Three Lies Of Culture
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Now, let me just move to something. I’m going to give you three lies you’re going to hear in the universe. You heard one of them from Scott. These are three lies you’re likely to hear in the culture today. The first one may seem obvious. “Oh, there’s no truth, there’s no objective truth. Everything’s a matter of perspective.” You hear it sometimes when thinkers in history will say things like this, “Truth is what stands the test of experience.” Well, if my experience is different than your experience then my truth is going to be different than yours because truth is what stands the test of experience.
Or you might hear it said this way, and I want you to just tell me who you think said this, “Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held,” like, you Christians. Jesus was wise wasn’t he? And “believe nothing because it’s said in ancient books,” like the Bible’s an ancient book, isn’t it? “Believe nothing just because it’s said to be of divine origin.” Isn’t the Bible said to be of divine origin? And “believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.” That means that you are the final authority on… It’s all a subjective. The subject is the final authority.
Who do you think said this in history? You guys know if you were here last year, this was said by Buddha. But how do we know that Buddha said this? Because it’s an in ancient book of allegedly divine origin, said by a very wise man, and accepted generally by lots of people, do you see the problem with this claim? It can’t stand on its own two feet. It actually violates everything it claims to begin with. It commits suicide. It hangs itself. This is called a self-refuting truth claim. If someone was say to you, for example, there is no objective truth you would ask the question, is that objectively true? Are you saying it’s true that there is no truth. There is one objective truth claim that there is no objective truth claim? Do you see how stupid that is? It’s a problem. It’s self-refuting.
The second lie you’re going to hear in colleges I think and in culture is this one. Okay, fine. I’ll give you that first one. I’ll give you that there might be some objective truth claims we could all agree on, but nobody is smart enough to really know them. I mean, things change all the time. We have a theory about science. We discover something new. It changes. If you don’t allow for change over time in terms of just your ideas, we’d never progress as a culture.
So clearly you think, you know something today, you could be wrong tomorrow. Truth can’t really ever really be known with any level of certainty. And folks will say, you’ll hear it, and famous atheists who have said things like believe those who are seeking the truth, but doubt those who are so arrogant, like you, Christians, you’re so arrogant. If there is a truth about God, why do you think you have the market on that truth? Why do you think you know what’s true about God? Doubt those who find it.
And I love this one by Molly Ivins. She says, look, I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil and that no one knows the truth. Do you see the problem? That means everyone’s ignorant, right? This is another example of a self-refuting truth claim. If someone was going to say to you, truth, can’t be known, what are you going to say? Do you know that’s true? Do you know it’s true that truth can’t be known. Apparently there’s one truth you can know, that you can’t know truth. Do you see the problem with it? It’s self-refuting. I’m going to come back to the third big thing also, but I want to kind of work with this for a second before we get there.
My students had a professor in college who was one of these guys who would reject objective truths or reject that we could have any certainty about objective truth claims. So I told him, and it was in a microbiology class at University of California at Santa Barbara. My son David was there for undergraduate work. And so I told him, if you want to mess with this guy, I want you to go to school tomorrow and go into this class about 15 minutes late. And I want you to tell this guy, “for me, it’s hard for me to get up in the morning for me. The start time for this class is about 10:45 or so, because I can’t get up any earlier than that.” Now, this guy who rejects objective moral truths, is he going to be okay with you coming into his class about 15 minutes late every day? No, because he believes there’s an objective start time to his class. That is not a matter of opinion. It’s objectively true. It’s 10:30.
I said also go out and buy the books these professors typically offer. They’re super expensive and they change a few lines every year. And they want you to go out the next year and buy the updated addition to their book. Forget all that, I said, just go on eBay, get a $5 version of the book, bring it in and say, “Hey, this isn’t your book, but I like this book better. It’s cheaper, covers about the same material, easier to read. It only cost me $5.” Do you think he’s going to be okay with that? No, because the guy who rejects objective truth thinks there’s an objectively true text for the class. I said, and tell me, please tell me, he’s not giving you true/false or multiple choice questions. He said, “oh yeah, he’s giving us true/false, multiple choice tests.” Well, how can you do that if you deny there’s any objective truth. I would just go in the next time, just go all true. All true and hand it to him and say, “I just gave you the hundred percent paper. Here you go.”
