Truth...Or Truth...truth?

by Voices 16 Replies latest jw friends

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  Voices

  Why do we normally get upset when someone talks about something. I can't say this about everyone, but I guess it's only to myself. Fighting usually results when you think of something as truth. Truth itself may be completely different. but we fight, and argue and debate and yell and scream and kick to defend everything about our truth, yet it is SO INGRAINED in our minds this is the truth, and we support it with reasons such as this and that. Then there's the idea that 'oh my god what if i'm wrong...' and people end up defending their 'truth'/truth even more! Being wrong ...equals stupidity...incorrect...humiliation...embarassment...Regardless of whether it's truth or not anymore. Then there's those that KNOW they're wrong, but they choose to be dishonest anyway, and of course those that say something 'sugar coated' and give a reason for the sugar coating.

  How does one know Truth if you can't ask for it if your motives in truth itself are wrong to ask and therefore cannot be recieved without the correct motive but don't know how to change your motives to receive the correct truth? I'm babbling, because my mind is filled with a cloud and fog that gets thick as some things occur that hit nerve points...points of abandonment...points of pain, stupidity, points of everything we don't want as a society... We run from the pain instead of facing it because pain is pain. If we face it.....you still can't think straight or clearly or know what to do. but we still defend our truth....even though we don't undersatnd anything as we walk in darkness. We look for light, and are affraid of it, because it causes us pain by blinding us. So we sit in darkness...and love the comfort it brings. the comfort that's deceptive and will bite/bind us in the end. We face the light, and all we see is pain.....the darkness doesn't give us pain so directly....so which way do we go. It's not explained how to have Faith and not assume...nor how to love and not let others walk all over you...or when your mind is cloudy how to see. how does someone have good self esteem love/respect yourself and still be humble? The swirling questions that go round and round and round and round....the pain doesn't get any easier. Either way, you're screwed.

  My girlfriend thinks i'm stupid...i've been told i'm stupid all my life...maybe that's truth..
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  garyneal

  In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. -- Buddha

  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/buddha.html
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  tec

  First things first: You're not stupid. Especially not just for being wrong. If stupid was the definition of being wrong, then believe me, we're all stupid.

  Christ is Truth. Very simple. Very clear. You may not be able to hear that, and you may not want to hear it, and you may not believe it. But that is the Truth that I put all my hope and trust and faith within.

  I don't worry so much about being wrong about the other stuff - I mean, I don't want to stumble anyone, sure. But I'm not afraid to be wrong. We're all wrong on so many things. Hopefully, we learn from being wrong too.

  I'm sorry that you're in pain right now. When I am feeling 'cloudy', I just keep going. I know that as long as I hold to Christ, that I will come through that 'cloud', and feel joy and peace once again.

  Peace to you, Voices,

  Tammy
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  Voices

  Dear Tammy,

  When I say Cloudy, I don't mean as if i'm depressed or in pain. What I mean is ...everything can be reasoned out...and make sense...all rationality even if irrational...can be rational...and all possibilities are correct . there is no straight forward path because all the paths feel the same and you logically know there's only one that's correct, and i don' tmean 'the path of the righteous is like a bright light' ...i'm using an example. It's like everything makes sense...and nothing..makes sense. you're not sure WHICH direction to go into, which direction to do.

  I'm glad you're on the truthful path...but when i say 'Christ is the Truth..' ...i get told 'how do you know? don't you know that wayyyyyyyy back 6000 years ago in the egyptian time that they had similar stories of a special Son being born who's name was ...blah blah and it resembles the exact same story of Christ...and this occured 4000 years before he supposedly came?' ....how do i respond? Just by saying 'Christ is truth?' ...please understand i'm not attacking you...i had this exact same thing brought to me by someone....and i didn't know how to respond. How do i explain how i believe? They think you're stupid if you do...i mean they present older scriptural (egyptian) references of the same story...and say 'how can you believe this...version over the other?' And when i believe and stickw ith Christ as the Son of God...i'm stupid...
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  tec

  When I say Cloudy, I don't mean as if i'm depressed or in pain.

  I understand what you mean. Maybe you're just trying too hard. No one has all the answers. I do the same for confusion as I would do for doubt or sadness. Just keep going. Come through on the others side enough times, and you'll start to trust that you WILL come through on the other side.

  how do i respond? Just by saying 'Christ is truth?' ...please understand i'm not attacking you...i had this exact same thing brought to me by someone....and i didn't know how to respond. How do i explain how i believe? They think you're stupid if you do...i mean they present older scriptural (egyptian) references of the same story...and say 'how can you believe this...version over the other?' And when i believe and stickw ith Christ as the Son of God...i'm stupid...

