Faith and Obama's Birth Certificate: What is Truth?

In John 18:38, Pilate is recorded as asking Jesus, "What is truth?" This question resonates with anyone who has spent time in a courtroom. Determining what actually happened has been a significant historical function of a "trial," a testing of the truth or falsity of the testimony of witnesses. The posting of President Obama's long-form birth certificate provides a case study in what will or will not be accepted as truth.

In law there are typically three legal standards for decision making contained in jury instructions depending on the type case as defined by legislation. There is a preponderance of evidence, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and clear and convincing evidence. Typically, these phrases are not defined for the jury, which must decide if the appropriate burden of proof has been met.

In the famous account of the rich man and Lazarus, described in Luke 16:19-31, the dead rich man in torment asks permission of Father Abraham to return and warn his brothers. This request is denied and verse 31 states: "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

So what do we believe is truth and why do we believe it? There seems to be much more than the rules of logic at work. Many might say that they know in their heart or have a gut feeling. Perhaps this is our intuitive combining of experience, logic and emotion into a judgment.

Observe the commentary about the birth certificate. What does this commentary say about the limitations of human knowledge and what is considered truthful evidence? We all live by faith in the religious arena and also by social trust in the secular world of business and government far more than we might suppose. This is why individual personal integrity that collectively creates social trust is so basic to all our interactions. Without it, we become isolated individuals or competing factions with no common understandings or truths.

 

Comments

[DanAsta]

01:52 PM on 04/28/2011

Your language is totally embarrassed, the first sign that someone is trying to dissemble something rather than just come out and say it. Please, just come out and tell us how you feel.

[stuoverit]

12:53 PM on 04/28/2011

It's funny that the same people who question Obama's birth certificate don't question a jigsaw-puzzle of literature from 2000 years ago.

[TheWM]

12:43 PM on 04/28/2011

"So what do we believe is truth and why do we believe it? There seems to be much more than the rules of logic at work. Many might say that they know in their heart or have a gut feeling."

Some might say that such "knowledge" in the "heart" and such feelings are much LESS than logic.

[Michael Hallmark]

12:36 AM on 04/29/2011

Do you think so? Gut feelings are what causes people to strap on bombs and blow up strangers. I can't imagine why anyone would put any value on feelings when it comes to anything important.

[Indy609]

08:10 AM on 04/28/2011

People have all kinds religions, not just the ones involving deities - ideological systems where we will accept what one source says, unwilling to utilize the same kind of skepticism we apply to the rest of our lives. In the case of birthers, it was the religion of WorldNetDaily.

[Ivan Terry]

05:15 AM on 04/28/2011

A certificate of live birth at the health Department is a affidavit. It is not a Birth Certificate. A Birth Certificate is issued by the court and is recorded in the clerks office in the record book of births. This would be at the court house in the county, or city were one parents lived at the time. Any Lawer knows this. So the Brith Certificate I want to see is the one from the Clerks Office. A Certified One. Not a affidavit.

[Michael Hallmark]

10:50 AM on 04/28/2011

Mr. Terry. Your president is a natural born citizen whether you like that idea or not. Hawaii has time and time again verified that the President was born there and last time I checked individual States get to make up their own rules on what is and is not a birth certificate. Not you. I'm pretty sure the State registrar there has never heard of the Ivan Terry theory of how they should run their government, but it doesn't matter. Obama has now produced both an abbreviated form and a long form. Both are birth certificates designed to satisfy all legal questions of birth including his citizenship. That's twice as many forms as any other Presidential has produced.

Sarah Palin prayed on election night that God's will should be done, and we as a nation elected Barack Obama as a result. So let go and let God. He is growing increasingly unhappy with your meddling in work.

[faithnj]

12:20 AM on 04/29/2011

Whew! Fanned and Favorited! I'll be following you!

[richdibo]

03:21 AM on 04/28/2011

Mr. Reid,

I thank you for your brevity.

Trust me on that one.

[NHBill]

01:37 AM on 04/28/2011

Jesus.
Now There's a birth certificate I'd like to see!

