Discerning Truth from Falsehood

A friend of mine introduced me to a series of videos called "How It's Actually Made" in which videos of actual production processes are shown with narration that seems to be a humorous blend of truth, exaggeration, and often obvious jokes. The purpose of these videos is clearly to be entertaining, but the fact that actual production processes are shown, along with the fact that there are some truths in the narration, make these videos slightly educational as well. The tricky part is trying to discern the actual truths from the not-always-obvious falsehoods, and I've found that it's best to err on the side of caution and to not fully trust anything the narrator says.

Unfortunately, a lot of life is like that. When people talk, even when they're trying to be honest, not everything they say is going to be true, and it can sometimes be hard to discern the truths from the falsehoods. Thankfully, the same rule of thumb applies. As long as we take everything we heard and read with a grain of salt, we can try to avoid the trap of accidentally accepting as true a belief that is actually false.

Even more disturbingly, this can even happen at church. No one is perfect. Sometimes, people misspeak, misinterpret sacred text, or come to plausible but false conclusions. Even the sacred texts may not be free from error, as translations from one language to another sometimes lose or alter the meanings of words and phrases due to the fact that an idea that can be expressed in one language may not be able to be expressed clearly in another, and there is always the possibility of misinterpretation.

This is why it is so vital to try too develop the Spirit of Discernment, so the Spirit can help us sort divine truths from accidental (or humorously intentional) falsehoods. But even here, we must be careful. It can be difficult to discern the voice of the Spirit, and it's possible to confuse the voice of the Spirit with our own thoughts or perhaps even the voices of other spirits. It's difficult, if not impossible, to know whether the voice of the Spirit is truly the voice of the Holy Spirit confirming the truth of something that is actually true, or whether the voice is actually the voice of a deceiver, "confirming" the "truth" of something that is actually false.

Thankfully, I take some comfort in knowing that God can make obvious that which is important to get right. God often speaks through a still, small voice, but He can speak louder when He has to. If it is truly, vitally necessary for us to know the truth of something, He can make it plain in ways that cannot be misheard or misunderstood.

It's frightening that it can be nearly impossible to discern truth from falsehood in certain situations, but I'm glad to know that, if God knew it was important for us to know the absolute truth, He can make it practically impossible not to.

Heaviness and Levity

In my discussions with other people, we often explore heavy topics. The world has many problems, and to even begin to become part of the solution to any of those problems, we need to understand them, and for people other than those conducting the actual research on those subjects, the main ways to understand such problems are to read about them and discuss them. Naturally, this gets heavy. Dwelling on such dark topics for long enough is bound to darken one's mood. Yet, it is possible to counteract this darkness with a touch of light-heartedness. We can use humor, fun, and levity to lighten an otherwise dour and heavy mood. While the world can be depressing, the world also offers many anti-depressants that can help us rise above the despair of hopelessness and maintain the motivation to actually work toward solving the world's problems, rather than merely lamenting the fact that they exist.

With as heavy as the world often is, and especially given how crushing it can be to bear the weight of the world, it can be helpful to use occasional moments of levity to lift our spirits and lighten the load.

The Right Amount of Challenge

Most games have difficulty settings. Usually, games can be set to Easy, Normal, or Hard, though other difficulty settings that are especially easy or especially hard aren't unheard of. In addition, games can be made harder or easier by how they're played. Players can use certain playstyles and abilities to make the game easier, or they can restrict themselves to more difficult playstyles or making themselves to meet additional requirements to make the game harder. Through the use of various settings, abilities, and playstyles, players can adjust the game's difficulty until it's just right for the experience they want, so it's challenging enough to be rewarding and easy enough to not be frustrating.

Life's not quite like that. Sure, we can make life easier for ourselves by using more effective playstyles and abilities, and we can make life harder for ourselves by limiting ourselves to less effective playstyles, making ourselves meet additional requirements, or giving ourselves handicaps, but we are unable to adjust the difficulty settings of life. That's God's job.

God gives people tougher challenges because He knows who's tough enough to handle them. He teaches us the most effective playstyle, so we can play at the top of our game. He asks us to meet additional requirements, but He offers us additional assistance when we do. By adjusting the levels of challenges and assistance He gives us, God can adjust the difficulty settings or each of our individual lives until they are just right for each of us. By adjusting the difficulty of our lives, He can give life just the right amount of challenge for everyone, enough to make us work and grow, but little enough that we can actually rise to the challenge and, with His help, win.

Sometimes, life is challenging. But if we follow the right playstyle and make good use of the abilities we've been given, we may find that, thanks to God's influence, our lives give us just the right amount of challenge.

