Truth or Happiness?

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arey051012

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Suppose you are given a choice between believing an unhappy truth or believing a happy untruth (which you believe to be true). In general, which would you normally choose?
 
If I believe a happy untruth is really true then, of course, I would choose that one. Guess If I believed it to be true then someone would have to show me proof positive that I’m wrong.
 
Truth.

Of course, I think making this an either/or scenario is kind of unfair. But, it is your hypothetical, so whatever:p .
 
pigtown said:
If I believe a happy untruth is really true then, of course, I would choose that one. Guess If I believed it to be true then someone would have to show me proof positive that I’m wrong.
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But given that the untruth makes you happy, would you still want the contradictory evidence?
 
Two scenarios came to mind when I read your poll.
  1. A person has a strange growth on some part of the body, he could choose to believe it’s just a big ugly wart (happy untruth) even though he knows it might not be, or he could go to the doctor and find out what it really is and discover it is a dangerous form of skin cancer (unhappy truth). The result is he dies from the happy untruth when he could have survived if he had accepted the unhappy truth.
  2. A person has cancer and is being treated for it. The doctor knows that the odds of survival are 95% against, but he doesn’t tell the the patient because he feels a positive attitude is important. So the patient is left with optimism (happy untruth) instead of knowing that death is at the doorstep (unhappy truth) and the opportunity to prepare his affairs, his family and his soul for death.
My opinion, I’ll go for the unhappy truth every time.
 
Marsha_Adams said:
Two scenarios came to mind when I read your poll.
  1. A person has a strange growth on some part of the body, he could choose to believe it’s just a big ugly wart (happy untruth) even though he knows it might not be, or he could go to the doctor and find out what it really is and discover it is a dangerous form of skin cancer (unhappy truth). The result is he dies from the happy untruth when he could have survived if he had accepted the unhappy truth.
  2. A person has cancer and is being treated for it. The doctor knows that the odds of survival are 95% against, but he doesn’t tell the the patient because he feels a positive attitude is important. So the patient is left with optimism (happy untruth) instead of knowing that death is at the doorstep (unhappy truth) and the opportunity to prepare his affairs, his family and his soul for death.
My opinion, I’ll go for the unhappy truth every time.
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In both of these scenarios, the happy untruth eventually becomes unhappy. Suppose that this weren’t the case, and that the happy untruth actually keeps you happy for the rest of your life. Will you then still choose the unhappy truth?
 
arey051012 said:
In both of these scenarios, the happy untruth eventually becomes unhappy. Suppose that this weren’t the case, and that the happy untruth actually keeps you happy for the rest of your life. Will you then still choose the unhappy truth?
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I could be really wrong here, but I don’t believe that a happy untruth will ever **keep **you happy. It will always come out and it will always have consequences. The underlying reason for this is the source. Fruit will never fall far from the tree, bad tree gets bad fruit. The source of all untruth whether happy or unhappy is the devil, AKA the Father of All Lies. The source of truth whether happy or unhappy is Jesus, AKA the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Now, I’ve just got to believe that happy or unhappy if something comes from Jesus it is good and if it comes from the devil it is bad.

Can you give me an example of a happy untruth that can keep you happy for the rest of your life?
 
arey051012 said:
In both of these scenarios, the happy untruth eventually becomes unhappy. Suppose that this weren’t the case, and that the happy untruth actually keeps you happy for the rest of your life. Will you then still choose the unhappy truth?
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The purpose of life isn’t to get through it in blissful naivete. The purpose of life is to be good, to become a saint. That goal is made more and more possible the better you understand God. If God is Truth, then you need to know the truth to know God, and knowing untruth makes you know God falsely. Hence, even if the truth is unhappy, it is counter to the purpose of life to prefer untruth to it.
 
Another way to phrase this question is:

If someone came to you and told you, “One of the things you believe makes you happy, but it is wrong, and I can give you evidence against it which, if you believe it, will make you unhappy.” Would you want to know?
 
arey051012 said:
Another way to phrase this question is:

If someone came to you and told you, “One of the things you believe makes you happy, but it is wrong, and I can give you evidence against it which, if you believe it, will make you unhappy.” Would you want to know?
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Okay, here are a couple of examples.
  1. You are blissfully happy with your husband who you believe adores you and is a faithful, loving and dutiful husband and father. In fact, this is a happy untruth, he has three other wives each with three children, and he is hiding the fact that he is secretly hiding a huge amount of death trying to support them all. Any day now, this mountain of debt is going to come crashing down, you and these three other women are going to lose your homes and with your children be destitute. If someone had told you this unhappy truth a few years ago you and your children would have been able to extracate yourselves from this trap before losing everything.
  2. You are a member of a wonderful protestant denomination which you believe (happy untruth) to be the True Church. It teaches once saved only saved, so you don’t worry about your sins. It is a source of joy to you because of its feel good services and its rockin’ choir, and its many social activities. It teaches you that God is pleased with you because you are economically well off, so you know that your sins are no biggie. No one ever tells you about the One Holy Apostolic Catholic Church that you need to receive the sacraments and repent of your sins (unhappy truth). You die and God judges you for your sins which you thought were no problem because you believed once saved always saved.
No, unhappy truth is always better than a happy untruth.
 
