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Richard Littledale

Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: October 2006

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truth The Truth
Machine
truth

Lies are in the news:

  • A political crisis was sparked in Budapest by a tape of the Hungarian Prime Minister admitting that he told lies to win an election;
  • A political crisis was sparked in Manchester by an allegation that the British Prime Minister's wife had accused Gordon Brown of lying;
  • ....and most people ignored reports that recent scientific breakthroughs will soon enable us to have almost infallible lie detectors.

But in the long run, the last of these (if true!) will inevitably have the biggest impact on our society and the way we live. Impossible? Well, surprisingly enough it seems that modern science (see fMRI) is inching towards the infallible lie detector of legend. Apparently different areas of our brains light-up when we tell lies because lying requires different and additional mental effort (think the truth and tell a lie?).

According to Time magazine, companies like No Lie MRI, Inc are hoping to launch a service for government and industry based on such products within a few months. Presumably their sales force will never dare over-state the effectiveness and benefits of their product! What today might be a premium (and highly priced) service aimed at governments could within a few decades be marketed as a consumer device.

Just imagine what the world would be like if the moment you opened your mouth all around could know whether you were speaking the truth or lying! The consequences for our society of such developments have been already explored by science fiction writer like James L Halperin (see The Truth Machine). No longer would we have to wait months or years for leaked tapes or honest autobiographies to disclose the truth behind the words spoken by our politicians and their spouses!

But the fact is that, whether we like it or not, God is already The Ultimate Truth Machine. He knows and sees our inner being, including our lies, better even than we know and see ourselves. Some day we will stand before his throne and either be set free by the truth revealed in Jesus, or be condemned by our lies. If we worry about the impact on our lives of a man-made Truth Machine, perhaps we should worry even more about the impact on our eternity of the all-knowing and all-seeing living God.

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Colin Hicks is standing in for Richard Littledale who is on sabbatical (August-October 2006)
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