Kony 2012 - Truth or Conspiracy? Making sense of the backlash?

This article contains:
- My experiences with being scammed
- Two sides to human nature described (to help you know if you are being scammed)

There is no doubt that those who donate to causes are well intentioned.  You've probably done so yourself.  But how do you know if you are being scammed?  Nobody wants to be scammed into giving to a false cause.

My experiences
When I was younger, a university student and not on a regular income, I challenged myself to be more giving because it seemed to count more to give when I couldn't afford it.  In one instance I was asked for some petrol money by a guy who wanted to get back to his family in another town.  I gave him ten bucks and kept the five dollar note to last me until who knows when.  Later, I had the embarrassment of being told that this guy was a druggy who regularly asked for cash using a sob story.  This was my first encounter with scammers and has unfortunately hardened me to people asking for help.  It has also made me reluctant to ask for help, but that is another story.

So in relation to Kony 2012, I say again, Nobody wants to be scammed into giving to a false cause.

I don't know what the truth of the Kony situation is, but my intention here is to illustrate two sides to human nature to help you decide for yourself if someone is trying to scam you.  If you want to watch a series of videos to get the entire Kony 2012 picture, I've linked or embedded the vids at the end of this post (so that you don't fail to read the important stuff)

Two sides to human nature
One side of human nature that we have to battle with is evil.  Everyone has a dark side which they mostly work hard against to avoid being too bad.  Keeping this short and to the point, with Kony 2012, it is entirely conceivable that the whole thing is a big scam to get a hold of the natural resources of Uganda.

Looking even bigger, to Africa as a whole, there are some parts that are more stable than others, but the centres of power and influence seem to be full of corruption and mess.  It's crazy to think that the international agencies are positive about Africa when there are so many refugees coming out.  My country takes 750 refugees each year, which doesn't seem like much, but when you consider that the (large) families then follow.  Also, there are many voluntary refugees who are getting out while they still can.  Huge numbers of white South Africans are being persecuted and having their land violently taken from them as reverse racism takes over.  There are many such voluntary refugees in my country (I even married one!).

Even on this larger scale than mere Uganda, it seems conceivable that countries (who seek a foot in the door to negotiate about the rich supply of natural resources in other countries) would support instability so that they can then "help" overcome in order to be better able to claim a share of the oil (or whatever).

The other side of human nature
On the other hand, it also seems conceivable that people are just dumb and make bad decisions constantly.  This causes mess on a grand scale and leads to the sort of social and political climate which supports dictators and evil opportunists.  People also like to try and help, which often leads to more mess because everyone has an opinion about how to put this help into action.

So which seems more obvious for Kony 2012?
I'm not sure, and I don't think there can be any surety unless you have personal interaction with the people involved.  To make these sorts of decisions of support it is not enough to have transparent accounts any more (which are just numbers on a document that anyone could fudge).  There needs to be real and direct personal contact with every contributor for them to feel confident enough that their contribution is being fairly used by people who care.  Even then, the regulations they have to operate under can hijack the process despite everyone's best intentions.

My advice, if you're moved to give to the Invisible Children then take a close look first.  Don't give blindly, and if you can you should give in other ways than pure cash.  And never give anyone money for petrol... take them to the petrol station and put the petrol in for them!

The videos to watch to get the whole story:

https://vimeo.com/38344284 - Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey responding to critics

Your comments are welcome below

Unite My Heart

Psalm 86, a prayer of King David, is a favourite of mine.  It seems to sum up much of the Christian existence.  I often make verse 11 my prayer:

"Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name"

While some verses can seem a little presumptuous to pray, verse two for example says, "Preserve my life, for I am godly;" we should be aware that this is the direction of life of the Christian.  Everyone who is born again has been fundamentally changed into a new being - into one who can come before God to pray with the confidence of Christ who is the perfect and godly one in each of us.

Unfortunately, we do not often share this confidence with King David.  Our recent sin is fresh in our memory, and we do not feel holy.  Whether we have said words in anger, let our gaze linger upon something we shouldn't, or have harboured resentful thoughts, our own heart is betraying our new nature and our prayer lacks conviction because of our guilt.

In such moments we must take hold of forgiveness from the Father and have him unite our heart, lest we be like the kingdom divided against itself that will fall (Matthew 12:25).  Prayer is a part of this process, but the same verse 11 gives us further advice to achieve a united heart.

The first part, learning God's ways, and learning to walk in His truth, is the same thing as having a heart united and set upon Him.  The internal conviction is not separate from the external action.  1John 1:6 from the New Testament shows us that our actions, how we "walk", must match our words which claim fellowship.  If it is clear that our actions don't meet our convictions, we should be praying for something more serious than our walk with God - our souls are likely more in step with the world and our heart is united with the devil.

