Paradox

A paradox is a situation or puzzle that appears to contradict itself, or appears to contradict what is obviously true through valid assumptions and logic. It is also a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition or situation that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

The ancient Greek Zeno is known for his invention of many paradoxes, the best known of which "proves" that a moving object can never reach its destination.

A well known family of paradoxes involve self-reference, such as the statement "this statement is untrue", or the old joke "How do you keep a fool busy? Hand him a card with this question and 'see other side' on both sides". Others involve creative signs (such as one that reads "Keep Left" with an arrow pointing right, or "Reading This Sign Is Forbidden").

Examples

Ship of Theseus

An example of applying the Ship of Theseus paradox goes as follows: suppose that the Conservapedia page "Paradox" (938 bytes) can be defined by its title and its content. If a paragraph of content is added to increase the byte count to 1,500, it would still be the same page because the title remains the same. If only the title is moved to "Paradox (concept)", the content remains the same. However, if both the title is moved and the content is altered, is it still necessarily the same page? Furthermore, suppose that after the "Paradox" page (938 bytes) is moved to "Paradox (concept)" without leaving a redirect and then has a paragraphed added to it to increase the byte count to 1,500, the original content in the once-938 byte count page is published as a page creation under "Paradox". Which would closer resemble the identity of the original "Paradox" page prior to being moved and edited: the new version under the title "Paradox (concept)" that had its title and content modified one at a time, or the new page creation under "Paradox" that exactly resembles the original page but is counted by the CP database as a different content page?

Paradox of Tolerance

The Conservative worldview is one of tolerance, while liberals are intolerant. Nevertheless, liberals demand that we tolerate them, while they refuse to tolerate us. The liberals can simply refuse to acknowledge their hypocrisy, while we are faced with a genuine conundrum: The tolerance inherent to conservatism suggests we tolerate the liberals, as we have always done, but how long must we continue to tolerate their intolerance? Does there come a point where we no longer owe them any tolerance? Are we justified by their intolerance in, finally refusing to tolerate them any longer? They never deserved the tolerance that we so generously extended to them, and thus we are completely justified in deciding, in the end, that we will no longer tolerate the liberals. This result, which might have seemed inconsistent with our tolerant philosophy, but is in fact logically compelled by it, is the Paradox of Tolerance.

Not surprisingly, this is exacly the result commanded by Christ. Christianity, the only logical religion, requires that we must never tolerate liberalism or the liberals among us.

Thought Question

It is not surprising at all that Christ anticipated your doubts, and when He ordained the Laws of Logic, made them consistent with His divine plan. All of this is evidence, writ in those laws, for the divine providence of our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, right?