The Ink of a Scholar: The Fear of Truth

By Imam Vernon Fareed

According to the Bible it was Christ Jesus who said, “And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” The Qur’an says, “We throw the truth at falsehood and it knocks out its brain.” We can draw inferences from the study of these two statements given in the Biblical and Quranic scriptures. The first inference is that the absence of truth within your knowledge body effectively renders you a slave, and the second inference is that truth has the power to obliterate any rational foundation that falsehood claims to stand upon. The very nature of falsehood is doomed to perish!

In today’s world numerous ideas, comments and concepts are perpetuated often without passing the criteria for being true! The research is not always conducted for statements to be certified as factual. Consequently people are left believing that the lie is the truth and the truth is the lie; in other words they are rendered slaves within their own knowledge body.
There is another element that must be brought into this discussion and it has to do with the comfort level that people have with what they know! I am suggesting that some people are content to keep what they have, because exposure to truth would virtually upset their world. I recall a young man attending a health workshop, and the focus of discussion was ingredients in foods. After several minutes had passed in the course of the workshop the young man stated, “I wish you hadn’t told me (the truth) about the ingredients in those foods, because they were some of my favorites and I won’t be able to eat them anymore.” This young man preferred to have been kept in the dark about those foods rather than to be enlightened about their harmful ingredients! In other words, he wanted to stay with the lie!

This is the case with many people, in relationship to various interests in their lives. Knowing the truth while living the lie disturbs the consciousness of the human being. The person who loves to drink alcoholic beverages or smoke cigarettes, usually doesn’t want to hear a lecture on the harmful effects of those products. Likewise people are often afraid of learning the truth about religion, G-d, politics and life in general; if it upsets their comfort level. It is necessary that we rise up out of the soft bed of comfort and permit our world to be shaken, so that we can grow in excellence and reach our full potential.

There is an old expression; “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.” The fact of the matter is this, “what we don’t know hurts us all of the time we just don’t know that it’s hurting us.” The goal is to become conscious of the TRUTH, and not the world’s perception of the truth. Don’t be afraid to test what you now know and make sure that you test it historically, scientifically, rationally and in every other way if you want to free!
Note: The spelling of “G-d” when used in my articles is not a typo, it is intentional. We have a serious issue when the reverse spelling for the Name of the Great Creator is “Dog” and this is our way of drawing attention to this concern!