Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Truth of the Matter


I just want the truth.  What’s going on in our country and in the world?  The past few days have brought some terrifying events.  I have found myself going to multiple news sites to try to find out facts and sort through them myself.   I don’t know where to turn to learn the truth.  The mainstream media doesn’t necessarily report everything.  There are very liberal-leaning sites and conservative-leaning sites.  They can report very different things having to do with the same event or topic.  I usually visit The Drudge Report to start.  He has many different sources listed on his website and presents stories from those.  He’s usually this first with breaking news stories.

This 9/11 something dreadful happened in Libya.  Our ambassador and 3 others died.  There are conflicting reports of what went down and why.  We were told at one point that the ambassador dies from smoke inhalation.  Drudge carried a photo from a video indicating the ambassador may have been brutally assaulted and dragged through the streets.   But some like CNN are writing that the picture shows local Libyans attempting to help get Stevens to a hospital.  The State Department will not give any information about what happened to him. Apparently, his body was missing for about 12 hours.  All I can think is, that poor man.  How was it that he was left so vulnerable?  According to some news sources, the interim president of Libya insists he told the US that there might be some trouble on the anniversary of 9/11 aimed at the US from recent foreigners to Libya.  Our government claims that this attack was spontaneous; a protest that escalated and got out of hand at the embassy.   An eyewitness to the event swears there was no protest and that the embassy was attacked by over a hundred heavily armed men.   The State Department says it had no warning of any attack, contrasting what the interim president said.  Who is telling the truth?  If our government ignored any indications of trouble, will they own up to it and admit it?  Oh, but now the government as of 9/19 admits it was a terrorist attack.

And what about this supposed anti-Islamic movie?  Some guy made some stupid You Tube video and the whole Middle East is rioting about it.  Well, that’s what the mainstream media is telling us.  Wow, that sure gives one man a whole lot of power.  His video has caused half the world to start rioting.  Really?  And of course some media organizations outted him pretty quickly.  Now that his name and face and where he lives has been revealed to the world, he’ll be in hiding for the rest of his life.  Why did government authorities go to his house to question him?  What happened to freedom of speech?  Now Egypt wants him to pay for his video with his life.  The media continues to link this movie to the riots in their headlines.  The White House even asked Google to remove this video.  Google said no.  Atleast Google has the guts to just say no to government censorship.  Like it or not, this man had the right to make and release his video.  Our first amendment says so.  Bill Maher has said some not-so-nice things about Islam on the air.  You Tube has clips of him doing it.  The media has been silent about Maher.  Again, are we to believe this one lone man caused all this chaos in the Middle East?

As believers in Christ, we are called to be discerning regarding sound Christian doctrine and false doctrine. I think we should be discerning regarding news stories as well. Acts 17:11 says, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” These were believers who heard things and then checked those things out for themselves. I don’t want to depend solely on what the mainstream media organizations feed people as the truth. Ah, I wish there was a Superman of the news world who would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. For now, I must investigate with the spirit of the Bereans to find the truth.