I’m sorry, I just don’t understand this at all. Why are we supposed to assume the OP is lying? As with anything that goes down on these forums, we can only go by what she’s posted.
If I may offer one reason in defence of those who remind us not to assume OPs are truthful…
I used to be a volunteer on a mental health and suicide hotline. It’s an unfortunately real phenomenon that there are many mentally ill, socially maladjusted, individually disturbed individuals out there, who reach out to whatever dedicated forums or available resources they find for “support” with… false stories. And taking their story at face value isn’t always actually the most healthy thing to do. One might not expect it, but at the suicide hotline, there are some people we were REQUIRED to hang up on (a decision not taken lightly), because they were such persistent abusers of the service and it had been assessed that feeding into their fantasy narratives by continuing the conversation, was worsening their problem (not to mention taking volunteer time away from the people in real crisis).
Obviously that’s a pretty unique environment, and a pretty extreme scenario. But I think even Scripture cautions us about believing a false report, and automatically assuming a report is true and acting as if it is (including actions that might feel ‘small’, like assuming guilt in our hearts, throwing insults at the people we’ve assumed guilt about, etc), rather than (when possible) inquiring with the accused. And I don’t feel the need to ‘justify’ what Scripture says here, as I trust that there are probably a multitude of ways God protects us when we’re obedient to it, beyond what we can imagine.
It seems to me that we can never go
wrong by taking a step back, and responding to every question with love and compassion for the questioner on the assumption it’s true… and also love and compassion for the other people the questioner talks about, who might be getting misrepresented. Just, frame things in a slightly qualified way, or at least keep your
heart qualified and aware that the facts are actually unknown. Going along with whatever someone says, especially if that turns into 'Mean Girl’ing about the ‘bad guys’ in the OP’s story, as if support for one person requires unqualified insults of others… that can even escalate
beyond what the OP wants, even a truthful one.
Again: I’m not REMOTELY suggesting that the OP on this thread is in the category of OP’s whose question we should be suspicious of. Just,
off topic, responding to your query, that I’ve seen multiple people make on multiple threads, about why folks occasionally remind us not to assume that everything an OP says is a truthful reflection of reality… It’s because this is an important thing to remember. It doesn’t mean “Ignore the OP!” or “Accuse them of lying!” But I think it is indeed always wise to answer a stranger’s question in a way that
keeps in mind that they might be giving false testimony, and that feeding a fantasy doesn’t just potentially hurt others (and demean us), but can actually also hurt the OP in certain scenarios.
