Facts and Truth in the Post Truth era

'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!' The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve.  This is the beginning of Hard Times by Charles Dickens.  It was read today in the service at Harris Manchester Chapel for the Oxford Unitarians of which I am a member.  We have no creed and people of all faiths or none are welcome.  It's a chance to take time out to consider our spirituality.  There was also a reading from Embers by Sandor Marai.  This is a more complex work which tells us there is something fundamentally unknowable about people, about the essential truth of who they are. For their intentions are often hidden or unclear or uncertain.  The address was very interesting, especially in our current era. It was given by Alan Ruston, Vice-President of the Unitarian Historical Society. What I can conclude from it is as follows.   A fact is a consequence of intentions.  The truth in the intentions is wider and harder to define. ( I immediately think of the Archers.  Helen stabbed Rob but the truth is she was not guilty of wounding.  People voted to leave the EU but their individual truths were complex. Did they really want what they voted for? They were lied to as well; more later.)   Alan continued by saying that religions present fixed and unchanging truths.  The Enlightenment of the 18th century challenged this and looked for a universal truth.  But everything comes from our senses (Now we are on Buddhist territory.)  All truth is contextual and context is inescapable. We are bounded by culture, gender and partial interpretations.  In the post modern world there is no certainty and no ultimate truth.  Liberal religion calls us to strength without rigidity, conviction without ideology, openess without laziness.  We must pay attention with our eyes open wide.  Faith is without certainty.  We must have our own truths and not hanker after universal truths.   I conclude by thinking untruths or lies are simpler and easier to understand.  Usually.  And they are immoral.