[magicthighs]

08:36 PM on 04/27/2011

Seriously? You're going to go postmodernist on us?

[Michael Hallmark]

04:57 PM on 04/27/2011

Mr Reid. Such a false equivalency here - the State of Hawaii's public document records and public employees who have every personal and professional reason to tell the truth, vs Gospel writers far removed both in time, location and culture, from the event. The entire life's purpose of these writers was to spin a miraculous tale.

We don't need any social trust to believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. What we need is a nation of honest people unencumbered by racism, xenophobia and a sense of the "other".

We have first-person accounts - in our own time - of the birth and life of President Obama, public notice and legal documents, all equal to any that have ever existed for a Presidential candidate, so we know what is going on here and it isn't social trust. You start your article off with a quote from Pontius Pilate and the source for that quote was a writer six decades removed from the "event", yet more than 2 billion people believe that conversation took place because it supports a myth they want to be true.

You wrote that "In law there are typically three legal standards for decision making contained in jury instructions depending on the type case as defined by legislation. There is a preponderance of evidence, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and clear and convincing evidence." Let's apply those to the case for Jesus' birth as well as the President's. The President has made his case.

[llisa]

05:23 PM on 04/27/2011

Fanned and faved.

[llisa]

05:25 PM on 04/27/2011

And it is a moot point anyway. Obama's mother was a US citizen, so Obama is a natural-born US citizen.

[Michael Hallmark]

07:06 PM on 04/27/2011

Not necessarily a moot point. There was never any question he was a "citizen" as a result of his mother's citizenship, but the eligibility requirements to be president includes addtional requirements such as age (35 years) residency in the US (14 years) and "native born" which means if you were born abroad both parents needed to be citizens, not just one. Since his father was Kenyan, and not a US resident, he needed to have been born in the US to be eligible.

[onionboy]

04:44 PM on 04/27/2011

The latest documents will change the argument very very little. The conspiracists are already at work questioning "why now"?

[Miss Montoya]

03:53 PM on 04/27/2011

Pilate never 'said' that to Jesus. Jesus was debunked, he never existed. The story characters should not be taken as factual. Remember please, that honesty is always the best polocy friend... ;-D

[detroitblkmale30]

09:57 AM on 04/28/2011

and you know this how?

[Soulmentor]

08:47 PM on 04/28/2011

The real question is HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT PILATE SAID in what was apparently an almost entirely private questioning of Jesus? Obviously none of the gospel writers were present so unless one of the guards or ROMAN scribes POSSIBLY present leaked an account of the "conversation" (Jesus reputedly didn't answer), there is apparently no way to know for sure that Pilate ever asked such a question, let alone Jesus non-response. Same for the dialogue when Jesus was before the Sanhedrin and Ciaphas. That could be but never has been attributed to the presence of Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin.
Fact is, we haven't a clue as to the veracity of much of the Biblical accounts of that sequence of events.

[Michael Hallmark]

03:43 PM on 04/27/2011

Huh?

[JohnFromCensornati]

02:03 PM on 04/27/2011

The truth is that Hawaii is part of the USA.

[onionboy]

04:42 PM on 04/27/2011

As Dan Quayle said about Hawaii:

"It is IN the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here."

I miss that guy.

[richdibo]

03:59 AM on 04/28/2011

So do I.

I remember when he expressed his concern about security during a trip to China, his secret service agent told him, "There are only harassing intellectuals, you have nothing to worry about."

[fayegibson]

01:37 PM on 04/27/2011

MR TRUMP,MR OBAMA. Most accomplish was when he decided to become president . All people of color as myself know that one has to do and go beyond the call of duty weather you are trying to become a jantitor or president. When you are a person of color parents teachers you to pray first and work harder at your goal than your counter part. So you see he has already accomplish his goal and nothing he can do or say to muddie the water. Only people with his thinking ability he convince. WHAT A SHAME

[Michael Rappaport]

01:31 PM on 04/27/2011

A fascinating comment. It is amazing that people will accept the wildest speculation as truth from people they are inclined to agree with, but reject the most concrete proof from those to whom they are opposed.