WE BELIEVE WHAT WE WANT TO BELIEVE

Fake news. Conspiracy theories. Collusion. The moon landing was filmed on a Hollywood back lot. The world is flat. There was no Holocaust. There is no god/God. There is a God. There are many gods. Jesus was not God. Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus was not raised. The list is endless, is it not? Each of us can add to it. And we do.

We watch the news. Or do we? It has almost gotten to the point where we do not know what to believe or whom to believe. Perhaps it has always been that way. Truth hucksters have been around from time immemorial. The snake oil salesmen we see depicted in old cowboy movies are only one version of the snake oil salesmen today who are trying to sell us their version of the truth.

So how did they get away with it back then, all those back-thens? The same way they do today. How is that possible? Very simply: we believe what we want to believe. If we want to believe that that bottle of whatever it is can cure us of some malady, we’ll purchase the bottle, take the medicine and trust that it will work. If we want to believe what someone is telling us is the truth and that the opposite is not the truth, we will believe it trusting that the truth is being told.

When that snake oil turns out to be worthless and the truth we believed to be true turns out to be a lie, when reality sets in, then what? Whom do we now trust? Or does what happen is that we no longer trust anyone? It happens so easily. Someone we trust deceives us and we either wonder if we can now trust anyone or we become cynical when someone tells us that we can trust what is being said.

All that said, the bottom line still remains the same. We believe what we want to believe because what we want to believe fits who we are. If we want to believe that most people are good, we will be trusting. If we want to believe that everyone or the government or our boss is out to get us, we will believe that without any proof or because of some slight or because (fill in the blank).

And so when we turn on the news and we hear others asserting what we believe is false, we wonder how they came to believe that nonsense. They believe it because they want to believe it. And if they asked us why we believe what they consider nonsense, we would have to reply in the same way: we want to believe it.

So how do we know what to believe? How do we know what is the truth and who is telling the truth? Do all we have to go on is what we personally believe until the truth comes out as it always does sooner or later? As with what we believe about God, so with everything else we believe: the truth will all come out in the end. That’s not much consolation but it may all we have at the present moment in time.