EPILOGUE
The BIG, BIGGER, AND BIGGEST Lies of All Time
What have we learned?
It is hard to end a series such as this: my fear is that somewhere I might have missed a message that could save someone from falling prey to the evil men do, that somehow if I had added another word or another lesson others might come out of the fog and into the light.
But I know that my ability to enlighten the world is limited, just as those men and women who have shared this same message before me. We write only one page: the rest must be written by those who understand now and wish to continue the work.
One that has helped me learn some of the harshest truths of life is Thom Hartmann, a bookish man who has hosted his own radio and TV show for decades, sharing real truth about our world.
Thom recently wrote a piece that spoke to me — to this series of mine — about how lies promulgate throughout our society: how lies are first told by the liar, then turned into the beliefs of the ignorant.
Here is the essence of Thom’s piece:
New findings from psychologists at universities in California and Georgia and published in the journal Cognitive Research show that the more often a statement — regardless of its truthfulness — is repeated, the more emphatically it’s believed.
The researchers noted:
“Repeated information is often perceived as more truthful than new information. This finding is known as the illusory truth effect, and it is typically thought to occur because repetition increases processing fluency. Because fluency and truth are frequently correlated in the real world, people learn to use processing fluency as a marker for truthfulness.”
Lies beget lies.
The bigger the lie, the more believable to the ignorant audience. The more you repeat the lie, the more it becomes normalized.
In interviews with Donald Trump for her book Confidence Man, Maggie Haberman shares how Trump used repeated language to drill his message into the minds of those who follow him.
He started to explain why he doesn’t like when audiotapes of his interviews are released. Being on camera was “much different,” he said. “Whereas,” he said, in a “written interview, I’ll repeat it 20 times, because I want to drum it into your beautiful brain. Do you understand that?” He repeated himself again. “One of the things I’ll do, if I’m doing, like with you, for the written word, is I got to drum it into your head. So I’ll repeat something six times.”
Trump is a master liar, a con-man, a true charlatan: he has spent his entire life living a lie, and has used his empire of lies to create the fantasy island he now lives on. His Big Lie — that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen — sunk deep into the minds of those who followed him because it was BIG, it was repeated daily, and they were susceptible to it. They had their own set of core beliefs that our government was inspired by God, and that God himself had blessed this nation into creation. There would be no convincing them of the stark truth:
Their entire belief system was corrupt, built one lie upon another.
When we lie to ourselves, or permit lies to be the primary currency of our society, we can expect decay, distortion, and ultimately destruction.
Racism
In the America we live in, racism has been the root of all evil perpetrated on others: there is simply no close second.
Today, racism is disguised in terms of “mental illness,” but it is the same ugliness that has plagued our nation since 1492, 1619, 1787 — pick a year.
Lee Atwater gave America a glimpse into the dark, racist minds behind Republican campaigns in this interview in 1981. It is disgusting and vile, and I won’t use the language he uses, but I implore you to listen to this video as it demonstrates my point: racism is simply repackaged every election cycle by the GOP.
David Hogg, co-founder of March for Our Lives, spoke recently about how racism has been repackaged by the gun-loving nuts on the right.
“It’s time we put an end to it and we go after the one thing that these politicians care about, which is their votes and their power. We start calling out the bullshit that is out there constantly that says shooters, like the person at my high school who had repeatedly drawn Nazi symbols and swastikas on things and who repeatedly said hateful things about Black and Brown people, about immigrants and Muslim people — stop using mental illness as an excuse for white nationalism,” Hogg said at a Lansing event. “Frankly, we just need to stop calling f–king racism mental illness.”
Guns
“If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Mt 18:6
We lie to ourselves about the gun dangers our children must now endure everyday in America — from the classroom, to the grocery store, to church, to anywhere — and it is causing harm to the little ones in our world.
Gun violence is rampant in America, and the GOP lies — right along with the NRA — every day about the Second Amendment, which provides no argument for personal gun ownership.
We have exchanged the lives of our children for the want of a gun.
Money in Politics
Citizens United: In a 5–4 majority ruling, the Supreme Court sided with Citizens United, ruling that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections.
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Mt. 6:24
We have permitted, even condoned, the corruption of our political system. Christians may hold the verses, but many still refuse to see the truly deep harm unlimited money in politics has done to this nation.
Immigration
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”
Donald Trump,
Presidential Announcement Speech
Donald Trump never understood or cared about immigrants, although his family has its own history of immigration. His remarks on the day he began his political career were a dog whistle to all those who hate brown-skinned Latinos, and who fear — rooted in their core beliefs — that people of a different race are here to harm us, that people who come here for a better life — just as Trump’s family did — don’t deserve the same opportunity his family had.
