Lies inhibit the ability to reason
Lies inhibit the ability to reason.
When a person opens themselves up to a mental diet of lies, they lose the ability to discern truth from falsehood. This can happen with even a single lie. How does this impairment happen?
Our minds generally attempt to reason by using the facts that we know to make choices about how we will live. We use basic logic that presupposes we are operating by truth and fact. But once our presuppositions become polluted, and the “truth” within our minds is not true, we cannot be sure that the outcomes of our logic are true. Even if our logic is infallible, lies corrupt the outcome of our reasoning and make it more difficult to ascertain future truth.
American evangelicals with their support of Fox News have willingly opened themselves up to falsehood. By allowing their minds to be filled with ideas opposed to Christ’s teaching, they can neither recognize Christ’s true teachings nor defend themselves against additional lies. Their thinking has been subverted. So even if they can still use logic correctly, they remain at risk because the foundation for their thinking has been corrupted.
We saw this play out when Fox News polluted the thinking of their viewers with regard to Dominion voting machines being used to cheat during the election. The impact of these lies caused a mental dysfunction across a large swath of evangelical minds. They foolishly put their trust in Fox News and lost the ability to reason for themselves. The worst case of this is seen when people today still insist the election was stolen, and that if Fox News tried harder they would have won the lawsuit. The lie has so deeply infected the reasoning process that it is unable to be overturned even by reading the court documents demonstrating Fox News’ behavior.
This same defense continues with the lies of Donald Trump. No amount of proven fact can shatter the mental choke-hold upon the ardent followers of Fox News and Donald Trump.
What is the solution? First, one needs to be humble to realize they may have been duped. Then they need to start listening to the voices that have been calling out these lies. Once truth breaks through, they will begin to see the world accurately again.
