Take a minute to think about it…

August 17, 2015

“Ours is a generation bloated with information and starved for wisdom.”  (Arianna Huffington) – as seen on  the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

While it is ubiquitous and easy to use, Google has also encouraged intellectual laziness. The Google answers returned are also not always even correct or the truth; however, as a society we’ve become such Google knowledge inzombies that we tend to believe whatever we see there, without taking the time to think about it. We consume the “information” that is returned, but do not necessarily make the effort to evaluate it and to add it to our store of knowledge and wisdom. It’s just as easy to go get it at Google again the next time that we need it.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the store of available information at Google is tremendous and it does make many things in life much easier than they used to be. It is our own mental laziness that detracts from the potential value of having all of that information at hand. It is a thought pattern that says, “Why learn it when you can just Google it?” The easiest answer is that learning leads to wisdom and it is that ability to learn and accumulate wisdom that separates us from the other animals.

thinking womanSo, the next time you Google something to get directions or get an answer to a question, take the time to evaluate the answer that you get and to find a place for those answers that seem valid in your storehouse of wisdom. Don’t just accept the first answer at the top of the returns, without checking a few further down the list; and always take the time to understand who posted that answer and consider why. That is especially true on the Wiki posts that you might get back, since anybody can post things there true or not.

Speaking of that, there is a little routine that a local sportscaster does from time to time called, “I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true.”  Too many people have come to believe that little statement and accept things that they see on the Internet as the truth. The Internet probably has nearly as many hoax posts and false posts as it has valuable information. Anything that you see on the Internet should be viewed with at least a critical eye, if not a skeptical one.

Remember, too, that companies and people pay Google for placement in their query returns. So, when you ask a question like “which is the best of something” or “where is the cheapest place to”, you will likely get back answers that someone has paid to put in front of you, rather than an honest answer to your question. Most of the times you’ll probably get ads back first. Ask for low cost hotels somewhere and you’ll be deluged with ads for travel sites, rather than any real hotel information. Maybe the “wisdom” there is realizing that Google won’t really answer your question. See, you learned something by taking a minute to think about it. You’ve added to yourman thinking wisdom.

Perhaps, instead of starting down at your smartphone to see what Google says is going on in the area around you, you should put it away and actually start seeing and doing the things that are going on around you. It’s called living and the thing that you gain by doing it is called wisdom. Google that.

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Posted by Norm Werner

The search for truth…

May 14, 2015

From the Jack’s Winning Words blog – “Most people really don’t want the truth.  They just want constant reassurance that what they believe is the truth.”  (Collective Evolution)  Jack went on to write – Plato (428 BCE), seek-truthfamous philosopher and teacher, was also a funny guy.  He’s the one who said, “I’m trying to think.  Don’t confuse me with the facts.”  He was joking, of course.  In life, we are continually asked to test the sources for our beliefs.  Don’t be afraid to examine the “facts” during your search for truth.    😉  Jack

That saying goes well with another that I also picked off Jack’s blog – “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt.”  (Rene Descartes)

The dictionary defines truth as:

– the quality or state of being true.

“he had to accept the truth of her accusation”

– that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

noun: the truth

“tell me the truth”

-a fact or belief that is accepted as true.

plural noun: truths

“the emergence of scientific truths”

So it looks like the opening statement was the true after all – it’s all about what people want to believe. Some peoplesearching believe that all of what they saw and heard during the moon landing in 1969 is the truth, but others believe that it was all a giant hoax and that the men never left the earth. Both groups embrace their views as “the truth.” It’s interesting, too, that all of the definitions rely on using the word true to define the truth; and some of the definitions for true also point back to beliefs.

In our everyday lives I think most people believe much of what they hear from others and accept it as the truth; however, all of us have probably known people that we just didn’t believe. Maybe they earned that distrust by repeatedly lying about things or maybe they just came across as being a bit shady, so we took everything that they said with a grain of salt. Whichever is the initial case, most people search for the truth. They are not content with just not knowing or not being sure. Maybe they are not searching for the truth so much as for that confirmation of their beliefs that we started with.

doubtBut what of Descartes’ advice? Was he advising that we doubt or beliefs in the search for truth? Yes and no. I think he was saying that one cannot go through life never questioning or doubting things that we might have been told are truths. If truth is based upon belief, then there are many truths in life than cannot be tested or proven; they just must be believed. Certainly religions have always relied on the continued acceptance and belief in things that cannot be proven.

The doubts that have cause schisms within religions seldom had to do with doubts about the basic beliefs, but rather about the dogma imposed over the top of those beliefs by men in power within the church. None of Martin Luther’s 95 theses called the faith that was the basis of the Catholic Church into question; rather he questioned the authority claimed by the Pope and the practices of the church of that day concerning the forgiveness of sins – the selling of indulgences

So the key to Descartes thought is to properly direct that doubt and not to let it degrade into cynicism. Use doubts to doubt your doubtsdiscard old ideas and beliefs that cannot stand inspection and to reinforce those that prove to be true after a closer look. Doubt not your faith, but perhaps those people and institutions that have codified and legislated the practice of that faith into dogma to meet their own needs.

