Truth is not so pure and simple

Sir — What if aviation pioneer Orville Wright was spot on when he said, “If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true, is really true, there would be little hope of advancement”? And what if what another free-thinker, Anatole France, had to say, which was, that “Without lies humanity would perish of boredom and despair” was also correct?

The perceived truth, like most other inventions of the human mind, is not as pure or simple as it is often made out to be.

The likelihood, therefore, is that the bearers of it are the same people of whom Shakespeare says: “The Devil has the power to assume a pleasing shape.”

The sorting of an issue such as this would seem to come within the ambit of a few doctors of philosophy such as Micheal O Muircheartaigh and Joe Schmidt, both of whom were conferred with honorary degrees recently at Dublin City University.

While I await the outcome to their deliberations, however, I will remain content in assessing the situation from the perspective of Joseph Heller’s novel entitled Catch 22.

For others, such as the practitioners of Islam, answers to many perplexing questions remain unresolved also.

When Muhammed, for example, repeatedly ordered the mountain to come to him, it refused to budge, whereupon the assembled people became restless and cynical.

Muhammed remained calm however, and succeeded in reassuring them that “If the mountain will not come to Muhammed, then Muhammed will go to the mountain”. Pat Daly, Midleton, Co Cork