Chapter III Verse X - The Greatest Story Never Told

I like to talk about God. I like to talk about religion. I don’t so much like to talk about the Bible. I should like to talk about it because I like talking about things that people can relate to. But while many people have heard of the Bible and will shout from the top of a mountain that it is the holy word of God, I have met few people that have read it. That leaves me a little. . . confused.

If someone tells you that they believe God wrote a book and that they live their life according to the rules and guidelines of that book I think it’s reasonable to expect them to have read the thing. Apparently I’m alone in this opinion.

If I believed that God wrote a book with all the information I would ever need I would read the thing cover to cover. At least twice. But I don’t think God wrote the Bible. I’m not sure he got a copy of the rough draft. I do believe the Bible includes many philosophies and concepts which one could call divine, holy and/or Godly. But to me, these are swallowed up by the ignorance it promotes.

I don’t want to focus on the historical reasons that make me uncomfortable with the Bible because there is too much to cover and I don’t get enough feedback to justify that kind of research yet. What I want to do is make you think.

If I told you that I had a book that proved aliens had landed what are some of the first questions you might ask? Let me guess a few:

1. Who wrote it?
2. Where did you get it?
3. How do you know it’s real?
4. What does it say?

I think that’s a good start. So how about asking those questions about that most sacred of books?

1. Who wrote it? And since the Bible is a collection of books, who wrote those books and who did the collecting?
2. Where did you get it from? Did it appear on the floor after Jesus rose up on his cloud? If not, who wrote the first version?
3. How do you know it’s real? If I told you I knew my alien book was real because my priest/mother/uncle/friend said so you would tell me that me and my priest/mother/uncle/friend are C/R/A/Z/Y.
4. What does it say? Seems like the easy one, huh? Of course since most people have never read it they don’t know. They know what their pastor tells them though.

I think the reason many of us love the Bible is because it’s easier to love a book than it is to love God. God is such a big concept, either we envision him as some Santa-Claus-on-a-cloud figure or an invisible spirit in the universe. But a book is different. We can see a book. We can touch a book. Hell, maybe we can even read it. We can say we love that book and someone else will know exactly what we are talking about.

Maybe it's because it’s just so much easier to say, “I believe in the Bible” than it is to say, “I believe that God is bigger than I will ever understand so I’m going to spend my whole life asking questions and exploring this beautiful universe; never assuming I know it all, never stopping my quest for the truth, never being afraid to hear new ideas that might expand my knowledge and my capacity to live as God intended”.

- Dsus Pays

Chapter III Verse VIII - Truth in The Media; Story at 11

We like to talk about how biased the media is. As usual when we generalize, some is true and some isn’t. As a truth seeker, I offer some tips for reading the news. Perhaps we can remove some of the bias while we are at it.

When sorting through the crap that passes for information these days it can be difficult to figure out where the garbage stops and the truth begins. Here are two things that may help:

1. How many people are saying the same thing?
a. Look at the information that everyone agrees on. If three news stations and two newspapers give you the same info there is likely some truth to it. It is also important thing to consider the part of the story that Fox News(How dare they put those two words together?) and the BBC News disagree on. This is not a foolproof method however, because many stories start from one or two sources. If these sources are bad then the basic elements of the story may be false.

2. Did they really say it?
a. Listen and read carefully. You can usually tell when a reporter does not have all the info. Consider the following two ways to report the same story: Police said a male body was found at Lyford Cay at 8.20 this morning. Officer Evans Walter said the man had been shot in the head. This is an example of a trustworthy sentence. The reporter could be lying but there is no confusion about what they are trying to express. On the other hand, we often get statements like; There were reports of a man’s body discovered in a wealthy eastern community this morning. Witnesses said he appeared to have been stabbed. Who made this report? Which community? What do you call wealthy? Which witnesses? How did he appear to have been stabbed; did they see a knife or the wound? The key is to remember what they actually said and what they are guessing at. Also notice that the second one has incorrect info. This is more common than you think.

Another thing to remember is that news does not look like news until it’s reported. People seem to have this idea that news makers have a magic machine that tells them what is important, how to write it and where to put it in the paper. They don’t. They get information from phone calls, other news providers, the government, organizations and the general public. It is not easy to tell which of this information is going to be important. Often you will get three calls at a time. Most of the time one reporter will have to deal with all three. It’s easy to look back and say, they should have spent more time on that story instead of this one but it’s not always easy to see that when it’s happening. So you concentrate on the one that you think is most important and keep an eye on the other two. And if you are wrong about it and miss a big story your ass is toast.

Bottom line? Check it out yourself. If something interests you, research it. Scan ten stories on the same subject. Learn about the people and organizations involved. You may find out that company you thought was so community minded is being sued for not paying national insurance. Call the ministry about something other than getting your cousin a job. Report that leaky pipe that is spewing our tax money all over the road. And make sure that what comes out of your mouth is as factual as possible.

- Dsus Pays