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I am forever pondering the nature of reality, the subjective nature of reality, the way our perceptions tend to influence our perspective. Facts can be stubborn things and yet “facts” are not necessarily “truth,” because facts must pass through our filters of prejudice, bias, and experience. Most of us tend to begin with facts…and than leap to conclusions, with little or no analysis at all. It is like leaping from point A to point X and than wondering why we got the answer to the equation so wrong.

The shortest distance between two points is not….let’s just by pass all the icky stuff and claim to have all the answers. Well, that actually is the shortest route, as in intellectually short and somewhat emotionally lazy.

Scripture verifies this problem with human nature, this limitation on our ability to perceive facts accurately. We are subjective creatures, receiving data and forming conclusions and our conclusions are not always rooted in truth. Our eyes can deceive us, as can our brains and our hearts. I like to point out, “the heart is wicked above all else,who can know it,” but conversely, “lean not into your own understanding,” because our brains aren’t much better. Doomed I tell ya, we are doomed…..if we are trying to seek the Truth under our own steam.

Scripture speaks to us of the need to have two or more witnesses when accusing someone of a crime. Our own modern legal system revolves around that same idea, one person’s perception is not enough, there must be some corroborating evidence before we hang someone out to dry. That is becasue perception is not always an accurate representation of the facts. Scripture also speaks of how “if two or more are gathered in my name,” we have agreement,we have a quorum of sorts. The bible understands the nature of people so well, certainly better than we understand our own selves.

Men and women can be a bit differant here sometimes, and heck, that is a rather delightful thing, one of life’s great pleasures, but men do have a tendancy to focus in on their prey, to zero in on their own reason, a more black and white perception of the facts. They can be less inclined to see the paradoxes within our perceptons of reality. It is not an absolute, there are some variations and individuality at play, but in general a whole lot of men actually pride themselves on their ability to say, “just the facts Ma’am,” as if the facts are always cut and dry, easily determined and so the conclusion must be easily determined too, and the solution therefore rather obvious to anyone with half a brain. Like the moon landing was obviously a grand conspiracy…..

All in good fun here, but since I am revealing deep seated secrets about men, in the name of fairness I must reveal secrets about women, as in “good grief girl, you are floating so far out in the stratosphere of feeling and emotions, past experiences and personal prejudices, I cannot even discern the facts in what you are saying anymore!” What is truth? Well, let me just put a pancake on my rabbit here and we’ll get to the bottom of this…

Of course, the world is far more diverse than simply men and women, nor can it be accurately portrayed by these extreme examples of some potential gender differences. There are a myriad of other factors at play too, culture, biases, prejudices, personal experiences. But my point is, “most of us tend to begin with facts…and than leap to conclusions, with little or no analysis at all.” That condition has become absolutely epidemic within our culture. We have become like a herd of reactionaries, bouncing from one offense to the next, as if we possess the truth due to our vastly superior reasoning skills. It’s the rest of the world that is stupid.

Don’t do that, it’s foolish and it leads one to false conclusions about the “facts,” as is easily demonstrated by those on the internet who have invested themselves in both the idea that the moon landing was fake and in and odd twist, foolish notions around white nationalism.