The Emotion of Truth: 1

I heard from some friends about the King David Hotel story. I can only say that in my view, not all Israelis are good and not all Arabs are bad. That's the point. If it is beyond your comprehension, too bad. The simplicity of the view in the USA that all Israel: good; all Arab: bad; verges on being simple-minded. This results in today's story about the British Foreign Secretary protesting the US use of Prestwick Airport in western Scotland to transport bombs to Israel while the rest of the world is trying to limit the strife. Recently I spoke to some people who were discussing religion. They were of the opinion that Islam was too violent and possibly a bit infra dig for them. So was Christianity that had its history of religious wars to drag along like Marley's chains. They thought the best bet was a Far Eastern religion, such as Buddhism. They were obviously thinking of the Dalai Lama. I pointed out that our experience of Islam comes through the western media, our experience of Christianity is our own, so we intimately know all the dirt of the Christian churches, but our experience of Buddhism, say, is solely restricted to writings and speeches of university educated people to whom we are already sympathetic. I mean to say, we do not read the works of the Dalai Lama to prove that he is a scoundrel and his faith a sham, a process some of us indulge in when it comes to Islam. Not all Buddhists are smiling. The point of this is that when we have sought Truth, and we have diligently applied ourselves to a verification of Truth, and finally are convinced of Truth, we feel an emotional conviction and surety of that Truth. So the truth of X leads to a feeling of certainty associated with X. But the converse is not valid. A feeling of certainty of X does not imply that X is true. (note: I do not include propositions of Faith in this discussion. ) The process to which we are subject is a lifetime of propaganda from our elite and media used to train us to certain beliefs. Since there is not thoroughgoing verification of any of this, the aim is to instill a feeling of certainty. Once we feel the certainty, we conclude that the propositions must be true. By feeling certain that the USA and Israel are always correct, that Israel is God's nation and our country has a special relationship with the God of Israel, we accept these statements uncritically. I know this process is faulty and is a result of invalid emotional logic. As a child, my religious education included the propositions that everyone who is not a Roman Catholic is destined to Hell. I found this hard to accept, particularly since my neighborhood chums included Protestants, whom we referred to as "publics" , meaning they attended public schools. The earliest blessing of understanding I can remember was when I realized that my emotional state of truth and conviction and certainty in my own redemption by being a member of the RC Church must be duplicated, almost entirely, within the lives of my Protestant friends. In other words, if my certainty implies the truth of my beliefs, the certainty felt by Protestants must imply the truth of their beliefs. The logic of it all was overwhelming. The validity of this insight, or gift of understanding from God, was reaffirmed by the fact that the only source of verification was the Bible and both sides had recourse to it, so this was not an unambiguous verification procedure. So we firmly believe, then, statements which cannot be proven true nor false, and we do it based on the basis of previous beliefs. These previous beliefs bestow the feeling of certainty as they encompass unproveable statements into their emotional one-ness.