Does truth really matter?

[Reuben]

...on average, truth is useful.

Boyd K. Packer might take exception to that.

Yeah, well his epistemology was weak.

He really meant that not all evidence is admissible, which is a good general concept. But his application of it was self-evidently bananas.

[Corsair]

Boyd K. Packer might take exception to that.

Yeah, well his epistemology was weak.

He really meant that not all evidence is admissible, which is a good general concept. But his application of it was self-evidently bananas.

It was "self-serving" bananas and "undying loyalty" bananas. Packer had an image of what the church should look like and how members should hold it sacred. He was clearly not happy with anyone who failed to meet his exacting standard. I have this terrible, terrible regret that he never got to be prophet so that we could see just how exciting his vision of the church would have been.

[2bizE]

I can’t convince you otherwise. For many people, truth is irrelevant. They just want it to be comfortable and to work for them. This goes for religion, politics, war, video games, sex, marriage.
Specifically with religion, you have the TBMs that jump through mental hoops to make it work in their heads.
Then there are the TBMs like my wife who care less about gospel specifics. Religion to her is sitting with the widow and listening to her stories. Making food and crafts to brighten the day of a struggling mom.

Then you have the factual people like me. Just give me the facts. I don’t like all the spiritual, mental, burning in the bosom crap. Because of my factual, Cliff Clavin personality, I have a hard time seeing the beauty in religion because the facts don’t add up.

[2bizE]

Boyd K. Packer might take exception to that.

Yeah, well his epistemology was weak.

He really meant that not all evidence is admissible, which is a good general concept. But his application of it was self-evidently bananas.

It was "self-serving" bananas and "undying loyalty" bananas. Packer had an image of what the church should look like and how members should hold it sacred. He was clearly not happy with anyone who failed to meet his exacting standard. I have this terrible, terrible regret that he never got to be prophet so that we could see just how exciting his vision of the church would have been.

I think you are right Corsair about Packer. Now with RMN, even Aunt Wendy has said he sat by and watching things not happen for too long. Now as profit, he is making changes left and right because he doesn’t have time to waste. He has to git it done now. Thank god that Packer was never profit. You probably would be excommunicated for not wearing a white shirt or taking the sacrament with your left hand.

[jfro18]

I think I've mentioned it before but I've been really into politics on social media since 2012... and in 2016 it became so crystal clear that true doesn't matter to most people.

Whatever your beliefs on Trump are, I would send people videos of Trump saying the exact opposite of what people claimed Trump was for, and it just didn't matter. It's the same thing with the church - people will see what they want, read what gives them comfort, and ignore what makes them feel uncomfortable.

I think Oprah said in a speech that there's the truth and 'my truth,' (I could be wrong about the specifics there) and the last few years in both politics and dealing with church stuff have really illustrated how that works.

Facts don't care about your feelings, but people still are willing to make facts whatever they need to make them in order to work.

I could go on and on here, but I don't believe truth matters unless you're willing to accept whatever definition of truth each individual gives and we know that is going to vary far and wide.

[Ghost]

Good discussion.

I suppose truth matters if you can manage to convince yourself that it's a valid concept, that it's something you can identify when you find it, and that you care.

One of my favorite LDS talks before I started going astray was President Kimball's Absolute Truth. That type of certainty sure is appealing in some ways.

[glass shelf]

I think being able to openly acknowledge what's true for you as truth matters a whole lot when we're looking at ethical discussions. Looking back on Mormonism, I spent a long time with my inner moral compass fighting what I "knew" was true. Being able to listen to and trust your self before a bunch of self-serving guys in suits is pretty critical to having good confidence IMO.

Science truths? Well, we do the best we can with the evidence that we have. Somethings are pretty straight forward and easily testable. In my field people have and do change their opinions about diagnosis treatment efficacy and methodology with research. There are lots of questions that I can't find solid answers to because the research is still happening. That's okay, and it's a positive thing. It means that there are a bunch of people out there asking questions, looking at the research studies and clinical trials, and trying to put it into practice. Also, I work with humans. They don't all respond to things like a rock does to gravity. Life is messier than that.

[Hagoth]

I remember a guy I taught some discussions to on my mission who referred to churches as "Big Friendly Giants." Everyone feels safer and less vulnerable when they have a Big Friendly Giant to cling to for comfort and protection. Far less important are the details of what that giant does and what it believes apart from providing that safety and comfort. At the time I thought the guy was kind of goofy, but this is a concept that has really stuck with me. Your BFG could be the Mormon church or it could be the NRA or a street gang or your local Bigfoot hunting society, whichever best fills that role for you.

