Who should you trust and why? We live in a complex world, full of competing authorities and ideas. Many people, both kids and adults, make mistakes when choosing good authorities (myself included). They don’t always check those authorities against evidence. This article will cover who I trust, the difference between peers and authority, and how authority should not be unchecked.

I trust many different people, and they have different levels of trust. As a Christian, God and the Bible have unconditional trust, but not without evidence. I respect my parents very much, and they have authority over me, but God has authority over them as he is the ultimate authority. Lastly, even though I don’t necessarily trust government officials all the time, they are an authority in my life and deserve respect. Therefore, I respect them.

Other people who are commonly trusted are peers. The problem with giving a significant amount of trust to your peers is that most information you get from them is either with barely any evidence or is hearsay. Often stuff that I hear from peers (either my parent’s peers or my peers) comes from a chain of one person telling another person something and so on. If you’ve ever played a game of telephone, you’ll know that a chain of people is not a very reliable way to convey information. Context is removed, the ideas are reinterpreted, etc. With social media, this is even worse, mainly because information can get transformed by a chain of people even faster. Lastly, when information comes from a chain of people or posts, it can become impossible to find the original source, which means you can’t even discover what was originally said. Because you can’t find the sources, the ideas can be transformed, and it ends up being hearsay, peers should not often be trusted unless you go back to the original source.

To clarify, I am not saying that all your friends are untrustworthy. In the previous paragraph, I was talking about facts, but we often get advice from our friends, not just facts. If you trust your friends to give you sound advice, take it, your friends should be trustworthy in that sense, but if your friends are telling you facts, it could be wise to check their sources as they are generally not experts on that subject. There is also a gray area between advice and facts. For example, if someone bases their advice on facts you find to be untrue, you probably shouldn’t take their advice. Overall, your peers can be great a giving you advice, but it is a good idea to check their sources when they tell you facts.

Lastly, all authorities should be fact-checked. Always look for more sources saying the same thing, and if you find a source saying a different thing, don’t dismiss it, even if it looks like it comes from a source you don’t agree with, instead determine if they have reasons and if the reasons are valid. I believe one way people get sucked into misinformation is by believing that their source is trustworthy while also believing that all other sources are wrong without even checking their reasons. I, as a Christian, even check the Bible against evidence (apologetics), and I don’t want to believe everything I hear blindly. You should check all authorities against other authorities and evidence, and you shouldn’t ever dismiss opposing ideas without thought.

In conclusion, I carefully choose who I trust, I don’t give much trust to peers, and I check authorities against other authorities. You have to trust some people, but you should be careful about who you trust. Keep an open mind and don’t get stuck staring at only one side of a debate.

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