No Solo Solutions

We can't solve all the world's problems. There are too many of them, and many of them are too complicated for us to find viable solutions. Instead, it makes far more sense to solve the few problems we can solve, work gradually or incrementally toward solutions to the problems we can't solve yet, and trust God and humanity to take care of the rest. We all have human limitations and weaknesses. We can't do everything by ourselves. Luckily, all God ever asks of us is that we do what we can. As long as we each do our part, and God does His, we can trust that everything will be made right in the end.

To Respect Those We Think Are Wrong

In Elders' Quorum today, we were talking about how to be peacemakers, and specifically how we can make peace with the people who disagree with us. To that end, I think that respect and empathy go a long way. Part of that includes trying to understand their perspective, just as we try to help them understand ours. Naturally, we want them to understand that we believe that life begins at conception and that all human lives are sacred, not to be discarded on a whim. But if we're going to have productive conversations with those on the other side of the debate, we also need to recognize that many people don't consider embryos full individuals until later in their development, and their hearts go out to the usually young women who are often not ready to be mothers and who would not be able to provide stable homes for their children. It's all well and good to try to calmly explain our position, but we should try to understand theirs as well.

That's why I cringed a bit when I heard the other elders talking about the importance of defending the truths we hold dear. Not everyone agrees on what the truth is. Other people also have truths that they want us to respect, including truths that we call falsehoods, just as they question the validity of our truths. If our aim is have peaceful relationships with the people we disagree with, it's probably best not to start (or even continue) arguments about who's right and who's wrong. Rather, I think the best we can do is to agree to disagree on certain topics and to try to maintain mutual respect, empathy, and love.

We won't always agree with each other about what is true or what should be allowed or forbidden. But those disagreements don't have to cause arguments. We can learn to live peacefully with people we think are misguided sinners, just as they can learn to live peacefully with us delusional religious folk. We don't have to be enemies just because we think each other are wrong. We can try to respect each other's beliefs and decisions, acknowledging that each of us has agency, including the agency to choose what we believe, what evidence we accept, and how we interpret the evidence with which we are presented. We don't have to try to tear down or criticize each other's beliefs. Rather, we can learn to accept our differences of opinion and behavior and to respect each other anyway.

"Abandon Challenge"

I'm currently playing a game called Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and I recently ran into a challenge with one of the bosses. At a certain point in the boss fight, the arena fills up with water, and since I can only use my healing move while standing on solid ground, this mean that I couldn't heal. Rather than fight this boss dozens of times, I decided to backtrack and explore other areas first, to gather the resources I needed in order to increase my strength and find alternative methods of healing. According to the game, I "Abandoned [the] Challenge," but that was something I needed to do in order to come back and face the challenge with a better chance of winning.

Sometimes, challenges will prove too much for us, and we will need to improve our strength, skill, and/or strategy before it is wise to try again. That's not quitting, and it's not "Abandon[ing the] Challenge," at least not permanently. It's just recognizing and taking the next necessary step toward overcoming the challenge.

May the Right Ideas Win

I've had a handful of conversations about this whole repealing Roe vs Wade thing, and one thing that struck me is that each side thinks it has the obvious moral high ground. Some people are horrified that people would interfere with women's medical and reproductive freedoms. Others are horrified that people would condone and support murdering babies. Naturally, most situations are incredibly complicated, but many people simplify the entire conversation into clear, black and white morality, with their side, whichever that is, being the one that's clearly morally right. Everyone thinks that they're doing the right thing, but they can't all be right.

This is a thorny issue, and many of my moral maxims are coming into conflict with each other, and with themselves. I believe in preserving freedom, but I also believe in preserving life. My favorite maxim is "Live and Let Live," but it's terribly unclear how to apply that maxim in this case. I want the right ideas to (have?) prevail(ed?), but it isn't clear to me which ideas those are, even though it seems perfectly (conflictingly) obvious to almost everyone else.

I think I need to wash my hands of this whole situation. It seems clear to me that some abortions are clearly morally justified, and others are clearly not. But it's hard to know where to draw the line, and I'm not even sure who should be the ones to draw that line. And, since each situation is different, it's really hard for me to judge the concept of abortions in general. I'm not simply Pro-Life or Pro-Choice. I think that both life and freedom are extremely important. But when those ideals come into conflict with each other, I either need to judge which one is more important to me, or I need to reserve judgement altogether.

So, I'm staying on the fence on this one. Lots of people have chosen sides, and they all believe they have chosen the right side. But, whomever's right, I hope the right ideas win.