Deception Detection: 3 Questions to Ask

In our always online world, it’s incredibly easy to create and (even accidentally) spread falsehoods. As Christians in progress, we know that God desires “truth in the inward parts” (Psalm 51:6).

Satan, on the other hand, seeks to erode the foundation of truth by bombarding it with twisted words and misconceptions. The father of lies is active with deceptions big and small—even in your social media news feed.

Jesus identified Satan as “a liar and the father of it”—a wicked being who “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44). In “Lessons From the First Lie,” we looked at the devastating impact of his most enduring lie, but Satan seems to revel in helping to spread falsehoods of all kinds.

How can we guard against his tactics?

The foundation, of course, is to ask for God’s help and to consider how the information fits with Scripture.

Beyond that, we can ask these three questions:

1. Do I want this to be true?

You have a collection of beliefs about the world.

I do too.

We all do—and when we encounter information that appears to challenge those beliefs, most of us tend to do one of two things. We either choose to ignore the information or choose to carefully inspect the information, looking to expose some problem with it.

But when we encounter information that appears to support our beliefs, most of us tend to be much less critical. It confirms our preexisting ideas about the world, so we don’t examine it quite as closely.

We might not even examine it at all.

Satan has been actively spreading lies and deceit for thousands of years. He does it in big ways, like in the Garden of Eden, and he does it in little ways, like in your Facebook news feed. This little quirk of human nature is called “confirmation bias,” and it’s well-documented. Confirmation bias also prompts us to actively seek out evidence that supports our beliefs (while actively avoiding evidence that might force us to reevaluate them).

It’s a hard thing to avoid, even when we know we’re capable of falling for it. But one thing we can do is to ask ourselves a simple question every time we come across a claim that catches our attention:

Do I want this to be true?

Because if the answer is yes—yes, I want this to be true; yes, I want to share this with other people; yes, this is excellent support for the way I look at the world—then that’s our cue to take a good, solid look at the claim in question. When we want something to be true, we’re much less inclined to examine it with any kind of intellectual rigor. Because it tells us what we expect to hear, it’s easy to simply believe it.

That’s dangerous.

Equally dangerous is rejecting something simply because it conflicts with how we see the world. We can (and must!) reject ideas and concepts that don’t hold up to a careful inspection, but we must also be careful not to substitute our own vague sense of discomfort for real inspection.

If we can’t articulate why we’re rejecting an idea, we run the risk of tossing out the truth instead of a lie.

Example: The Internet is filled with impactful quotes from history’s greatest luminaries.

The trouble is that a sizable chunk of those quotes came from someone else.

Sometimes this is because of carelessness. But the fact remains—if Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill said something, people tend to pay more attention. And if you have an idea you’d like to spread, well, it’s not terribly difficult to add one of those famous names to the end of it. You can even make up a whole story that never happened and make one of them the star.

As Yogi Berra once (allegedly) told his fans, “I really didn’t say everything I said.” It’s nice when we can point to a towering intellect who agrees with our views—we want those words to be true—but that’s all the more reason to approach those quotes with caution.

2. What do I know about this subject?

This second question is an opportunity for self-assessment.

None of us can know everything about any particular subject. It’s important to be honest with ourselves about the limits of our knowledge.

News outlets, in a rush to capitalize on a breaking story, will often misrepresent (or grossly exaggerate) both current events and the findings of scientific studies. Memes and video snippets can make convincing, clever arguments by oversimplifying a complicated issue. AI-powered tools make realistic forgeries a simple job.

Before we accept something as true—and certainly before we share it with others—we should be careful to make sure we actually understand what we’re talking about. Taking the time to learn where our blind spots are (and attempting to shore them up when possible) can prevent us from blindly accepting a lie we don’t have the knowledge to debunk.

Example: Years ago, a series of claims were circulating online about the health benefits of linen—specifically, that scientists had discovered how to measure the “signature frequencies” of different fabrics.

Very low frequencies were tied to chronic disease and even cancer, while linen and wool were said to have a frequency of 5,000. However, worn together, the linen and wool frequencies would cancel out, making the human body sicker and weaker, according to these claims.

This sounds like a great example of science supporting the Bible (mixing linen and wool is forbidden in Leviticus 19:19), but it’s actually riddled with problems that aren’t obvious unless you ask more questions.

For example: 5,000 what? Frequency is a measure of how often something happens. It requires a unit of measure. The number “5,000” doesn’t tell us anything. But even with a unit of measure, it’s not clear why the number matters.

What does it mean to measure the signature frequency of a disease? What verifiable evidence is there that the frequency of a fabric (however it’s measured) has an impact on our health?

There are no tables of data, no charts suggesting correlation, no mentions of statistical significance or probability values—just very dogmatic claims that are impossible to verify in any meaningful way.

That’s why it’s so important to ask ourselves whether we know enough about the subject at hand (or at the very least, about what red flags to look for) before we start believing and sharing what we’re reading.

3. What needs to be verified?

It’s an exhausting business to view everything everywhere as a potential lie, so having dependable people and sources who have proved themselves to be trustworthy is helpful. Still, before we start sharing something as truth, it falls to us to make sure it is truth. In other words, “Trust but verify.”

It’s impossible to verify everything, everywhere, every time. But it’s usually possible to verify the important things.

Does it really matter whether Mark Twain actually said some quote? Not particularly—unless we’re planning on telling other people that he did.

For quotes, it’s good to try and track the words back to their source when possible.

For the results of scientific studies, it’s worth looking at the actual study.

Generally, as much as possible, it helps to cut out the middleman. Sometimes it’s impossible, but the best way to verify something is to see if you can track down the book, the speech, the photograph, the video, the document, the whatever-it-is that’s in question and see what it has to say—not what other people have to say about it. That’s harder and takes more time, but the effort can be worth it.

Example: In order to prove that the media reported on studies without fully understanding them, Dr. John Bohannon released a deliberately (and obviously) flawed study titled “Chocolate with high cocoa content as a weight-loss accelerator.” Instead of carefully inspecting the study, many news outlets rushed to publish articles with titles like “Lose 10% More Weight by Eating a Chocolate Bar Every Day . . . No Joke.”

Bohannon later revealed and documented his hoax, leaving us with a powerful warning about the need to verify claims before we accept them as truth.

Staying alert to Satan’s tactics

Satan has been actively spreading lies and deceit for thousands of years. He does it in big ways, like in the Garden of Eden, and he does it in little ways, like in your Facebook news feed.

He’ll attack the truth at every opportunity he’s given—but if we make a habit of asking these three questions, we’ll be better suited to identify and avoid the misinformation around us.

Suggestions welcome

This article was written at a reader’s suggestion. If you’d like to suggest a topic for future editions of “Christianity in Progress,” you can do so anonymously at lifehopeandtruth.com/ideas. We look forward to hearing from you!