compromise

  Occasionally on social media you do meet people that are like, reasonable people. We may have opposing views, starkly opposing views in fact, but manage to have a civil discourse nonetheless. That in itself is becoming an increasingly rare thing. There is one in particular that I do enjoy that relationship with. I will not mention anyone's name, that's not important. I don't wish to disparage anyone in a forum where they have no chance for rebuttal. I can't say whether this particular person reads these blogs or not. 

 Now, we have had a few conversations and it is apparent she is a liberal, democrat, progressive, thinking individual. She holds many views contrary to mine. She is of the Jewish faith and often invokes those tenants in her arguments which leaves me confused given her political views. The same confusion I get from a Christian that supports abortion. Still whatever the reasoning the discussion is always interesting to me and we usually just wind up exchanging a few pleasantries and going on our way. I equate our encounter to a car wreck, you hope no one got hurt, but you just have to look. I know we won't agree but I feel obliged to comment and she in return. 

 The other day we were engaged in such an exchange when she offered a piece of logic that surprised me. Now, remember I have had many discussion with this person, I am aware of her political leanings and social ideas, but this time it was different. We were discussing facts, just simple facts, indisputable, accepted facts. I had presented some facts that obviously she didn't agree with. Honestly I don't recall exactly what those fact or facts were. But that's not important. She began by saying we should all learn to compromise. I readily agreed with that, compromise is a good thing. Compromise or politics, the objective to me is interchangeable. It is how things get done, no argument from me on that one. But as I said, we were talking about facts. Facts are the truth is what I said in return. I asked then, should we then compromise on the truth? She assured me that is what we needed to do. I suggested that was wrong, that one should ever compromise on the truth! That was met with, but that is your truth, not mine. I agreed with that bit of logic. 

 Now this line of discussion seemed to irritate her just a bit. I sensed I had backed her into the proverbial corner. I questioned how does one go bout compromising on the truth. She really had no response for that instead deferring to some scripture concerning that. I believe she called it "emeth" A later google search tells me that is Jewish for absolute truth. I have to admit she got me there, I hadn't heard of that before. In the end we decided that truth, fact, faith, and belief are all related to one another. The only thing that separates them is opinion. With that being established we once again exchanged pleasantries and called it a day. 

 After having this discussion I did do some thinking about all of that. It seems to me that is what happens all too often today. Facts are ignored, facts are set aside in favor of opinion. When we adopt our opinion as our truth, the result is chaos. And that is simply because we decide to compromise on the truth. We aren't happy with the truth for one reason or another and strike up a compromise. The real question is how much are you willing to compromise? I believe there is absolute truth, although a good many far more intellectual people than myself would disagree with that. God, in whatever form or name you wish to use, is absolute truth because it is something outside of ourselves. My only claim is that absolute truth exists. The truth isn't dependent upon public opinion or popularity. The truth simply exists. What I was trying to say was, when you know the truth, you shouldn't compromise. 

 The truth does exist, as a separate entity, outside of our ourselves. We acknowledge that in many different ways. That is the reason there are so many religious practices, beliefs, myths, legends and those searching for proof. The struggle is to fit that truth into reality. Reality is quite different than truth. When we choose, and it is a choice, to allow truth to co-exist with reality it brings peace to us on an individual level. That isn't necessarily so on a larger social level. The truth of the group is not always the truth of the individual. It is in that spectrum that compromise exists. How much truth do you know, and how much truth are you willing to compromise? 

 All religious texts attempt to define truth. They do so by instruction. Do this and don't do that. Is that all there is to the truth, obedience? The two texts I am somewhat familiar with seem to indicate just that. The Bible, both Testaments and the Quran all stress obedience as the means to salvation. What are we being saved from? Ourselves is the answer. It is our choices that will determine our fate. Those texts merely inform you on what the correct choices are. We are told that the Bible is the word of God and therefore the complete truth. The Quran was dictated to Mohamed. Really it is the same story as the Bible with a few added chapters that Mohamed felt necessary. They are his instructions, his version of the truth. So is obedience the truth? If it is, obedient to what? Obedient to the truth! 

 The truth resides as a separate entity. The truth, as written down, is subject to revision. That certainly appears to be the case, more so today than any time I can recall. I do remember some years back discovering my church, the episcopal church, had revised the Book of Common Prayer. The edition of that prayer book I had grown up with, been told was the right way, had been modified in some fashion. It had become outdated. Now I realize that isn't the Bible but it was instruction. It was the how-to manual. Guess we don't do it that way anymore. But there has always existed a certain degree of incongruity between the written instructions and reality. Maybe that is because we can't know the truth until that truth becomes reality. Is truth achieved through compromise? I don't think so.