Before you can worry about becoming more like Jesus, you must first seek salvation from him.  Only then will your heart be freed from the devil to become new and holy, and then the battle with competing desires will begin.  You can be sure that you are saved if you long for your heart to be united, to walk in God's ways, and to live by His truth.  In a sense, the prayer for a united heart will only be truly complete when Jesus returns and our transformation is complete, but for now we can continue to strive, and pray, and enjoy each step of progress.

Pray, with David:

"Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name"

May God grant you to desire and to achieve this prayer.


Amen

Trust and Truth in Science and Religion

Some trust in Science, some trust in God, some trust in both.  There are truth gaps in both Science and Religion that force us to trust if we are to continue to live by it.  It is our past experiences within that realm that will inform us whether we can safely place our trust  there or not.  The same principle applies to human relationships, favourite authors, Internet providers, and a host of other fields with unknowns that we commit to based on what we already know about them.  For now, we will look at trust and truth in Science and Religion.


Is there enough truth for us to trust in what we trust in?
This is not so much a difficulty in the Science realm, because the scientific method is formed to be able to make rational sense of observation of the universe.  Any theory or hypothesis that does not square with experimental data is replaced with an updated one that does work.  It’s a clear and simple, common sense process of human exploration of the natural world.  It doesn’t always work though, as it relies on fallible people to spot the inconsistencies in a theory, and even then it might take a while for people to be willing to let that theory go, especially if they have been making good use of it for a long time.  This gives rise to the question, “How much truth has to be compromised before the trust is compromised?”

Take the case of the dinosaur bones found with blood cells preserved inside.  Actual dinosaur blood.  Read the journal article for yourself here (or here for one of the articles at www.creation.com)  It seems that any rational scientist would have to make a choice, assuming he or she holds to dinosaurs existing over 60 million years ago along with a much shorter decomposition rate for organic material.  The choice would be between which theory is wrong.  Either dinosaurs didn’t live that long ago, or blood cells decay at an impossibly slow rate under particular conditions.  Trust in that portion of science must drop away, otherwise enough trust has already been built up that the scientist would safely assume that more evidence will come to light to explain how both can work.

When it comes to the bible, people are not so willing to trust.  
If we start on the same grounds that we might start from with science, we can see that there is no difference in how we can apply our trust to the bible.  There are truth claims, some of which are obvious and easily believed and it is a wonderful resource of accurate wisdom about human nature and life principles that work.  

However, there are gaps and contradictions that don’t seem to make sense and there are claims that we can’t know anything about through “natural” means of knowing.  Yet the parts that we can believe should convince us that it is worth looking a little deeper before throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Some contradictions readily dissolve with the right context or understanding of how God is working through history.  Others are not so easy to deal with, much like the science situation above, and require a re-think of past ideas; yet there is no reason to think we should dismiss the lot.

God of the gaps
Scientists are quick to accuse believers of “invoking the god of the gaps” .  When things in the universe don’t stand up to the claims of the religion (a gap in knowledge) then a miracle or mysterious action of god is used to cover the gap.  God of the gaps can be seen as a faith that the gap is a part of god’s plan or something that we can trust Him about despite not understanding how it fits in with the rest of reality.

What many scientists don’t realise is that they use science itself as a god of their gaps.  Scientists will come across something such as the dinosaur blood cells discovery and then say that “science will discover something that explains this, it’s just a matter of time.”  This is essentially putting faith in science to cover a gap in knowledge (or a contradiction in current knowledge).

Both rely on faith/trust but for different reasons
Science builds our trust with accurate accounts of physical reality.  The bible builds our trust with accurate accounts (primarily, but not exclusively) of moral/philosophical reality.  These two different reasons make it hard to compare the trust that we place in each, but that does not mean that either is totally wrong.  When each encounters a truth that stretches the bounds of belief, the adherents to that field (science or a particular religion) must decide if that claim is too far out for that system to adopt.

As a final note, I have focused on the bible, and by implication Christianity.  This is because I am a Christian and have explored the claims of Christianity more than other religions.  After looking at the other major world religions (and some minor ones also) I decided that they didn’t match with reality enough to bother trusting.  In short, where a religion makes their god lower in stature than man or who requires sub-standard payment for mans sin, I don’t think it can be true.  That is another discussion for another time though.

Some useful links

http://carm.org/introduction-bible-difficulties-and-bible-contradictions

Reasons to trust the bible

13 Things that do not make sense (New Scientist)