two.

Pascal may be right about our passions, emotions and pride hindering the perception of truth. We just recently finished readings/studying Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in AP English; some of the themes that we came up with were marriage, pride and prejudices, and appearance versus reality. Through her characters, Austen emphasizes the idea that appearances may not mean reality. When we first encounter Mr. Darcy, everyone in the country agrees that he is rude, arrogant and insufferably disagreeable, but as the story continues, we meet people who have known Darcy his entire life and they vouch for his character. Elizabeth Bennet, whom Darcy loves ardently despite the difference of her inferior society, dismisses him as a proud, unendurable man the first time she meets him at the ball. Towards the end of the book, Elizabeth realizes her judgments were completely off-based and incorrect but was completely blind to his sincerity because of her first impression, because of her passions, her bias, and her emotions.

It’s true that we create our own truths but this is only possible because truth is entirely relative. Two cars collide. Which crashed into which first? Who’s fault was it? The by-stander on the right says the blue car hit the red car first, but the by-stander on the left says the red car hit the blue car first. Who’s right? Which of the possibilities are more justified? The answer, really, is that they are equally justified. Certainly, there is only ONE ultimate truth, but unless we ARE God, unless we are omnipotent, we’ll never know what the truth is. So the truth for me, may not be the same for you. God may be true to me, but Allah may be true for you, or maybe you believe that there is no God. We as humans cannot determine the absolute truth and that is why we create our own.

What makes truth: Obviously there are some things that are black or white, yes or no. For example: Little Sammy cheated on a test, he either did or he didn’t right? The teacher saw him; he has exactly the same answers as his classmate, what else could be the truth? Essentially, Little Sammy either did or didn’t cheat on the test, that’s a yes or no situation. But unfortunately, life just doesn’t work that way. How can we justify our “truths” when it comes to more abstract situations then? Evidence. Evidence can come in forms of experience, of text, of social history. I mean, who are you to say that I didn’t experience what I experienced? Who am I to say that the miracles in your life never happened? Okay, so in the end, we’re not going to be able to agree on the absolute truth. We might never find out what the absolute truth is, but as long as we have a valid reason, then our truth is valid… right? Truth is abstract concepts like religion might never be accurate! Maybe they are! But we’ll never know… ah, how much faith is need in determining truth. The chances of us being right about anything are slim, but either way, we have to decide for ourselves what truth is. There’s no use in running, it’s inevitable.