Truth, Bible, Propaganda

In my early posts, I argued that every worldview is a faith position (see e.g. “The faith of the atheist” July 2010). What is a worldview? The online dictionary has two bullets. It is 1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world, and 2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

There are two things that I want to say here about worldviews. The first is that we all have one, even if we do not have it systematically organized in our minds. You may have a Christian or an Islamic worldview. You may have a secular worldview, but you do have a worldview. We all do, and we all interpret life/reality/experience in terms of them. We use our worldview to try to make sense of the world. We also often use them (possibly without knowing we are doing so) to dismiss those who do not hold similar views.

The second thing I want to say, is that all worldviews are held by faith. In other words we cannot prove by logic, that our worldviews are either right or wrong. I am not saying that we have not thought about our worldview, even thought deeply and feel passionately about them, but they are all, as the second point in the online dictionary sates, a collection of beliefs. They are not a collection of indisputable facts.

There are many things that influence the development of our worldviews. Our experience for one thing. A child born into the midst of war, is likely to believe the world is a scary place, whereas a child born into a loving and accepting home in a time of peace, is likely to have a very different view of the world. The sins of people who say they believe in God can turn us off the religion they say is truth, while the example of “saints” can draw us to it. Our beliefs and values are also deeply influenced by the culture in which we live. This is one reasons they say that travel broadens the mind. Being exposed to beliefs and values that differ radically from our own can be a good thing, and help us to be better and more balanced people. Most of the time, most of us shut ourselves off from opposing views. Our Western culture does this supremely. This avoids the challenge of having to think, or even take notice of different views. It occurs both inside and outside the church. It is part of the human condition. There is a proverb that says the one who speaks first seems to be right, until his neighbour comes and examines him.

Our worldviews are not only deeply affected by the values of our friends and neighbours, but especially in the developed world are we are also deeply affected by the prevailing propaganda/view concerning the nature of truth. It is widely held that all truth is relative. But that is a self contradictory statement, and in the end nobody can live consistently with the “truth” that all truth is relative. I briefly discussed these things in a post in July 2010 entitled “I don't believe that adultery is wrong!” You see the spouse of the one with whom this young woman wanted to commit adultery would be in no doubt that adultery is wrong! As I have also already said, some of us have learned the hard way that to reject “the old fashioned morality of the Bible” has many unwanted consequences, it robs us of our joy, and plunges us and others into deep heartaches, woundedness and pain (see Provision and Protection posts in November).

There have been many attempts to build a philosophy that is not based on faith. I address one such philosophy in another July post “I will not believe in, or accept anything that cannot be verified by one of the five senses!” Such attempts are all doomed to failure. In fact as I indicate there, there is even a mathematical theorem (due to Godel) which implies that there can be no logical proof that any of these systems are “true”. So then if all worldviews are held by faith, are all equally valid? Our “tolerant society” with its moral relativism would say “yes”. But do you really think that a view that advocates genital mutilation of non-consenting girls is just as good as one that abhors the practice? If you do, I may have nothing to say to you.

If we are to take the high ground here, we should be willing to examine or reexamine our worldviews and be willing to move towards those that bring fulfillment and wholeness and fullness of life. This is exactly what the doctrine of political correctness will not allow us to do. An open minded person would be willing to ask which worldviews best explain reality, that is which ones best explain what is there, and how life works. If we are going to do this in an unbiased manner, we should examine the best expression of the worldview under consideration. If I am going to investigate Islam for example, I should not be looking at the Taliban's version. Choosing between investigating the Christianity of a fallen televangelist or that of Mother Teresa should not be rocket science!

My claim, and I intended to pursue this in the next few posts, is that a Biblical worldview (the Jewish Christian Bible) is superior in a number of ways. In particular the Bible gives the best explanation of
the fact that something is there, and that it had a beginning. It gives the best explanation of human nature, in particular that we are both good (made in the image of God) and evil (chose to do what we know is wrong -the fall). It gives the best principles concerning how to live, it points to help we can obtain from the Bible and from God. This can be thought of as the wherewithal to put those principles into practice and escape from the slavery of our addictions, and restore us to wholeness. It also explains why there is intense opposition to this Biblical worldview (men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil).

I will explore all of this in greater detail, but it is the last point to which want to devote the rest of this post. Where does this intense opposition even hate come from? I have said before, that we are in a war to the death with the enemy of our souls, the Devil or Satan. Again the Bible tells us that his primary agenda is to kill and to steal and destroy. Judging by the mess we are in he is doing a real good job. The Bible calls him the deceiver of the World and the Father of lies. As part of this, his primary mode of operation in the West is to convince us that he does not exist (see "You believe in the Devil? Give me a break!" - Nov 2010). This gives him lots of room to whisper lies into our hearts and minds. He is the architect behind all forms of propaganda, and he is very successful.

The point of all propaganda is of course to convince those to whom you are speaking that the lie you are telling them is the truth. He has been involved in this for a very long time. Centuries ago the prophet Isaiah speaking to his day declared woe upon those who “... call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20).

History has been described as a series of cycles consisting of progress, decline (destruction) and recovery. Those of you who have read my posts will know that recovery is of primary interest to me. Biblical recovery (or redemption) has to do with claiming back all that has been lost. In terms of where we are at, there is no doubt in my mind that here in the West, we are in a period of decline. A big part of this is the systematic, powerful, well funded and well organized lobby intent on tearing down the values and beliefs of our Judeo-Christain culture. David Kupelian in his book “The marketing of evil”, documents some of the human resources that have been committed to this agenda. We can define evil as anything that is opposed to life and wholeness. One reviewer of Kupelian's book wrote “From pitching promiscuity as “freedom” to promoting abortion as “choice”, the marketers of evil are always selling you something destructive – with catastrophic results. Kupelian shines light on it all".

Kupelian exposes the Harvard marketing strategy behind some of the propaganda that has turned our morals upside down in North America over the past several decades. The three strategies are desensitization, jamming and conversion. Hitler knew if you kept telling even the biggest lie over and over and over, people would sooner or later start to believe it. This is desensitization, flooding the “market” with the lie, until people accept it. Jamming has to do with disallowing or shouting down any view that is contrary to the one you wish to espouse. Try saying something on open line programs that is not considered to be politically correct, and you will see what I mean. The lag time on these “live performances” allow you to be cut off before you utter the first word. Conversion has to do exactly with what Isaiah was talking about above reversing good and bad, truth and error. In particular what was formerly thought to be evil is now promoted as good and wholesome and normal, and as throwing off the so called chains of Biblical morality (see “The freedom that enslaves” August 2010). But what we are being sold is not wholesome and good and normal. We are only starting to reap what we have sown in these “choices” that we are making, but we may need to go a lot further down the “decline” before we are willing to re-examine where we are going. More to come.