Truth Tests How do you know if someone is telling you the truth?

Truth is something people have sought forever. “Truth is as old as God” – Emily Dickenson The ancient philosophers searched for truth. How do we know what is true? Reason? Senses? Revelation? (not all agree on this one)

Believing something to be true does not make it true. –Relationship of sun to earth –Time moves at a fixed and regular pace. What is true and how do we know?

Zen Buddhism Truth cannot be discovered in any objective manner. For Zen the primary goal of life is the direct experience of what is – reality. Experiencing the fullness of every moment is truth – not something you talk about. Truth lives on the inside, at the heart of life, & must be experienced, not sought after as an object through reading or instruction.

Truth is at the heart of the universe, waiting to be experienced. You will never find it by observing, analyzing, or even reading it in a book. We experience it only by living every moment of life with openness and to its fullest. Koans –A “riddle” or saying – designed to stop logical, analytical thought and force you into a deeper meditative approach. –When one tries to “figure it out,” the intent is lost.

Christianity, Judaism & Islam A book is considered the source of truth because God has revealed himself and his message is recorded in the book. –Christianity: Bible –Judaism: Torah –Islam: Qur’an These are “religions of the book.”

Christianity, Judaism & Islam “It’s true because God says so”? –May be sufficient for those who believe the source of the book is really God. –Is not enough for atheistic or agnostic philosophy. Actually, for Christianity, truth is not so much the book as it is the person through whom God has revealed himself most fully – Christ.

Truth in Science Based on acceptance of a “paradigm”. Paradigm – a model that most everyone accepts as making sense of what is there. –Copernicus (earth – sun) Once accepted, the paradigm becomes the explanation. –People accept it because it makes sense. Paradigms exist in all academic fields.

Truth in History Previously – the story of the past could be told in terms of kings, presidents, battles, and political events. Recently the emphasis has changed. Some are writing history “from the bottom up.” –Looking at the common people. –How being black, female, or poor influenced their lives. –It is important to know which was most important in shaping the lives of people: race, class, or gender.

Truth in History Includes understanding history from the perspective of the “loser” or the “other”. –Columbus? –Civil War? –Christian Nation? –WWII? –Current Politics

Truth in Texts People have traditionally assigned stable meaning to texts and assumed we can understand what a given text means. Deconstruction says meaning occurs only through experience and texts are being reinterpreted continuously. –Texts have no fixed meanings. –Jacques Derrida

What’s the Point? Facts never come to us as “pure facts.” –They are always interpreted in some manner. –To speak about “facts” we must speak about them in the context in which they occurred. Part of a narrative. –Historians are seldom actual eyewitnesses, so they use the “filtered” testimony of eyewitnesses. “What is true in any given time period is what fits best within current understandings of life and human nature.”

Truthiness Wikiality “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” - Joseph Goebbels