

Most choose to follow the masses.

This is not because they have researched the issue and are making an informed decision. They don't have time to do the research, so they put their decision making responsibility into the hands of people they don't know but invite into their homes for 30 or 60 minutes a day, or maybe a few times a day they look to see what the current "most important" thing is that you need to know according to a person in a suit sitting behind a desk or in front of a camera. Are these idols of wisdom trustworthy? Are they above criticism? Are they unbiased? Incorruptible? Why is it that doctors and scientists (that we agree with), politicians and media personnel are somehow inherently trustworthy? Why are doctors and scientists that we don't agree with not trustworthy? Is it only because you don't agree with them? Why is it that this scientist is to be believed, but that one isn't? And why do we listen to celebrities when they say that you should buy "this" product, believe what they believe or vote for "that" candidate? What makes them an expert in anything other than playing the sport that made them famous or pretending to be someone else on a big or small screen?

We are the most informed people in the history of the world, so why do we disagree so often? It's because of the overwhelming amount of information that we are able to find and disseminate. That information may or may not be true, but due to our own biases we deem things that we agree with to be true and things that we don't agree with as untrue. Then we hold to "our" truth for dear life as we beat all the intellectually unwashed masses into submission with our magnificent wisdom, all the while expecting that they should be thanking us for gently correcting them with the pearls of wisdom distributed from our magnanimous selves.

Then they do the same to us.

How does this end? Unfortunately, it probably doesn't. We can never re-cork the bottle of the internet without dismantling it completely and ensuring that nobody has access to it. Doctors, scientists, politicians, media, celebrities and peons alike should be cut off from the trove of information that is the internet. Then we can all go back to our own versions of the encyclopedias from which every student of my generation gleaned facts to sprinkle throughout their school project. There were only three or four different brands of encyclopedia back then, so there was not a lot of variation on the information available. Only the keeners would go the extra distance to actually look in the library for more information. And we all lived together peacefully.

Okay, maybe not, but at least we all agreed that the Earth is 92,955,807 million miles from the sun. No, wait, 92.96 million miles away.