A large national periodical featured an article reporting research by psychologists on how honest people are, and how honest they think they are. We think we are more honest than we are!
The research showed that there is a group of outliers, comprised of about 2% who are pathological liars, and another group of similar size of persons who are ALWAYS honest.
The remaining 96%-which includes most of us-showed that we are honest much of the time, but not always. Most people will take whatever opportunities come their way to 1) gain more wealth 2) have their reputations enhanced so that others think better of them and are more impressed by them.
Studies of “witnesses” to crimes have revealed that people will testify to what they saw. Only much of the time what they reported they did not see. No one else saw it. It happened only in the mental processing of the “witness.” Hence, it would seem that circumstantial evidence MAY be more reliable than testimony…at least in some cases.
How are honest are you? How honest am I? Jesus said, “remove the log in your own eye before getting excited about the speck in your neighbor’s eye.”
When any statement is made by a person, the following factors are always present:
What did he/she intend to say?
What words did he actually say?
What kind of inflection marked the words to give them meaning?
What the hearer actually heard.
What the hearer THOUGHT she heard.
Jesus counseled, “say a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ .”
There are two TV news channels that I know of that were never intended to provide actual unbiased news. MSNBC carries content to give a “liberal” slant to the news. Fox News was created for the very purpose of slanting the news another way. Most of us are edified when we hear news reported in the way most comfortable to our own thought patterns and values. And, we are included to watch “news” that most clearly conforms to our own points of view. Hence, few conservatives watch MSNBC; few liberals watch Fox News.
Let us recognize our own limitations, and be charitable to others.
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