Truth is relative

We all believe in many things - we as humans are the only creature on earth with a belief system, ranging from religion to philosophy. I don't place science as a belief system simply because it does not assume something unless it can be proven though some atheist like to twist this most basic tenet to suit their anti-God beliefs (the irony). Atheism is simply the belief that there is no god(s) - it absolutely does not translate to science.

Anyway, we are told, taught, informed of many things throughout our lives. Our first most important influences are the family, followed by our friends (and their friends), then school teachers, onwards to other people throughout our lives.

There things that happens to be true because they are - if you have one apple and you took one away, that leaves no apple. It's a fact. The Earth revolves around a sun in approximately 365 days. Gravity make things fall downwards.

Natural Law of the Universe - it's just the truth.

Then comes things that we perceive as true, most of the time, because it normally is - if one eats, it's because he's hungry. Most of the time, if not always, it's true. If the sky is filled with dark clouds, it most probably means it would rain some time soon, if not later. A man will die if he gets shot in the head but we have stories of people defying that inevitability.

Rule of the Thumb - things that follow a pattern that are not necessarily correct but most of time, are.

And my favourite and pretty much everybody's too, things that we think is true but is inconclusive because there is no way of knowing unless one is there when it happened. Truth pieced together from evidence that could have many different intepretations depending on what one's background, bias, prejudice, knowledge, upbringing etc.

It is this third category of 'truth' that we debate voraciously about, sing songs to, go to war over or starve to death to defend - things that cannot be proven to be truth but taken as truth because one believes in it.

From a scientific angle, it's utterly illogical. Why would one abandon the concept of 'survival of the fittest' to help the weak and needy? If someone is dead, it's because they died, end of story.

If anything, the above pretty much sums up life for humanity - the journey to discover the meaning of life itself. When life no longer have any meaning, people die. Reason becomes nothing, so existence becomes irrelevant.

Why are we here? No one can seriously answer beyond how it happened. We turn to the teachings of prophets, wise men and even lunatics to establish the reason to why one exists - even in this we differ in intepretation to the point where there is no one version that is better than the other.

It never ceases to amuse me whenever I hear anybody who using the 'authority of God' to justify their actions, regardless of whether I share the same faith as that person or not.

This position of mine has its roots in the problem of a person's ability to tell relative truths. For instance, if a person is on trial to answer to the charges of having committed a crime, his answers will depend on what he believe is true - if he lied, he's going to hell (in some cases he's probably already halfway there due to the crime itself); maybe he thinks the court or authorities have no jurisdiction over him because God 'mandates' him to or even because he was taking justice into his own hands.

So many combination of variables shaped by so many different kinds of environmental influnences - if we were all born the same, brought up the same then we can follow one clear and simple rule then things would be many, many times easier.

However, the fact is, truth is subjective.

I simply do not believe in 'God said so'. To be honest, if God were that easy to dissect and completely described in just the Torah, New Testament and the Koran, then we're overestimating our abilities to the point of being utterly arrogant - the direct opposite of what these holy scriptures are teaching us.

Millons, if not billions, of people lived through the ages at different eras in relative to these holy texts and it is absolutely impossible for every single one of them to have learned the same thing and arrived at the same conclusion. I need only find one proof of this and the argument is made baseless.

If you were born into a Jewish family, you are more likely than not be brought up a Jew, believe in the Torah and proclaim it to be the absolute truth. What if he were born Hindu or Muslim? Would that mean the truth from the Torah is now false? Says who? And how do you prove that? 'Because God said so' is a lousy, if not ridiculous response. 'Because the holy texts said God said so'. Ok, so who wrote the books? '... it is inspired truth'. By? 'By God'. Says who? 'The holy texts'. And who transcribed them? 'People inspired by God'. Ah, so how did we know God inspired them? 'Because God said so, in the book'.

Ok.

I am in no way saying that the teachings in the holy books are false - rather I am questioning that the holy books are the only truth there is about the Universe, more so about God. When one fervently puts his own beliefs above others as the only truth, that is when I stop listening.

