There is a dichotomy in this world. A good and an evil, blended together to make it very hard to tell the two apart. I believe in absolute truth. One that nature was based in- which, to me, is what inspires us to think and allows us to. Absolute truth is what is good, and I do not believe it changes based on the culture that surrounds us, but I do believe that different situations call for different, loving responses. The correct way to deal with a situation, a way that is beneficial not just over the short term but in the long term is what I believe to be absolute truth.
No one can claim that they know without a doubt, what is best in a given situation. Absolute truth coexists with pure evil, making it very hard to tell the two apart. Pure evil, which may sound like a lofty term; I use in reference of actions like lying, which, when believed, causes what is true to not be seen anymore. What is true in an instance like, "is the sky blue?" or "is the grass green?" Is always going to be based on perception. But does that change the fundamental root of the existence of the sky or the grass? Whatever it is, it is. So taking action in this life requires faith, either in what you have seen happen in this world, or by what you have heard or thought could work better. Both require a certain amount of trust.
Trusting what you have seen work in this world is in interesting concept, it means that you are observing the world in it's state of polar imbalance, where both the good and the bad are being absorbed. Any action that you make in reference to what you have seen is based on how you distinguish between what the good and what the evil is in your life. Nothing changes in the way you act unless what you have faith in changes. Like if you have faith that someone is telling the truth, but they are actually lying to you, you will believe it until you stop having faith in what they say.
Losing faith is what happens to us as we grow older, when we are children, we have no reason to believe anyone is telling a lie or that anything isn't true. As we grow older, we start recognizing contradictions in the things people say and then in what they do. That is why I lost my faith in people; after being betrayed by other people's lies and even betraying myself by submitting to desires that did not play out in a way that satisfied me, I lost faith, not only in others, but in myself. One cannot write off the entirety of humanity just because of a single lie though. There is much good as well as evil in someone's perspective. There are many things we do know, and there are many things we don't know. It would be awful to write off the things someone knows, simply because you trusted them when they said something they only thought they knew, When, in turn, based on your life experiences and what you know, it doesn't appear to be true.
It's hard to understand why we can be wrong. And even if one doesn't believe that there is anything wrong, how can one account for another's belief that there is wrong? That, in itself, would be a wrong belief.
Either way, our vision and ability to see more of life broadens as we have more experiences and see more angles. But that is not necessarily the cure for being able to distinguish what is right or wrong. Still, there are many gaps in our vision that we fill in, by faith. And if our faith is in anything of this world, we will be embracing both the good and the bad together. Which, they do both exist, but we do not need to embrace (or base our actions on the bad) we need only to recognize that it exists in order for us to do good, without being disappointed that we aren't always receiving good in return. What is bad will always pollute what is good, just through it's coexistence.
That is a concept I believe is portrayed in the crucifixion of Christ. Not many people deny that he existed or that he was a good man, yet he definitely did not receive good in return. Nor did Martin Luther King, or John F. Kennedy. Many others have been killed because one or a group of peoples' limited perspective disagreed with another's perspective.
Faith in what we have seen allows us to function, if we do not trust what we have seen, we will not be able to do anything. For me, I've often recognized that it's very hard for me to deal with reality. For instance, I ask myself all the time "if life is good, why am I in chronic pain?" I believe now that I am working towards understanding that, and the more that I have faith again, in what I have seen, the more I continue to learn what is good and what is bad. Some lies are deeply rooted into my core beliefs though. Is there anyone who will deny that the Westboro Baptist family that consistently degrades other people's existence is fundamentally wrong? My core beliefs are just as shaken by what I have accepted or rejected in this world. That is another fear of mine that consistently stops me from acting on my impulses- I am afraid that my pursuit of truth isn't even enough to purify me of the cracks in my "foundation."
What is true? Many philosophers have asked that question, but once again, anyone who lives has been chronically exposed to a shifting mix of what is true and what isn't. In order to establish a concept of absolute truth requires a great risk. Faith becomes less about believing what you have seen, and more about believing what you have never seen, which is pure, absolute truth. To accept anything as absolute truth, we are no longer believing what we have seen, we are merely trusting that it is out there in some form or another. Thus, religion is born, and people no longer live life based on a limited perspective, they live life based on a gamble that either they are following the one, true, perspective, or they are denying everything they have seen for a perspective that is not based on what they have seen, which may actually be nothing at all.
I believe there is an absolute truth, I'll say it again; but I also believe that that truth is evident in this world. I cling to my own belief in the Bible, not to the point that I disregard the things I have seen (for whether anything is good or evil, it is identifiable and addressed in the Bible) but to the point that I am always recognizing where actions and thoughts fall on the scale of what is good or bad. I am confident that God does not ask us as people to do anything but love him for being absolute truth, making it accessible through the life of Jesus Christ, and to live in the world around us in a way that asks the question: how is God right?
