# Truthiness



## Semper Fidelis (Feb 6, 2007)

*Admin Note - Political debate will not be tolerated in this thread. This is meant to be a philosophical discussion.

Well, with that introduction, I hope it belongs in this section. I think this is my first thread in the Philosophy forum. I was listening to the White Horse Inn podcast yesterday and the word Truthiness came up. It's been adopted as an actual word in the OED and was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year in 2005.

Who coined the term? Satirist Stephen Colbert. A good article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness. The monologue:


> I will speak to you in plain, simple English. And that brings us to tonight's word: 'truthiness.' Now I'm sure some of the 'word police,' the 'wordinistas' over at Webster's are gonna say, 'hey, that's not a word.' Well, anyone who knows me knows I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books.
> I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today. 'Cause face it, folks; we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or conservatives and liberals, or tops and bottoms. No, we are divided between those who think with their head, and those who know with their heart.
> 
> Consider Harriet Miers. If you 'think' about Harriet Miers, of course her nomination's absurd. But the president didn't say he 'thought' about his selection. He said this:
> ...



Now you know why I don't want this to descend into a political debate. It is easy to pick on President Bush but the reason why this monologue is so biting and funny is that it represents American society so accurately and cuts to the heart of its folly.

I remember, distinctly, a political debate I had with my step-mother about 3 years ago. She ended up leaving very angry with me though I had not truly given offense - she just didn't like my arguments. I walked upstairs to apologize to her nonetheless and she would not accept my apology for her being upset. She said: "I can't debate you on the facts but I know how I _feel_ about these things."

I guess this is a long introduction to get us to talk about the consequences of this kind of philosophy. What are the consequences for us within the Church? How do we actually present the Truth to a culture where an idea is held for its "truthiness"? How do we gently deal with those who are caught up in this folly and how do we rebuke the impenitent fool?


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## panta dokimazete (Feb 6, 2007)

you understand this is slightly under "world peace" in accomplish-ability?


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 6, 2007)

jdlongmire said:


> you understand this is slightly under "world peace" in accomplish-ability?



J.D.,

Seriously, after so long interacting with me here, have you ever seen me be that naive.

I'm not talking about a transformation of culture but merely how we interact with those we encounter along the way. How do we interact with a person standing in front of us that we're sharing the Gospel that is given to narcissism? How do we interact with those in the Church that want don't "feel" the Word of God can be True because it is not what they like?

This is where most people live today in their minds. We ought to be thinking how we interact with it.


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## No Longer A Libertine (Feb 6, 2007)

The gospel never makes a distinction between the heart and the head, the knowledge of God brings both light and heat according to Jonathan Edwards.

I think this emotionalism type argument can be countered in the similar fashion to how we encounter people that claim Reformed "interpretations" are unique to our view and not the absolute proper exegesis of scripture.


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## panta dokimazete (Feb 7, 2007)

SemperFideles said:


> J.D.,
> 
> Seriously, after so long interacting with me here, have you ever seen me be that naive.



Not at all, Rich, just commenting on the fact that this is an age old issue.



> I'm not talking about a transformation of culture but merely how we interact with those we encounter along the way. How do we interact with a person standing in front of us that we're sharing the Gospel that is given to narcissism? How do we interact with those in the Church that want don't "feel" the Word of God can be True because it is not what they like?
> 
> This is where most people live today in their minds. We ought to be thinking how we interact with it.



So, perhaps this would be a relevant place to start:

_Isaiah 32:6
For a fool speaks nonsense,And his heart inclines toward wickedness:To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD,To keep the hungry person unsatisfied And to withhold drink from the thirsty.

Proverbs 27:22
Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain,Yet his foolishness will not depart from him.

Proverbs 26:5
Answer a fool as his folly deserves,That he not be wise in his own eyes._

And perhaps ultimately...
_
Ecclesiastes 2

12So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15Then I said in my heart, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?" And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!_

So...
_
Matthew 7:6
" Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces._

Now, that is not to say abandon evangelism or telling the truth in love in any case, but we should recognize that those the Lord is calling and sanctifying will be enabled to throw off their foolishness and vanity to see the truth. So we ultimately must understand that no matter how pure our doctrine or our godly rationale, the Holy Spirit must be the cause of sight coming to the blind.

I guess my point is - We cast the seed, God will make it grow, as He wills, so agonizing over the inability of the hearer to understand or the fool practicing their folly is not profitable.

