Conspiracies and Truth

Have you heard? The stories we’ve heard—the official story—of what happened on September 11, 2001, is a myth. A lie. A deception.

That’s what Dylan Avery and others like him want us to believe. The creator of “Loose Change”—a documentary film created in 2005, then revised in 2006 and 2007—claims President Bush was the real terrorist on that day the twin towers came down. Vice President Dick Cheney was the mastermind of the attack on the Pentagon—not Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Osama bin Laden.

It was an inside job, they say, and their film documents the “facts”: Jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to burn steel. The damage to the Pentagon is consistent with the damage done by a missile, not an airplane. The wreckage in Pennsylvania doesn’t look like other plane wrecks. It looks like a plane that was shot down. Many are convinced that the creators of “Loose Change” are onto something.

Enter Popular Mechanics (PM). The editors of the respected magazine decided to take the conspiracy theories point by point and see if there is a solid case. They brought engineers, forensic and aviation experts as well as various officials from the military into the discussion—more than 70 experts in their fields. The result?

You can read the extensive report for yourself on the PM website, but PM editors wrote this: “Healthy skepticism, it seems, has curdled into paranoia. Wild conspiracy tales are peddled daily on the Internet, talk radio and in other media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts have inspired a slew of elaborate theories…

In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense.”

Bottom line: a lot of people believe something that simply isn’t true. They got their information from very unreliable sources. Men and women who have served this country honorably are being treated as criminals. Being called traitors and murderers.

The truth is these men and women have protected our country. They have made good decisions in the midst of a very difficult time. They deserve our respect and honor.

I see parallels between the attacks on truth regarding 9/11 and the attacks on the truth of God’s Word. Many who don’t know what they’re talking about tell us the Bible cannot be trusted. Those who hate God tell us His Word is a lie. They lay out their stacks of evidence and many buy into.

Bottom line: a lot of people believe something that simply isn’t true. They got their information from very unreliable sources. The Word of God has proven itself over thousands of years, but is being called dangerous. Myth. Fairy tale. What is needed is some hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense.

This is why we must look into the history and manuscripts and archeology behind the Scriptures. The history of the canon (i.e., books included in the Bible), the ancient manuscripts of the Bible and archeological discoveries debunk the idea that the Bible cannot be trusted. Can we know with omniscience that the Bible is true? Do we have perfect certainty regarding every detail? No. We don’t have that kind of knowledge about anything. But we do have reasonable certainty that God wrote the Bible through the minds and pens of men? Do we have reasonable certainty that God preserved it through time, persecution and intellectual attacks? Yes we do!

But don’t get me wrong. Reasonable certainty does not replace faith. Christianity is an evidential faith. It is not a blind leap of faith. It is a faith that is rooted in history. It is a faith that says God stepped into history and altered the entire course of history. If that is true, there must be evidence. The evidence supports this belief. Faith is required for the things which cannot be proven with reasonable certainty. But faith pleases God. Remember what Jesus said to Thomas? “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” (John 20:29)

I hope you’ll take a look at the evidence yourself. Click here for a link to Bible.org which contains several excellent essays to get you started. I hope you’ll be more convinced than ever that the Bible is God’s Word. I hope you’ll be more equipped than ever to lead people to the truth.