MichaelDePaula.com : the myths of columbine

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

the myths of columbine

In reading a CNN news article titled “Debunking the myths of Columbine, 10 years later”, journalist Stephanie Chen gives us a picture of how getting the story right can often go so wrong. This is relevant to those of us in the circles of religious debate because it reaffirms for us that a lot of what we believe about the past just isn’t so even when it’s our own.

Chen interviews journalist Dave Cullen whose book “Columbine” may turn out to be of enormous value to those who need a lesson in understanding what happens to truth and myths, how they are told, and how they flourish. Even in this media-centric age, we must still learn to appreciate that second-hand reporting can and often is inaccurate. All the more so when stories conflict and attention is given to certain reports over others. In the case of the Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, they were not the outcast, Trench Coat Mafia-belonging, gothic misfits you thought they were.

Professor Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California-Irvine, who specializes in memory, was reported as saying, “Myths continue to be validated when people start talking with others about an event…Memories often fade and get more distorted as time passes.”

Those of us who have studied the climate and circumstances surrounding the production of the four gospels as told in the majority of Biblical editions, recognize that the truth of the matter is not as pretty as we once thought it to be. There are no four independent testimonies, but rather a linear progression of borrowing and embellishing upon an initial report, Mark in this case. There are no eyewitness accounts as the copies we possess were copied nearly two generations after the purported resurrection event itself. And among other problems, there were a large competing body of Jesus stories with very different details, the victors amongst which can clearly be seen to owe their continued propagation to cultural and civic circumstances rather than spiritual.

If you haven’t already embraced the doubts you have hidden deep in your mind about your faith, I encourage you to do so. Look on the internet, buy a book, do something that forces you to be uncomfortable with your cherished beliefs. Resist the temptation to sit idly by and learn your doctrine from denominational sewage that gets published each year by your church’s administrative branch in an effort to keep you complacent.

Posted By Michael DePaula At 6:07 AM • Comments (0) Trackbacks (0)

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