Let’s say you hear a factoid or assertion,, a line of reasoning, or a thought construct: perhaps from the media or a friend.
Do you take it at face value or examine it a bit? When do you conclude it is trustworthy? We live in an era where agendas can and do commission mock-scientific studies to reach preordained conclusions.
Is citing “a study” sufficient grounds to sway you, or do you want to know a bit more about who commissioned it and the methodology?
How big a factor do emotions and wishing play in your accepting something as truth?
Or in dismissing it as falsehood?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
24 responses to “How do you discern between truth and agenda?”
The proof is in the pudding. I base my beliefs on results. Talk is cheap. When an agenda is pushed, it is easy to see that a group is pushing for an agenda goal. Will they reach it? Only time will tell.
In time, all things play out. I watch from the bleachers at the plays. No matter how much the opposing team rants, in the end, what is true rises to the surface.
@ladybarbara
Just a thought.
If there’s an “opposing team”, does that mean we might be running an agenda ourself that may someday require us to choose between that agenda and truth?
@griz I stay up to date with President Trump’s daily Twitter feed to know what is happening first hand. If the President I voted for said it, then that is the latest news for me. Right from the President’s keyboard. I don’t have an agenda. I sit back and watch the show and go with the flow. If things change, I go with that flow. I do not have an agenda of my very own, other than being a Republican and a Patriot.
Liberals are the opposing team.
@ladybarbara
So following the man is your agenda, served gleefully at any and all costs?
Two things, left unresolved, are going to bring the downfall of the nation.
Divisive tribalism.
And rendering unto any human agency that which belongs to God.
@griz Why do I even come to this site. This kind of looking down your nose at me really stinks!!! It takes all kinds to make a country and you want to sit on your throne as if you are the authority on what I should do or think? FUCK YOU!!! This kind of attitude will make me want to leave this site.
@griz Truth — In the end, the truth rises to the surface and the end result shows clearly what is true.
@ladybarbara
In the very long term yes. In the short term all things are slave to entropy and death. And short-term philosophies try to recast this as truth.
But none of us have that many miles on our physical clock to get to that point where ultimate truth how to relieve destroys all lies.
Our responsibility and Duty right now is to daily follow truth and reject lies.
Waiting around a length of time we cannot afford to see which Rises to the top, isn’t a viable option.
What’s wrong with agenda? A similar concept could be applied to propaganda. Even though you the wirds usually have a negative connotation, it’s really not a bad thing.
@Jear77
There comes a day — and probably lots and lots of them — when one will have to choose between a quest for truth and preserving an agenda.
Agenda always has to win over truth; or it’s no longer a valid agenda!
And this is when you see someone clinging desperately to an obviously ridiculous position, wondering if their brain has moved out and left no forwarding address.
It’s not good to be that person. Not good at all.
@griz there is one thing agenda can do truth cannot: it instantly answers the question “do we agree; can we come to terms?” If the answer is no, why bother with the person? Far better to say “goodbye”forever than deal even for an instant with something or someone who you can’t agree with and/ or whose mind you won’t change. At that point, you’ve done your due dilligence.
@Jear77
That’s called an echo chamber of conformational bias.
Not only is nothing new learned, intellectual faculties atrophy because they are never used. There’s also good indication emotional control could suffer as well, for the same reason.
It’s a valid supposition as to why people involved in these echo chambers find themselves tragically assaulted” by every imagined microaggression; needing to aggressively silence any voice that might challenge the atrophy.
@griz how many “second chances” do people get? One. After that it’s not a second chance, it’s a third or fourth or whatever number. And at that point it becomes useless to give, because nothing changed. Had i realized this, i could have given up many things years before now.
@Jear77
How many chances does anyone get to get anything right? Or at least better!
As many as they want to avail themselves of!
The postmodern with shades of victimhood is what? Your second try at a philosophical belief system to bring meaning to life? And that by sticking one’s head in the proverbial sand?
And at 87 years old you feel you don’t have any time left to look for a proverbial pair of shoes you don’t have to cut your toes off to fit into?
This new thing that you follow religiously has apparently cost you far more than your old religious system has and in such a short period of time.
I wonder how many tries it took for Edison Marconi and Bell to get it right?!
@griz not by sticking one’s head in the sand, but more accurately cutting the bullshit from one’s life. Why deal with it? Sticking one’s head in the sand would be saying they didn’t try. Reality states they tried and utterly failed, and therefore you don’t have time for it. The majority of my hurts came from giving those people closest to me multiple second chances.
@Jear77
Or just trying a few times; or once.
One continues to “deal” (contend) with the fullest possible exercise of life, because that is what brings the “meaning” that that then “programs” us to endure suffering — perhaps even to no longer seeing many forms of it as “suffering”!