  I don't think you're attacking me, so no worries :) As for people thinking you're stupid, don't worry so much about what other people think about you. Easier said than done, I know. But these people who call you stupid don't know anything more or less than you know. They don't have any source to draw upon that you don't as well, and perhaps they have even less. If people want to think that I am stupid for believing in Christ, then I say let them think it. What is that to me?

  Just for the point that you bring up though... I have never seen or read a valid story that is the same as the story of Christ. I did research all of those claims by people like Zeitgeist, so I know the claims that are out there... but they're not valid. Some of them are outright dishonest. The only similar thing that I can see in various beliefs is that people of various systems and times have believed in a 'savior' type person/god coming to save them, and that person having had some sort of miraculous birth. All that says to me is that people want someone to save them. And if all beliefs and people originated with the same source, then it stands to reason that there would be some similarities passed among them. So I don't have another 'version' to choose one over the other.

  I believe in Christ. I believe in everything He taught, and showed us by example. I do have evidence of Him - his strength and his peace - in my life, and as part of me. I have prayed to be healed; to have ears that hear and eyes that see. But before I did or felt any of these things, I loved Him for the things He taught and did, and the love he showed to us and to His Father. I did and do my best to follow Him. He said that those who sought would find. I trust and believe him.

  Now people who want to tear you down, or those who think that they are too smart or rational for such beliefs, might not care about personal things. But that doesn't make them any less valid. Do you believe in Him? If so, then His is the only opinion that truly matters.

  Peace,

  Tammy
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  sizemik

  Latching on to "truth" . . . cleaving to it . . . defending it blindly. Even an obsessive search for truth . . . is born out of the human tedency to want answers. When we can't find an answer, we pick what me might consider most likley . . . and we believe that. We put faith in it. When the flaws become apparent we suffer crisis . . . and need a substitute "truth" to replace it. All of this can set us up for dissappointment . . . creates uncertainty and fear. We can become very unhappy as a result.

  My answer to the problem? . . . Allow for the unknown.

  It is more "truthful" to accept sometimes that we just don't know.

  I have learned with time . . . to be generous in allowing for the unknown . . . why would we be punished or disadvantaged by a creator for something we just don't know?

  Living according to the law of Christ is both practical and beneficial. That in itself is acknowleging him . . . following him. We don't need to know whether what everyone else believes or says as to whether or not it is "truth". In most cases we simply can't anyway.

  Allowing for the unknown takes away the "need" for truth . . . and accepts what "is" and allows room for new knowledge.

  Allowing for the unknown can be done . . . in fact it has allowed me the greatest amount of contentment and happiness I have ever felt in my life. It seems odd at first . . . but I believe it to be a necessary ingredient for any measure of happiness.
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  Black Sheep

  Stop trying to make sense of nonsense. It'll drive you nuts.

  If something doesn't make sense ......... it's probably because it doesn't make sense ..... not because you are stupid, or need someone who talks to some imaginary space creature to help you understand.

  Go to the library and get some books out on critical thinking and do the exercises in them. Get your girlfriend to help you do the exercises. If she won't help ..... dump her.

  Chris
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  AGuest

  My girlfriend thinks i'm stupid

  Perhaps you need... nahhhh, you already know what I'm going to say about that.

  You're not stupid, dear Voices (the greatest of love and peace to you, dear one!), not at all. Confused, maybe. Conflicted, even. Only you (and now, your girlfriend?) believe that you're stupid. I believe you to be one of the most intelligent people I know. Certainly one of the smartest... as to MANY things.

  Perhaps, though, your "hearing" is being... ummmm... "interefered" with... by all of the other DIN you've got going on... around you AND inside you (and there is a LOT of din going on... about a LOT of things, both inside and out, yes?).

  There is some benefit to "noise," yes, dear one. There is also great benefit, however, to silence... particularly within us. Sometimes, we have to tell "everyone" to just hush. Including ourselves. Inside AND out.

  May you have ears to hear and get the SENSE of that truth, if you so wish it.

  YOUR servant and a slave of Christ,

  SA
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  PSacramento

  Stupid people are those that stop asking questions and searching for answers.
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  Mad Sweeney

  We are always hearing of people who are around SEEKING AFTER TRUTH. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he had never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who THOUGHT they were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment--until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. THAT WAS THE END OF THE SEARCH. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was seeking after political Truth he found it in one or another of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth; if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or another of the three thousand that are on the market. In any case, when he found the Truth HE SOUGHT NO FURTHER; but from that day forth, with his soldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with objectors. There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers of Truth--have you ever heard of a permanent one? In the very nature of man such a person is impossible. However, to drop back to the text-- training: all training is one from or another of OUTSIDE INFLUENCE, and ASSOCIATION is the largest part of it. A man is never anything but what his outside influences have made him. They train him downward or they train him upward--but they TRAIN him; they are at work upon him all the time. ~Mark Twain, "What is Man?"