If anything I'm more spiritual than I am religious. Whilst being brought a Catholic, I am actually closer to that of a non-denominational now than I was in the past after being exposed to different type of cultures and people from different backgrounds. I still believe that abortion is wrong though and that the salvation of the human soul is not by faith alone, but I don't think that's the whole picture. I'm willing to bet that not a single one even the most fervent Catholics would be guaranteed a place in Heaven for following the New Testament to the letter. If there's a 'heaven' that is. If that is what 'heaven' actually is supposed to mean.

I don't argue there is no God though - I would argue that an omnipotent Creator exists because it is necessary. I could even argue this point using scientific methods but would ultimately be futile - the argument, not the idea that God exists - simply because there is no way to prove it. It's technically not possible because no one can quantify God like we can Creation, so there is no scope to measure God to. We can only do so through evidence of his existence in Creation. I am of the belief that this is true because I think it is true based on what I believe - via evidence - that God exists and is necessary for existence.

Politics is one other topic apart from belief system that fall into this category. Growing up during the Cold War would probably have some believing in the American propaganda of democracy crucifying communism as evil. Those who don't bother to actually learn about what communism stands would view the Soviet Union as a bunch of godless people who are waging war against the world to subdue humanity in a hegemony.

I'm not defending communism by the way. I certainly don't agree with the 'opiate for the masses' idea but there are times I do think that it applies perfectly to groups who believe that they were carrying out atrocities against their neighbours in the name of God.

"What good is democracy to an empty stomach?", a statesman once quoted. "War is not about who is right, but who is left", a play of words that signify that winning a war doesn't justify the victor's position. "History is written by the victors", is another oft-quoted line. "A government is ruled by those who are present", meaning that the composition of the authorities make up the government.

Churchill once commented that all forms of governance are crap, with democracy being the least lousiest of them all. Whilst it opens up the nation's administration to the representative - the people - it also allows some of the undesirable elements to take root; extremism, bigotry, intolerance. Not a single government in the world is immune to this. Even in dictatorships you have people below him or her whom would be more than happy to take over when the opportunity arises, be it in a legal or non-legal manner.

And politics being what it is - the art of public relationships and persuasion - can never be ascertained as absolutely true unless one is directly involved in it. One's bias will immediately push him or her towards one end of the spectrum with little room in the middle for compromise - that party is either the best there is or absolutely untrustworthy. Being the game played with the people's mind and hearts, rumours are without doubt one of the main medium of dissemination of truth, half-truths and outright lies - depending on how good the person who are responsible for this dissemination of information, one might not be able to tell the difference, so they rely on their prejudice and and set minds to do so, inevitably if not accidentally, bringing about the wrong conclusion in relative to the actual truth.

I have always loved to quote the following to illustrate the reason not to take everything you read, see or hear at face value:

If a lie is repeated enough, it will become true.
If a story is repeated enough, it might eventually end up different in the end.

So personally, I have been picking splinters off my backside from sitting on the fence and adopting a pretty useful method in dealing with things like these - I'll believe it when I see it.

So the next time somebody shrugs quietly in dismissing what is an opinion in contrary to their own beliefs, be it physically or meta-physically, think again. While it's not wrong to stand at the position of disagreement, it is wrong to consider oneself non-disagreeable.

Especially when you can't prove it.

"My friend's cousin's sister's boss' auntie's friend said..."

The Internet is a fantastic tool of rumour - it's free to send as many emails as you want and the impact can be big, especially if a chunk the population believe in rumour more than they do of actual fact. In our society it makes even more sense to believe in something however fantastical if it makes or saves you money, more so if it is something close to home. All you need is the ability to keep a straight face (it's not easy to do, trust me) when telling the story to someone you know and start the chain reaction.

Plausible story? Check.
Photoshop skills? Check.
People who are bored? Check.
People who will believe anything? Check.
People who will forward whatever they receive? Check.

After all, rumours are sexy compared to the drab news on economic stimulus and unending peace-fire-peace-fire-peace-fire news of the Middle East.

I know I'll end up insulting the intelligence of some on here by suggesting that they are that gullible to believe in everything they hear but it's a common fact that:

i. If you repeat a rumour often enough, it will end up 'true'.
ii. If you repeat a true story enough, it will end up different from the original at the end.

