What is truth? My experience finding out....


When I was 14 years old, my family had gotten a brand new computer. It was an HP Pavillion with Windows 95. Although such a computer is a “dinosaur” compared to today’s computers, we thought it was top-of-the-line at the time. We had had another computer that just ran DOS and some word processing; moreover, if our new computer could be considered a “dinosaur” by today’s standards than our previous computer could be considered as having been present for the “Big Bang”. As I helped my dad hook up and install drivers on the new PC, I couldn’t help but notice the CD-ROM drive. “Whoa!” I thought as I put in my first computer game into the drive. “This is perhaps the coolest thing I have ever seen!” Later that week I had a friend of mine come over and show us how the computer really worked, he helped us to truly see what this new PC was made of. Sure enough, I was introduced to AOL online chat as well as ICQ (I Seek You). Right before my eyes, my friend and I were chatting to someone whom we had never met and probably never meet. I thought to myself, “what a great way to socialize.”

It’s true that online chatting is a great way to connect with other people, but could such an invention be possibly too good to be true? As I chatted more and more on ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger, I learned more and more about the lingo of online chatting. I had learned early on that there are predators out there thanks to my parents informing me. I found that you could say anything you wanted to over the internet and there was no way of proving your statements to be right or wrong! I began chatting with females about how great I was at wakeboarding and how much I loved to skateboard. In reality, I did none of these things, but in my fourteen year old head, did it matter? It’s not like these people I chat with truly know who I am and there’s really no way they can find out.

Soon afterward, I began to even accept anything I read online as truth. One night I was chatting with a friend of mine from Michigan. He brought up how some guys came to his doors and wanted to talk about the Bible. I could only imagine that it was the missionaries. He began to tell me he wasn’t interested in what they had to say, because he felt the Bible contradicted itself. “It does!?” I gasped allowed. I began to wonder what my parents were hiding from me. Perhaps my friend was right. Shaking, I asked him what parts of the Bible contradicted the whole. He gave me a few verses and I looked them up, but after reading them I couldn’t find the contradictions. I soon realized that he was reading everything out of context. I realized there and then that I was somewhat taking everything I read online to be true. I believed what everyone was saying on online was true. But my experience in this matter didn't end with my friend in Michigan.