All of us organize our lives around what we believe is true, and it makes our lives manageable and gives us some sense of control.
- It helps us deal with everything that is out of our control.
We have to make choices, draw conclusions, embrace beliefs that in the end are acts of faith.
- Both the person who trusts in reason and intellect and the person who trusts in faith and intuition, while coming to very different conclusions, are asking the same question: What is true?
- Reason and faith look very different but are more alike than we would care to admit.
- Faith and reason have a lot in common.
Everyone is a philosopher. What’s strange, though, is that we seem more motivated to create our own truth rather than search for it.
- It was Descartes’ – “I think, therefore I am.” Then we moved far past that to “I feel, therefore it’s true.”
- You hear this in our everyday language. We talk about our own personal truth, or we deflect another person’s opinion by saying, “Well, that’s just your truth.”
- Truth is now a personal possession.
- Where at one time we searched for truth, we now just create our own.
We have become increasingly incapable of knowing ourselves.
- Either giving up on truth or, even more dangerous, convincing ourselves that we are the source of truth.
Re-source: Revalidate
to declare valid again : to recognize or prove (something) anew as worthy or legitimate
When the human brain absorbs information, that information is one part data and six parts emotion.
- Everything we remember is wrapped around everything we experience.
- With emotions attached to an experience; the easier it is for us to retain the data
Personal experience could be defined as subjective validation.
- Instead of depending on our senses, we depend on our sensations.
- What is real is now determined not by what we can prove, but by what we experience.
- And it could be argued that the only real proof we have is experience.
- The difficulty is that we become our own source and validation for what is real – for what is true.
Emotions are as real as thoughts, ideas, or even knowledge.
- They’re just real in a different way.
- Our emotions can be a turbulent ocean constantly changing in response to our circumstances.
craving and resource from “Soul Cravings” by Erwin Raphael McManus
