“BEWARE
OF FAKE NEWS”
The recent admonition from
Pope Francis should ignite the Christian community into a tsunami of
global support, and yet it caused hardly a ripple. His message is
that deception, or “fake news”, hasn’t changed much since the
beginning of history, and that the consequences of believing the same
lies are still devastating. The Pontiff’s call is to reject the
vicious arguments over good and evil that guarantee division and
result in grotesque violence and suffering. We should all simply
acknowledge that human beings only form opinions, and our judgement
quickly changes if the “evidence” is altered. It is surely time
to hold all those who alter “facts” to suit their preferred
narrative accountable for the mayhem that they cause.
A good place to start might be
by reminding bible scholars that the “fruit” of the forbidden
tree is not an apple! The original lie was to slander
the motives of God, thereby justifying the arrogance of challenging
His authority. The rebellion of the human species was the claim that
“it isn’t fair to expect obedience if the one in charge is just
on a power trip and will not allow any competition for their
position”. The simple truth is that people cannot improve on
perfect justice, so God set one reasonable and necessary limit – we
had to leave the judgement of good and evil up to Him or our perfect
existence would be over and our lives would become nightmares filled
with vain arguments, madness and self-inflicted tragedy.
This is a great example of how
“fake news” works. By adding an apple to the story it changes the
conflict from man’s inability to judge good and evil into a simple
act of disobedience to a higher power who seems to have a phobia
about apples. This terrifying vision of divine outrage creates an
opportunity for all the major religions to offer exclusive sanctuary
to their own faithful followers who obey the messages delivered by
“authorized clerics”, when the true message of holiness insists
that every individual listens to God themselves. This was the message
of Jesus, and this is the only way to distill any truth from the
suffocating fog of opinion and fiction provided by fake news, junk
science, bastardized religion and false narratives that populate the
airwaves.
Hopefully the day approaches
when vast numbers of people will recognize the universal,
self-evident fundamentals of God’s love and patience and we can put
an end to the lies that cause all this misery.
