Truth + Half-Truth = Half-Lie = Lie

Politics, government, religion and God

Truth + Half-Truth = Half-Lie = Lie.  It's a progression.  We start with the truth.  Add in something that's not quite true.  Now it's a half-truth.  But it's really half-lie.  And the conclusion we reach with that half-lie is almost certainly an outright lie.  The big question is, are we willing to acknowledge that?  Maybe, are we even capable of acknowledging that?  Or are we so conditioned to even the half-lie that we think something with the tiniest piece of truth must really be true?

Truth + Half Truth = Half Lie = LieI first wrote about this nine years ago.  July 2019.  I moved my web site to another location, but didn't bring this with the move.  Now, it's time.  Although, the truth and the half-truth are different.  So is the lie.

Oddly enough, it was originally supposed to be about a political topic.  It ended up being about science.  And towards the end, I wrote:

Anyway - back to the original thought about the nation of God. To tell the truth, when I started writing tonight - this isn't even close to where I thought I'd end up. I was going to do something related to my current series on "Inside the Revolution". Something about how we can be a nation of God inside the parallel nation of the United States of America - or inside Canada, or China, or whatever country we live in.

Obviously, it changed. It got much bigger - and turned scientific instead of political.

But today, it's going to be political.  God, religion and politics.  Talk about Truth, half-truth and a whole lot of lies - in that order.

Anyway, the first part of what you're about to read is from that original article, nine years ago.  I'll let you know when we switch back to the current day.  I'll do that, although I suspect it'll be pretty obvious.

Truth + Half-Truth = Half-Lie = Lie

I was at a worship concert this evening - really good. In the middle of it, something my wife said earlier in the day hit me - then I was reminded of something I wrote about last week - and then something really interesting. Of course - you have to either read on or skip to the end to see what that thing was. Please - don't skip to the end, unless you agree to come back to the beginning.

First - the thing I wrote about last week. That's the one about the chicken and the egg. Scientists decided after much research that the chicken had to have come first. The Bible says God created the chicken - and then said be fruitful and multiply, at which point the egg is necessary. So - one can come to the conclusion that the scientist was right - although not for the "right" reason.

Does that make it a truth - a half-truth - a half-lie - or an outright lie? And as I often ask - who cares and why does it even matter?

Well - how about this, which is the part my wife was telling me about:

"And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies' plan. By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger."

No - not her words. It's from "The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle", by C. S. Lewis.

OK - that makes sense. Some amount of truth mixed in with a lie would tend to make the lie more believable.

A lie with no basis in truth at all takes a whole lot more effort to put together and get a lot of people to accept it.

Unfortunately, unless people really know and understand the truth - it's all too easy to slip in something that's not quite true - and convince people that this is the "truth".

Reminds me of when I was a kid - and used to watch the old Perry Mason TV show. When the witnesses were sworn in, they promised to "tell the truth - the whole truth - and nothing but the truth, so help me God".

Anyway - who really cares about the chicken and the egg? God might - since it's something He told us - and we are taught to not believe Him, but to believe science. For a long time - that the answer wasn't known. Now - it is known, because science figured it out.

So - for the thing that happened during the worship concert. There were some words in one of the songs about Christians being a nation of God. And that got me to thinking about a conversation after a Bible study last year - where we were talking about parallel universes and other things that scientists tell us exist, but they can't really prove it.

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