Lies
My two favorite (near) quotes about lies are:
"The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe.", and "Tell a lie often enough and people will believe it."
They seem to be true. There are a lot of lies being perpetrated throughout the world; some have persisted for literally hundreds of years. Some, more modern ones, are shoved down our throats every day in the hopes that they will eventually be believed - and they are.
I ran across a quote a few weeks back that I very much like and it is:
"Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise conviction to be compassionate." (Rick Warren)
Of course, part of the 'problem' is that one man's conviction is another man's lie. How can you tell truth from lie? Unfortunately, there is no easy, universal answer for that. Many folks rely on quotes from (in)famous people; but of course, just because someone (in)famous says something doesn't automatically make it "true" (or "false" for that matter). Some rely on "science" and "scientific facts", but if the assumptions behind these so-called 'facts' are not provided or are themselves false, then what? Now, don't get me wrong - I am not suggesting that we ignore all "science". No, there are some fundamental principles that have been confirmed time and time again, such as the 2nd law of thermodynamics. But there have been other principles that were once thought to be irrefutable that have been shown to be "incomplete" (for lack of a better term) and have needed modifications over the years to explain observed anomalies - such as Newton's theory of universal gravitation (which was 'modified' by Einstein, approx. 200 years later).
Some people treat "science" as one, big, universal "thing". But there are many branches of "science"; mathematics, chemistry, Newtonian physics, quantum physics, astrophysics, biology, geology, etc. To universally accept "science" as true is absurd. Why? Because "science" changes. It was "science" that said the Earth was the center of our solar system, until someone challenged that and showed that if you place the Sun at the center of the solar system, the math becomes much simpler. (For you see, one can construct a model of the solar system where the Earth is the center, but the math is more complex than if one uses the Sun as the center. This is because of "relativity" - if you are standing on the sidewalk and a car goes zooming by, from your perspective, the car is moving; but from the car's perspective, it is the rest of the world that is moving.) It was "science" that said people were "blood sick" and leaches were used to remove the "bad blood"; then it was "science" that said that blood-letting does more harm than good; but now "science" says that using leaches can be of benefit because of the secretions they produce while feeding.
So you see, "science" changes. And it usually changes when the old assumptions are challenged and new assumptions are used in their place. So it is very important that you know and understand what assumptions are being used in any given "scientific fact" provided.
Probably the most reliable of all sciences is mathematics. Indeed, pretty much all other science fields rely on mathematics and use math to "prove" (or disprove) their theories. But math can be misapplied and used incorrectly to "prove" things. In fact, I can "prove", using math, that 1 = 2 (I won't get into the "proof" here, but you can look it up on-line). Of course, it's fallacy - there is a misuse of math in the proof, but it's easy to overlook it. But even with math, there are certain things which "are the way they are" because we define them to be that way. If one were to ignore or change these definitions, then one could, in theory, prove pretty much anything they want - even that 1 = 2 (which is, of course, not true).
So where am I going with all this? I'm not sure. If your convictions are telling you that "black people are genetically inferior to white people", I can quote the Declaration of Independence - "all men are created equal" - and I can show you with "science" (biology, genetics) that this is a lie. If your convictions tell you that "homosexuals are born that way", I can show you with logic that this is a lie; I can further tell you that there is no "scientific proof" that 'proves' it to be true. If your convictions are that "the theory of evolution of the species is a fact", I can show you, scientifically, that it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics and thus the theory cannot be true based on the established rules of the scientific method (which so many evolutionists claim to believe in and follow). But so what? It is up to you whether you will believe the "proof" that people provide, or not.
I try to keep an open mind, but as my youth pastor used to say, "not so open that my brain falls out". There are things that I know are 100% absolutely true and there are things I know are 100% absolutely false. And you will not be able to convince me otherwise, in spite of your so-called "proof". There are other things which I'm not sure about - one the one hand, I can see why people say "it must be this way", but on the other hand, it just doesn't sound quite right. And in these cases, I have to decide whether it is a "big enough lie" that it seems true, or if it is a "lie being told often enough" in hopes to make it 'true'.
I can only hope and pray that God gives me the wisdom to discern the real truth in these matters.