Just an observation with the intent of helping: I’m talking about the “2nd chances” (and 3rd and 43rd) that we give ourselves. You seem to be talking about the chances you give others.
I’m talking about ways to “not burn bridges”. You seem to be talking about justifications for burning bridges.
Yes, the closer the relationship we form with others, the more vulnerable we are to being hurt by them. And vice versa! It’s not just poor us taking all the flack! The nature of relationship is that it’s a constant contending one with another, and out of this come experience, life-skills, and greater maturity.
The concept of forgiveness is our “power-card”. We are still hurt, but heal like Wolverine. Even if they don’t apologize. (Their “power-card” cannot trump our power-card unto control over our organism). But forgiveness doesn’t mean we have to seek out the hurt. Only that we don’t need to be afraid of it should it happen.
The flip side of this, is that we’ve likely been giving our fair share of hurts to those who care deeply about us. And the deeper they care, the more we can hurt them — if we’ve a mind to.
So what if forgiveness we like “truth” . . . and unforgiveness was like “agenda”?
@griz if so, i realize I’d deserve the same, so it’d be “just deserts” – and if that were the case, i’m happy with the results- I’d have either ended up homeless and by necessity become more willing to do anything to survive… or die.
@Jear77
But what happens if “the hurt” is just a function of an individual’s perceptions? Perhaps “altered” by their focus in trying to skirt around the essential games of life rather than participate in them?
What if your “just desert” was mostly a function of agenda’ed fabrication?
Can you see where this process would so easily break down in the absence of any commonly accepted “truth” or value structure?
Beyond a game of “just or unjust penalties”, is a game of learning not just to “deal” with inevitable hurts . . . but to use them to evolve!
With the down-side being that if one doesn’t consciously choose to use hurts to evolve . . . the natural consequence is to devolve.
This is where I see the caution in some of the things you share. There’s a process of actually wanting to devolve back to a more primitive state without the self-awareness to connect action in the present with future consequence like the rest of the animals.
(But then there’s good argument that it would eliminate suffering so much as eliminating the possibility to understand and do something to reduce suffering. The animals still suffer; they just know not why. And that means they are powerless to do anything about it).
@griz not everyone can play. Many are sidelined or simply aren’t picked.
@Jear77
And many sideline and “unpick” themselves.
The Peter Pan Syndrome is marked by the fear of taking on adult responsibilities . . . and the very adult consequences they can bring.
But the price . . . is that Pan only got to rule over “that which was lost”. And even that he didn’t have good control over (because the Lost Boys left to grow up).
I have concluded that we ALL believe what we want to believe. We can secure so many studies that are thoroughly convincing of multiple POV’s. If you look for supporting facts; you will find them.
Case in point; Genetically modified foods. One group of scientists will compile data that is absolutely convincing of the dangers of glyphosate (used in Roundup herbicides). Things like statement that 97% of foods we eat contain traces of it and coincidentally, with its increased use, autism is rising in incidence as well. The you get the EPA producing a study that says trace amounts are well below acceptable levels.
So this is how I discern truth. I look at both by drilling into the unlimited supply of both. Which requires that I keep the Google to skeletal descriptions so I don’t influence the hits. As I read, I try to determine the agenda of each and then try to ask myself which was done for the benefit of raising awareness with no monetary association, and which one is attached to profiteering for, or on behalf of economic influences.
Its the best I can do, but I still think ultimately I will let me gut decide and that is usually supported by what I want to believe in the first place.
@spitfire3dc
With all of that as a given, the next question has to be WHY we want to believe what we believe?
The base motivation most often comes out as something as unsophisticated as profit versus loss. And we need to think of this beyond the classic greed vs fear that drives the fiscal economy. The actual money trail is a factor (like Physicians growing rich off the tobacco industry for offering “expert evidence” that smoking is not harmful). But the actual “profit” element can also come out behaviorally as laziness/comfort/convenience. Changing course takes effort.
Our “guts” can provide a good starting point for the investigation. But if we have not conditioned them with some intellectual and moral training we will have a hard time distinguishing between a cautionary feeling, and the chicken salad sandwich that has been in the back of the refrigerator for too long!
@griz good question. We will get to that on our next phone call.
Hemingway once said, “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.” I find that that same detector is a handy thing to have for life.
@saintcharlie
That’s an exceedingly valuable thing to have. So I can see it being built-in (something akin to conscience and discernment). I can see the value in it being shock-proof.
But how does one gain and nurture such a thing? Is it a case of either you have one and it’s fully formed . . . or you don’t? Or is it something we can seek and nurture? And if so, how?