Tangled Webs

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
--Sir Walter Scott

It's usually early in childhood that we require admonition to truthfulness.  We are told to always tell the truth and to be sure it will find us out.  To avoid even "little white lies," so called, and to learn that deception can masquerade as truth, or be "technically" true and still mislead.

We can ponder the heart motivations which drive the act of deceiving others but what lies at the root of our vulnerability to accept a lie in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?  What fans the flame of an effective conspiracy theory?  I will only allude to some of the more famous ones for fear of attracting the same "Google love" that sends their advocates scurrying around the Internet for fodder.

Perhaps the most famous and enduring surrounds the death of a beloved American leader and whether or not his killer acted alone or was "bought and paid for" by enemies, foreign or domestic.  Another suggests that space travel is all contrived and that we never actually landed a man on our lunar neighbor.  More recently the tragic events that toppled buildings in our capital and largest city surely must have been a government plot or something other than what they--Oh, the faceless "they"!--say they were.

Sadly, we're bent to want to believe the negative about others, perhaps especially those in authority.  Somehow it elevates the self.  "Did you hear?" pricks the ears, ready to glean a juicy tidbit however dubious.  So much the easier to swallow--and pass along--if we can make it fit the "pattern".

Fear strengthens the web as well.  "What are things coming to?" we ask, and fill the unknowable void with wild extrapolations and hearsay, satisfied that we've found the answer. Further query is not needed, thank you very much.

Rather that we would ask: Is it true, is it honest, is it just, is it pure, is it lovely, is it of good report?   And surely we'd want the virtue and praise that comes from thinking on such things (Phil. 4:8).

Starting with me.