Month: November 2023

To Tell the Truth

There used to be a TV game show called, “To Tell the Truth.” In it, the host would read the biography of someone with interesting experiences or an interesting job. Then, three contestants would appear, each claiming to be the person described. The celebrity panel would then ask questions of the contestants, trying to discern which were faking it, and which one was telling the truth. The more the panel got wrong, the more money the contestants would win.

It’s a good thing “to tell the truth.” The Bible commands it, whether in the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament (Exodus 20:16), or the New Testament’s admonition to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). To lie is to do the work of the devil, whom Jesus called, “a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44).

Truthfulness to a Christian should be like breathing, a natural part of living. After all, our lives are based in the Ultimate Truth, Jesus Christ (“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” [John 14:6]).

Unfortunately, when it comes to the world today, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christians, and everyone else, to distinguish between what is true and what is false in the massive amounts of information we take in daily. We hear terms like “disinformation,” misinformation,” and “fake news.” For a long time we have had “photo-shopped” pictures, and now we have artificial intelligence (AI) generating phony audio and video of political leaders saying things they never said or did. It has become scary-easy to be fooled by such doctored media.

Having heard about one such AI engine, ChatGPT, I went to the site and asked it to write a story about Karen at Christmas (her favorite holiday). In just 2 seconds, it spit out a 525 word story that began with:

Karen was a whirlwind of festive energy when it came to Christmas. Her passion for the holiday season was infectious, and she was known as the neighborhood’s very own Mrs. Claus. Every year, Karen transformed her home into a winter wonderland, adorning It with twinkling lights, cheerful ornaments, and an array of decorations that would make the North Pole jealous.

Scary. I also asked it to write a 500 word essay on the theme of this blog. Again, 2 seconds later, came the reply, starting with:

In an era saturated with information and inundated by opinions, discerning truth has become an intricate task, demanding a thoughtful, multifaceted approach. The quest for truth is foundational to human progress, societal harmony, and personal growth. However, today’s landscape, with its digital advancements, diverse narratives, and rampant misinformation, presents a labyrinthine challenge in identifying what is genuinely true.

Yikes! I’ve been replaced! (And from now on, whenever you read one of my blogs, you’ll be asking yourself, “Did Rich write this blog, or was it AI?”)

So, why is it so hard to discern the truth in today’s society? What is about today’s “landscape” (as ChatGPT calls it) that presents such a challenge?

1. Our propensity to lie. From an early age, we lie to avoid blame and punishment, or to gain an advantage over other people. Children with chocolate all over their face deny getting into the candy. Dads tell their kids that the good Halloween candy got spoiled and he had to throw it away. Spouses cheat on each other, athletes take performance-enhancing drugs and lie about it, and politicians take bribes and deny it. We even lie to ourselves: “I’ll start exercising . . . tomorrow for sure!” Scripture says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

2. The schemes of the devil. The one who first lied to Eve, denying God’s warning about the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:4-5), continues to lie to us today. His temptations are lies – showing us a tasty apple while hiding the worm inside. He lies about our salvation filling us with hopeless guilt, or puffing us up with destructive pride. He turns people against each other with hateful lies, and against God with the lies of pseudo-scientific philosophies. (Acts 5:3 and 1 Thessalonians 3:5).

3. Advertising. From the 1949 ad that “More doctors smoke Camels” to the 1965 Brylcreem commercial’s promise: “The gals will all pursue ya,— They’ll love to put their fingers through your hair.” advertisers have said almost anything to get you to buy their product. And did you ever win a “free weekend” at some resort, subject to a “45 minute” presentation for some “exciting opportunity?”

4. Propaganda. Similar to false advertising, propaganda seeks to mold opinions and actions to suit some political agenda. Fabricated stories against political opponents, trumped up legal charges, fabricated videos and emails that put your opponent in a bad light, and false witnesses are just a few of the lies used toward a desired end. A recent example concerns the horrific attack by Hamas against Israel: some pro-Palestinian supporters claim it never happened. Then Hamas claimed that Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza and killed 500 people, including children. Later, we learned that the hospital was not bombed, and the only rocket to come close was fired by a Hamas ally. Media are so filled with self-serving political claims that it’s hard to know what to believe.

