Is this even true?

In a recent Substack newsletter, I explored how as people of faith, it’s worth taking the time to check the credibility of messages that impact our lives and thoughts rather than letting our beliefs and opinions be built on emotion or hearsay. In this age of misinformation, social media news, and AI-generated sources, discerning whether information is true feels deeply important. 

As a continuation of that conversation, this post will explore ideas to consider and questions to ask in assessing whether claims are credible and true.

Look at the data:

When someone uses a statistic or refers to data as part of a claim, sermon, or speech, verify both that the numbers are true and that they’re being used correctly. Statistics and data can be skewed to tell a certain story, so looking at the numbers behind a claim can offer a lot of insight into someone’s argument. 

For example, someone may look at data stating “1 in 3 people surveyed prefer chocolate ice cream” and use that to claim that 33% of all people prefer chocolate ice cream. While it would be true to say that 33% of people surveyed had a preference for chocolate, without knowing the sample size or survey methods, that data cannot be extrapolated and applied more broadly. However, data is consistently being used in similarly incorrect ways, so we must take a deeper look at the numbers behind an argument to determine its validity.

Be aware of your biases:

We all have biases that affect the way we perceive situations and information. While these aren’t always bad (such as an inclination to believe victims over perpetrators in cases of abuse), being aware of our inclinations can serve as a reminder to look at a claim or situation more objectively. A bias we’ve seen play out a lot recently is the tendency for Christians to believe whatever a leader or politician says if that person also identifies as a Christian. Our brains are predisposed to think that someone won’t deceive us if share something as significant as faith.

Unfortunately, shared commonalities don’t mean someone is trustworthy or that their claims are true. When we recognize a bias might be present in our response to an argument, it can help to ask ourselves questions like, “Am I believing what this person says because they claim to be a Christian and their words sound good? Have I checked this person’s claims against relevant source material?”

Verify the sources:

This may seem obvious, but in a social media age, the way news gets disseminated can often feel like a game of telephone. A live speaking event gets reported on by a news outlet, which gets commented on by a blogger, which gets unpacked in a TikTok reel, which then gets shared to someone’s Instagram story.

Suddenly, the information we’re seeing is several degrees removed from the original source and may no longer be representative of the actual statements made. Checking the sources behind a claim—and examining the primary source rather than commentaries or summaries about it—can help clarify what claim is being made and whether it’s valid.

Consider how your emotions are involved:

While the three main aspects for effective rhetorical arguments are credibility (ethos), logic and data (logos), and emotional persuasion (pathos), politicians, public figures, and religious leaders alike leverage the power of emotions to sway their constituents. At its best, pathos is used to cultivate deeper empathy, compassion, and understanding of others.

Sadly, the majority of emotional appeals used today primarily seek to manipulate our fear and anger. These fear-based responses to an argument happen in our amygdala (the fight or flight center of the brain), preventing us from operating out of our frontal lobe (the learning and reasoning center of the brain). If we can be made to fear others—or be made angry to the point that we see everyone who believes differently as our enemy—we won’t care about the accuracy of a claim because our brains are stuck in fight-or-flight mode.

We can choose not to succumb to these fear-mongering attempts at persuasion. When our emotions engage strongly in response to an argument, we can intentionally take a few deep breaths and calm down. Only then can we approach a claim with a critical (rather than emotional) lens.