Plurationalist Dialogue 309, "Should We Lead with Truth or Compassion?”
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The reasoning theists, atheists, liberals, libertarians, & conservatives of Secular Bible Study, First Minneapolis Circle of Reason, Circle of Ijtihad, & Winnipeg Circle of Reason join Interbelief Conversation Café for our 309th Plurationalist (Interbelief Reasoning) Dialogue by Zoom, “Should We Lead with Truth or Compassion?"
How old were you when your parents first confirmed to you that Santa Claus wasn’t “real”? (Unless parents are Santa’s Helpers, of course!) When did they tell you that “death” is not the same as “being asleep”?
When does our decision to compassionately use “white lies” to save others the distress of having to witness the often-hard edges of “truth” not create, down the road, an even harder confrontation with reality? Sometimes? Always?
Is it OK to disabuse folks of the conspiracy theory that Democrats are actually Lizard People from Space that murder (then rape, then drink the blood of) America’s children? (All to supposedly remain immortal -- at least in their true lizard skins, under the aging costume that appears as elderly Hillary or Bill Clinton and Uncle Joe?) If it’s OK to disabuse those folks, is it similarly OK to disabuse other folks of the assumption that every ground-radar-detected sub-surface anomaly on the former grounds of forced residential schools for Indigenous First People must be an indigenous child’s body, even when digging it up to test the assumption is prohibited? (Or the assumption that any bodies were those of murdered children, instead of victims of epidemics?) Are bodies of murdered children needed to prove the truth that indigenous children were once removed from their families for forced re-education?
When does our decision to stick to the truth “through thick and thin” become “thickheaded” and as “thin as gruel”? Ever? Never?
Is it necessary to tell the truth to our children about their new risks of being killed in K-12 school by gun violence, or of being infected with viral diseases once but now no longer eradicated, or of being sexually-trafficked by rich criminals, or of now being targeted based solely on their race, for violent abduction by Border Patrol agents of our own government, and for herding in chains to concentration camps for eventual illegal deportation with no Constitutionally-mandated due process? If not necessary, is it then necessary to be compassionate to our children by lying to them that at least they will have a childhood free of fear, of want, of disease, of injury, of dehumanization, and of death -- even if such a childhood is illusory for so many? Or is the solution to never have a family to which you’d have to lie, or to only have a family once you’re rich enough to give them a gated community…or a private island estate with its own palatial doomsday-prepper underground shelter, like the creator of Facebook has made for his family?
Should we lead with the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or should we lead with a compassionate approximation of it, even if that approximation is still a misrepresentation? Telling a child that dying “is like sleeping” causes many children to fear being asleep. But telling them that dying “is like a toy or smartphone breaking badly enough that it can no longer work again,” may allow the child the benefit of dreaming, once reassured that it’s usually hard to break human beings (as long as they “look both ways” for traffic, and “duck and cover” to protect themselves if they hear gunshots).
Should we lead with nothing but compassion? Not confronting a pleasing illusion that is harmful to them or their loved ones does them no favor, and may ultimately not even be compassionate at all, but just indifferent. When polio vaccinations, or life-saving emergency medical treatments, are withheld by parents because their religion tells them to “pray away” the disease in their child, how is that any measure of compassion? Does it indeed “take a village” to raise children compassionately, if some parents’ freedom to reject the truth of reality -- or their insistence on “going to God” early, if their faith or doctrine requires it -- means that their children will face the ultimate truth: that we human beings can, even today, freely choose to allow even those we love to become sacrificial lambs on the altars of our favorite gods?
At 7-9 pm CDT Mo 3/16/26 by Zoom we'll reasoningly share our diverse or even disparate views on whether we should ever smooth over a “hard truth” with a “white lie.” Our reasoning dialogue’s agreements of open-mindedness, acceptance, curiosity, discovery, sincerity, brevity, & confidentiality should meanwhile help us speak a bit more truly and opine a bit less abrasively!