- Bill Gates will send you $200 if you forward “this” e-mail to a friend.
- Big box store Target refuses to donate to veterans’ organizations.
- The Holocaust never happened.
- 9/11 was secretly perpetrated by the U.S. government.
As you can see from the examples above – all of them posted on various websites – although the Internet has become the most popular source of information these days, it’s full of wrong information. Sometimes it’s an innocent retelling of myth. In other cases, the people behind it are out to spread malicious lies to further their agendas.
In either case, you must check your sources before you rush to include anything that comes up in a Google search in your next e-zine article, term paper, or blog.
To guard against republishing fiction as fact, ask yourself: ”What sources of information are guiding my actions? Have I checked the facts, or am I simply relying on the word of others? Above all, have I applied common sense to this situation, or am I acting impulsively?”
Lazy thinking leads to the acceptance of fiction as fact. Our modern world is so saturated with fiction transformed into fact through the phenomenon of gradualism (where a lie is repeated so many times it gradually gains currency) that even the most alert and rational among us can be fooled. This is just one reason why the search for truth is a lifetime
[Ed. Note: To learn how to survive and prosper during the turbulent years ahead, check out Robert Ringer's powerful audio series Succeeding in a World of Chaos.
And be sure to sign up for a FREE subscription to his one-of-a-kind e-letter A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World.]
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