5. Human error. “To err is human, to forgive divine.” So goes the 1711 quote by Alexander Pope. It is certainly one of the truer truisms about life. We don’t need to have evil intentions when we tell someone something that is false: we may ourselves believe it to be true. For example, in school we learned that George Washington had false teeth made of wood. We repeated it to others, thinking it was a fact (a certain cherry tree comes to mind, as well). Now we know his teeth were made of actual teeth. Another example: one Thanksgiving we were visiting family and were having dinner at their church. It was a fun event until the pastor announced that the Soviets had launched missiles at the US and our missiles were responding. The mood turned somber, until I realized his description of events matched a TV show I had just been watching before the dinner; he had seen part of the show and thought it was really happening. Fortunately, no one took any drastic actions before the mistake was cleared up!

6. Computer errors. “To err is human, to really mess up takes a computer.” So says Rich Eddy in 2023. Another truthful truism, I kid you not. We trust computers and their output for all kinds of information, from weather patterns to predictions of eclipses. Unfortunately, computers have sometimes made horrible mistakes, and fortunately, people were in the loop and doubted what the computers were saying.

  • October 5, 1960 – NORAD computers alerted that a massive Soviet missile strike was coming at the U.S. When people checked it out, they found sensors had misread a sunrise as missile launches, and a counter strike was averted.
  • December 26, 1983 – Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was on duty at a Soviet early-warning base outside Moscow. He found himself staring at a red screen reading “START” as an alert siren wailed. The computer deemed that a single missile was incoming, followed by a salvo of five. Lt. Col. Petrov had a hunch the warning was a computer error, so he shut things down instead of launching -and saved the world from catastrophe.
  • January 13 2018 – Sirens and alerts on radio, TV, and cell phones warned Hawaiians that the islands were under nuclear attack, with the words, “Emergency alert – this is not a drill!” Fortunately, it was another computer error, and nobody died.For all these reasons – and more – we need to read, view, and hear information with a skeptical attitude that is ready to compare what we are told with what we know to be true. Just as Secret Service agents compare suspected counterfeit bills with authentic ones to determine they are bogus, so we need to compare the counterfeit claims of our culture, and the people in it, to what we know to be true.And how do we know what is true? We begin with the Word of God. We believe that it is infallible and inerrant, meaning it is without errors or deceptions. 1 Peter 1:24-25 tell us that the word of the Lord remains forever, and Numbers 23:19 says that God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. God’s word is true, eternal and unchangeable; what better standard of truth could there be? Jesus himself said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, and Luke 21:33).

    It is to Jesus, the Truth, to whom the Scriptures testify. The closer we get to him, and the more immersed we are in his Word, the more brightly shines the truth and the more obvious the world’s lies become. He and his word are our touchstone. True, the Bible doesn’t expose every lie out there – such as whether the gals really will love to put their fingers through my hair – but it will reveal the ones that threaten my soul. And to tell the truth, that is what really matters!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: John 1:14-17; John 4:23-24; John 8:31-32.

P.S. Except for the two examples I included, I did not use ChatGPT to write this blog!

 

 

War and Peace, Part 3

What? A three-part blog? Yes, it’s true, even though I had promised my blog titled “War and Peace” was not going to be as long as Leo Tolstoy’s work of the same name. His book was 1400 pages long, so I have a way to go before breaking my promise. But I do promise there will not be a Part 456 to this topic.

So, why a third part? I had a few more things to say about the topic, and I saw that Part 2 was approaching the length of the Hundred Years War, so I needed to close it up. I hope that the following thoughts will complement what I already said, and provoke some thoughts on your part. Also, no more Latin phrases; I would hate to create a casus belli (reason for war) for you to raise up arms against me.

In no particular order, here are my additional thoughts on warfare:

1. What about a one-on-one battle? Imagine how many lives and resources would be saved if warring nations each chose one champion to fight his or her enemy counterpart. This is actually biblical: the Philistines sent out their champion, Goliath, to fight the champion of the Israelites. He challenged the Israelites, saying, “Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.” And the Philistine said, “I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together.” We know, of course, that David arose as Israel’s champion and slew Goliath, winning the battle (1 Samuel 17:1-58).

This idea was portrayed in a 1970 movie called The Challenge. The story is about a confrontation between the U.S. and an unnamed Asian country over recovering an American jet that crashes in the other country’s waters. Rather than fight a war over the jet, the countries agree to implement a plan called “Surrogate” in which each country will land one soldier on an uninhabited island to fight it out. Whoever kills the other, wins the “war” for his country. Needless to say, both countries cheat and land a second soldier to improve their chances of winning. And that’s the problem with the idea of a champion; the stakes in real life are too high to risk the outcome of a single battle.

