Knowledge is an important tool. Knowledge is key to everything we do on earth. Even our faith comes by way of knowledge. We learn to build from knowledge passed on. We learned to live in these societies because of knowledge. But knowledge without truth is dangerous. It can travel endless miles killing endless numbers of innocent people.
The first piece of knowledge without the truth has cost billions, if not trillions of lives on earth. It went something like; “It is not certain you’ll die, because God knows the day you eat from that tree, you will become just like God, knowing good and evil”. We all know how that story went. Eve ate the fruit, gave some to Adam. The world is a wonder.
Truth is an integral part of knowledge. In my younger days I spent countless hours pouring over philosophical knowledge from various ages, learned some science, loved arts, spent time learning new things and tinkering like crazy.
One common theme kept showing up in any knowledge I was fortunate enough to verify. Whenever the verified truth became visible, it was totally different from the first versions I heard. Imagine you’re given great knowledge to make great things and in the end all you can say about your invention is “If I only knew that’s how they’d use it”.
Life is full of regrets about knowledge and how we use it. That is because life and time have a way of bringing the truth forward. There are countless stories of even history having to be revised because truth blew up what was passed down for knowledge.
Knowledge always has the potential to be good. If all the information we receive is true, then it tends to be used for good purposes. True knowledge ends up being used with the same purpose it is made. But false knowledge has some deviation that looks like the truth, smoothed over, and runs parallel to reality until the truth is known.
Truth is important to knowledge because it keeps us from walking in lies, following death or leading people to their deaths. When we share knowledge, we share everything connected to knowledge. There are people who believe a little white lie won’t hurt anything; we can see the truth of white lies in any country or graveyard in the world.
Knowledge that is not truthful is harmful. If you want to know how harmful we only need to look at the vocabulary of people today. Cultures. Generational curses and trauma are some of the words used in hot topics. Something that should be as simple as raising children has become complicated, because of the knowledge societies use to raise children or advise parents.
While the argument can be dismissed; there is ample evidence that knowledge was used in attempts to oppress certain parents, and to kill children when they’re born or to lower entire communities.
There is also knowledge that was used in attempts to turn people against each other. And in doing so created all the bloodshed we see in society in all countries. All of these came from people who believed they had found solutions, based off false knowledge.
The truth, in these examples would have kept people from moving on to the decisions that have caused irreparable harm to entire generations of people; both the victims and the perpetrators who willingly acted on lies. Truth is in fact a stabilizer for knowledge.
The truth is an important component of knowledge because truth allows individuals to make informed decisions. Death and destruction follow lies. Any knowledge that doesn’t begin with the truth will always be exposed. That can take days months or years to happen.
When the truth is not in knowledge, contingency plans for whatever comes from it will fail at some point. When false knowledge is exposed, it can be ingrained in the individuals that accepted the lies and live by the lies. The arrival of the truth can lead people to reject and attack the truth, with their own truth.
Knowledge without truth causes divisions and destruction no matter how carefully it is concealed. The nice covering we pour over knowledge will fade over time and reveal what is beneath the surface.
Truth is an important component of knowledge. Knowledge that begins with truth allows us to live and make decisions without having to worry about what comes out later. There will always be opportunities that tainted knowledge could never provide. Truth makes room for working together. Lies only create hostility and division to remain as the truth. The truth is an important component of knowledge for that simple reason; truth endures. Lies die.
