Monday, March 16, 2015
435 - My Opinion about Facts
Spirituality Column #435
March 17, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
True enough, but that’s it: Facts and Opinions. I’d think a line or two about truth, loyalty, freedom – oh, and how about God? – would be entirely appropriate social and educational talking points, especially in America. Facts and opinions are a tiny little corner of God’s great cosmos of thought and discovery, but God’s great cosmos is expelled from today’s educational menu. The higher academy – where reside the really, really smart people – has arrived at the notional terminus instructing society that Truth is unknowable, loyalty is relative, freedom is “if it feels good, do it,” and religion – “God,” if you must – is just plain silly.
The insinuation here, the subtle and nefarious instructional arch-purpose, is to restrict the earliest intellectual options of young brains to facts (presented as having their own on-board authority) and opinions (which don’t). It is the great philosophical conundrum of our time: opinions require authority, but opinions have no authority.
Translation: “Don’t Bother Me with Your Opinion (unless of course it agrees with academia’s non-God worldview)”, or corresponds with academically favored, politically correct but entirely non-biblical “social justice,” which is the zenith of authority without authority: it’s how I make my opinion normative and make your opinion hate speech.
(Non-biblical? That’s right. “Social” justice isn’t in there. “Justice is mine sayeth the Lord” … often – Deuteronomy 32:35, Isaiah 61:8, Romans 12:19, Hebrews 10:30).
Dismissing God’s truth, the wisdom of Jesus Christ, the assurance of the Holy Spirit and the Bible’s overarching tutorial of man’s relationship with God and each other, education has devolved into an amoral, dangerous morass of facts and opinions.
Consider: truth and justice are hollow without God; God’s now largely gone from schools; there is a shallow but broad educational preeminence of “fact” and “opinion,” and truth is a renegade concept. One might discern a pattern.
Post-modern mankind champions the negation of God, elevation of man, and dissolution of common sense as it sallies blindly forth into spirit-killing self-absorption. What’s missing? Objective, eternal, Godly authority, the kind that only faith in Christ can properly discern and only God’s love can properly dispense.
So it is the job of school to teach truth? Didn’t it used to be? Truth is the gift of Jesus and the job of parents, families, and churches.
Of these, schools are the only things modern society admits are necessary.
And that’s too bad.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has many opinions and is annoyingly armed with countless facts. For truth, he seeks Jesus.
SPECIAL ... Since it is St. Patrick's Day, here is a link to a column from 2010
Bars Closed on St. Patrick's Day which appears in my book, available at
March 17, 2015
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
My Opinion about
Facts
By Bob Walters
It’s unremarkably
normal in mass-marketed education to confine the intellectual playing field to “Fact”
and ‘Opinion.”
A popular
classroom wall poster declares:
- A fact can be proven true or
false.
- An opinion is what someone
believes or thinks.True enough, but that’s it: Facts and Opinions. I’d think a line or two about truth, loyalty, freedom – oh, and how about God? – would be entirely appropriate social and educational talking points, especially in America. Facts and opinions are a tiny little corner of God’s great cosmos of thought and discovery, but God’s great cosmos is expelled from today’s educational menu. The higher academy – where reside the really, really smart people – has arrived at the notional terminus instructing society that Truth is unknowable, loyalty is relative, freedom is “if it feels good, do it,” and religion – “God,” if you must – is just plain silly.
The insinuation here, the subtle and nefarious instructional arch-purpose, is to restrict the earliest intellectual options of young brains to facts (presented as having their own on-board authority) and opinions (which don’t). It is the great philosophical conundrum of our time: opinions require authority, but opinions have no authority.
Translation: “Don’t Bother Me with Your Opinion (unless of course it agrees with academia’s non-God worldview)”, or corresponds with academically favored, politically correct but entirely non-biblical “social justice,” which is the zenith of authority without authority: it’s how I make my opinion normative and make your opinion hate speech.
(Non-biblical? That’s right. “Social” justice isn’t in there. “Justice is mine sayeth the Lord” … often – Deuteronomy 32:35, Isaiah 61:8, Romans 12:19, Hebrews 10:30).
Dismissing God’s truth, the wisdom of Jesus Christ, the assurance of the Holy Spirit and the Bible’s overarching tutorial of man’s relationship with God and each other, education has devolved into an amoral, dangerous morass of facts and opinions.
Consider: truth and justice are hollow without God; God’s now largely gone from schools; there is a shallow but broad educational preeminence of “fact” and “opinion,” and truth is a renegade concept. One might discern a pattern.
Post-modern mankind champions the negation of God, elevation of man, and dissolution of common sense as it sallies blindly forth into spirit-killing self-absorption. What’s missing? Objective, eternal, Godly authority, the kind that only faith in Christ can properly discern and only God’s love can properly dispense.
So it is the job of school to teach truth? Didn’t it used to be? Truth is the gift of Jesus and the job of parents, families, and churches.
Of these, schools are the only things modern society admits are necessary.
And that’s too bad.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) has many opinions and is annoyingly armed with countless facts. For truth, he seeks Jesus.
SPECIAL ... Since it is St. Patrick's Day, here is a link to a column from 2010
Bars Closed on St. Patrick's Day which appears in my book, available at
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