Opus 2025-475: Truth Is an Introvert; Tradition an Extrovert

When it comes to any area of study, one of the big challenges is separating the traditions from the truth.  Traditions are represented by theories that have come to be accepted as rock solid truth.  In reality, many of these theories might have a bit of truth, but are also heavily influenced by folklore, antidotes, legends, deliberate editing and any other type of story that’s been passed down and possibly embellished over the years.  One of the challenges of history scholars is to cut through the cultural mandates and get to what actually happened in the past.  On the other hand, you have truth.  Truth is something which is based on facts and in reality.  If you say, the nail was rusty, then it requires certain evidence.  First you need a nail.  Then you need samples of rust and proof that the rust came from the nail.  It seems easy, but it’s also easy to fake.  Truth is a hard one and must be continually examined to see if the reason for believing it was fraudulent or not.

Which is worse, traditional truth or truthful tradition?  Which is more dangerous?  If you’re talking science and you’re doing experiments based on traditional understandings, it’s possible that you could kill yourself and everyone around you based on what you thought was a safe process.  This is the problem with much of science today.  Research is being manufactured.  It’s being falsified.  And no one seems to care.  If the issue is whether the paint on your car will last five years or seven years then you’re not causing a lot of harm and you’re making money.  If the issue is, does your vaccine cause people to die in a few years, that gets to be a whole different issue.

Remember when education went with the whole language approach to teaching reading?  What was the whole language approach?  I was a teacher for years and I’m not sure I know.  The key thing that came down was that it abandoned the teaching of phonics.  It was based on theories made it by people with an agenda.  The result was decrease in reading abilities and students level of education.  As a social skeptic, I would say that was a successful application of their theory because it produced the results that they seem to really want.  It’s much easier to bring in a dictatorship and control the population when people are ignorant and can’t read.  It is almost as effective if you destroy their desire to read by introducing inferior woke literature.  You can call me a cynic if you want.  In this case I would say I’m just an observant realist.

And of course, I run the same issue in theology and biblical studies.  One of the reasons we have so many denominations is that people want to go with traditions.  They’re comfortable with what they have always been told rather than facts that they don’t like.  Many times, the comfort is based on being accepted by the cool kids.  This is why many so-called Christian churches are rejecting the concept of the physical resurrection of Christ.  They can be respected by their pagan friends because they have rejected this “fairytale”.  The problem is when you look objectively at the evidence, the most logical conclusion to come to is that Jesus did rise physically from the dead.  The cool kids will laugh.  They will laugh very hard until they stand before the judgment seat.  Jesus will not be amused.

So whatever your field of study, mine is the Bible, make sure that your research is coming up with actual facts rather than the wishful thinking of other people.  I don’t know how easy or hard that is in science, education, economics, history, or other fields.  I do know that it can be done when it comes to Bible study.

Don’t throw all the babies out with all the bath water.  Sometimes tradition is just a simple way of understanding a deeper truth.  Other times it is like the cowbird that lays its eggs in another birds nest, and when it hatches, it’s chicks push out the eggs and chicks that belong there.

Seek truth.  Embrace truth.  Make truth a part of your family.  Pat tradition on the head and let it sit at the table for dinner as long as it behaves itself.

homo unius libri