We hear a lot about truth in advertising. But what does truth really entail? Is there such a thing as absolute truth or is truth relative? I want to explore a little bit in this post my thoughts about truth and solicit your comments.
Does truth transcend time or is it a function of time?
As a former Business Manager I am used to preparing both balance sheets and profit and loss statements. While a balance sheet is a snapshot of an organization’s financial postion as of a particular date in time a profit and loss statement represents a summarization of financial activity over an established period of time. Both of these documents are true by definition and by principle, but do they really reflect the truth? If you pay your landlord $1,000 for rent, your bank balance on the balance sheet will reflect the $1,000 reduction in cash and the profit and loss statement will show a $1,000 expense. However, if this payment is miscoded as prepaid rent, then there will be no change in the balance sheet other than transferring from one asset to another and there will be no expenses recorded on the profit and loss statement. Given both sets of satements, how do you know which is true? The methodology may be true, but the final results may not be true.
Is Truth only truth until proven wrong?
Given today’s technology, we now know that planet Earth is pretty much a spherical object and we accept that as being true. However, we all know that this wasn’t always the case. Consequently, is something only true until it is demonstrated to no longer be true?
In a court of law, witnesses swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (at least that is what appears on tv). But it has been demonstrated that eye witnesses may not know the truth of what they saw.
Who or what determines what is true?
This leads me to my observation about today’s technology and the practice of sending and forwarding emails. Today we want to be informed citizens and do the right thing about the causes we support. Along comes and email that indicates that that cause may now be threatened and it comes from a somewhat reliable source (someone on our white list) and it also comes with some kind of notation that it has been passed by Snopes.com. Somehow Snopes has now become one of the standards of truth in this electronic mail age. Did anyone ever question how Snopes got to be this authority on truth?
How do retiree’s determine what is true?
- Investigate the claim.
- What is the past experience?
- Who else do you know and trust that has had the same results that are being claimed?
- What authorities are cited for the claim? Remember, there have been medications thought to be perfectly safe and promoted that way that were later determined to be harmful.
- Perform due diligence research.
- Examine the facts.
- Do they ring true?
- Do they sound too plausible? If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
- Are the facts verifiable?
- Make a decision about the truthfulness of the claim.
- Based upon your interpretation of your investigation you will need to make a decision as to the truthfulness and move forward in faith.
- Observe your decisions about the weather. You make decisions as to activities based upon your confidence level or trust in the weatherperson providing the data.
It would appear that many of the individual decisions we make on a daily basis, investing, borrowing, traveling, shopping, etc. are based upon judgments as to what we believe to be the truth. However, many of the things we take for granted such as gravity, breathing, colors, life as we know it, etc. are based upon never changing principles of truth. Man may be able to temporarily suspend some of those principles (suspend gravity) but to do so he will need to know absolute truth of the principle of gravity.
Conclusion
- There is an absolute truth relating to those things that matter to the sustaining of the realities of the universe and to life everlasting.
- There appears to be a level of truth that is dependent upon time in that it is true until proven otherwise.
- There appears to be a twisted level of truth that says accept me as truth without further investigation. This category would include scams and attempts to secure personal information for identity theft, especially those directed to the retired community.
How can we determine if that e-mail supposedly coming from our financial institution is really real?
How can we know whether or not that e-mail or phone call supposedly coming from a government agency is actually legitimate?
Long gone are the days where we grew up in small rural communities where we seldom locked the doors to our cars and trucks and even our homes. If we did, all our neighbors knew the keys were on the ledge on the back porch because that is where they left theirs. Never was there a worry that someone would break in and steal anything and especially that they would steal your mail. That is not necessarily the case today. Our privacy and our personal identification are being threatened daily.
Medical Information
Have we looked closely at the labels on our prescriptions? These labels more than likely contain minimally our name and address along with the type of prescription. Consequently, if we are careless in discarding our labels we have just given private information away to whomever may be going through our garbage. If we live in our own home, we may have some control over this, but If we live in a community where we share trash receptacles, we can’t control who might be going through it prior to being carried to the landfill.
In addition to the above, we should also be on the alert for unusual, suspicious, or inappropriate requests related to the following on-line activities:
Internet Auctions
E-Mail Spam
- 9 Threats to Screen from Your E-mail
1. The “Nigerian” Email
2. Phishing
3. Work-at-Home
4. Weight Loss Claims
5. Foreign Lotteries
6. Cure-All Products
7. Check Overpayment
8. Pay-in-Advance Credit Offers
9. Debt Relief
Rocking Chair Wisdom wishes you success in your search for the truth. Be Safe in 2009.
Tags: absolute truth, retirees, Truth
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