[achilles]

p.s. Cthulhu lives.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.”
― H.P. Lovecraft

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

[crazyhamster]

I think this kind of question is why Carl Sagan said that science is more than a collection of facts (the "truth"), but a way of thinking. It's one that gives us a way to apply a set of standards to thinking which should weed out errors, biases and irrelevancies. This helps us figure out how the universe works and I believe does lead a set of real scientific truths.

However, if the question is about "moral" truth, then it becomes a whole lot murkier. Is my moral standard the correct and therefore "true" one? Why? By what standard? It's a much, much tougher thing to define.

[foolmeonce]

Short answer to the OP, yes it does. It simply has to.

[MoPag]

I have this terrible, terrible regret that he never got to be prophet so that we could see just how exciting his vision of the church would have been.

This is extreme:

PACKERS TRUTH.png (170.95 KiB) Viewed 7374 times

But it's a "truth" the BOM supports.
"It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief." 1 Nephi 4
Let's pretend he is in charge now, when the church is hemorrhaging members. And let's also pretend that he could get away with it. Would his truth lead him to save the church by eliminating the threats?


And in a twisted way this is kind of how the church operates. They don't physically kill people, but they do expel or excommunicate them from the tribe. There is a really deep part of our psyche that fears expulsion from the tribe. Because for our earliest ancestors excommunication meant death.

[achilles]

Let's pretend he is in charge now, when the church is hemorrhaging members. And let's also pretend that he could get away with it. Would his truth lead him to save the church by eliminating the threats?

And in a twisted way this is kind of how the church operates. They don't physically kill people, but they do expel or excommunicate them from the tribe. There is a really deep part of our psyche that fears expulsion from the tribe. Because for our earliest ancestors excommunication meant death.

I think that "morality" began as a way to ensure the survival of the tribe (beginning with genus Homo). As the human race has "grown up" (with fits and starts, and some backtracking), we have developed a morality that balances the needs of the individual with the needs of the group. Packer's morality is top-down, patriarchal, and pre-historic. Pre-historic people cast out those who are different. Grown-ass human beings don't. (BTW, I think the genus Homo has earned the right to define morality for itself...unlike scientific facts/knowledge/truth/theories, etc)

Karl Jaspers developed an idea called the "Axial Age"--a time between 800 and 300 BC when the human race kind of "grew up" and codified moral systems:

During this period, according to Jaspers' concept, new ways of thinking appeared in Persia, India, China and the Greco-Roman world in religion and philosophy, in a striking parallel development, without any obvious direct cultural contact between all of the participating Eurasian cultures. Jaspers identified key thinkers from this age who had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged.

Wikipedia, "Axial Age"

Do some triangulation with the moral concepts from these philosophical systems, and we come close to what I think moral truth is (or ought to be). Since then, the human race has grown up a little bit more, and now we have things like the "United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights".

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Packer's "truth" refuses to extend the "dignity" that all human beings deserve to those who are different from the majority. I think you can probably guess what I think about that...

[slavereeno]

And in a twisted way this is kind of how the church operates.

I am with MoPag on this one. The truth has to matter, because falsehoods are a tool to oppress and abuse. If I can convince enough people that the "truth" is that people with detached earlobes are superior to others then I can perpetuate all kinds of evils on those who have attached earlobes. The worst of this is subtle falsehoods mixed with truth that give some humans power over others. WRT the church knowing the "truth" can potentially liberate me to enjoy life, live without guilt, to put more into my retirement, to choose my own undies, etc. Otherwise its time to suck up to the Q15 and jump when they say "jump". Damn straight truth matters, at least it matters to me.

[Hagoth]

But it's a "truth" the BOM supports.
"It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief." 1 Nephi 4nication meant death.

This is why I get annoyed when I hear Mormons talking about moral relativism as some sort of gay/feminist/commie plot. All belief systems make culturally relative moral trade-offs. Here is another one in Mormonism: abortion is murder, but we condone it in the case of rape or incest. So it's still murder but you condone it anyway in certain cases? I don't want to get off on a tangent about abortion (please!) except to use it as an illustration of this concept. You could alternatively take a stance that abortion isn't a black-and-white proposition, that aborting an embryo the size of the head of a pin is not as much like murder as one that is the size of a walnut, compared to a 3rd trimester abortion which is a lot closer to the murder of a child. But no, the church excels in black-and-white thinking. Abortion must be murder or they can't insist that people stop doing it, but then they concede to making concessions to certain requirement which sees them relativistically defying their own black-and-white moral code. So what is truth regarding abortion and the Mormon god?

