Blind to our Blindness

Today I listened to an old broadcast on Freakonomics radio that I downloaded.  It was on bias in the media.  A recent scientific study, using quantifiable data, seemed to demonstrate a conclusive bias throughout the major media sources.  The Media, when interviewed, were outraged.  The editorial page editor for the New York Times opined that they were merely telling the truth and that Fox News was incredibly biased.  I laughed out loud.  It’s no wonder that our culture has lost track of the concept of truth. Truth becomes what I say it is.  Further, our arguments are fundamentally personal nowadays.  We set up straw men, knock them over and raise our hands in triumph.  Those who politely disagree are fools and shouted down.

On facebook I read a diatribe disguised as humor attacking the Christian faith.  “How to Suck at your Religion” by the Oatmeal.  On it for example, Christians were ridiculed for believing that dinosaurs were too big to fit on the ark and this is why they are extinct.  That’s a straw man.  No serious Christian intellect argues such a thing.  The average dinosaur was about the size of a sheep.  I am guessing Oatmeal is funny only if one thinks Christians are idiots.  This fits with the current climate which says those with whom you disagree are fools.

Thinking all these thoughts while listening,  a professor of Psychology, who spoke with an accent, was the final voice on the Freakonomics program.  (His accent marked him as very smart.)  He said something that hit home.  It is a well known human phenomenon, he said, that we are blind to our blindness.  We cannot see that we cannot see.  So we think we see, are even certain we see (like the editor at the New York Times), but we don’t see.  I know this is true of me.  Those who listen to me will often hear me say, I am uneasy with the thought that I cannot really see myself as I truly am.

We all need an outside source of truth that stands whether we believe it or not.  It is a lifelong search for all mankind.

John 14:Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (NASB)

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