How to Seek the Truth in a Sea of Misinformation

We live now in the midst of an outrage war — one politician or another, in different parts of the world, lashes out with great anger, strong words, and untruths, and the backlash builds as if on a battlefield.

Sure, we can blame the politicians for all the outrage, but no one wants to admit that these individuals are the by-products of our time. They result from humanity’s choices and our collective failure to seek the truth. 

These outrages and grievances, and the individuals who give voice to them, are gaining popularity and momentum due to our inability to discern reality. We have elected them; we pay attention to them; we give them a free pass; as a result, they spread misinformation, outrage, and even hatred with the speed of light, wrapping a blindfold around many people’s eyes and souls.

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This widespread glut of misinformation and lies has now extended into multiple aspects of our lives, eating away at humanity’s fundamental realities. It has paralyzed so many that they have lost hope for the future. People feel confused about what to believe and struggle to find the truth.

The root cause, the Baha’i teachings point out, is a lack of spirituality, morality, and proper education.

This passage from the writings of Baha’u’llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha’i Faith, provides a clear explanation of the problem — and the realization that an alternative course of action has always been open to humanity:

The vitality of men’s belief in God is dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it? Is it within human power … to effect in the constituent elements of any of the minute and indivisible particles of matter so complete a transformation as to transmute it into purest gold? Perplexing and difficult as this may appear, the still greater task of converting satanic strength into heavenly power is one that We have been empowered to accomplish. The force capable of such a transformation transcendeth the potency of the Elixir itself. The Word of God, alone, can claim the distinction of being endowed with the capacity required for so great and far-reaching a change.

From a Baha’i perspective, there are two forces at work in the world: the disintegrative forces eating into the foundations of the world’s outdated institutions and values, and on the opposite side, the forces and agents of integration that are ready with a unifying vision of the future to build a better world for humanity.

Misinformation, lies, and exploitation by politicians and others are part of the process of disintegration, gradually tearing down society’s old, outworn institutions. They constantly prove that the world needs a new start and a new set of values to take humanity out of our self-afflicted miseries toward a brighter future.

The evidence of this disintegration in all aspects of our lives is transparent to seekers of the truth, but sadly remains hidden from those lost in the wilderness of misinformation and ignorance.

The Baha’i teachings proclaim that the Creator has given us each the ability to determine what is true and what is not, and it is up to us to use that ability. In a speech he gave in Massachusetts in 1912, Abdu’l-Baha said:

God has given man the eye of investigation by which he may see and recognize truth. He has endowed man with ears that he may hear the message of reality and conferred upon him the gift of reason by which he may discover things for himself. This is his endowment and equipment for the investigation of reality. Man is not intended to see through the eyes of another, hear through another’s ears nor comprehend with another’s brain. Each human creature has individual endowment, power and responsibility in the creative plan of God. Therefore, depend upon your own reason and judgment and adhere to the outcome of your own investigation; otherwise, you will be utterly submerged in the sea of ignorance and deprived of all the bounties of God.

Truth, however, isn’t just a set of concrete circumstances — it goes far beyond mere facts and crosses into the realm of values. This means we must adopt principles or values that allow us to measure what is right and reject what is wrong. When we make these changes in our thinking and our approach to reality, they allow us to evolve to a higher level of understanding.

In the present environment, no one can afford the luxury of being indifferent. When we don’t try to investigate the truth independently, we take on the easy, lazy attitude that allows lies to flourish.

If we want to base our lives on reality rather than fiction, we need to work hard for it, investing physical and spiritual energy in our investigation of the truth. We make wrong choices because of our confusion in seeing the truth. It requires real efforts to lead us in the right direction. Only then can we start discerning reality from falsehood and become a lighthouse in the darkness of the ocean of confusion. So, in a way, this swimming through a sea of misinformation is a beautiful process that humanity is going through — painful, no doubt, but not necessarily without its benefits. 

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When we adopt a rigorous practice of separating fact from fiction and develop a set of spiritual principles and values to guide us through our existence’s turbulent world, we can stand firm and face all the misinformation that comes our way. Misinformation, whose primary goal is to create confusion and mislead people, can be used to our advantage by improving our truth-seeking abilities and creating a yardstick to measure the truth in all aspects of our lives. 

This positive attitude has been the hallmark of humanity down through the ages, so there is no reason we should give it up now. We can accept the challenges instead of blaming and cursing those who spread falsehoods, whether politicians or other public figures, so let us take on first the responsibility of educating ourselves and then lovingly and with patience educating and helping those lost in the sea of misinformation. 

Ultimately, this hopefulness and positive attitude will save us from going down the road of hatred and division.