Discerning the truth
Posted on May 3, 2007 - Filed Under Punch Forum |
Rafael L. Oriel, Jr.
3 May 2007
Mr. Ramos, I agree with you. St. Joan of Arc is a very good role model for others to follow especially the youths. Her life is quite fascinating. She came from an obscure village as uneducated peasant and was barely more than a child when she rose to prominence. With her strong faith in God, determination, perseverance and strong will, she turned what had been dynastic squabble (sounds familiar?) that left the common people suffering and neglected into a passionately popular war of national liberation. She asserted that she receives messages from St. Michael, St. Margaret and St. Catherine. Her amazing achievements marked by miraculous survival are strong evidences that she was really guided by God. She became a heroine of her country at the age of seventeen.
Regrettably, she was only nineteen years old when she died by burning after a politically motivated trial convicted her of heresy. The role of religious leader in her politically motivated conviction leading to her death is very disturbing. It reminds me of the roles of some religious leaders in the crucifixion of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ. Evidently, even religious leaders could also possibly cause grave injustices to others especially when they got mixed up with worldly politics or got too involved in the court of public opinion where bias and prejudice rule.
Like they say, those who don’t learn from the mistakes of the past are destined to repeat them. It has been said that history repeats itself. In addition, it has been said, “One of the biggest history lessons, and apparently one of the hardest ones to learn, is that the truth eventually gets out. You can hold it down. You can repress it. You cannot ban it.”
If this were true when communications were restricted, how much more in today’s world of modern communication? Unfortunately, fast modern communications are also being used by unscrupulous individuals and/or groups of people as weapons of mass deceptions to quickly spread lies, twisted facts and half-truths which are technically lies to poison the minds of unsuspecting and/or naïve people.
We must bear in mind that mass deception to mislead others were already used long before our time. A classic example was the time when people were manipulated to demand the release of a convicted murderer named Barabas instead of our Lord Jesus who was obviously not guilty of their ridiculous allegations. We must not allow anybody to commit the same mistakes of the past that could cause serious injustices to others.
For all we know, it might severely and negatively affect the course of human history just like what happened in the past. We must, therefore, carefully discern the truth especially when twisted facts, lies, half-truth or mere allegations are constantly allowed to be repeated many times over and over until they are accepted as truth.
We must always remember that the problems we face in our daily lives will either defeat us or develop us depending on how we respond to them. "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."—George Santayana.
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