Confronting Truth

When you are presented with a truth or fact that contradicts what you believe to be true, you have three choices. Accept it and change what you believe, deny it and claim it isn't true, or ignore it and refuse to acknowledge that you ever encountered the truth. This last option is really just another form of denial. Rarely we will even encounter something so counter to what we know or believe that our mind rejects it outright, our mind literally can't believe that it is true.

But what happens when we are faced with a choice that requires action? What then? What happens when we are faced with a moral choice, one that has to do with what we believe to be true? If you believe that taking a human life is wrong, would you kill in self defense? To defend another? What happens if you do kill someone? Again you have two basic choices, accept it or deny it. Denying an action is much harder than denying a thought or idea. You have taken action and hard as you might try you can never take that choice back. You might be able to deny and ignore it for a short while, but the longer you do the more it festers unresolved.

You can try to rationalize it. "I killed that person because I had too", "I stole the food because I was starving". Humans are masters of rationalization, many could rationalize any action if the need arose. But rationalization is like painting over rot, the rot remains, even if you can no longer see it. Perhaps you don't feel as bad about it because it's out of sight, but your house is still structurally unsound.

Alternately you can accept what you did, accept the choice you made and deal with the consequences. What ever choice you make, you must decide what you believe about the moral or truth involved. Is it still true? To decide to change your beliefs may ease your guilt or shame over the action you took, but denying a wrong choice to save yourself guild does so at the cost of your morality and truth.

If you believe there is no absolute truth or morality, this isn't much of a problem. But then if truth is relative, why did you hold to the initial moral standard you believed. If truth is relative why have standards, why draw a line at all.

If truth and morality are absolute and you decide to change what you believe, you sacrifice your moral character and fiber. You might be able to live with this at first but each time you give ground on your beliefs, your morality erodes away. Till finally after time you look at where you are and where you came from and you have a crisis of faith or belief. You must now face the shame of your actions and what you have become, or decide that your morals don't matter to you as much as you say or think they do. Each choice makes the next that much easier. It may not be that your choices run directly counter to your beliefs either, they may be only slight compromises. But it's just as easy to find yourself going the wrong way as a result of a chain of small compromises as it is from one big one.

What ever the cause you have to deal with the result of your actions, whether, sooner or later. Accept, rationalize or deny, your choices will catch up with you eventually, and when they do you have to face the emotional and mental conflict and strife they bring. Without forgiveness there is no way to escape it.