Tried With Fire

Commitment to the truth is a sign of personal integrity and ethics, but it is also obedience to the 9th commandment. It's easy to think that it only pertains to telling outright whoppers, but what about slander? What about passing on information that is unverified? Social media certainly provides plenty of opportunity to share hoaxes, fake news, and false cures with just a click. What about choosing to ignore or deny the truth because it does not conform to our narratives or implicates our idols? In light of that, I think these quotes from All That's Good are worth considering. "Facts are not the sum total of all that is true, but truth is not a set of privately held beliefs that cannot be tested by other people. The information that we use to come to our decisions must be available to them, and we must be prepared for our decisions and opinions to come under scrutiny. We must not be offended when people ask us to prove them. We must not expect people to accept them s...

In the process of obtaining one's chosen label for one's view, there is also frequently an attempt to characterize one's opponent's view in an unfavorable light…  It is especially important to be alert to the attempt to build evaluation into a term by the connotations given. For example, the same situation may be described as "rich diversity" or as a "confused hodgepodge." There is a familiar conjugation of an irregular verb: "I have firm convictions; you are stubborn; he is a pigheaded fool." Similarly in politics one may characterize one's own approach as flexible and open-minded, while one's opponent, whose behavior in this respect is the same, is termed a "flip-flopper." Such use of slanted definitions to gain an advantage is disappointing, and to an objective and analytical observer is a sign of weakness, like the proverbial comment in the margin of the preacher's sermon notes: "Weak point. Shout loudly....