"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free! He who the Son sets free is free indeed!"
I can still hear the Oral Robert's singers on Sunday morning TV bursting through all my childhood ruckus with those words.
But what exactly does this mean: The Truth shall make you free?
Civic Freedom:
Yes, the U. S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights state that freedom is a self-evident gift of Providence. It even states that freedom is a right. The U. S. government law enforcement officers are supposed to step in and by law enforce my right to freedom--the freedom they declare is from God.
But the Constitution says nothing about truth? If the truth is what makes us free, then there is something missing in the Constitution.
Someone might say, "Well, come on. The Constitution is a secular document."
I reply, "Except that, it goes to God for the sacred right of freedom. Why not also make a sacred right of truth since that same God told us that we cannot get to freedom except by truth. I mean, if we are going to bring God into it, then why not use God's method of getting to freedom."
Someone might then say, "Too much God. Freedom is enough. Don't bring truth into it."
But as a nation based on the Judeo/Christian idea of sacred liberty, who openly declares God gives us freedom, not the government, then why not openly declare that God gives us truth too. If freedom, by God's own definition, requires truth as a prerequisite, then better make truth a right so that afterwards freedom can be a right, right?
Let me start over:
In part one of this post, I went through the process of showing that without truth, freedom implodes on itself. You can't freely choose something if you are not given information about the choice or limited information or outright fallacious information. You weren't really free to choose a fat-free yogurts from regular yogurt if they are mislabeled and those that claim to be fat-free are not truly fat-free. Your choice is being wrongly manipulated by lies.
So before I can access my right to freedom, I must have the absolute truth. Right? Because giving me the right to freedom without giving me the right to truth first.... is like giving Americans the right to free healthcare when there are no doctors or nurses or medical facilities. (Or when people are free to call themselves doctors or nurses without when they have had no schooling.) No true healthcare workers, no healthcare.
And you can't get to freedom under the circumstances of anything false can call itself true!
Some of you are seeing the very scary place I am going with this.
We must have absolute truth. Freedom cannot survive with half-truths, sorta truths, and lies that call themselves truth.
If freedom is dependent upon truth, then what do we do with a nation that puts all error upon the same level as truth? We give error the right to call itself truth?
Think of stupid little things: A soft drink claiming that "Coke adds Life" or a news station claiming "Truth Lives Here" or a coffee shop with the advertising on the door that reads, "The World's Best Coffee." All of these claims are most likely untrue. Does drinking a Coke really add life? Really? Maybe at best it adds a little stimulate to your body and momentary enjoyment to your tastebuds, but does it truly add life? Naw. It's a advertising gimmick and with advertising nothing has to be really, truly true.
Advertising is in general a con-game we all accept in a capitalistic system. We all assume the advertising propaganda (lies) don't affect our freedom of choice. It's all a part of the western culture free-market game and is harmless. If the lies become too blatant or dangerous, then "foul" is called and a lawsuit is slapped on the manufacturer. It all works itself out in the free-market system.
But can we really have a free market system with truth itself? Can freedom survive when truth become capitalistic and all ideas--true and false-- are given equal rights?
If freedom itself is dependent upon truth, then truth better be plain. Lies should not get the same rights as truth? If it works that way in all other avenues why not also in spiritual truths?
And that we will get into in part III.