For Donald Trump and millions of Americans, racism has been poured into their very souls from the pulpit: it has been the history of the church in America to prompt bigotry and violence towards those of color.
“For some evangelicals, the kingdom of God is largely about, if not centered on, “taking America back for God,” voting for the Christian candidate, outlawing abortion, outlawing gay marriage, winning the culture war, defending political freedom at home and abroad, keeping the phrase “under God” in the pledge of Allegiance, fighting for prayer in public schools and at public events, and fighting to display the Ten Commandments in government buildings.”
Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation.
And don’t forget — walls to keep out folks from “shithole” countries.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”
Mt. 25:35, 36
The sign of the times
Whether the world is doomed to destruction is anyone’s guess. Whether God exists or not can never be answered. Just like the Big Bang Theory, neither theory about the origin of life on Earth — Creationism or Evolution — can be proven.
We’ll simply have to accept that FACT as reality.
If you have read this series, you might now have a better understanding of the one thing I have tried to do: open your mind to critical thinking.
We have suffered the consequences of being closed-minded throughout history. Mankind has all too often simply accepted what he was told without challenging or verifying the words of the prophets, and all too often they have turned out to be false prophets.
“For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
Mt. 24:24
We have all been led astray far too easily and far too often; our lack of knowledge about American history has directly and negatively impacted our ability to see clearly what is happening today.
We have trusted blindly the men who have ruled the world: presidents, popes, preachers, teachers — even our parents lied to us about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. At some point, we must all take off the blinders and think for ourselves. Or be led like sheep to the slaughter.
“It’s like this: when I was a child I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I became a man my thoughts grew far beyond those of my childhood, and now I have put away the childish things.”
1 Cor. 13:10
The God of the Bible is not to be understood by Man: whether it is because he is God, or simply because the language, phraseology, and stories — the myths — spread over a multitude of volumes and compounded by centuries — is incomprehensible, remains to be determined. There certainly is room for a lot of doubt, debate, and discrepancy.
Throughout the centuries, there are those who have used that vagueness to control and manipulate millions — for their own benefit. They have absconded with the true message of the book — that good overcomes evil through the person of Jesus Christ. They have mutilated it, twisted it, and encrypted it to avoid wider understanding by mankind.
In essence, they have crucified Christ again.
If God is God, he certainly couldn’t have intended for things to turn out as they have, with those who claim to be his biggest followers turning out to be the biggest liars, con-artists, and murderers of all time.
Could he?
If God is God, he certainly is testing our faith because he has watched as liars, adulterers, and murderers have plundered his people in his name. And that is a hard pill to swallow — that the God who loves us would permit the long standing abuse of his own.
The message that the “men of God” have promoted is mostly one of pure evil: from Popes declaring God-given rights to steal, pillage, and kill to charlatan preachers of today stoking the flames of racism, hatred, and division for their own purposes.
Christ said many would come in his name but that they would be deceivers. Our ignorance has led us to be easily fooled over and again.
We never understood that those who would come to kill us would be those who claimed to love God.
“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”
Mt. 24:7–12
While the swastika, the Rebel flag, and other famous symbols of hate are worn with pride by today’s murderers, we must remember always how this symbol has been used by pastors, preachers, and popes to justify the bloodshed:
The GOP uses Christ like Whites always have: to control others. To these monsters, Jesus is a weapon they use to kill more easily and more openly than an AR15. The “master race” has mastered how to control the masses: they bludgeon us with the love of their God.
Lies are at the very foundation of the core beliefs of millions in this nation, their entire set of beliefs and values built upon the lies they have been told by parents, teachers, preachers, presidents, popes, siblings, personalities and more. As Thom Hartmann puts it, Republican lies are “more focused and now repeated daily by thousands of rightwing websites, bloggers, podcasts, Fox “News,” and talk radio shows.” Their lies are now myths: see Q-Anon.
Our entire way of life has been built upon lies, something that is not easy to look at or to accept.
It is in the darkest part of our very soul that we fear the most: the place where we dare not go, the place where we would be forced to accept the truth about ourselves as Christians, as Americans, as human beings.
We have exalted ourselves over others to make a place for ourselves that is an entire fabrication, all built upon a legacy of lies.
The way out is through a deep intellectual, emotional, and spiritual reckoning of who we are individually. We cannot change others, and we should not try: that is how we got here.
The End.
© Timothy J. Sabo 2022 All Rights Reserved