arey051012 said:
Another way to phrase this question is:

If someone came to you and told you, “One of the things you believe makes you happy, but it is wrong, and I can give you evidence against it which, if you believe it, will make you unhappy.” Would you want to know?
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I understood what you were asking the first time. I’m not going to give you a different answer just because you rephrased. So yes, I would like to know.
 
BlaineTog said:
I understood what you were asking the first time. I’m not going to give you a different answer just because you rephrased. So yes, I would like to know.
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Sorry, my post wasn’t directed at you. I was trying to make the question less abstract.
 
I think ti depends on what trueth is being taught. I accept all trueths taught by the catholic church, so, if it was an unhappy trueth, I would accept it.
 
Unhappy truth all the way.

Look at it this way:

An unhappy truth obviously starts out bad, and in the end it is better that you knew the truth. Example:
You have cancer and the doctor tells you that you have little chance of survival. Now you can prepare your soul for what comes after the death- hopefully Heaven. Because of full repentance etc. you are able to have eternal life happily with God.

Now, a happy untruth starts out good and turns bad as a result of not knowing the truth. Example:
You have cancer and have little chance of survival-BUT. The doctor doesn’t tell you and so you do not prepare yourself for judgement. When you die, because of incomplete preparation for God, you are not fit for Heaven and do not go there. Instead, it is Purgatory or Hell.

Now, which is better in the long run- unhappy truth or happy untruth?

–Rachael
 
Accepting the happy untruth could quite easily be linked with selfishness- in the way that we are content to sacrifice eternal life with God in order to please ourselves on such irrelevant grounds.

Psalm 26:3
“for your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth.”

The truth leads us to God! WHY would anyone be willing to sacrifice HEAVEN and ETERNAL HAPPINESS for ONE MINUTE OF PLEASURE?

Jesus said:

John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Denying the truth is denying God. Even truth in insignificant matters is God’s truth!

Logical explanation for those of you who appreciate logic:😛

GOD = TRUTH

DENYING TRUTH = DENYING GOD

Just my opinion- but in my opinion, truth. 😛
 
This is an interesting question. This has been very one-sided so far. All the examples given so far have the untruth coming back to bite you in the behind, but I have a better example:

You are 8 years old. Your family pet dies, but you don’t know about it yet. Your parents tell you some cover story about the pet going to live with someone else, or some such thing to spare you the emotional distress.

Did they do the right thing, or should they have told you the painful truth? You have nothing to gain by knowing your pet’s true fate, it can only hurt you.
 
Caesar517 said:
This is an interesting question. This has been very one-sided so far. All the examples given so far have the untruth coming back to bite you in the behind, but I have a better example:

You are 8 years old. Your family pet dies, but you don’t know about it yet. Your parents tell you some cover story about the pet going to live with someone else, or some such thing to spare you the emotional distress.

Did they do the right thing, or should they have told you the painful truth? You have nothing to gain by knowing your pet’s true fate, it can only hurt you.
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No, this is still not quite right, because wouldn’t it be better for the 8-year old to know the truth so that they can understand life’s ways better?

During my childhood I had seven guinea pigs over about 5 years. The first five of them died, and by the time the last two of those 5 died I was more accepting of their death and understood how to cope with the loss. We couldn’t look after our last two well and so we gave them away. This was very hard for me because even though their new owners looked like nice people, we just couldn’t be sure what would happen to them once they were out of our care.

I think that because death is a natural part of life, children should face situations like these with the truth.

Truth is always the best way to go!!
 
You are 8 years old. Your family pet dies, but you don’t know about it yet. Your parents tell you some cover story about the pet going to live with someone else, or some such thing to spare you the emotional distress.
Click to expand...
Did they do the right thing, or should they have told you the painful truth? You have nothing to gain by knowing your pet’s true fate, it can only hurt you.
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Not so. If your parents keep ‘sparing you emotional distress’ you don’t learn how to cope with it. Sooner or later, something is going to come along that they CAN’T spare you from, and it is going to have a more devastating effect than if you learned, even at an early age, that sometimes bad things can happen.

Yes, there is always going to be the person who has great difficulty with handling distress. Believe me, I know. But it is still better to be honest because you simply cannot get your child through life without him/her having some stress.

Always trying to ‘head off’ unhappy truths with ‘happy untruths’ has a bad cumulative effect on the character of the one telling the untruths as well. And that will spill over into all your interpersonal relationships in one way or another.
 
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