You Two

You two
You two suck
You two don't give a fuck
You two've got it all undone
You two are supposed to be one
You two need to seek My face
You two need grace
You two

The Heavy Responsibility of Truth

People it turns out, like lies. Particularly if those lies further an agenda they believe in, humiliate someone they don’t care for, or stir up trouble when there is peace.

I received an e-mail today whose subject line proclaimed that “Obama-Care Will Implant Computer Chips” for everyone in the U.S., with evil, Big Brother like intentions.

That sounded highly unlikely (and especially dastardly) to me, so I immediately did what I do every time I receive a bizarre claim by email, I looked it up.

There are a plethora of fact checking websites available:

www.truthorfiction.com

www.snopes.com

www.factcheck.org

www.politifact.com

Just for starters… When I dropped the phrase “Implant a Chip” into their search databases, it came back “False” with a detailed explanation of the origin of the rumor and the research to back up the claim that the rumor was false. There was language in a version of the bill that never passed that mentioned a tracking device of some sort, but was scrapped. The email was false, period. (Link below)

http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/microchip.asp

However, in spite of the fact that I was able to discern this email was a lie in about 4 seconds, I got the same email 5 times that day, and it’s from a rumor that’s over a year old.

So conceivably, a lie has been spreading around the country for a year and none of the people who sent it to me, and none of the 45 people in the cc box who sent it to them ever bothered to research the facts before hitting forward.

That troubles me.

When I hit “reply all” and sent the actual facts back to the hundred or so people who were cc’ed on this e-mail – many of them responded in anger. They were sincerely mad at me for pointing out that an e-mail full of lies was untrue.

Say what? You’d rather believe lies that back up your prejudices and preconceived notions than embrace the facts at hand?

Exodus 20:16 “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” (KJV)

Exodus 23:1 “Do not spread false reports.” (NIV)

As Christians, we are commanded not to spread lies. Even lies in emails about politicians we don’t like, whose parties we don’t support, whose agendas aggravate us and whose health plans might raise our taxes.

We are bound by the word of God to be truth tellers, even if that truth isn’t to our liking.

It’s a great responsibility to be the watchdog of lies and to refuse to participate in campaigns of hatred, and fear mongering. We must constantly guard against the urge to allow a lie to be believed when we had the opportunity to squash and disprove it even when the lie would further our own political agendas.

You can’t fake ignorance -God and I know you have Google – so use it.

Tammy Lou Waite © 2011