Don't believe the word of Prostitutes when the slander fits your purpose.

Vanity ^ | 7/18/08 | Dangus

[dangus]

Should Freepers who call themselves "Christians" believe the word of pimps, as told to them by the mainstream media? The Australian (a newspaper) published the claims of a Syndey pimp who claims that business has increased during World Youth Day. The article notes that up to 5,000 traveling journalists have descended upon Sydney. Of course, we all have heard how the overwhelming majority of journalists are pro-gay, pro-abortion, unchurched, and politically liberal. Plus, incredibly enough, there are armies of protesters. Yet, the article leaves it up to the reader to presume that it's all those Catholic faithful visiting the prostitutes, even though not even the pimp actually states that.

One certain Freeper has undertaken to report the cases of Protestant preachers' sexual abuse cases. My feelings on this tactic are somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand, for the while it lasted, it cast a rather sickening pale across the Freeper religion forum. On the other hand, it was making a valuable point, and the stories were, within reason, true. I'm quite the defender of Catholicism, and I was astounded at the sheer volume of cases this Freeper dug up: several per day, many very shockingly perverse. This wasn't some forty-year backlog, like the Catholic scandals, which had declined 95% a decade before the mainstream media picked up the story in earnest.

And that's what it comes down to: as Freepers, we're supposed to uphold the truth. Lying on a detail in support of what we believe to be a greater truth is still lying. But upholding the truth means so much more than not deliberately lying. It means being responsible for the veracity of what we assert. If a claim is dubious, it doesn't belong on Free Republic just because the commenter isn't positive it's false. If an assertion you've made has been reasonably refuted, don't just repeat it on another thread. If someone has explained to you that you've misunderstood a doctrine, don't proclaim your misunderstanding as doctrine on other threads. If your "greater truth" can't be upheld by these simple rules, the one delighting in your understanding of truth is probably the father of lies.