Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Honesty DOES NOT equal Truth.


Honesty: free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere : I haven't been totally honest with you.
• morally correct or virtuous : I did the only right and honest thing.
• [ attrib. ] fairly earned, esp. through hard work : struggling to make an honest living.
• (of an action) blameless or well intentioned even if unsuccessful or misguided : he'd made an honest mistake.
• [ attrib. ] simple, unpretentious, and unsophisticated : good honest food with no gimmicks.

Truth: the quality or state of being true : he had to accept the truth of her accusation.
• (also the truth) that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality : tell me the truth | she found out the truth about him.
• a fact or belief that is accepted as true : the emergence of scientific truths | the fundamental truths about mankind.

Just because you are being HONEST to someone about something it does not mean it is the TRUTH.  Someone once said to me that I am an inconsistent mother and that I am horrible at communicating.  She was “just being honest"
When a wife asks her husband “Do I look fat in these jeans?” it is a loaded question. Only because he isn’t sure if she wants the truth or his honesty.  He may think she looks like a billion dollars in those jeans; they show off her curves and accentuate those sexy thighs (she refers to them as “hams”).  BUT HE LIKES THE CURVES, SHE DOESN’T.  He may honestly be telling her she looks fabulous. But truthfully, those jeans are too small and she should change.
The first day of Mr. Crane’s sociology class my senior year, we defined truth as a class. My teacher pointed out that EVERYONE comes from a different background; we have different lenses through which we view the world.  SO to make sure we were all on the same page we came up with a class wide definition. 


Spinach tooth
Truth is not only “fact or reality” (You have some spinach in your teeth. Would be an example of reality.  Utah’s state flower is the Sego-Lilly. Would be a fact.)  Truth is also accurate and without change.  
Sego-Lilly
So as a reader of my blog I want YOU to understand what MY DEFINITION OF TRUTH is. 

Truth |troōθ|: NOUN. A fact and/or reality that is accurate and without change.

When I say that I believe without a doubt that the Gospel is TRUE, I mean that I know it to be a fact that is accurate, it does not change. 
http://www.mormonchurch.com/11/book-of-mormon

NOW Let’s talk about HONESTY.  Believe it or not, but I think our DEAR FRIEND Wikipedia does a FABULOUS job defining honesty:  “[honesty] refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft.

Being honest in a conversation with someone does not mean it is the TRUTH. Someone may HONESTLY see inconsistencies in my parenting, and HONESTLY think I am bad at communicating, but in TRUTH, that is opinion. 

Opinion: a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. 

As a daughter of God it is important to be able to distinguish between honesty, truth and opinion.  It can be EXHAUSTING to constantly be trying to PLEASE EVERYONE.  When truth is defined, it is easier to see who we should REALLY being pleasing.  

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