LilWabbit
Senior Member
This thread is to share tips and advice on how to glean truth from moderately biased sources, and to detect seriously biased sources that should be viewed very critically. The working assumption is that no source is perfectly unbiased.
Here are some generic pointers I have found personally useful:
If the source -- or its sponsors -- gain politically, financially, ideologically, personally or emotionally by making you believe in what they report, they are to be read very critically. No matter how professional or smart their arguments and 'facts' seem on the surface. One must first independently establish their lack of bias and absence of interfering private interests before naively believing in them and quoting them flippantly to others. Most people unfortunately don't make such an independent and intelligent assessment -- also known as 'source criticism'.
Sometimes we even hold onto highly biased sources because they justify our own personal beliefs and theories, whether about the end times, the world or smaller matters. Not because they are unbiased and impartially concerned with truth, supported by objective evidence.
If your source or its sponsors actively tell you to mistrust all other sources and question everyone else's integrity but theirs, they are demonstrably uncomfortable in their own 'truth'. They feel easily threatened. This should already raise alarms. Truth doesn't need to desperately shut your eyes from the 'lies spun by others'. This is because truth stands out from error by being compelling enough without any hype, and without warning you, in alarm, of those whose views contrast yours.
Truth is so strong as to even encourage you to investigate all alternative 'truths'. By investigating all the 'truths' out there you will only be confirmed in the compelling nature of your truth, if it truly is truth. But if it starts to crack, crumble and make you doubtful, maybe it wasn't the whole truth and nothing but the truth to start with.
Here are some generic pointers I have found personally useful:
If the source -- or its sponsors -- gain politically, financially, ideologically, personally or emotionally by making you believe in what they report, they are to be read very critically. No matter how professional or smart their arguments and 'facts' seem on the surface. One must first independently establish their lack of bias and absence of interfering private interests before naively believing in them and quoting them flippantly to others. Most people unfortunately don't make such an independent and intelligent assessment -- also known as 'source criticism'.
Sometimes we even hold onto highly biased sources because they justify our own personal beliefs and theories, whether about the end times, the world or smaller matters. Not because they are unbiased and impartially concerned with truth, supported by objective evidence.
If your source or its sponsors actively tell you to mistrust all other sources and question everyone else's integrity but theirs, they are demonstrably uncomfortable in their own 'truth'. They feel easily threatened. This should already raise alarms. Truth doesn't need to desperately shut your eyes from the 'lies spun by others'. This is because truth stands out from error by being compelling enough without any hype, and without warning you, in alarm, of those whose views contrast yours.
Truth is so strong as to even encourage you to investigate all alternative 'truths'. By investigating all the 'truths' out there you will only be confirmed in the compelling nature of your truth, if it truly is truth. But if it starts to crack, crumble and make you doubtful, maybe it wasn't the whole truth and nothing but the truth to start with.