Vitamin E
For many years, decades really, I took a large dose of Vitamin E daily. Why? Because I accepted as truth a belief that doing so would decrease my changes of heart attack. And how did I to have have such a belief? I accepted on faith and without question what my physician represented as truth. I was able to do so because I had developed a trust in him over many years.
Imagine my surprise when, during my last physical examination, this selfsame physician told me to stop taking large doses of Vitamin E daily. Why? Because he now represents a truth that taking large doses of Vitamin E daily can result in an increased chance of heart attack. This time I did not accept on faith and without question what he now represented as truth. I did accept his answers and no longer take large doses of Vitamin E daily.
Such juxtapositions of truths are not uncommon in our daily lives.
In the Roman Catholic Church, a change in popes usually produces some changes in long-held truths that are accepted by the faithful without question (or at least so in theory). The faithful, you see, accept as truth a belief that the pope is infallible and that which emanates from him is fact, including the discovery that some long-held truths were, in fact, false all along at worst or are simply no long truths, at best.
So it is that, be it in religion, government or our privates lives, acceptance of truths through faith — that is without question — leads to beliefs that sometimes are, indeed, not manifest as fact.
The life of untruth depends upon acceptance of a belief on faith and conversely, the death of untruth depends upon rejection of a belief by questioning.
On the other hand, the life of a truth can never be threatened by inquiry and, in the matter of a truth "trust me" has no currency.
Imagine my surprise when, during my last physical examination, this selfsame physician told me to stop taking large doses of Vitamin E daily. Why? Because he now represents a truth that taking large doses of Vitamin E daily can result in an increased chance of heart attack. This time I did not accept on faith and without question what he now represented as truth. I did accept his answers and no longer take large doses of Vitamin E daily.
Such juxtapositions of truths are not uncommon in our daily lives.
In the Roman Catholic Church, a change in popes usually produces some changes in long-held truths that are accepted by the faithful without question (or at least so in theory). The faithful, you see, accept as truth a belief that the pope is infallible and that which emanates from him is fact, including the discovery that some long-held truths were, in fact, false all along at worst or are simply no long truths, at best.
So it is that, be it in religion, government or our privates lives, acceptance of truths through faith — that is without question — leads to beliefs that sometimes are, indeed, not manifest as fact.
The life of untruth depends upon acceptance of a belief on faith and conversely, the death of untruth depends upon rejection of a belief by questioning.
On the other hand, the life of a truth can never be threatened by inquiry and, in the matter of a truth "trust me" has no currency.
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