In short, internal consistency is the baseline requirement to take anything seriously. If it doesn’t agree with itself, it can’t possibly be true.
Specifically as pertaining to political policies, something can’t be useful unless it is true, because lies always betray their wielder.
Discuss!
I don’t even know where to get started with this. To get a sense of what sort of a conversation I’m wandering into how do you feel about these statements?
The chance that the bible doesn’t contain any logical inconsistencies is so small as to be irrelevant.
Every idea is either true or false.
Property (objects) ownership is a true thing.
Land ownership is a true thing.
The bible is largely / entirely accurate.
Timezones are false / lies.
Money is false / lies.
And can I take these as given from conversation to date?
Intellectual property is false.
False things are always entirely useless (at least in the context of social / political stuff).
Hey, no wandering required. This is our conversation, not someone else’s.
You asked how I feel about your statements, to which I respond “largely pretty good”.
Here’s a bit more meat though:
There are degrees of truth, but at the most basic level (logical) statements are either valid or invalid. An idea founded on invalid logic must be false. Note that this does not prevent true conclusions founded on false arguments, but the whole suffers from invalid support. Likewise an idea may be presented in an invalid way, and still be actually internally consistent. Exposing logical inconsistencies is the easiest form of critique, and should therefore be our first step in evaluating truth.
Yes, if the Bible were a random assembly of writings, there would be basically no chance that it would all work together cohesively. This is a major point in favor of it being divinely inspired, and not merely the musings of disconnected scribes and storytellers. I’m a Catholic though, so while we revere the Bible as a valuable source of truth, it is not the highest form of truth.
Property ownership, including land, physical objects, bodies, etc is true, but not the highest form of truth.
Timezones and fiat currency (modern money) are social conventions. While they are internally consistent, and share in a kind of truth, they are one of the lowest forms, being based entirely on human opinions, which of course can change at any time.
My views on intellectual property are here: http://blog.hawkbats.com/2014/08/05/intellectual-property-is-wicked-nonsense/
But yes, “IP is false” is a fair summary.
Turning it around, I would say that things useful for doing good are always at least somewhat true. Falsehood may, of course, be useful to work evil, and often is.
Sola scriptura, Paul. *shakes head slowly and walks away*
😉 Thanks for pointing out the link to your blog. I will read with interest.
Ahh, so you reject the other solas? What of fide and gratia?
Nah, just tweaking your “Bible is not the highest truth” statement. I have not given enough thought to that specific epistemological/theological question to have an answer myself. Unfortunately, this is a very busy week (month, year…) for me, but I will check back this weekend and see if I have anything to contribute to your conversation.
So I had a beer and a think and a sleep and on reflection I think there are more fun ways to waste my time than pursuing this.