"The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe.", and "Tell a lie often enough and people will believe it."
They seem to be true. There are a lot of lies being perpetrated throughout the world; some have persisted for literally hundreds of years. Some, more modern ones, are shoved down our throats every day in the hopes that they will eventually be believed - and they are.
I ran across a quote a few weeks back that I very much like and it is:
"Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don't have to compromise conviction to be compassionate." (Rick Warren)
Of course, part of the 'problem' is that one man's conviction is another man's lie. How can you tell truth from lie? Unfortunately, there is no easy, universal answer for that. Many folks rely on quotes from (in)famous people; but of course, just because someone (in)famous says something doesn't automatically make it "true" (or "false" for that matter). Some rely on "science" and "scientific facts", but if the assumptions behind these so-called 'facts' are not provided or are themselves false, then what? Now, don't get me wrong - I am not suggesting that we ignore all "science". No, there are some fundamental principles that have been confirmed time and time again, such as the 2nd law of thermodynamics. But there have been other principles that were once thought to be irrefutable that have been shown to be "incomplete" (for lack of a better term) and have needed modifications over the years to explain observed anomalies - such as Newton's theory of universal gravitation (which was 'modified' by Einstein, approx. 200 years later).
Some people treat "science" as one, big, universal "thing". But there are many branches of "science"; mathematics, chemistry, Newtonian physics, quantum physics, astrophysics, biology, geology, etc. To universally accept "science" as true is absurd. Why? Because "science" changes. It was "science" that said the Earth was the center of our solar system, until someone challenged that and showed that if you place the Sun at the center of the solar system, the math becomes much simpler. (For you see, one can construct a model of the solar system where the Earth is the center, but the math is more complex than if one uses the Sun as the center. This is because of "relativity" - if you are standing on the sidewalk and a car goes zooming by, from your perspective, the car is moving; but from the car's perspective, it is the rest of the world that is moving.) It was "science" that said people were "blood sick" and leaches were used to remove the "bad blood"; then it was "science" that said that blood-letting does more harm than good; but now "science" says that using leaches can be of benefit because of the secretions they produce while feeding.
So you see, "science" changes. And it usually changes when the old assumptions are challenged and new assumptions are used in their place. So it is very important that you know and understand what assumptions are being used in any given "scientific fact" provided.
Probably the most reliable of all sciences is mathematics. Indeed, pretty much all other science fields rely on mathematics and use math to "prove" (or disprove) their theories. But math can be misapplied and used incorrectly to "prove" things. In fact, I can "prove", using math, that 1 = 2 (I won't get into the "proof" here, but you can look it up on-line). Of course, it's fallacy - there is a misuse of math in the proof, but it's easy to overlook it. But even with math, there are certain things which "are the way they are" because we define them to be that way. If one were to ignore or change these definitions, then one could, in theory, prove pretty much anything they want - even that 1 = 2 (which is, of course, not true).
So where am I going with all this? I'm not sure. If your convictions are telling you that "black people are genetically inferior to white people", I can quote the Declaration of Independence - "all men are created equal" - and I can show you with "science" (biology, genetics) that this is a lie. If your convictions tell you that "homosexuals are born that way", I can show you with logic that this is a lie; I can further tell you that there is no "scientific proof" that 'proves' it to be true. If your convictions are that "the theory of evolution of the species is a fact", I can show you, scientifically, that it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics and thus the theory cannot be true based on the established rules of the scientific method (which so many evolutionists claim to believe in and follow). But so what? It is up to you whether you will believe the "proof" that people provide, or not.
I try to keep an open mind, but as my youth pastor used to say, "not so open that my brain falls out". There are things that I know are 100% absolutely true and there are things I know are 100% absolutely false. And you will not be able to convince me otherwise, in spite of your so-called "proof". There are other things which I'm not sure about - one the one hand, I can see why people say "it must be this way", but on the other hand, it just doesn't sound quite right. And in these cases, I have to decide whether it is a "big enough lie" that it seems true, or if it is a "lie being told often enough" in hopes to make it 'true'.
I can only hope and pray that God gives me the wisdom to discern the real truth in these matters.
posted by TubaMeister at
11:14
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