Aug 26, 2017 | Notable Quotations, Truth
This is the third way. A belief in objectivity—in Beauty, Truth, and Goodness—requires neither a rejection of the complexities of the world nor a rejection of those who think differently. In fact, it requires more work. It requires a willingness to enter into the mess of a seemingly contradictory reality with a hope and a trust that there is something worth fighting for.
And thus, the sincerity of Wonder Woman and her Lasso of Truth arrive as a brief but necessary respite from the cycle of deception and disillusionment that plagues our cultural landscape. It unearths a newly repressed desire for wholehearted sincerity, even Truth, that we forgot we could believe in.
The critical and financial success of Wonder Woman proves audiences are ready for a strong female superhero. We might also be ready to face the Truth.
—Caleb Gotthardt, “Why Wonder Woman is the Best Lie Detector of 2017”
Apr 8, 2017 | Truth
On this day in 1966, Time Magazine published it’s (in)famous cover story, “Is God Dead?” It was about some radical theologians who decided to take the theos out of the ology. It has not exactly proved to be prophetic. In some parts of the world God is more popular than ever, even in countries that are officially atheist like China. Europe, on the other hand, instead of being the vanguard of the future, as predicted by secularists for decades, is dying on the spiritual vine. Not only are churches empty, but most Western Europeans are not even having enough children to replace their populations. Growing Muslim populations, by contrast, are filling the spiritual vacuum (which we know nature abhors) because they value the next generation and are passionate about their God.
No, God is indeed not dead, but here comes Time almost 51 years later again asking another question of negation: “Is Truth Dead?” I will give the magazine credit for logical consistency. If there is no God, there is no truth. As I often ask my kids, if all we are is lucky dirt, then what makes one thing true and not another, or what makes something right and not wrong? Nothing. In the moral realm, you cannot get ought from is. If all we are is lucky dirt who’s to say torturing babies for fun is wrong. And if God is dead truth is dead. Without God the only thing that can make one thing ultimately true or not is power.
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Mar 23, 2017 | Truth
It wouldn’t be surprising if you haven’t heard of Reza Aslan, but he’s becoming increasingly famous among secular cultural elites because he confirms their bias against truth. Azlan is an Iranian-American author, public intellectual, religious studies scholar, producer, and television host, according to Google. But you’ll immediately know he’s suspect because he’s on CNN. His new documentary called Believer proves the point. CNN is always pushing an agenda, and whether it’s politics or religion, they always come down on the liberal side. The documentary fits comfortably in their worldview.
I learned about it from a John Stonestreet piece at Breakpoint. He captures Aslan’s basic assumption:
Quoting the Buddha, Aslan likens the religions of the world to different wells, which believers dig in order to drink the same water. In other words, all religions are equally true. All roads, so to speak, lead to Heaven, resurrection, enlightenment, Nirvana, or whatever else your endgame may be.
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Mar 6, 2017 | Truth
Words mean things . . . This little phrase is one my kids have heard numerous times over the years, probably more than they’d like. And words are among the most profound things about human existence because they allow us to think and communicate.
The profundity of language is built into the nature of the Christian faith. In the first chapter of the first book of our Bible we read, “And God said,” nine times, all in the context of God creating “the heavens and the earth.” Think of the power of one single atom, from which can arise immense forces of destruction. You will maybe then have some sense of the power in the words, “And God said.” He created an entire universe filled with atoms!
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Feb 23, 2017 | Truth
In a previous post on the The 4 Horsemen of the Philosophical Apocalypse, I mentioned that Truth in our secular age is a casualty of various ism’s, like , scientism, and relativism. After 50 plus years of Western secular culture watering down Truth with such ism’s, we’ve gotten to the point where they finally get the Word of the Year: Post-Truth. The Oxford Dictionaries decided that we are not much interested in Truth anymore, especially when it relates to shaping public opinion. Their definition of the word:
After much discussion, debate, and research, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth – an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.
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Jan 23, 2017 | Truth
If you are not familiar with the phrase, “down the rabbit hole,” it comes from the 19th Century Lewis Carroll book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Young Alice goes down a rabbit hole and experiences a world that is upside down, inside out, and awfully confusing. According to Google, the phrase has come to “refer to a bizarre, confusing, or nonsensical situation or environment, typically one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.” I was reminded of the world down the rabbit hole as I was recently having a conversation with a quintessential postmodernist.
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