Do you trust Internet?

[ThomasGR]

When I tried to find an answer to my question about the change fro Saturday to Sunday in Christian practices, I visited various sites in the Internet. Though they had some interesting stuff and ideas, often I became alerted because they belonged to various sects which didn’t care to hide their attitude (which one wouldn’t describe as a friendly one) towards the official Catholic doctrines. Rather, they were quite attacking Vatican and by reciting old manuscripts -using quotes that perhaps are taken out of any context- made very often an extraordinary attack to the Roman Catholic Church. In other cases these sites were Muslim propaganda sites, which did nothing have in mind but attacking Christians, trying to prove Christianity wrong, and through this spreading the teachings of Islam. The same can I say about Hindu sites and other minor religions. All these sites attack all the dogmas and doctrines of Christianity, Saturday and Sunday, Baptism, Saints, Easter and Christmas, and their most beloved subject is Holy Trinity.

Reading all these sites I did nothing gain but become more confused than ever. I don’t know what to believe and what to dismiss as lies and misinterpretations. At least I’m not a historian or theologian and cannot check or prove their statements either wrong or right.

Is there any rule as to how one can discern good information from evil propaganda in the Internet? Or shall I dismiss all sites as non-worthy information, and stick to the official doctrines and dogmas of my religion and not care if these are falsities as well, as if the truths lies out there, but not easy to gain?

Well, there is also some quotes from the bible that sound like “believe it and do not search”, but on the other side we have also the command “search the scripts” It is an contradiction, isn't

[Eureka]

If you already believe it, it's good information; if you don't, it's evil propaganda.


As a general rule, if it's a small, cheap site, it's probably run by some angry guy from his mother's basement. Otherwise, it should have an "about us" page on the sight. They won't openly state that they're bigots, but they'll give it away somehow. For example, if they're racists, they'll have some clause about wanting to remove all anti-decrimination laws...

[Turpissimus]

I find wikipedia to be quite a good source of information on a wide variety of topics. It does strive to be written from a neutral point of view, or, when this isn't possible, include all points of view and clearly mark them as opinion. At the bottom of each entry is a selection of links for further reading.

Wikipedia is an open-source encyclopedia, so anyone can edit it. Anyone. But malicious edits are usually picked up within 20 minutes or so, so I'd judge it to be fairly reliable - after all, all shades of opinion on a particular topic will have had an input, so disputes will generally be clearly marked.

[Emma_85]

I think you can sometimes tell which sites are trustworthy and which aren't. As you said often it was pretty obvious. What you need is a Christian site which does not belong to any sect or another and which has other information on it which seems to be correct.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/


This one for example does not seem to be one run by some sect or other, you might want to see what you can find here.

http://atheism.about.com/

This site also has some good information.

Bascially if you want to know anything about a religious practice the main thing I would be wary off is an overly religious website. Websites on religion, but that aren't owned by a particular religious group as such. It will be very hard to find ones that aren't run by religious people, as this is something religious people are very interested in, atheists not so much , but it's often quite obvious which ones can and can't be trusted for information. Some university webpages can be good for such information too, but even there you have to be careful. Just run many google searches including various words such as 'academic', 'history', 'university', 'research' and things like that will will help to filter out those 'propaganda' websites which have no useful content. At least that is how I work when I want to research a subject and find I'm only getting rubbish sites at first.

Some sites I come up with when I add those words are not exactly what I want (http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/sabbatarians.html) like this one, but there is still some information there that is relevant.

Oh, yes, not to forget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath! Good one that, as already mentioned.
It has something on Saturday vs. Sunday too.

Hope that helps a bit!

[Democritus]

Reading all these sites I did nothing gain but become more confused than ever. I don’t know what to believe and what to dismiss as lies and misinterpretations.

You probably already realize this, but I will point it out anyway -- this problem is not specific to the Internet. Much of what is reported in the news is either wrong or is misleading in some way, perhaps by omission of other facts. And books are often full of misleading ideas, too.

Your instincts are correct. Sometimes it's quite difficult to sort out true facts. Detectives and investigative journalists spend their whole careers trying to find the facts.

Not all the confusion is "evil," either, often there is honest disagreement.

At least I’m not a historian or theologian and cannot check or prove their statements either wrong or right.

I wouldn't say this. I think it certainly is possible for you to check or to (dis)prove these points. It's just perhaps a lot more difficult than you expected. Historians and theologians don't employ any magic, other than their own God-given brains, just like you.

[Geoff]

"Do you believe the Internet" is close to asking "Do you believe paper?" Internet is not much more than a format and access mechanism. The way to discern is like any other information whether it is given through Radio, TV, etc.

Most sites, groups, sources which claim no affiliation and boast about having no bias are actually either modernist or postmodernist which is a bias.

What do you consider authoritative? The question you have to answer before knowing which sources to follow is "what is truth". If you are a postmodernist and don't believe in real objective truth then there is no point in asking the question.

The Bible does say prove all things (I Thess 5:21) and Reason (Is 1:18).

Think about some of the most basic ways of proving something is true or false; such as tautologies, contradictions, contrapositives, implication, and on and on. If this is really a problem for you then you should consider a study of logic, which itself won't lead you to the truth, but will be a valuable tool in your quest.

[blueskyboris]

http://www.christianforums.com/
This site should allow you to assess the truth of your faith from a multi-sect Christian perspective.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/index.php
This site should allow you tp assess the truth of your faith from an atheist, highly intellectual perspective.

[Turpissimus]

You forgot Rapture Ready.

Endless source of comedy those guys are. Just be thankful they don't vote ... what? ... Oh sh-