People as a rule pay scant attention to facts which conflict with their interests, or self conceit. We hide reality from our conscious minds all the better to conceal it from onlookers. The more we believe our lies the more we can lie to others effectively states psychologist Trivers.
History and religion are also distorted to produce national halos, and the individual wears the warp of his experience with a comfortable mosaic of self justification. Hence the sins of nations cannot be indicted i.e. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, or USA’s raw deal to Red Indians and Africans. Conversely religious fundamentalism sometimes restricts interaction with outsiders, (even if it is an offshoot of their own religion split into factions) to help protect the faithful from the infidels.
Their character may be noble, but if they also feel that their beliefs, opinions; religion/gods, state language, culture, heroes and their roles in history, are superior to any other – but everybody cannot be right. We willingly and unwittingly inflate the qualities of ourselves and others in our ethnic, cultural, and religious group, while we denigrate those in opposite camps as economic, sexual and political rivals- believing we are smarter and righteous than we really are.
Honesty and truth are not synonymous; they are comparative phases of one notion – Honesty being a profession of a philosophy, while Truth is an established law of existence. Honesty is applied to human behavior, while truth is as universal law. Deceit is vast ranging from fibs parents and children indulge to manipulate each other while political and religious leaders foist “false historical and religious narratives” on citizens and the world.
The historians and chroniclers of the holy books/scriptures may have been under the illusion that they were honest, because they looked into available data (available does not mean that they had access to all data available to others as well). The data they wanted to collect & present, which they were seeking in their subconscious mind is the one with which they wrote history and scriptures as they wanted it to be known.
In that process they left out the truth – truth pertaining to men / events and gave a lopsided view of what they wanted to portray about their own religion, territorial history, heroes and incidents which they state is truthfully recorded.
A real truthful record still awaits birth. Fooling others yields obvious benefits, but why do we often fool ourselves. Our illusions can have devastating consequences, from the simple dissolution of marriage, to stock market collapses, religious jihad and world wars.- Vinay-
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