Faith

Life is all about faith, whether we wish it to be or not. Most of the "facts" that we "know" we have not experienced firsthand, and therefore we have faith in the source to relay to us the truth. We have faith in them, that they are not trying to trick us, that they're not trying to make fools of us. It is because of this trust, this faith, that many crimes happen. Yet it is not possible to live without faith. If we were to trust nothing, not even what our own sense tell us, how can we do anything? If we go back to Descartes' brain in a vat idea, what we see, what we touch, what we experience might not even be true. But in order to live, we must have the faith that it is true. Faith in what is seen, faith in what is not seen.

This whole idea of truth has become a tricky topic for me in the past while. When I read something, especially in the news, how do I know that it is true? Even an article that was once written about me had 9 falsities in it. I have heard it time and again of people that have been in situations that were documented by the news, and the truth has been stretched, twisted or even ignored! So why read the news if I know that most of it cannot be trusted? I watched a video once about "slavery in Canada". The producer had the idea that what was written in our history books was not entirely the truth. They wrote a story that they wanted to be true, and now that is what we believe. We had faith in the authors that they were telling us the truth, and according to this person, it isn't truth at all.

I have also been noticing that science is not truth either. Science is still full of mysteries, and experiments are manipulated to find the answers the experimenter is looking for. Science cannot study something that we are still not fully aware of. Even in the social sciences, people study and spend their life researching something. They pour their whole lives into something, and yet no one can agree on it. What seems like obvious truth to one is heresy to another. Maybe this is why people are religious. It is not so big of a step to believe something totally unbelievable when we do it every day. Who is to say that it is true that anything we know is true? Truth is relative. Truth changes over time. If I say on May 20 "I am going to study at UBC this fall". It is true at the time. I have chosen my courses, paid my fees etc. August roles around and I find that my finances can't support such a costly tuition, so I switch to UFV. My statement on May 20 is no longer true, but it was true at the time. Truth is not infinite.

Why believe anything? Because it is necessary. Without faith we cannot live. We could not trust the food we eat, the air we breathe, the things we see, the things we hear, that the chair we are sitting on is real and will continue to support us.