It’s True – the Tabloids Tell Me So!
By Carl S ~
There's a column featured in "The Week" magazine entitled, " It must be true... I read it in the tabloids." (Some would add – or on the Internet. Recently, even CNN reported as true a fictitious story they got from the Internet.)
Image by brownpau via FlickrIf you reported that Elvis' newborn daughter was seen recently in Memphis, Tennessee, some people would believe this, for you can fool some of the people all of the time. How about an alien abduction covered up by the FBI? (Aha!) Ditto. The face of Jesus photographed on the Martian landscape? Whoops, that's been done already. Many people will, and do, believe anything. And, if you have more than one tabloid writing about the same movie star, for example, what they say MUST be true, right?
Scriptural writings are just like tabloids. For starters, there are no historical accounts of a man named Jesus working miracles in the time period he allegedly lived; curing blindness, raising the dead, feeding THOUSANDS with just a few loaves of bread and a few fishes, on TWO occasions. All these things exist ONLY in that Gospels-Tabloid book, where the similarities between it and the bizarre stories in the National Enquirer are strikingly obvious.
But, millions will say, "It must be true...I read it in the Bible, and the bible says it's true. Period." You want corpses leaving their graves, walking around town, meeting (greeting? returning home? then what?), you can read it in the bible, but nowhere else in the historical records of those times, or after. A man and woman made from clay and a rib, a human race punished because of a mistake (called curiosity), and a man undergoing torture and death to correct that mistake? Surely, someone is making this stuff up, like Elvis's 2010 love child. It's in that "Holy" tabloid, though, so it MUST be true. One man and only ONE man, claiming that 500, count 'em - 500, witnesses saw a dead man come back to life! He wouldn't get three minutes on CNN, but what he said has to be true. It's in the bible.
To verify such extraordinary stories before publishing, wouldn’t a trustworthy scribe seek sources and facts to substantiate these incredible and "exclusive revelations?" It appears the investigator was told, "Just go back and tell everybody to take our word for these things; we have an inside track on the real truth.” Hey, the more far out and fantastic the articles, then the more truth they contain. Right? Some apologists have actually written that such fantastic stories MUST be true, since nobody could make this stuff up.
Scriptural writings are just like tabloids. For starters, there are no historical accounts of a man named Jesus working miracles in the time period he allegedly lived; curing blindness, raising the dead, feeding THOUSANDS with just a few loaves of bread and a few fishes, on TWO occasions. All these things exist ONLY in that Gospels-Tabloid book, where the similarities between it and the bizarre stories in the National Enquirer are strikingly obvious. That nativity story contains descriptions of events (verse after verse) found nowhere else in all the recorded histories of the time; no heavenly choir, or census, or slaughter of children by the thousands. Or didn't such mass slaughter get reported in those days? No child-god. Such a cover-up! In fact, it wasn't until decades after this alleged child-god died that this story was even written down. But, what the hey, it's in scripture-tabloid-bible, so it MUST BE TRUE, and everyone must believe it, or else...
I came across a quotation by a man attending a Xmas church service. "It would be a beautiful story,” he said, "if it were true." I must disagree. It's like a story about breeding a lamb for the slaughter. Surely, even the National Enquirer would have done better, but even the Enquirer does not claim to possess universal truths. They have too much integrity to go that far. They know the difference between what is true and what people wish was true, but they also know about man’s infinite capacity for gullibility.
There's a column featured in "The Week" magazine entitled, " It must be true... I read it in the tabloids." (Some would add – or on the Internet. Recently, even CNN reported as true a fictitious story they got from the Internet.)
Image by brownpau via FlickrScriptural writings are just like tabloids. For starters, there are no historical accounts of a man named Jesus working miracles in the time period he allegedly lived; curing blindness, raising the dead, feeding THOUSANDS with just a few loaves of bread and a few fishes, on TWO occasions. All these things exist ONLY in that Gospels-Tabloid book, where the similarities between it and the bizarre stories in the National Enquirer are strikingly obvious.
But, millions will say, "It must be true...I read it in the Bible, and the bible says it's true. Period." You want corpses leaving their graves, walking around town, meeting (greeting? returning home? then what?), you can read it in the bible, but nowhere else in the historical records of those times, or after. A man and woman made from clay and a rib, a human race punished because of a mistake (called curiosity), and a man undergoing torture and death to correct that mistake? Surely, someone is making this stuff up, like Elvis's 2010 love child. It's in that "Holy" tabloid, though, so it MUST be true. One man and only ONE man, claiming that 500, count 'em - 500, witnesses saw a dead man come back to life! He wouldn't get three minutes on CNN, but what he said has to be true. It's in the bible.
To verify such extraordinary stories before publishing, wouldn’t a trustworthy scribe seek sources and facts to substantiate these incredible and "exclusive revelations?" It appears the investigator was told, "Just go back and tell everybody to take our word for these things; we have an inside track on the real truth.” Hey, the more far out and fantastic the articles, then the more truth they contain. Right? Some apologists have actually written that such fantastic stories MUST be true, since nobody could make this stuff up.
Scriptural writings are just like tabloids. For starters, there are no historical accounts of a man named Jesus working miracles in the time period he allegedly lived; curing blindness, raising the dead, feeding THOUSANDS with just a few loaves of bread and a few fishes, on TWO occasions. All these things exist ONLY in that Gospels-Tabloid book, where the similarities between it and the bizarre stories in the National Enquirer are strikingly obvious. That nativity story contains descriptions of events (verse after verse) found nowhere else in all the recorded histories of the time; no heavenly choir, or census, or slaughter of children by the thousands. Or didn't such mass slaughter get reported in those days? No child-god. Such a cover-up! In fact, it wasn't until decades after this alleged child-god died that this story was even written down. But, what the hey, it's in scripture-tabloid-bible, so it MUST BE TRUE, and everyone must believe it, or else...
I came across a quotation by a man attending a Xmas church service. "It would be a beautiful story,” he said, "if it were true." I must disagree. It's like a story about breeding a lamb for the slaughter. Surely, even the National Enquirer would have done better, but even the Enquirer does not claim to possess universal truths. They have too much integrity to go that far. They know the difference between what is true and what people wish was true, but they also know about man’s infinite capacity for gullibility.