My


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## Chris (Feb 7, 2007)

SemperFideles said:


> J.D.,
> 
> I'm not talking about a transformation of culture but merely how we interact with those we encounter along the way. How do we interact with a person standing in front of us that we're sharing the Gospel that is given to narcissism? How do we interact with those in the Church that want don't "feel" the Word of God can be True because it is not what they like?
> 
> This is where most people live today in their minds. We ought to be thinking how we interact with it.



One thing is for sure: don't expect to be liked for your stance on the rejection of 'truthiness'.


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## BobVigneault (Feb 7, 2007)

There was a splendid discussion of 'truthiness' last week on The Whitehorse Inn. They discussed how we should interact with it as well. It was a great show. Take some time out to listen to it.


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## Semper Fidelis (Feb 7, 2007)

BobVigneault said:


> There was a splendid discussion of 'truthiness' last week on The Whitehorse Inn. They discussed how we should interact with it as well. It was a great show. Take some time out to listen to it.





> Well, with that introduction, I hope it belongs in this section. I think this is my first thread in the Philosophy forum. *I was listening to the White Horse Inn podcast yesterday and the word Truthiness came up.* It's been adopted as an actual word in the OED and was Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year in 2005.



I agree. It was a great discussion. I was trying to continue the dialogue here.


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## JohnV (Feb 7, 2007)

Rich:

There's so much to say about this. I don't know where to begin. 

I guess the place to begin is to explore our own senses of "truthiness". We can get it from several sources. It could be what was ingrained in us by our parents, our teachers, or our pastors/elders, or it could be a social more or standard, or it could stem from our own experiences. Somehow we just know that, though someone seems to have all the arguments, yet there is something wrong about it. We just can't put our fingers on it.

But there are somethings that we should not be convinced of so quickly, and somethings we that we should. And sometimes we're not so quick to be convinced of some things, and sometimes too quick to be convinced of others. 

We have an inner judgment that can be right or can be wrong, and often without having all the reasons ready at hand. 

The thing is that there is more to truth than meets the eye. It happens often enough in our lives that someone presents something as true and many are taken in by it, only to find out years later that it wasn't as true as it first sounded. The arguments fall apart after a while. I know that I've changed my mind on things that I was quite sure of years ago, and I do not discount that it can still happen. 

On some things I've learned to trust my instincts. I do not leave it at that, for I also have to know the reasons; but I am comfortable on some matters to trust my instincts initially. You might call it "truthiness", but I have an instinct about this new word that makes me not trust it. 

My instinct tells me not to trust it. But I do see what it appeals to. This is something that I've spent some time on in my own thoughts. How I know somethings before I know them by their reasons has some legitimacy, while at other times it doesn't. Knowing the difference has been my aim. My instincts on some things have been very trustworthy to me, while on other things I've learned not to trust them. And yet here too, it is my instincts (or so it seems) which play a role in knowing which to trust and which not to. All I can say it that it results from years of experience, years of trying, and years of mistakes. At the same time, it goes exceedingly against my instincts to leave at that, to merely trust my instincts. I need to know the reasons. 

So I am faced with this dillemma: I sometimes have to decide on things before I know the reasons, and I need a solid basis for that. I can't just let everyone who thinks he's got all his arguments right come in an take control. I've got to have basic standards upon which to trust my instincts, so that I can then go and do the research that I need to, so that I can make in informed decision. 

As a Christian, I think I have that. That is, as a Christian I believe that I have a more advanced sense of instinct than those who are not Christians. They too have it, but mine can be more defined, more practiced, and more acute. The more I know the Catechism by practice as well as by memory, the more I believe I can trust my instincts.

It isn't just that I've justified this in myself. I've seen it in others as well. I've seen some whose instincts should not be as developed as mine, because I think that I was much better versed in the Catechism than they were, and yet they were ahead of me on "knowing" some things. Sometimes way ahead. The point is that I've seen it in others as well. Without overtly discerning which instincts to trust and which not to, they made the right decisions based upon their instincts. They just somehow knew the right thing to do, even though they could not give adequate reasons at the time. And it also happens often enough that the simple reasons that they do give just blow you away for being so simple, yet so accurate, so disarming, and so "cut-to-the-chase" bullseye, and so "Why-did-I-not-see-that?" fitting. 

I guess what I'm saying is that we need to learn to listen more. Sometimes there's more there than meets they eye. Don't be too easily taken in by things that people seem to be too willing to accept. Sometimes there are good reasons why you hesitate, and sometimes there are not. But most of the time it takes longer to know the reasons than you are given to decide. 

And sometimes it takes somebody who is wrong to set you right. That happens too.


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