Seek Truth

                A friend named Keith spoke in a recent sacrament meeting and made some interesting points that I have been pondering for a few days.  Here are some of his thoughts:  Knowledge is a combination of things we are taught and what we observe, but knowledge is not always truth.  [Did you get that?  We gain knowledge by observing and being taught, but the knowledge we gain may not be the truth!]  The media controls much of the knowledge we get, and they do it to gain money, power, and prestige.  Truthful knowledge is very lucid and hard to find.  Truth can be found in the scriptures and in the teachings of Prophets and Apostles.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encourages us to seek truth, and God desires us to seek knowledge of Him and His mysteries.

An example of knowledge without truth could be found in the State of the Union address delivered by Barack Obama last week.  He taught us many things, but we have no idea how much of it is truth.  There are numerous evaluations of the President’s speech, including the official Republican response by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and the official Tea Party response by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).  A good side by side comparison of the three speeches can be found here.  

Jim Rogers, noted investor, free market advocate and author, shared some of his thoughts during an interview with Glen Beck the following day.  Rogers said that Tuesday’s State of the Union address makes you wonder whether President Barack Obama is “delusional” or just a good liar.  

Beck asked Rogers whether or not our nation has reached the point of no return, and Rogers answered that our “debt is physically impossible to pay off.  We are the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.”   Rogers said, “If everybody paid 100 percent of their earnings as taxes, we still couldn’t pay it off.”  He then turned his attention to the President’s statement in his speech about our economy getting stronger, “Mr. Obama said last night that everything is great.”  He then added: “He said that everything is great and that the middle class is on the way back and everything is fine now…. I mean, the man is delusional.  I was really afraid when I saw that…. It’s delusional.  It was frightening. I don’t know if he believed it or if he was just lying.”

After listening to Rogers, Beck said, “I don’t really care at this point.  He’s either the best liar or he is completely delusional.  I don’t know which it is, but it doesn’t matter.”

Beck conducted “a blistering fact check” of Obama’s speech.  “He went almost point-by-point and rebutted many of the proposals and statements put forth by the commander in chief.  Beck was shocked to hear Obama say his administration had `cleared away the rubble of crisis’ and the `state of our union is stronger.’  Beck remarked, “Stronger than what, Venezuela?  We are not stronger.  We are not strong.  We have had four straight annual deficits of over $1 trillion, a ballooning national debt that’s over now 200 percent of our annual output.” 

Beck’s fact check is interesting, but it is not the only one.  The Associated Press (AP)  wrote that the “President Barack Obama did some cherry-picking Tuesday night in defense of his record on jobs and laid out a conditional path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that may be less onerous than he made it sound.”  The article then looked at some of the President’s claims in his State of the Union speech and the counterargument of the Republicans to see how they “fit with the facts.”

The experts at Heritage Foundation, a conservative but non-partisan think tank, analyzed the claims, plans and promises that Obama laid out in his ambitious agenda during his State of the Union address. They shared thoughts on how our nation should respond to the Newtown massacre, the “voting experience” in America, “comprehensive” immigration reform, the renewed threat of terrorism, national education standards, Afghanistan, foreign policy, infrastructure “investments,” climate, finding balance in “Obamaspeak,” Obama’s tendency to blame Republicans for everything that is wrong about our nation, and the way America is hurting our workers.  This article is well worth the time to read.  

Rush Limbaugh made an interesting statement that is worth considering.  He explained that he had recently come to the realization of why Obama is constantly campaigning rather than governing.  Rush said that he is only realizing most of the tyrants and dictators – such as Hitler and Stalin – were never blamed by the common people for the messes they made in their countries.  The people believed that their leaders were “revolutionaries” who were trying to make things better for the people and that other “evil people – like the Republicans - were causing the problems.  Obama “campaigns” non-stop against the “evils” that are trying to destroy the people and nation, always making it appear that he is not part of the machine that is doing the actual destruction.  He cannot “govern” because he would then be part of the machine.  [An obvious example of this is during the terrorist attack in Benghazi when Obama went AWOL and told others “to do what you need to do.”]

Knowledge is power if it is also the truth.  Our lame stream media supports Obama’s lies rather than calling him out on them, and the “low information voters” of our nation believe the lies.  Then these same “low information voters” elect and re-elect people like Obama who continue to lie to all of us.  I have reached the point that I do not believe anything that Obama and other politicians say.  I have come to the conclusion that if their lips are moving, they are lying!  I did not watch or listen to the President’s speech for this very reason.  I will rely on the one Source where I know I will hear the truth.  That Source is our loving Heavenly Father who watches over us and who is the only One in control of what is happening.  I know that the knowledge I gain from God is the truth and that only the truth will set us free.