Do you seek the truth in life or just go through life believing everything that you’ve been told is true? How do you act upon your doubts? Do you just let them gnaw away in the back of your mind or do you take some action to prove or disprove those feelings of doubt? Are your religious beliefs based upon a faith strong enough to be classified as a truth in your life? If so, do you share that truth with others through your words and deeds? Do they see that truth in you? If you live your faith then another saying will apply – “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

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Posted by Norm Werner

Know the facts, but accept the Truth…

April 14, 2015

“The truth is more important than the facts.”  (Frank Lloyd Wright) – as seen in a post on the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

I must admit to initially being nonplussed at this little quote. My initial confusion grew a bit when I researched the two key words – facts and truth –

Fact – (from the Merriam Webster Dictionary site)

: something that truly exists or happens : something that has actual existence

: a true piece of information

Truth – (from the same source)

a  (1) :  the state of being the case :  fact (2) :  the body of real things, events, and facts :  actuality (3) often capitalized :  a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality

b :  a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true <truths of thermodynamics>

c :  the body of true statements and propositions

d :  the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality

It took me a while to discern the key differences in those definitions, especially since each definition uses the other term within the explanations of their meaning. So, the big difference that I finally realized  is that facts exist as free-standing entities and truths, while perhaps based upon some facts, exist as beliefs.

My next revelation (I’m a bit slow sometimes) was me finally understanding why Wright might have said this and why Jack (the ex-pastor at my church) might have found it to be so appropriate for his blog. It boils down to the facts that support the existence of a man named Jesus, who lived over 2000 years ago, was from Nazareth and went about preaching and performing miracles, and who died on a cross was buried and then disappeared from the tomb. There are enough recorded stories from a great variety of sources at the time to establish those facts. And then there is the Truth. There are also recorded eye witness reports of the risen Jesus appearing to a great many people after his “death” and before ascending into Heaven.

As I said in an earlier post, any prosecuting attorney always likes to have some facts, like a fingerprint on the weapon or a DNA test from the crime scene; however, they also love to have eye witness testimony from someone who was there and saw what went on. It is that testimony that cements the truth about what happened in the minds of the jury. We have that testimony from witness after witness in a recording of the events called the Bible and other historic document of the time. We can establish the Truth based upon those eye witness accounts – He is risen!

Why is that Truth so important? Because it established the fact that death can be defeated; that death is not the end. If you had to point to one overriding concern (worry, anxiety, fear, call it what you will) that drives men’s search for faith, it is the burning question, “What happens when I die?” It is egotistical and self-serving; but, no one wants to believe that the end of our existence is the death of the body here on earth. All sorts of facts point to the Truth that one man defeated death and has shown us all the way to join Him after our lives here are over. There may not be enough facts for the skeptics to embrace this Truth; but, I would ask them what they have to offer as an alternative? As for me, I have decided to believe the Truth and not worry so much about the facts. The Truth is more important than the facts.

Have a great week ahead. The Truth is out there.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Don’t know, don’t say…Don’t be a dwarf

December 8, 2014

Re-blogged from the Jack’s Winning Words blog –

 “To like an individual because he’s black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn’t white.”  (e.e. cummings)  Reverse black and white in the quote.  Does it make a difference?  Substitute LGBT and Straight for black and white.  Does it make a difference?  Many of the problems around us these days seem to have root in the fact that we do not see people as people.  You can’t legislate love.  Unless it comes from the heart, the problems will continue.    😉  Jack

I suspect that Leonardo da Vinci put his finger on a big part of the problem that Jack wrote about today when he said – “You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.”  Too much of the bigotry in the world today is based in ignorance; opinionatedignorance about the backgrounds and perspectives of the people against whom the bigotry is directed. It’s impossible for a white person to understand the impact of the repressive environment that many non-white people feel and experience day-to-day in America. What chance do you have to establish an understanding and appreciation for someone else, if you start from a base of fear because of their color?  

There was a political cartoon in the paper this weekend that captured some of that. It showed a young black person backed up against a wall by a heavily armed white policeman and an average citizen looking out their window at the policeman. Each had a thought bubble above their head with the work “fear” in it. While that cartoon was within the context of recent police shootings; it clearly demonstrates the pre-existing mental context that colors the interactions of many people with each other. That is a pre-existing prejudice that gets things off on the angry accuserwrong foot.  Chris Crutcher, author of Whale Talk, put it well – “…racist (bigoted) thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.”
Something similar may be said about our notions of the LGBT community. Many censure those in the LBGT community because they do not understand it. Armistead Maupin put it well when he said – “I know I can’t tell you what it’s like to be gay. But I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not hiding behind words, like family and decency and Christianity.”  Having just gone through an election where every homophobic bigot on the ballot chose to hide behind those words, Maupin’s words ring true.

So, one may surmise that bigotry is based upon ignorance; but its real strength is based in
rejectedpreventing the exploration of knowledge about the topic, thereby shutting out the discovery of the truth. Like many other things in life that we fear, because they represent unknowns; fears based upon color or lifestyle evaporate once we know and understand the truth. As E.H.Chapin put it – “Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.”

Don’t let yourself become a dwarf. Don’t know…don’t say. Go seek the truth.

 

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Posted by Norm Werner

The truth will set you free…

May 22, 2013

“Confronting the truth will always set you free.” (Valerie Harper) from my favorite blog – Jack’s Winning Words.

I have found that sticking with the truth and being as transparent as possible throughout the real estate process is tremendously liberating. I don’t have to waste time worrying about to whom did I say what or playing games in pursue of some sense of having “won” somehow.  I can instead spend my time creating win-win situations, where everyone is in the loop on everything and there are no secrets or surprises.

Sometimes the truth isn’t pleasant or what you wanted to hear. Valerie Harper is battling brain cancer and I’m sure she didn’t want to hear that; however, she has confronted that truth and her prognosis and has moved on to enjoy the rest of her life as best as she can. Confronting her situation has set her free.

Are there things in your life that you need to confront, in order to be free?

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Posted by Norm Werner

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