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Day #5 of Lying Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
There is only one way to know if you are being told lies. You MUST be a self-educator.
Where might you be told lies? We can start with religion, culture, science, nationality, race, education, government, nutrition, fitness, illness, sexuality or history. The list goes on and on.
In those situations (and many more) how do you know if you are being told lies or not? Maybe you aren’t, maybe you are. But how do you know? You know if you seek answers from multiple sources. If you are in a ghetto then you aren’t likely to get those multiple sources. (I don’t use the word ghetto in a derogatory fashion. It’s original meaning was a place isolated from it’s surrounding area for one reason or another. I am using simply as a description of isolation.)
I don’t mean a physical ghetto. I mean an intellectual ghetto, a mental awareness walled off from the wider world. If you only listen to people and ideas that come from within that intellectual ghetto, then there is a good chance you will have a distorted view. At the least you will have a view by default. It won’t be one you came to be exploration, it will be one you came to by taking the path of least resistance and not taking responsibility for your own thorough education.
I have known a number of people, for example, within the Christian community who think they have thought through an issue. But in truth they have simply mulled over a pre-determined, pre-packaged ‘thoughts ready to think’ supplied by those in charge of their ghetto. They haven’t read or listened to ideas outside that ghetto. This is true in both liberal and conservative congregations I have been a part of. So, while they believe they have come to their own conclusions, their lack of objective exploration outside the ghetto belies that assumption.
To be fair, I do know many, including the Pastors of the two churches I attend regularly (one liberal, one conservative), who are constantly exploring outside the confines of their own congregation’s leanings and heritage.
I appreciate and applaud the people who do this. They are the ones I trust to be truly searching for truth.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Anonymous
