https://odb.org/MY/2021/09/21/truth-lies-and-vigilantes
I grew up reading Perry Mason novels as my father had a stack of those in his collection. The fictional Perry Mason (created by Earl Stanley Gardner) was a very good criminal lawyer in 1930s Los Angeles who was always able to present the real picture of the truth at exciting and often intriguing court battles. The other thing that stuck in my mind was he had a retainer of $5,000 – a princely sum then. Perry Mason pinged my interest in reading law. In law school and in legal practice, I learnt that truth in court is very much dependent on the evidence at hand and that there is always at least two sides to a story. Also truth sometimes depends on the perception of the eye witness as 5 people may witness an event but may nevertheless perceive, receive and describe it differently.
The message today is that in this age of quick transfer of information via private or public social media, a lot of unverified facts pass through us as facts and as truth. Exodus 23 warns against speaking lies against our neighbours, of testifying using falsehoods, of taking bribes to bear false witness against an innocent party. I think in this modern age, we are very less likely to do such things in a real court of law as there are criminal consequences for bearing false witness – perjury is a crime. However, in our society there are lots of unverified rumours swirling around since news may be controlled with certain facts suppressed for political or other reasons as half truths are never the full picture of any situation. Suppression of the certain facts may be the order of the day and thus becomes a hotbed for rumours. There is no smoke without a fire, so they say.
As believers what should we do? I think there is nothing wrong in hearing rumours. Sometimes it is unavoidable in daily conversations. But unless we know, we should not add on and we should not spread those rumours. Also, unless we are able to verify independently what is being asserted, we should also avoid forwarding miscellaneous messages as truth when the same may or may not be true. Perhaps if we feel that the message is very important, we should either research the matter in point or qualify ourselves by saying that it may or may not be true. I think it is highly irresponsible to forward something as the truth when we ourselves have not verified its authenticity. Some things may have fatal consequences like the decision whether to vaccinate against Covid-19. As people who have come to faith, let’s not perpetuate lies even unwittingly and unintentionally as we may end up being used as tools by the evil one to deceive, distract and lead others astray.
Ronnie's Thoughts 