Friday, May 19, 2006
Aletheia Found (this time)
“Joseph said to them [his brothers], ‘It is just as I told you: You are spies! And this is how you will be tested: As surely as Pharaoh lives, you will not leave this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of your number to get your brother; the rest of you will be kept in prison, so that your words may be tested to see if you are telling the truth. If you are not, then as surely as Pharaoh lives, you are spies!’” (Genesis 42:14-16 NIV)
The other day I was talking to my friend Indi. She is from Thailand and is currently working on her PhD in Nuclear Engineering. We were talking about the Da Vinci Code. We were both in agreement about the fictitious information contained within the book, now movie (why we believe the information is false and how we came to that conclusion is beyond the scope of this post). But the content of the movie was not the main discussion. I told her that I had read that critics in Thailand wanted to remove 10 minutes from the movie. She did not believe me. In other words, she did not think the story I found was true.
Why did she not believe me? To Indi, removing 10 minutes from a movie that dealt with Christian beliefs would not be that important in a country that is primary Buddhist. She said that less than one percent of the population was Christian in Thailand. To show that I was not making the story up I found several websites that said exactly what I was saying. One article began: “Bangkok - Thailand's Film Censorship Board agreed Tuesday to cut the final 10 minutes of the Hollywood movie The Da Vinci Code following protests from a coalition of Christian churches, a local news report said.” (M&C Movies: May 16, 2006)
Indi, stunned, smiled at me and said, “Wow! That is surprising.” The conversation moved on from there, but today I started thinking about the conversation again. How do we know that these websites are credible or are telling the truth? Could I have still passed on information that is not true? My conclusion is that the information is true because I found several different sources that said the same thing. And I did not find any sources that refuted the information or gave a different story.
In this simple example, truth was found. But what about more complex topics? That is for another day!
The other day I was talking to my friend Indi. She is from Thailand and is currently working on her PhD in Nuclear Engineering. We were talking about the Da Vinci Code. We were both in agreement about the fictitious information contained within the book, now movie (why we believe the information is false and how we came to that conclusion is beyond the scope of this post). But the content of the movie was not the main discussion. I told her that I had read that critics in Thailand wanted to remove 10 minutes from the movie. She did not believe me. In other words, she did not think the story I found was true.
Why did she not believe me? To Indi, removing 10 minutes from a movie that dealt with Christian beliefs would not be that important in a country that is primary Buddhist. She said that less than one percent of the population was Christian in Thailand. To show that I was not making the story up I found several websites that said exactly what I was saying. One article began: “Bangkok - Thailand's Film Censorship Board agreed Tuesday to cut the final 10 minutes of the Hollywood movie The Da Vinci Code following protests from a coalition of Christian churches, a local news report said.” (M&C Movies: May 16, 2006)
Indi, stunned, smiled at me and said, “Wow! That is surprising.” The conversation moved on from there, but today I started thinking about the conversation again. How do we know that these websites are credible or are telling the truth? Could I have still passed on information that is not true? My conclusion is that the information is true because I found several different sources that said the same thing. And I did not find any sources that refuted the information or gave a different story.
In this simple example, truth was found. But what about more complex topics? That is for another day!
# posted by Wesley Son of Cornelius @ 3:35 PM 
