As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“So, I humbly offer these suggestions to you (and me): If you don’t know it’s true, don’t communicate it. If you can’t prove it, don’t assert it, forward it, tweet it, or text it.” - Ken Brown
“Increasingly, however, skepticism has been replaced by cynicism and is expressed in an immediate distrust anytime anyone tells us anything to think or do. This is not healthy or sustainable, nor is it a biblical way of thinking about authority.” - Breakpoint
“This conspiracy theory suggests that welcoming immigrants is part of a plan to replace the political power and culture of white people living in Western countries.” - The Dispatch
Read the series.
As we see in passages such as Hebrews 5:14, biblical discernment involves exercising the skill of seeing the differences between good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, true vs. false, and more important vs. less important.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (ESV, Heb 5:14)
Intellectual dishonesty takes many forms. One of the most common occurs when we look at the collection of arguments someone is making to support a claim, select the weakest among them, ignore the rest, and respond as though the weakest support is the only support.
Often, mockery follows. We heap scorn on the whole claim, emphasizing the absurdity of the one weak supporting idea.
“The poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, released Monday, found that 23 percent of white evangelicals and 26 percent of Republicans believe three major tenets of the QAnon theory” - C.Headlines
“Gallagher, 80, and his Gallagher Financial Group advertised on Christian radio with the tagline, ‘See you in church on Sunday.’ He promoted his investment business in books… and on Christian radio broadcasts.” - RNS
“The people I have especially in view are those who are not vaccinated because of fear of being out of step with people they respect, and in step with people they don’t admire. My message to them is simple: You are free.” - Desiring God
“As writers like Maryanne Wolf worry, our daily deluge of ‘eye-byte-sized information’ creates the illusion we are well-informed and, at the same time, strangles our critical thinking capacities.” - TGC
Discussion