When It's Okay to Be Lied To

from Yahoo Sports News . . .

"If you watched the Opening Ceremony on Friday night, chances are you said something like, "no way that's possible" at least once. It turns out you were right.

London's Telegraph newspaper reports that some of the fireworks which appeared over Beijing during the television broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony were actually computer generated." Whole article here.

* * *

Definition of "Deceive": to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid (from mirram-webster.com)

Is deception on a mass scale acceptable as long as it was done in the interests of “safety”? Does the fact that it was done for entertainment purposes make it okay?

Does anyone think that something like this couldn’t happen in the United States? Could the same type of deception one day cross over the line from “entertainment” into “news” and "public servcie announcements"? Would any of us realize it if it did?

And does it matter that I had it backwards?

excerpt from What So Proudly We Hailed . . .

(United States, 2027 A.D.)
It was three days after July 4th, when A.J. and I had watched the celebration in Washington DC on television and saw the fireworks and the flag waving and the reading of important sounding words that didn’t mean anything anymore and the vehement assurances to all patriotic Americans that progress was being made in the war on terrorism, both foreign and domestic.

The wide angle cameras showed the Mall area overflowing with thousands of people, but the close in shots stayed in tight on the podium during the speeches and songs, showing only the stage and the first few rows of people.

I heard from a reliable source that there were only about 200 actual people at the Mall that day; paid actors for all I know. The crowds that were shown in the long views were all computer animated, and the applause and cheering that came over the TV was canned.

The fireworks had been real, though.

* * *

My mother had a saying that she often recited as I was growing up: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." A little hokey maybe, but apt.

Deception is deception; if it becomes acceptable anywhere, it becomes acceptable everywhere.

. . . choose this day whom you will serve . . . (Joshua 24:15)