The truth is out there... or is it?

During the ‘Arab Spring’ I got emails from some Christian friends in Egypt purporting to describe a huge pro-Mubarak protest that the western media were hushing up. Because I knew the location they were describing and having been involved in large scale events management I knew the number of people described couldn’t fit into the location described. I asked for photographs of the event in question. I never got answers to my emails. I’m sceptical the events were as described in the rather strongly worded emails I was receiving.

More recently I had emails about a news report claiming Egyptian Christians were being crucified...

‘Middle East news media have reported that the Muslim Brotherhood has “crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.” Those opposing the new radical Islamic regime include Christians, and experts have suggested that “extra brutality is reserved for Christians.”’  

This was widely reported including the summary above. There are loads of references to this but this is a good example:

http://aclj.org/radical-islam/egypts-christians-grave-danger-muslim-brotherhood-crucifies-opponents


I admit I was instantly skeptical. I used to work in TV news for the BBC and I was struggling to believe there was no photographic evidence for huge numbers of Christians being crucified in front of the Presidential Palace in Cairo. I researched further and found that all the articles...

‘...base their claims on reports from Sky News Arabic — a recently formed joint venture between BSkyB and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corp.’

Jonathan Kay, a professional investigative journalist traced the source:

‘Sky is supposedly the original source on the story, everyone agrees. Yet neither algemeiner nor WND nor any of the other sources supply the original Sky reporting that purportedly outlines the facts. 

That’s because there is no Sky report on the subject.’

This is his report:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/08/22/jonathan-kay-how-egypts-crucifixion-hoax-became-a-classic-internet-urban-legend/

I would have let it drop but for three other stories that are significant. Last week I was encouraged to sign a petition by a couple of intelligent friends of mine to ask Facebook to block a page entitled 'Soldiers deserve to die'. I'm staunchly pacifist but I don't believe soldiers deserve to die!

It seemed bizarre to me so I researched further, only to find ‘Soldiers deserve to die’  is a rather silly advertising campaign from the Lung Cancer Alliance, where they suggest all sorts of groups including cat lovers deserve to die. It's not anti-military at all. It's a US campaign, not related to Europe. There is no page on Facebook with this campaign. Signing the campaign just shows that the person concerned has not done the necessary research to check it out. Here’s the source to the debunking of this story.

http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/Controversial-ad-campaign-says-you-deserve-to-die/wtD747okcUynBc-CP57aNA.cspx

Now I’m currently reading a book by Jeremy Scahill called ‘Blackwater’ about mercenary armies and their operation around the world. Every assertion shows careful research and citation. It’s a fascinating book. Well worth reading because if it's true the world as we know it is changing more that we might think. Countries have lost their power to corporations.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercenary/dp/184668652

But there has been another issue going the rounds in the last few months and came to a head in discussions over the last few weeks. That is the issue of ‘Heaven and Hell’ or more specifically those believing in ‘eternal conscious torment’ and those believing in ‘annihilation of the soul’. There’s a well researched and well cited book debunking the annihilation theory. Or so it seems. The book cites writings by the pro-annihilation lobby and shows them to be in error. Except... the writings don’t exist and the citations are fictitious. How often do you check citations? I usually do if they feel suspicious as I showed above, but how many creep through unnoticed because the citation agrees with my deeply held belief?

So where is my citation for this? No, that is your task to check it out. It exists I promise you, and as they say... Google is your friend.

‘The Truth is out there’ was the catchphrase of the X-Files, a science-fiction conspiracy theory TV series about a hush up on UFOs. Good TV series. Well made drama. 

I really enjoy the CS Lewis science-fiction trilogy and would love to dramatise that contextualised for the Arabic audience. But that is an aside. In one scene Lewis reports how Ransom, the central character in th books, is discussing with an eldil, or angel. In this scene he describes how the angel appears to be at a strange angle to the room... and then the observer realises that the angel is upright and that the whole room is at an angle. The truth is out there, our perception of truth however is filtered through semi-opaque glasses... ‘Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.’