The Theory of Nothing

What is truth?

What is truth?
This is the most important subject for modern society, and I thought that I would take time to discuss the facts about truth and how they apply to science, religion and politics.
Truth is often defined by its opposite: falsehood. I can live with that. It's nice and concise. However, that didn't stop the philosophers from coming up with several theories about the concept of truth: Correspondence, Coherence, Constructive, Consensus, Pragmatic, and minimalist. This is what happens when you get philosophers involved. They make a simple idea much more complicated.
Some people would say: Truth is what I say it is. As crazy as this sounds, it's what is happening in today's world. A TV ad expressed the following truism: if it's on the Internet it must be true. I think that a lot of people ascribe to this sort of aphorism. They accept whatever they hear or see on the nightly news, in a newspaper or on an Internet news site. The fact is that the news, no matter its source, is telling you what they think you want to hear. This is certainly what politicians do, and it's definitely what ads tell you.
In science truth comes in two flavors: theory and law. The scientific method requires that any scientific experimental result or observation must be verified by others and be repeatable. Scientists come up with an explanation for what they found. They call this a theory. A theory is a possible explanation for some observation or experiment that still needs to be proven. This is important because a theory is not a scientific law. It's just the latest explanation for an observation, and it holds until new data or experimental results prove it wrong. When this happens, a new theory must be proposed. This process could go through several cycles before a theory is finally accepted, but even then it could be displaced if new data doesn't back it up. A science law is something that stands up to years of testing, and you don't see science laws being made in modern times, mostly because science has become much more complicated.
Religion operates on faith. Faith is belief in something that can't be proven. Most religious truths are based on ancient documents that contain truths that are believed to be God's word to some prophet or intermediate. The Bible and the Koran are examples of this. Truth in religion is based on a belief system that has been built up over many hundreds or even thousands of years. The fact is that religious truth is not provable. An example of this is the fact that the existence of God can't be proven. There are lots of arguments for God's existence but none of them can be verified. Religious truth is only true for you, the believer. It's not true for everyone. When I say this I'm not disrespecting any religion. I am a believer.
Political truth is what the politicians say it is. This is much the same as with religion. Truth in this case is a matter of belief in a political system. The problem here is that most political systems regulate and manipulate the truth to serve their need of maintaining the political system. They lie and hide the truth if it's detrimental to good favor with their subjects. This distortion of truth is a result of human nature, which is self-serving.
The news is also self-serving. I know for a fact that TV news is geared to telling people what they want to hear. Some time ago in my neighborhood a young girl was taken captive by a deranged older male and hid in an attic. The mother knew who did it and confronted him and talked him into releasing the girl. Since the police had been called, TV crews looking for a good salacious story mobbed the place. The TV reporters said that the girl had been raped, but the mother knew this wasn't true, but that didn't stop them from reporting it that way because it was more sensational. This is just a small example of what must be happening on a regular basis in TV land, and on the Internet. Photos can be photo-shopped, videos can be edited, and stories can be written to enhance the facts.
Truth is difficult to find in today's media-charged world. It's difficult to verify facts or sources. Ethical journalists are supposed to do these things but in some cases they don't. Think of the latest fiasco in the report by the Rolling Stone magazine of rape at the University of Virginia.
Thanks for reading.