I Want to Know the Truth!

In February 2016 actress Amanda Peet appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The conversation was the typical general chitchat, but eventually took a turn towards discussing, of all things - death. Eventually, Mr. Colbert asked her what she worries about, and she said that she fears death. 

  o   Colbert: “We all die… Maybe you’ll go to heaven”

  o   Amanda Peet: “I want to know what to believe in!”

  o   Colbert: “Like what happens after you die?”

  o   Amanda Peet: “Yes!  I don’t want to become a bag of dust!”

The Media quickly pounced on her “outburst” as captured in a news title a day or so later: “Amanda Peet has Existential Meltdown on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” – Title of short clip on Yahoo News 2/19/16

While actors and actresses are very, very good, at concealing who they really are and at playing a part that represents someone else who is not themselves, we all know that the better they are at doing so, the more highly compensated they are. In a seemingly lighthearted way, Ms. Peet was actually revealing something very serious deep inside her own soul.

When she asked, “I want to know what to believe in,” she put forth a question that countless millions of people at some point seek an answer for. This question has been asked and answered in so many different ways throughout the ages, that it is understandable how such total and utter confusion could lead someone to believe that you could never know the truth. This is certainly reflected in the myriad of religions, sects, denominations, beliefs, and even cults. The list is endless. Everyone seems to claim to have and to know the truth. Probably one of the more famous cults in modern history was The Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones where he led a mass murder/suicide of 918 of his followers in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18th, 1978. This is a perfect example of towards 1000 lost people, following a lost leader, to a lost eternity. Most of them firmly believed that Jim Jones held the truth and paid for it with their very lives. 

Another cult, though not so famous, was “Heaven’s Gate” where on March 26, 1990, thirty-nine people participated in a mass suicide in order to reach what they believed would secure them a seat on an extraterrestrial spacecraft ride following the Hale-Bopp comet for a ride into heaven. …Okay…Now while the greatest majority of the human race would think this is ridiculous, these 39 people believed that their leader, Marshall Applewhite, held the truth, and again, lost people followed a lost leader, into a lost eternity. Not to mention David Koresh, Charles Manson, and numerous “wolves in sheep’s clothing” throughout the ages. But what about all of the “mainstream” religions throughout the world; Islam, Shintoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and every other kind of ism that man can devise? Surely every single one of them would certainly claim that they know the “truth.”

A look at a dictionary definition of the word Truth:

·      conformity with fact or reality

·      a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, visible, or the like

·      an obvious or accepted fact

Quite interestingly, regarding “religion,” this leaves things quite open to one’s own interpretation of what they want to believe. One person’s reality concerning this matter can be in total opposition to another person’s reality. There is a principal called “The Law of non-Contradiction” which simply explained is:

·      Either I am right, and you are wrong,

·      Or you are right, and I am wrong,

·      Or we are both wrong.

·      But we bothcan’t be right.

Can we reallydecide for ourselves what the truth is? Can the truth really be known? With all of the religions, and ideas, and concepts of truth in the world, all of them cannot be right. Only one can be. So, which one is it? Let’s continue these thoughts tomorrow. Mike Engel