Sincerely wrong

You must understand that I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that the men's bathroom was on the left. It was a few days before Christmas. \nMy grandparents had just flown in to for the holidays and were taking my family and me out to dinner at an expensive German restaurant. I needed to make use of the facilities. We had eaten at the same place last year, and I clearly recalled the men's restroom was on the left. I swaggered in without even bothering to glance at the sign on the door. The first thing I noticed was the lack of a urinal. 'Very odd,' I thought. And man, the decorator had gone way overboard on the flowers.\nNow, you might think that I would have clued in at this point. I didn't. After using the facilities, I stood in front of the mirror, admiring my junior high self in my dapper tuxedo. At the moment, the door opened, and there stood a gorgeous girl my age. Did I figure it out yet? No! My first thought was how embarrassed this girl must feel for walking into the wrong restroom. Dumbfounded, she stared at me and said, "Uh, this is the women's bathroom." \n"It is?!" \n"Uh huh." \n Mortified, I ran out, into the real men's bathroom. After banging my head against the wall several times, I snuck back to my seat, hoping to avoid the girl. \n You are probably thinking, "Boy, that was dumb." And it was. But with the incident many years removed, it makes for a good laugh. But I would like to draw attention to a perhaps obvious fact: my sincerity in believing that the men's restroom was on the left did not change the fact that it was on the right. \nThere exists in our society today the notion that sincerity is what is important when it comes to our beliefs. We hear, "What may be true for you is not true for me. What matters is that you are sincere in your beliefs." \nTry that with science some time. "Professor, I'm sorry, but I sincerely believe that the formula for water is NH4, not H2O." In science (ideally), something is accepted to be true after research and investigation. We should not conclude that something is true because we decide it is, as if our belief created the reality around us. \nTwo weeks ago, it seems that a group of men thought it was right to hijack planes and murder thousands. No one can question how sincere they were in their beliefs; they were sincere enough to die for what they believed. But I hope you balk as much as I do at the thought of such an act being just. Their sincerity did not make them right.\nThe same principle applies to our lives. Our beliefs do not create reality. For a long time, people thought the world was flat, but that belief didn't change the shape of the earth, did it? Sincerity is not the ultimate goal. Arriving at the truth is. \nSincerity is a good quality. I respect people with strong convictions, and I wish more people had them, but sincerity alone is not enough. Sincerity must be coupled with truth.