Did you know that Barack Obama is actually the love child of Abraham Lincoln and Betsy Ross? I hope not. I just made that statement up. Yes, I was consciously trying to make a halfway understandable idea that had only a small chance of being accepted at true. Since both Abe and Mrs. Ross were dead well before the year 1961, the year of Obama's birth, it seems very unlikely that they were the biological parents of the 44th American president.
So, my allegation of a liaison between these two famous Americans can be labeled "misinformation", or "junk", or "blatant lies". However, I do want to make a plea for a tiny bit of tolerance for "misinformation". I am confident that many people shoot off their mouths or type off their keyboards with little forethought. It is not just fantasy or imagination, either. Besides 'revenge misinformation' and professional and semi-professional and quarter-professional and quasi-professional slander and deliberate rumor making, we have bouncing effects. Surely a US senator or a genine elected Member of Parliament knows what he is talking about and I just heard my cousin say that a US senator said this".......!"
I don't appreciate it when my enemies accuse me of being a dealer in illicit guns and ammunition but I do see some interesting parallels with messages zipping around the lunch table, the bowling alley, the internet and amateur radio networks. You know how it goes. I am in a group of friends when that Guy walks in. I have been trying to get him to appreciate my wit, my intelligence, my broad-thinking ever since I met him. So, I offer a fantastic bit of info to the group, hoping he will be impressed. It's not (entirely) my fault that some of those present repeat my fantasy that evening or next weekend. Look up "Old Testament references to malicious gossip" and you will see that wagging tongues have been around for a very long time.
My tiny plea is that we take note of a parallel with respected interchanges from the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) or discussions of whether it is "bad air" or viruses that spread disease. Just as a start-up business needs to try to find paths to success, thinking about God or about physical particles also searches for a good idea, a usable solution, an answer that stands up to examination and criticism. The process can take a long time and include some hypotheses that are way off the mark.
