Part of the series Who says…
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2014-10-20.
How do we come to believe we are right? We simply trust that what we are told is right.
Building on a foundation that God is, that He created the universe and that He ultimately is responsible for our children’s being, should provide ample substance upon which to build our faith. This lengthy series will identify the secular thinking that has eroded that faith.
Bible Reference: John 18:38
Sally was born in a family of airplane lovers. The entire family was very knowledgeable about aircraft, from the Wright brothers to modern planes, makes and models. Sally grew up hearing many members of the family repeatedly refer to airplanes as ‘birds”. Her father would see a “Goldenhawk” jet and call it a “beautiful bird”. Her uncle called the “Snowbirds” aeronautics show a “flock of birds”. Her grandpa would affectionately refer to the “Tigermoth” biplanes as “old birds” while grandma referred to grandpa’s “ultralight” airplane as that “little bird”. As a matter of fact, she was 10 years old and had only ever heard of these flying machines called “birds”. To her they were “birds”.
One day, while sitting with a home schooled boy of about the same age, an airplane flew over and as Sally pointed to it, she called it “a bird”. The boy was quick to tell her that what she was pointing to was in fact an airplane and not “a bird”. Sally fully disagreed. When asked what she would call a sparrow, she answered with “a bird”, not even realizing the major differences between the feathery bird and the aluminum “bird”. A debate ensued with Sally eventually getting upset and leaving, mumbling that that boy knew nothing of “birds”. He did not even know it was a Boeing 747!
Was Sally right? In her own mind, she was. Sally had never been told that airplanes were being called “birds” as way to fondly refer to them, since aircraft and aviation was such a big part of her family. She was actually wrong in calling aircraft birds but she was sincerely wrong, having never been told otherwise. She may have sounded stupid to the home school boy, but Sally was definitely not stupid, just misinformed.
We are all like Sally in more ways than we know or care to admit. We are all told things that are not true, sometimes for bad reasons and other times for no good reason at all. It was once said that if you tell a big enough lie, loud enough and long enough, people will start to believe it. A modern day example of such comes to mind, when one considers how certain “environmental issues” are overwhelmingly presented in every conceivable fashion to eventually create “believers” in the cause.
Our understanding of education is likewise, overwhelmingly fabricated with faulty information that is repeatedly normalized, much the same way as Sally’s understanding of airplanes as “birds”. We not only advance but defend things that we have never questioned or given any real thought to.
Who says you are right? You do! But do you know for sure or are you just repeating what you have been told, without even considering that it could be a lie?