The Truth About Everything – Can You Afford Ignorance?

Most of us are ignorant of the truth in a myriad of areas. It is quite impossible for us to know every truth about every subject. So, we are ignorant. In other words, we remain ignorant simply because we do either do not have the time or the opportunity to know the truth about everything. And, unfortunately, many simply don’t have a desire to know the truth about a particular matter. They’d either rather believe a lie than accept a truth that is contrary to their tastes or contrary to their feelings or contrary to their current beliefs about a matter. 

Ignorance in a War Brings Death 

Truth in battle is essential. Unless a leader knows the whole truth in battle conditions, he is likely to make a serious mistake and cost the lives of soldiers. Truth is vital. Knowing the real truth, the whole truth, can be vital to one’s survival. Our lives are often in the hands of men and women in whom we trust. We believe they know the truth. They are trained to know the truth. They have specialized in knowing the truth in a particular area. But, as many soldiers learned in WWII and Vietnam and other wars, their trust in their leaders was misplaced. They did not know that those leaders often had a huge ignorance of the real situation on the ground and a huge ignorance of the enemy. The leadership, they learned, knew less about the enemy and about the situation on the ground, than the average soldier who knew far more truth than their commanders.

Vietnam saw a lot of ignorance displayed on the parts of many Generals and military leaders. Their ignorance cost lives–in some cases, tens of thousands of lives. Men were sent into battle improperly equipped simply because the leadership did not know certain truths, such as the fact that the extreme heat and moisture in the jungle would have disastrous affects upon men and equipment. Men were sent into battle situations where, unknown to the leadership (who had not bothered to learn the truth), there were battalions of the enemy waiting. Pilots were sent to drop bombs on the enemy and, due to their lack of knowledge of the location of American soldiers, dropped bombs on the American. This kind of ignorance on the part of leadership would play itself more than once in that war and would be repeated in the war in Afghanistan.

Learned and Deliberate Ignorance Can be Dangerous

Some of us deliberately avoid knowing the truth about a matter. It is not uncommon for us to deliberately going to the doctor because we are afraid of what the doctor will tell us. Men are notorious for avoiding going to the doctor, instead choosing to “John Wayne” their way through life, assuming an attitude that they will somehow fight their way through whatever comes to them in life. Men are typically the ones who are reluctant to inquire as to the truth about stopping to inquire as to directions to a particular place.

We can be locked into a “truth” that is in fact, a partial truth, or is in fact, a lie. It may be that through life, we acquired a perspective from an experience that led us to believe something that contained a truth, but not the truth that we assumed. For example, a child is led to believe in Santa Claus. In time, the child learns there is no Santa Claus. But, that experience taught the child to believe in a different truth, namely, that it is acceptable to lie to your children. The bigger lie behind that is that it is acceptable to tell “white lies” to people.

Another example is a child who is bitten by a dog. The experience leads the child to accept as truth that dogs are not to be trusted. The child’s fear of a dog has caused the child to be wary of dogs as a group. The child has accepted as truth the fact that dogs are, in general, dangerous. Now, not all children who have this experience come to this conclusion. However, this child’s view of dogs being dangerous will likely remain with the child throughout all of life.

Life Experiences Can Bring us Distortions of Truth

There are a myriad of events that happen to people in life that form “truths” in their lives that are, in fact, a lie, or a lie layered with some truth. Some people will hear something at some point in their life experience and will identify with what is said, perhaps because of a prior life experience, or perhaps from a piece of data that came to them earlier in life that “fits” with what they heard later, and so they will accept what they hear as truth, but in fact, that information will be false.

Truth is important to know. Everyone ought to have a desire, a burning desire, to know truth. This is not merely about spiritual truth, but about anything. We ought to want to know the truth about health–about our bodies, our minds, our feelings, and everything to do with maintenance of an ideal and optimum well-being. We should have this desire to know the truth about a lot of things in our lives.

Laziness Can Keep Us From Truth

But, we walk in ignorance instead. Why? Laziness plays a large part. We are all, to a degree, lazy. We don’t want to take the time to learn about a matter. It will take time. It will take time away from us doing something more pleasurable. We often don’t place much importance on knowing the truth about a matter. We feel we can get by in ignorance and if it comes to a point where we really need to know the truth, we’ll somehow acquire the knowledge we need to know the truth.

A mistaken belief that we have the truth in a matter and don’t need to look further is perhaps the greatest reason for not knowing the truth about a matter. We tend to dislike change. We resist it, particular if it means we have to admit we were wrong about a matter and “mistaken” in our beliefs. Somehow, we can’t seem to get the few “brain inches” away from the lies we cling to in order to realize that holding onto a lie could be dangerous to us and that knowing the truth about a matter could be invaluable. Instead, we sit back comfortable with the idea that we KNOW the truth about a matter, irrespective of the billows of “smoke” we see everywhere we turn.

Looking for Truth in All the Wrong Places

Another reason we often fail to come to know truth is because we are like the singer who bewailed her life experience about “looking for love in all the wrong places.” We are like that. We often will look for truth in places that will never reveal the real truth. Instead, we will look in places that merely reinforces the “truth” we hold. We are looking for validation. We are looking for people whose ideas match our own, who will validate our “truth.” We cannot seem to move those few “brain inches” to recognize the possibility that they might be parroting a lie or lies. We can’t seem to accept the notion that so many “like-minded” people could be wrong.

So, we continue to hold onto our “truth,” refusing to investigate, refusing to look in some of the “right” places, and refusing to go beyond our little box of firmly held beliefs. Our ignorance reigns supreme and our confidence that we have the truth governs our lives, dictating the words we speak, the actions we take and the inaction to investigate further to determine whether in fact we do have the truth in a matter.

The need to know truth–the actual, real truth–in any particular matter is crucial to our well-being, whether the knowledge of the truth be spiritual truths or truths about the world around us. We cannot afford to be lazy about this. We cannot afford to be arrogant about this, thinking we have the truth and that it is a waste of our time to investigate the many clouds of “smoke” around us.

We Must Know the Truth About Our Political, Spiritual & Physical Environment.

We need to know the truth about events, about people, about politicians, about ministers, about the Bible, about health, about our environment and a myriad of other things. Do we really know, for example, whether the chem-trails are doing serious harm to our health? Do we really know whether immigration can lead to national catastrophe? Do we know the health effects of the myriad of sprays and other products put on and into our crops by Monsanto and other such companies?

Are we certain that the vaccines we’ve been told are necessary for our children are not creating Down’s Syndrome and other such mental health conditions? Do we know whether or not our economic policies could lead us into a Venezuela-like catastrophe where there is a million percentile devaluation to the currency? Do we know the full effects of the infiltration of MS-13 and other gangs into America? These (and many more) are all areas that have a lot of “smoke.” Unfortunately, most of us are too lazy to discover the truth about these matters.

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