Conflicting truths

Erin & Kelly,

I'm really intrigued by your notions of truth being different for every individual. Throughout your post and our discussion on Thursday, I kept being reminded of my relationship with my mom. We come from very different world views and our "truth" is typically quite different. She's hyper religious, and I'm well... crude and lewd, and quite homosexual, so we don't see eye to eye. We used to fight ALL THE TIME, but I've learned that no matter how hard I try to prove her wrong, I can't. She see's the world through the lens of her religion (her truth), and once I realized that, I was able to see how difficult parenting someone like me must have been for her. It's been a clash of the century. I think she's blinded by a wall of misplaced faith, and she thinks I'm a misguided soul that she needs to guide towards salvation. When it comes to cases of differing worldviews, you really do have to accept that you can't always change the truth of others.

Kelly posed the question of "How do we pinpoint ultimate truths?" And after thinking about it, I'm starting to wonder if there aren't any. What if truth beyond the general level doesn't exist? Once the mass majority of people agree on something, a truth can be considered general knowledge, but there often seem to be variances lying underneath them. For example, as Americans, the general public identifies murder as evil, so we put laws in place to discourage it. However, thanks to the death penalty, we have murdered many murderers for their crimes (I'm reminded of my mom saying "two wrongs don't make a right"). But when we murder murderers, most of us don't feel too bad about it, instead, many of us feel relieved that there is one less bad person on the planet. This complicates things further, as this makes the crime conditional, meaning we've made it okay to kill if the killing seems justified. Where do we draw the line between justice and murder? Now, the truth of "murder is wrong" is much more complex and open to interpretation, which is why the death penalty is still a controversial issue.

I've often thought about world peace and how easy everything would seem if we could all agree to disagree and try to get along. It seems so simple. However, it is this very subject of conflicting truths that renders such a thing impossible. We can't all get along and we never will. When it comes to deep, heart felt truths, the emotional connection to that truth often outweighs our accepting of others with different truths. Take any conflicting individuals on any hot button topic, and put them in a room together. Whether the topic is the death penalty, gay marriage, or abortion etc. the chances are that little understanding of the other's views will be accomplished. Instead what happens is each desperately trying to force the other to see their truth, typically to no fruition. At least, this is the truth the way I've seen it.