If you talked to one historian, he might say the Germans broke the Versailles Pact, when they marched into the �Rhineland� in 1934. (It was a de-militarised zone, according to the terms of the pact.) That would be the truth.
Then you heard a German say, (With the Versailles pact in place, Germany would never have become ever again, a substantial nation). That too, would be the truth.
So, what is �Truth?� Conformity to fact, or actuality. A statement, proven to be, or accepted as the standard. Reality, actuality. Sincerity, integrity. Fidelity to an original, or a standard.
After going through a couple of sources, as to what truth means, what is in italics above, which is from the �American Heritage College Dictionary�, was the most concise, not filling a whole page, that one could lay hands on.
And your confusion, just as mine, would be deepened if you happened to be present when two ladies were brought to the office of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of an institution, in some part of the world, each trying to convince the CEO, who was the prosecutor and the judge on this occasion, that she was saying the truth.
As the defense went on bilaterally, and almost simultaneously, one of the ladies tried to impress upon the CEO that she could �swear she was not lying, because, in her faith lying does not exist.� She went on to say that her opponent was the one lying. They belonged to the two largest groups of believers in the West. You can imagine the situation the wrangle had put the CEO in.
Just imagine, the world was flat, and if you started from one end, and moved by whatever means, towards the East or the West, the North or towards the South, you would fall into a precipice, and you could no longer be helped.
This was the theological cum scientific credence before the 15th Century, when the Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, did not fall into an abyss, but instead landed on the large tract of land, later to be named America.
The �truth� that the world was flat ceased to be. Yet, another �truth� got established, that an object �heavier than air� could not fly. The Wright Brothers �disqualified� this myth in 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA. No truth! For many centuries, the truth was always on the side of Religion, and/or religious groups.
Victims of this maxim are definitely countless, but Galileo Galilee (1564-16420, who escaped being burned alive, but spent the rest of his life under house arrest, was perhaps luckier than the young French lady, Joan of Arc (only 20 years old), almost two hundred years earlier on, who was burned at the stake. She organised a resistance, which forced the English to end their siege on Orleans.
That was the truth, but her execution hinged on another kind of truth, which only the French Generals �might have known.� With the Spanish Inquisition, confessions were put in front of the victims, and they had to sign the �non-truth� as though it was the truth, Jews and Muslims died in their thousands. �Truth, established officially, for a purpose.� Artificial truth!
On a visit to any of the palaces that the Russian kings, (Czars) occupied, especially, the one in St. Petersburg, the city renamed Leningrad 1917, but later renamed yet again, St. Petersburg (associated with Peter I, Peter the Great, 1672-1725), you are impressed beyond limit.
One version of Russian history would establish that there was so much exploitation and oppression of the people, which was geared only to support the monarchy, only to live in opulence. Before you might swallow this as the truth, another historian from the same surrounding, would preach to you how illustrious Czarist Russia was (must have been).
Life was glamorous, the culture, architecture, science, music, all was the envy of the rest of Europe, not to talk of America. If you would lift up your head, and just try and observe the chandeliers in the ceiling, you must believe someone. But, whom? Who would be telling the truth?
From Egypt, Christians learn from childhood, from Biblical sources, how the brutal Pharaohs used Jewish manpower as slave labour to do everything, including building the pyramids, and tilling the land, just for the Pharaohs.
The story goes on to elaborate on how Moses was thrown unto the Nile waters, The continuation of the life of Moses, with all the ramifications, including the rescue of the Jewish people across the Red Sea, seems so true as to defy any attempt, even just to modify it.
But, documents translated from Hieroglyphics point out such entities as the Pharaoh having had a symbiotic rhythm with his subjects, whereby the level (height) of the Nile water was used to regulate the tilling of the land, and construction of the pyramids, in tandem, altogether, 97 of them, throughout the dynasties. It was not only the Pharaohs that got mummified. Any noble person could be mummified.
His fortunes had to meet the cost of the procedure, in which the brain, the intestines, and the lungs were taken out, and prepared (mummified). It stands (the ancient Egyptians taught the rest of the world, how to enter the cranium, �the skull�, through the nose).
This route is still utilised to resect some types of tumours of the pituitary gland, whose functions and dysfunctions, the ancient Egyptians seem to have understood solidly).
Then of course, one gets confused, having to believe that the whole point of the mummification was to prepare the dead for the after-life, which the ancient Egyptian so stoically adhered to. Try and compare the different costs of funerals, and the talented individuals hired to prepare, and sing the dirges in our Ghanaian setup.
Having gone through the tortuous route, we still have problems establishing what truth is indeed. In the scenario where the two subjects stood in front of their boss, it is alleged that one faith, (Christianity, Islam Judaism) would put in gigantic efforts to establish, that she, and only she, was telling the truth. The final authority, if there should have been one in our scenario, would be put in such an embarrassing situation, to believe the one, and not the other.
The wise King, in the Bible story, issued the order for the baby to be sawn into two halves, such that each woman would have one-half of a baby. That way, the truth came out.
In the Islamic Hadith, the Khaliff, in front of whom a man had been brought, with one of his eyes non-existent and alleged to have been injured by a wicked stranger, demanded to see the stranger, and be sure he did not have any injuries inflicted by the supposed victim, before him.
The truth, if it should be real, should be linked with justice. It should be divorced from prejudice. All of us, irrespective of our culture, our religion (even if there might be none), learn how bitter, when the truth cannot be established. In its purest form, truth must transcend all races, all cultures, and be faith-blind, or �faith-deaf�. To conclude, just read how one erudite philosopher summed it up.
�As scarce as truth is, the supply is always greater than the demand.�
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