{"id":7896,"date":"2020-10-08T10:21:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T17:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7896"},"modified":"2020-10-08T10:21:54","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T17:21:54","slug":"the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2020\/10\/08\/the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I saw a meme this week:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe news used to tell us what happened and we had to decide how we felt about it.  Now, the news tells us how to feel and we have to decide if it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how we interpret observations. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations. It requires experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses. And it necessitates refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For postmodernists, in contrast, science is a set of unquestionable beliefs, handed down from above, to be accepted completely and without question or doubt.  Which of course isn\u2019t scientific at all.  Science is a methodology, not a feeling. Reality is what exists regardless of how you feel about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But actual facts don\u2019t matter in a postmodern world, nor does objective truth.  You\u2019ve probably heard the term \u201cpostmodern,\u201d but do you know what it is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postmodernism questions and criticizes Enlightenment rationality.  It opposes certainty. It rejects the concept of objective reality.  It denies universal truth. It argues for relativism.  It is skeptical of explanations that claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions or races.  Postmodernists claim that reality is a mental construct. Facts are malleable. It has no clue what \u201cscience\u201d actually is nor does it care. It redefines it.  It hollows it out and wears it as a skin suit. It uses it as a club to intimidate those who disagree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final scene of the first Star Wars <\/em>movie,the rebel alliance launches an assault on the Death Star in an attempt to defeat the Empire. The hero, Luke Skywalker, pilots his X-wing fighter along a heavily fortified trench in search of a small exhaust port in which to fire his missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid the chaos of the battle, Luke hears the wise counsel of his recently departed mentor, Obi-wan Kenobi, who whispers, \u201cLuke, trust your feelings.\u201d Luke then switches off his targeting computer and \u2014 using the Force as his guide \u2014 proceeds to fly by instinct, eventually reaching his objective and destroying the Death Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then later, in The<\/em> Empire Strikes Back<\/em>, in the confrontation with Darth Vader when Luke learns the truth, that Darth Vader is his father and he resists accepting it, Darth Vader tells him: \u201cSearch your feelings. You know it to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you know it to be true because it \u201cfeels right\u201d then you don\u2019t need facts.  \u201cI\u2019ve made up my mind, don\u2019t confuse me with the facts.\u201d  That\u2019s our world today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is not a new way of approaching things. Humans naturally default to this.  The nineteenth century was dominated by this outlook.  It was an age of Romance, not an Age of Reason. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so again today.  Logic and facts are doubted; we imagine feelings are more \u201cauthentic,\u201d more real.  We retain the trappings of the Enlightenment and deny the power thereof.  We don\u2019t want to \u201creason together\u201d to discover the truth.  We just want to feel good about ourselves and our choices.  It\u2019s okay if I self-identify as a kumquat.  It\u2019s my reality, right?  It\u2019s who I really am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet we know down deep that elevating emotion over rationality is nonsense.  We still look both ways before we cross a street.  We don\u2019t purposely run red lights.  We willingly go to a doctor if we break a bone.  We don\u2019t give out our social security number to strangers on the phone.  We know we have to eat. And we count our change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t actually live by postmodern or romantic thinking. Facts do matter in our day to day existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And facts matter to God.  He asks us to believe the truth, not just to embrace our feelings. Our choices have real consequences.<\/p>\n

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I saw a meme this week: \u201cThe news used to tell us what happened and we had to decide how we felt about it.  Now, the news tells us how to feel and we have to decide if it happened.\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7897,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7896\/revisions\/7897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}