Here is what I do when I get those viral emails (those that survive the Delete button) with topics that I might find interesting:


1. Throw partiality out the window
Fail this part and you might as well just skip (2) and (3), believe whatever you want.

I listed this as the very first step for the reason of it being the toughest to do. Growing up in different backgrounds we will unfortunately have prejudices, be it regional, racial or religious - often the last two. Prejudices will shape what we choose (yes, choose) to believe and not to believe.

Here are a few questions for you:
- What if you were born religion A and not religion B?
- What if you were born of race A and not of race B?
- What makes you think your race is superior to race A?
- What makes you think your religion is superior to religion A?
- Are you the one who made that spectacular history of your race?
- How does the spectacular past of your ancestors makes you great now?
- Does your allegiance to the country of your ancestors benefit you in anything?
- Does the country of your ancestors even know you exist?
- Can you prove the above without any doubts? Scientifically even?

Before you accuse me of racism and religious bigotry, let me make it clear that I apply the same questions to me myself all the time.


2. Check your facts.
Still with me? Congratulations!

It's good to question the validity of a story if it happens to be provable by science or common sense. For example I received an email regarding the use of crushed papaya leaf juices to cure dengue fever from a friend off a forum. This is a pretty well known 'remedy' of sorts - even my mother prescribed this to me when I was struck down by a mild bout dengue fever that lasted a week.

Papaya leaf juice is used as a vermifuge ie. a substance to help purge intestinal worms, so it would make a good deworming remedy due to the property of the compound papain that, while is not as good as commercial prescriptions, contains tannin that helps to protect the intestinal tract by making it harder for worms to attach. It also happens to be a cancer fighting enzyme in clinical research. In short it's a good remedy for indigestion.

What papaya leaf juice helps though is by helping to cool the body. Dengue as with other viral fevers causes the body to overheat in trying to disrupt the replication of the germs, similar to the cooling effect of coconut water.

Hence it is simply irresponsible to spread the story that papaya leaf cures dengue fever. Those who think they can get away with avoiding the visit to the doctor might end up playing dice with the devil in a gamble on drinking papaya leaf juice and end up endangering their lives. It is no substitute to a qualified check by the doctor and professional medical care.

What about the severe dehydration, septic shock and drop in platelet count that comes together as part of the package? Or the fact that dengue is caused by a virus, not parasites like malaria (hence quinine being an effective agent to purge the germ).

Sure, there are stories of this being succesful - one of my distant relatives were bedridden and was already losing his faculties from dengue fever until a house maid from Indonesia ground papaya leaf juice and gave it to him, and voila, miraculously cured.

Anybody care finding out the statistics of people who actually died from taking the same remedy? I know I'm one the many who recovered after being admitted to the hospital and be put on saline drip to combat the severe dehydration.

My colleague has a very fitting comment about this in Hokkien 'khiang du ho, mai keh khiang' which literally means good to be smart but don't try to be smarter than you are.

3. Check for validity of story
Receiving many of these emails daily, I can't help but notice that they always begin as a story by a friend of a friend of a friend (substitute the three friends with your choice of people - father, cousin, sister, uncle, auntie, mamak etc) and never directly from the originator of the story itself. And very often we are the 6th, 7th, 8th or more hand recipient of the email, hence making it either very hard to prove or to disprove, making it 'credible'. Pretty often the stories warn of dangers, hence nobody would be stupid enough to invite problems by proving it (I might be stretching it by saying 'nobody' but let's make peace).

Let me give you an example - many years ago I received an email regarding the consumption of human foetuses in a certain province in China, with a picture as proof of such horrible practices. It shows of a man chewing on a blackened torso of a child with its head visible.

Terrible and inhuman! The UN should be onto this crime against humanity and the authorities to be put to the fire for allowing this to happen.

However...

By the way, Snopes is a great website to check the validity of stories as such, they will never put something down as fact until they can prove it as fact or fiction.


4. Make up your own damn mind.
In the end it's really up to what you want to believe as freedom of thought is something that truly is your own. My common stance is to sit on the fence for unproven stories that might sound plausible (until it is proven or disproven), dismiss outright those that are nothing but sensationalism and keep a level head when it comes to matters that cannot be proven in certainty (read: politics).