2. Is a war just if you fight to defend only your material possessions? At the personal level, can you use force to defend your home or car if someone breaks in to steal but does not threaten to harm you? The law says that the person’s life is more valuable than your material objects, so you can’t harm them to make them stop. But what is left out of that view is the fact that your property is important for your survival and well-being. Your possessions cost part of your life to acquire, and will cost more to replace. If someone steals all your food, what will you eat? If someone takes your home, will you survive on the street? If shoplifting goes on unchecked, can the affected stores survive to provide jobs and needed goods and services? If society devolves into chaos, everyone’s life is at risk.

At the international level, few wars are fought to kill all your enemies in a genocide. Most have been to seize resources the other country has and you want, such as farm land, water, oil, or valuable minerals. When the Ostrogoths invaded Rome, it was because they needed farmland for their people, since they in turn had been driven out of their former lands by other invaders. They needed land to survive. Without it, their people would die as surely as if out to death by the sword.

James 4:1-3 tells us the reason we fight and war with each other: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

3. What about preemptive attacks? Is it okay to attack an enemy before they attack you? Obviously, if you are both at peace, and the other country shows no sign of preparing to attack you, such an attack on your part would not be just. But if war is inevitable, a first strike to diminish their war-making ability may shorten the war and save lives. This is what Japan tried with the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 – to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet and prevent us from stopping their conquests. America has not considered that attack as “just.”

But what about Israel committing cyber-attacks to stop Iran from developing atomic weapons, when Iran has sworn to wipe Israel off the map? What about with drones, missiles, or aircraft? Or does Israel have to wait until Iran strikes first to make their own attacks legitimate?

On a personal level, do you have to wait until a home invader hurts you before you can fight back?

4. Is it morally okay to “bear false witness” (lie) in a war? During World War II the British conducted two hugely successful “disinformation” operations that completely fooled the Germans regarding invasion plans. In the first, they planted false invasion plans on a corpse which they dropped in the sea near Spain. The plans were for an allied invasion of German-held Greece, though the real invasion was set for Sicily. The ruse fooled Hitler, who ordered most of his troops in Sicily to defend Greece instead. Likewise, the Allies created a fictional army led by George Patton, comprised of rubber inflatable tanks and false radio traffic, stationed across from Calais, France, to fool the Germans into thinking Calais was the intended invasion target. The ruse worked, and many lives were saved in Normandy, the true invasion destination.

More recently, in its war against Israel, Hamas claimed that Israel bombed a hospital, killing 500 people including many children. It turns out that the hospital was not hit at all, and the only damage to its parking lot was caused by an errant rocket from a Hamas ally. This lie is representative of disinformation (lies) spread by many groups and countries today wherever conflicts occur.

It seems that the propriety of lying in war depends on the justness of the war. If a country is just in fighting the war, it should use means to shorten the war and achieve victory, even through lying. As the Chinese strategist, Sun Tzu, wrote in his book, The Art of War, all warfare is deception.

5. How much force is appropriate? In today’s conflicts, you hear the call for the more powerful party to use “proportional” responses, meaning they should not use more force than necessary to achieve their goals. This is a principle of just war doctrine, but the definition of proportionality can vary. On the one hand, it would be unjust to nuke a country if one of their ships strayed into your territorial waters, or even if they shot down one of your planes in disputed airspace. On the other hand, you are unlikely to win a victory if you send only as many forces as the enemy has available; the result will likely be a stalemate and a bogged down war of attrition, like World War I, causing much more death and misery than if you had been more forceful in the beginning. The principle calls for using only as much force as needed to bring the fighting to an end and save lives in the long run – but enough force to achieve that end.

This pertains to societal and personal levels of conflict as well. Police are constrained to use non-lethal means when possible, but to use sufficient force and numbers to take control of situations and perpetrators. In personal self-defense, potential victims are allowed to use only as much force as is needed to defend themselves; they cannot shoot someone who only shoves them, for example. In this way the principle of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” in Leviticus 24:20 is fulfilled.

6. How is peace ever possible? Humans’ capacity and desire for war are a great scandal. We should be sustaining and helping each other; instead, we fight and kill, justifying our actions with the flimsiest lies and rationalizations. In the name of national honor we kill and destroy. We want and kill to take what we want. We cause desolation, suffering, and loss, and consider every war as “just.” From the beginning, when the first human born on earth killed his brother, to the future end of time when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride (conquest, warfare, famine, and death), there have been, and will be wars and rumors of war (Matthew 24:6). Only when the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) returns will we finally be at peace. Only then shall we “beat [our] swords into plowshares, and [our] spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Micah 4:3). Only then will we find true peace at every level: personal, societal, and between nations. Only in Christ will we find true peace.

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you,the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: 1 Samuel 17:1-58; Isaiah 2:1-5; Revelation 6:1-8.