Because, after all, it’s about my opinions on these things. There’s no objectively true answer. These are all subjective. As a matter of fact, if this guy did a crime in my city, I could tell you a lot about this guy just from his DNA, because the objective truth of reality worms all the way down to the level of his DNA. I can tell you if he’s a black, I can tell you if he’s a male. I can tell you if he’s Asian, I can tell you… The day is probably coming when I’ll be able to tell you how tall he is from his DNA. But for now, I can tell you some objectively true claims about his ethnicity, about his sexuality, male or female. If just by looking at the true objectively true nature of his DNA. Objective truth is undeniable folks. It’s like a safe that’s falling out of the sky. You can deny it’s falling on you, but you’re going to get smacked. It’s just the nature of truth.
Also, guys like this typically have bumper stickers like this on their car. Have you seen this bumper sticker? It’s very popular and it has children. These are its children. They’re all kind of similar because they’re trying to make a claim about the nature of belief systems, that basically all religions are equally true. Can’t you guys just get along and coexist? My gosh, please. It’s a joke. Just get along.
Really? Well. Here’s the problem. These claims that these systems are very much opposed. If you believe in an Eastern kind of belief system, you probably believe in a God that’s not personal, an impersonal force, but the problem is Christianity proposes this God is personal. These two things cannot both be true. They are directly contradictory. One can be right. The other false. They can both be false, but they can’t both be equally true. They can be equally untrue or one can be true.
Same thing is true when you look at the nature of Jesus’ deity. My Jewish friends reject, a lot of my friends would say, and I work with a lot of lawyers in Los Angeles county who are district attorneys, the entire set of DAs on I’m working with on this case, they’re all culturally Jewish. And they might give you that Jesus was a smart teacher and maybe a wise ancient rabbi, but they would never give you that Jesus is God. Let me go back. This is a claim only Christians make. Now, look, these are an opposition to each other. We can both be wrong, but we can’t both be right.
And Muslims who deny that Jesus even died on the cross, have a claim that’s just the opposite of ours. We can both be wrong, but we can’t both be right. Do you see this idea that all religions are equally true is nonsense? All they can equally be is false, but they can’t be equally true. See the difference?
Now the last lie you’re going to hear in the culture is one that I think Scott’s already talked about when he talked about tolerance. So I want to review it and maybe I’ll give you a different way to think about it. This idea that tolerance has been redefined by our culture to this definition, which is really a bad definition. The idea that everyone’s ideas, everyone’s view on anything should be accepted equally as being equally meritorious, equally virtuous, equally true. All views should be embraced as equally true. And if you’re not willing to do that, Mr. Christian, Mrs. Christian, then you’re an intolerant jerk.
Why can’t we just get along? You’re so intolerant. You won’t accept this other view about same sex marriage, about homosexuality, about abortion. You will not accept us. You have to judge us. If you want to be tolerant, you have to accept our view as equally meritorious. Really? That is not the definition of tolerance. That’s just stupid.
And by the way, do you think that these folks could hold to this view? No, it’s self-refuting. What if I came to one of these guys and I said, “Okay, here’s my view. My view is that some ideas stink. Some ideas are good. Some ideas are bad. Some things are true. Some things are false. Some things we should really reject as a culture. That’s my view. Can you, Mr. Tolerant accept my view as equally meritorious to yours?” No, he can’t. His view is that all views are equal. Well, my view is that all views aren’t. But since you think all views are equal, you have to accept my view as equal to yours, but he can’t do that. Can he? Because I hold a view that all views aren’t equal.
This view is impossible to hold. You can’t be tolerant like that because by being tolerant like that, they reveal how intolerant they are of us who hold the traditional view of tolerance, which is very different. The traditional view requires two people and three Ds, two people, and three Ds to be tolerant. Here’s the definition of tolerance. The real definition of tolerance, a fair objective and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, et cetera, differ from yours. In other words, you don’t agree. You don’t think they’re equally meritorious. You hate their views. They’re different than yours. To be tolerant, that’s the definition. It requires three Ds.
You ready? The first thing it requires is a disagreement. I’m not asking. If you have to agree with somebody in order to be tolerant, what’s there to be tolerant about? We agree. You don’t tolerate people who agree with you. You tolerate people who disagree with you.
The second D you need is a very strong understanding of what the differences are. What’s the difference between same-sex marriage and natural marriage? What is the difference? We have to understand the distinctions.
