LDS, Mormons, Are Some things that are true are not very useful?
I think it would have been useful to know before I had spent so many years, so much misplaced love and trust just to be left standing alone when I really needed what the church promised. Thank you for the quote, that makes sense now why things are suppressed, it is suppressed from the top down and that makes me want to cry...
What can they find out at MEPS? I really think I'd be useful in the Air Force.?
I'm in a Doctor of Pharmacy program now in pharmacy school, and have always wanted to join the Air Force. I'm a straight A student who is ambitious and hard-working. My plan was to join the Air Force as a pharmacist after I graduate with my Pharm.D. and become licensed. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with mild unknown colitis a few years ago. I have no special diet, exercise restrictions, and do not take medication for it. I actively work out and stay in good shape, and have not had the illness impact me academically or professionally. I know that any history of colitis is an automatic DQ for Air Force service. I think of myself as a honorable man. I try my best to be a good man, and I very badly want to serve my country and use my talent for medicine to help our troops. As much as I know it is dishonorable to do so, would it be possible to lie at MEPS about this history of colitis? What about my medical records? Would they have no need to look through them if I don't provide them or give them reason to? How about my insurance? When I was first diagnosed, my doctor had me have a colonoscopy and some related meds for it which was paid through insurance. Wouldn't any medications and services I had be on permanent file with my insurance? Even if they didn't see my medical records, couldn't someone find out later when I change my current insurance over to the military insurance if I was accepted? Wouldn't they find out by reviewing the insurance information then during the switch over? I guess in the end, I know that despite my desire to serve, the military would view me as born broken according to regs. I guess my question is would lying at MEPS about something like this be possible, if I were able to bring myself to do so? It seems like everyone on here says, "Oh yeah, just lie at MEPS, it's not a big deal, my recruiter/brother/CO says it's totally ok." I don't like the idea of fibbing to get my way, but I've wanted this life for a long time, and it seems so stupid to have an official diagnosis on paper stop me from using my talent to help others, especially when that diagnosis has not once interfered with my life. If I lied at MEPS, can they learn the truth through medical records if I give them no reason to search them or through insurance records?
If telling a lie is wrong, then why are white lies morally okay?
What makes you think lying is wrong?Lying is not wrong; hurting people is wrong. I mean, from a truly philosophical perspective everything everyone says is a fabrication of one sort or another - we are not the stories we tell about ourselves, and certainly not those we tell about each other - so what are we to do?Lies often hurt people, of course, so if you have to make a quick conscious choice it’s usually the safest bet to avoid lying as best you can. But truth can sometimes cause just as much harm as lies, and we should not forget that. If we make it a practice to tell people the truth regardless of the harm it might cause, we are morally impoverished; if we use truth to intentionally cause harm we are actively immoral. We are not absolved of the responsibility to care for others’ welfare simply because we think we know a truth.In the moral realm, truth is far, far less important than kindness and compassion.
My Christian friend's dad died of cancer. I thought it would be useful to tell him that God is a lie and there is no afterlife. Why did he get upset? I just told him the facts.
If he truly is a Christian, and is really a friend to you, then one likely reason he got upset is that he sees the hardness of your heart, and he knows the eternal consequences.He’s a Christian. Your friend knows by faith that there is an afterlife; a heaven and a hell.He also knows that only those who are born again by faith in Jesus Christ wind up in heaven. Everyone else will end up in hell.If his father was saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, then his upset state of mind, while totally normal, will not last forever. He will either one day see his saved father in heaven, or he will arrive in heaven, while his father is in torment (the ultimate and final destination for all unbelievers) but God will wipe away every tear from your friend’s eye, and he will remember his father no more.Since you profess no faith in Christ at this stage of your life, then your friend, in a legitimate moment of grief over his fathers demise, also realizes by your comments that you, his friend, are on the path towards hell. That is a supremely sad thing.Your friend and I would counsel you not to be a fool. Bible Gateway passage: Psalm 14:1 - King James VersionInstead, seek God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Is it better to want the truth or follow a lie that helps you progress?
Truth is very hard to come by. Science sneaks up on the truth gradually, by posing questions and testing the proposed answers until a useful result is revealed. Test it further to needle out more details and separate more useful bits from the dross. When the useful parts stand alone and prove reliable, we begin to call it knowledge. When they fail, we restate the question another way and proceed again. When our answers become stable and reliable, we trust them to make distinctions and predictions to the extent that they succeed, and begin to call them "truthful". To the extent they fail, we try to improve the answers so they are more accurate. This process is called science. If the early versions of our answers become doctrine, it is very hard to move past that position and progress towards a more truthful regime. That's what disturbs many people. They think the answers they learned when young should stay permanent, but science is always moving toward a new version of the truth as it looks for ways to winnow out the falsehoods in the current version. So science is a search for truth that relies on falsehood to further is goals. If we can't detect the falsity of a hypothesis, then it has predictive value and can be useful until something better comes along. We'll call it a model, or a theory. When it starts to produce errors that are detectable, we'll look for a new idea to test to see if it fits the facts better. When a useful idea never seems to fail, laymen call it Truth; but scientists are always suspicious and prefer the term theory.