A while ago I received an e-mail from my father. It was one of those Internet hoaxes that he did not know was a lie. I checked into it and discovered that the message was a well crafted fabrication. The message dealt with the practices of the soldiers charged with guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier.
My e-mail discovery led me to think about how information is so prevalent today that there is a lot of misinformation too. With the glut of written communication, it can be hard for us today to know what is really true.
What about those in the future who look back to study our history? Will they read these hoaxes and interpret them at truth? We are in danger of lies polluting the written record of history. Of course, this is nothing new, there have been lies and wives tales developed by good story tellers since the beginning of time. There are a lot of false letters and books that early Church fathers had to wade through before deciding what writings should be considered Scripture. Some people even claimed that a famous person wrote something just so it would get read. In those days, it was a lot harder to verify the original author.
With so much junk out there, I am becomingly increasingly critical about what I believe and accept as true. I am learning to test everything -hold to what is true and reject what is false. We must be discerning and alert because sometimes the biggest lives come from the most "reliable" sources.
