Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Truth Matters

In one of my latest Twitter wars, a liberal progressive charged me with fear, bigotry, and bullying in response to repeated assertions on a number of culture issues.

His last tweet, however, gave me pause, and respectably so:

So can I ask you a question? Why is this an issue for you?

What were we debating on Twitter at the time? The status, the definition of marriage, and why there can be no other construct for marital unity besides one man and one woman.

The reason is that the true – yes, true – definition of marriage is between one man and one woman.

Truth matters. We cannot discuss anything unless we are discussing something, and for something to be there, it has to be true.

When writing the above sentence, I recall another heated discussion with a California Conservative, more intent and intense than myself, and as we bantered back and forth not just about marriage, but the origins and etiology of homosexual conduct, he uttered:

You have this stake on the truth, and the other person does not. How you define truth is different from how other people see the issue.

What my good conservative friend basically said was: “Everyone has their own truth.” Excuse me?! I nearly jumped out of my seat, hearing such pandering, nearly accomodationist rhetoric.

That statement has no truth to it. “Everyone is right” is basically wrong, because there are not only a multiplicity of views, but their diversity gives way to inexorable contraction. Muslims believe that anyone adhering to another faith does not deserve to live. Someone who believes in the sanctity of life will not only disagree, but cannot compromise on the issue. Either you believe that 2 + 2 =4 or you do not. There is no room for “We are both right”. Anyone who believes differently can review the final ledgers and accounts, then tell me which one balances.

David Hume



This nonsensical notion, that different people can define the truth in different ways, yet both be valid and commendable, has made the rounds in elite universities since the early 1800s, and perhaps a little further back when secular, humanistic thinkers like David Hume posited: “No is implies an ought.”

Without the “is”, there would no “ought.”

Even when deranged atheistic humanist Friedrich Nietzsche posited that “God is dead”, he was talking about God, and death, both of which he could not have invented, nor could he have escaped. A bitter Sunday school boy frustrated with Big Government involved in religion, as well as a frantic fascination with Greco-Roman pagan traditions, Nietzsche was rebelling, but with nothing to fight for, he had only himself to defeat, down to sobbing on a horse then ebbing away from his mentally paralyzing syphilis, another inconvenient truth which upholds the necessity of fidelity for life and peace.

Out of this haze of philosophic malaise, today we witness a world which has lost its footing, unable to stand for anything or withstand against anything. The force of tradition is now replaced by force.

The truth matters. Matter itself, a physical property, is a reality. When defying those who claimed that action and motion do not exist, the philosopher Zeno stood up and moved around the room. His actions made the case for action despite all the talk.

When the patient goes into surgery, he believes that the doctor is professional who will do good, not harm. The most post-modern of philosophers, the now deceased Jacques Derrida, affirmed that we speak to each other out of necessity that the other person is speaking the truth to us. Contrary to fellow French philosophe Michel Foucault (who perished from venereal disease resulting from unsafe, homosexual promiscuity), truth is not a mere “thing” manipulated by power.

Truth is everything, and we have no power to change that truth. Not might makes right, but right makes might, for power has none without legitimacy. Why else did the Soviet Union collapse? Why now do we see the Islamic world in violent turmoil, and Muslims embrace the Christian faith, where Truth is personified?

And how does this ideological ideation tie into my idiosyncratic twitter debate?

The marriage thing. Why does anyone believe that the state, the academics, or leading politicians of our time can redefine an institution which predates the state and outlasts all time? Those gay marriage advocates are stepping off from marriage, the union of one man and one woman. They have nothing to argue about except what has been in place since, well, forever.

Before the state, the government, or even the tribe, there was the God who created all things, including man, and from the man came woman. There was marriage, the family, then community. To this day, there is nothing in science, history, or legacy to dispute otherwise. The research, the science, the history, the legacies affirm marriage as one man and one woman.

Truth Revolt:  Ben Shapiro's project
to reinvigorate truth into the press

And that’s the truth, and the need for truth agitates every mind, from the Ancient Greek to Modern America.

Truth matters. Either it is, or it is not. Either you believe it, or you do not.

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