Truth or Dare? (Part 2)

 

They Dared and now It's Declared that We weren't Spared...

 ...The Harm of their Intellectual Charm!

 

 For all the proud Enlightenment boasts such as Kant’s Aude sapere  (Dare to know), contemporary accounts of Western intellectuals leave the myth of the dispassionate truth seeker in tatters. The real situation is frequently the opposite. Many thinkers are truth twisters. For every thinker who desires to conform his thinking to reality, there are others whose desire is clearly to conform reality to their thinking. 

The cleverer the mind, the slipperier the heart, and the more sophisticated the education, the subtler the rationalization. 

Erudition lends conviction to self-deception.Paul Johnson’s evidence is startling and his conclusion sober:

  The belief seems to be spreading that intellectuals are no wiser as mentors, and no worthier as exemplars, than the witch doctors or priests of old. I share that skepticism. A dozen people picked at random on the street are at heart as likely to offer sensible views on moral and political matters as a cross-section of the intelligentsia. But I would go further. One of the principal lessons of our tragic century, which has seen so many millions of innocent lives sacrificed to improve the lot of humanity, is—beware intellectuals.                        

Paul Johnson

                                                

Anyone not convinced by this bald summary should read the authors for themselves and examine the evidence. But what is truly stunning is that, with some intellectuals, there is no need to pursue any inquiry because they make no bones about what they are doing. They candidly admit that truth is not their guiding consideration at all. 

Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: 

Recommended Sources

Quote cited: The Intellectuals by Paul Johnson.

 

Essay from Os Guinness' Book: Fool's Talk.

 

 In case you missed it, tap or click quick link below for Part 1

 

Part 1 to Essay here 

 

(From Digital Anvil.)

Final Comment:

Perhaps we can modernise the common saying: Lies,half- truths, statistics,politicians ...and intellectuals ?

 

What do You think? Drop a comment, reflections welcome and opposing comments as well.

 

 

 Truth or Dare? 

 They dared and Now Its Declared that We weren't Spared...

 ....The Harm of their Intellectual Charm!

 Many of the celebrated makers of the modern world have been shown up for their devious handling of truth in some aspect of their thinking or their lives—including Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Brecht, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Margaret Mead and others.

Yet these are the men and women of ideas who have risen up to overthrow the guardians of traditional Western society, and who on the basis of the brilliance of their minds are now trusted to diagnose our ills, prescribe our remedies and direct the future for our children and for the world.

Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: 

(from Digital Anvil)

 

 More about Truth

Tap or Click on above link for another essay.

 

 (to be continued on 2nd September,2026)

Drop a comment, your ideas or thoughts 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep on Keeping On:

Experts getting it wrong?

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 NIV

 

Some of the world’s most successful people were told by so-called experts that they didn’t have what it took to be a success in the professions they had chosen. In 1927, Lucille Ball was told by an instructor at the John Murray Anderson Drama School, “Try any other profession. Any other.”

Universal Pictures dismissed both Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, claiming that Reynolds had no talent and Eastwood talked too slowly. Malcolm Forbes, the late editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, failed to become part of the staff of his school newspaper when he was an undergraduate at Princeton University

 

 Decca Recording Company executives responded negatively to the audition of four young musicians, saying, “We don’t like their sound. Groups with guitars are on the way out.” So the Beatles took their sound elsewhere.

 

 For seven years, a young inventor named Chester Carlson took his idea to twenty corporations, all of which turned him down. The Haloid Company finally purchased the rights to his electronic paper-copying process. And Haloid became Xerox.

 

 Don’t be discouraged if you are not finding the acceptance and success you desire right now. Your story is still being written! The Bible says, “…do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12 NKJV). Faith and patience are the two qualities that will bring you success. This is why the apostle Paul wrote: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

SoulFood: Josh 14–15 Mark 10:1–12 Ps 103:1–12 Pro 22:27–29

My thanks to Vision.org.au

(From Digital Anvil )

Extremism:

Extremism:

The Government is protecting us from extremists but has become extremist itself.

By Digital Anvil.

Crisis or Peace- Relevancy of the Church: 

 

When the Russian armies were invading Ukraine in 2022, Vasyl Ostryi, a pastor near Kyiv, was asked if he might flee, but he assured his people he would stay with them, and then added, if the church is not relevant at a time of crisis, then it is not relevant in a time of peace.

Cited: No Reason to Hide. E.W. Lutzer

( from Digital Anvil )

Three Kinds of Churches.

Pastor Gary Hamrick says there are three kinds of churches. Some will be complicit, participating in the culture without standing against it; some will be complacent, disagreeing with the culture but not actively opposing it; then there are those that will be courageous, saying what needs to be said and doing what needs to be done, and accepting the consequences without self-pity or anger. Lets adopt the attitude of the Apostles,fasting and praying ( and reading the Bible.)

Cited: No Reason to Hide. E. W.Lutzer.

( from Digital Anvil )

Two Days:

Two Days:

The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the next is the day you find out why ?

Mark Twain.

( from Digital Anvil )

Final Comment:

Plus the ultimate day when you enter Eternity.