And the third thing you need is the third D. Don’t be a jerk. I think, didn’t Ryan Dobson come in here, basically. Talk about that. Okay. So you have to have these three Ds to be truly tolerant. Hold onto your disagreement. Do not relinquish your position. Do not accept theirs as true when you know yours is. Let the disagreement elaborate the the differences. And then finally, don’t be a jerk doing it. Three Ds. Now, before we leave this session, I’ve got to define for you truth. And we’ll end right here.
What is truth? Because there are some definitions you’re going to get in university systems that are not true. Here’s the first one. Could it be, let’s back up here. I’ll give it to you slowly. Did you write it down? It’s called pragmatism, pragmatic theory of truth. Pragmatism basically just argues that if it works, it’s true. Why is isoniazid the true drug that cures TB, because it works. We tried a lot of other stuff. This one works. Therefore, if it works, it’s true.
That’s going to be offered to you by the culture. But think about it for a second. Always look for counterexamples to see if something is true. Does death work for you? Doesn’t work for me. And I’m 53 now and I’m getting, it doesn’t work for me. Is it still true? Yeah. How about this? Have you ever told a convenient, successful lie? Susie, am I losing my hair? Oh no. You look as good as you ever did. And your hair is so full. What’s she going to tell me? Do I look fat in this dress? What am I really going to say here? Have you ever told a lie successfully? Yes. Did you telling the successful lie then make it true? No, it might work, but it’s not true. I can’t use the pragmatism.
How about this? This is something that’s called empiricism. It’s the idea that I can’t know something is true unless I can test it with my own senses. Now we already know that some things are subjectively different. You might say something is sweet while somebody else says it’s bitter, but let me just offer this to you. If someone makes this claim, the claim that I can’t know something is true, unless I discover it with science. How many of your friends are like that? Or maybe you even held that position? I can’t know something is true unless it’s demonstrated with science. I can’t know something is true unless I can test it with science. This is empiricism in its purest form. Our culture for the most part says this all the time.
But let me ask you a question. This claim about truth. Can I test it with science? Can I test this claim that you can only know something by testing it with science? Can I test that claim with science? No. This is a philosophical position. This is not a scientific statement. This is a philosophical statement. It turns out that all science begins with philosophy. So the idea that science, because science has to have an idea about what’s in bounds and what’s out of bounds. That’s a philosophical distinction. You cannot know this truth, scientifically. This is a truth you accept philosophically as the foundation for your science. Therefore, it’s self-refute. This statement is self-refuting. It cannot be determined with science. So apparently you do believe in something that can’t be determined with science. You believe this. See how it doesn’t work?
What about this? Emotivism. A lot of my Mormon family, this is how they determine Mormonism is true. Just read it, pray to God. God will answer your prayer. It’s in James. If you want knowledge, just ask for knowledge. God will give it to you. And I’ve had some experience which confirms this. Truth is what I feel. Really? Have you ever had irrational fears? I have a partner who is six foot four, about 280 pounds. And he’s got an irrational fear of garden spiders. It’s hilarious. Every time we find a garden spider, we bring it to work and we put it in a little piece of Tupperware and we put it on his desk. And he comes in and when he first notices the spider, he screams like a school girl. He’s a huge guy. He’s got hands like baseball mitts, okay. But he screams like a school girl when it comes the spiders, because he’s got an irrational fear. Can you really trust your heart? What does the Bible tell us about your heart? It’s wicked and deceitful, right?
And by the way, what can your emotions tell you about paperclips? There are several truth claims related to paperclips. Their shape, their construction. Can your emotions tell you anything about that? No. There are lots of truth claims that have no emotional component whatsoever. Emotions can’t tell you the truth. Here’s the definition of truth you need to hold on. It’s a biblical definition. It’s a simple one. It’s called the correspondence theory of truth. Truth is a relationship. I don’t mean your relationship with Jesus. I mean, truth is a relationship between what you think is true and what really is. If I think there’s a podium on this stage and I’m outside, and then I come inside and I see there really is a podium on this stage. The fact that my beliefs about the existence of a podium match the reality of the existence of the podium, that relationship between my beliefs corresponding to reality is called truth. It’s a correspondence relationship between your beliefs. It basically is this what you believe equals what is. That’s truth.
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