Beware the false prophets.
They are ravenous wolves
disguised as sheep.
They love the destructive word.
They are a master of deceit,
They hate the truth.
from Matthew 7 & 24 and Psalm 52
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"The truth shall make you free."
"What is truth?"

These oft-quoted lines from Scripture describe a principal problem in our information deluged world.

What used to be 'truth' in the local newspaper, is now a continual media deluge of often unsupported 'facts' designed to shape our personal and group beliefs and direct our behavior.

There used to be authorities in whose truth we trusted. They might be our nightly newscaster, our government, our doctor, our pastor. Now, some of each of these people are being exposed in the media, so we expect and ignore the worst in all of them.

The less we trust people, the more untrustworthy people become. There is no longer any public benefit in being honest. The truth brings attacks and the right lies bring success.

One sees in the Roman Empire how uncontrolled power fosters corruption, and corruption breaks down the socio-economic structure.

The author of Ecclesiastes said that the past just keeps repeating and that it is as in vain trying to stop that, as to stop the sun from rising.

Jesus foresaw the destruction of Jerusalem because the people refused to take the chance they were given to live in peace under Rome's Pax Romana.

Given the choice by Pilate, the crowd had the rebel murderer Barabus freed and Jesus crucified because Jesus was not the warrior messiah the people wanted. He was aother in the millenia of prophets who promised a coming age of justice for the poor, that never came, and were killed by the exploiters.

Forty years later, the people of Israel listened to a false prophet promising liberation from Rome, but whose foredoomed uprising brought mass death to Jerusalem and the total destruction of the Temple.

There have always been people wanting men of manifest evil to have unlimited power because they imagine the power will be of service to them.  The truth will not make these people free because their entire hope for the future is in an alliance with that evil dictator, in whom they must believe, or be eliminated by him to his maximum power to do so.

Many people can convince themselves of the truth and righteousness of whatever they think serves their interest.

In evolution's instinct for self-preservation and advancement, the truth is whatever is the most useful at the moment, as can be seen throughout history in the rise to power of dictators

God gives the wise their wisdom
and scholars their knowledge.
To them He reveals
deep and mysterious things.
Daniel 2:21-23