Just about everyone would agree that human sacrifice is abhorrent. When Europeans encountered it in the Americas they were appalled. But, abhorrent as it seems, Mesoamericans were acting morally within their religious cosmology. The gods required the cosmic gears to be lubricated with human blood or everyone would suffer the consequences. It probably started out as "its is better that one man should perish than that a nation should suffer the wrath of the gods," but when hard times came anyway subsequent rulers felt compelled to up the ante over the centuries.

[Corsair]

I have this terrible, terrible regret that he never got to be prophet so that we could see just how exciting his vision of the church would have been.

This is extreme:
PACKERS TRUTH.png

But it's a "truth" the BOM supports.
"It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief." 1 Nephi 4
Let's pretend he is in charge now, when the church is hemorrhaging members. And let's also pretend that he could get away with it. Would his truth lead him to save the church by eliminating the threats?


And in a twisted way this is kind of how the church operates. They don't physically kill people, but they do expel or excommunicate them from the tribe. There is a really deep part of our psyche that fears expulsion from the tribe. Because for our earliest ancestors excommunication meant death.

I with you, MoPag. My Lesbian daughter thought that a Packer presidency would be far too painful for the most vulnerable members of the church. My narcissistic amusement in watching the "President Packer" Train Wreck would not be worth it.

[Linked]

The truth has to matter, because falsehoods are a tool to oppress and abuse. If I can convince enough people that the "truth" is that people with detached earlobes are superior to others then I can perpetuate all kinds of evils on those who have attached earlobes. The worst of this is subtle falsehoods mixed with truth that give some humans power over others. WRT the church knowing the "truth" can potentially liberate me to enjoy life, live without guilt, to put more into my retirement, to choose my own undies, etc. Otherwise its time to suck up to the Q15 and jump when they say "jump". Damn straight truth matters, at least it matters to me.

I really like this comment slavereeno.

I think the truth matters because knowing the truth can help us make better decisions. Knowing enough truth about the round earth and gravity was a prerequisite to having satellite communications and imaging. Knowing enough truth about semiconductors has allowed computing technology to get where it is. Knowing enough truth about global climate change is necessary to take steps to mitigate the damage to people, other species, and property.

If we grant that people have a right to make decisions, then access to the truth is required to enable the highest level of freedom. Telling someone they can make decisions but only giving them the information that leads to a predetermined choice is an encroachment of their freedom. This doesn't require all knowledge to be given, but at least to acknowledge that knowledge is there and can be found or discovered. The mormon church is amazing at taking away freedom by indoctrinating a worldview that limits what truth TBMs can accept. There are verifiable truths out there which are rejected because of church teachings. Other religions and groups are also good at this.

There are things that are too complex to know (dealing with human emotions and groups, and turbulent flow), other things that are just unknowable for now (what happens to 'me' after I die), and other things that aren't really true or untrue (I think morality fits in here). I am guessing the OP was talking more about those complex, unknowable, and non-truthy things. I personally try to simplify the complex into something that is actionable. For the unknowable I try to recognize it is unknowable and not worry to much about it. For the non-truthy things like morality I do struggle to figure out what is best. But I think it is important to get as much information as possible and not to let our biases prevent us from accepting any truths related to our opinions.

[Hagoth]

I am with MoPag on this one. The truth has to matter, because falsehoods are a tool to oppress and abuse. If I can convince enough people that the "truth" is that people with detached earlobes are superior to others then I can perpetuate all kinds of evils on those who have attached earlobes.

If enough detached earlobe folks can be made to understand that earlobe attachment isn't inherently significant they will also realize that attached earlobes can be made detached via an organized uprising of detached earlobers with scissors. That's why truth matters. If you want to keep your earlobe attached it's best not overinflate the're significance. The same might be said of the priesthood antenna.

ETA: have I ever mentioned that I met John Wayne Bobbitt?

[Red Ryder]

Great conversation! You all have me considering different aspects I hadn't thought of before.

However I'm still not convinced that "truth" matters in the end simply because it's all subjective to the individual who believes they have the truth. Earlobes example applies.

So far everyone here who said truth matters to them rationalized why and defined their version of truth to back up their cognitive bias or to make it fit within their reality.

Truth doesn't matter because it can't be defined in absolute terms.

Perhaps an understanding of information builds itself into what we label as facts, that then leads us to directional or proportional truth that we then build our opinions and beliefs on.

Do facts matter? Yes
Does truth matter? No

Maybe I'm stuck on the labels. I dunno.

I'll come back to this when I have more time. Work is calling.

[dogbite]

I think the relevance of truth to ones life is related to your wealth and education.

People struggling for daily survival aren't concerned with many forms of Truth and only those facts that keep them alive.

If truth were an elemental fact of survival we would have evolved very different senses than the ones we do have as well as associated processing abilities. That truth is so often inobvious indicates it's low evolutionary strength in the Earth environment.