Why do people commit egregious acts of deception for no compelling gain? Perhaps you've seen this forward: It purports to be the palatial estate of a United Arab Emirates sheik. The opulence is simply breathtaking. The forward is designed to enrage you that we're paying so much for oil while sheik live in nearly limitless luxury.
I found myself wondering though why the shiek needed concierge desks (or whatever those small oval tables are), or why he would have his house photographed so meticulously ("Excuse me, Mr. Shiek, can I come in and photograph your home so I can discredit you on the Internet?").
Turns out it's all a lie. It's not a private home, it's a hotel. Moreover, the brazen perpetrator of this fraud starts off saying, "In case you're wondering where this hotel is, it isn't a hotel at all, it is a house!"
Why do people do this stuff? Why do they perpetrate baldface lies? I guess it makes sense in this case, since someone wanted to discredit the Arabs and probably felt some satisfying sense of revenge in doing so. But a lot (nearly all) of email forwards contain blatant lies, and it isn't always clear why people insert them. Often there is no obvious gain. Maybe it's just mischief: Let's see how many people believe this absurdity. What a shame that people would behave this way.
In any case, this site, www.snopes.com, is an awesome resource for debunking urban legends like this one. They take popularly forwarded claims and research them and either prove or disprove them. I highly recommend looking up an email in Snopes before forwarding it on. Chances are good it's bogus. We as Christians have a responsibility to respect the truth. That means not gossipping or propagating information of dubious veracity (and I would count forwards as information of dubious veracity). In other words if the source is questionable, it's time to take pause to check it before spreading it around. Not only that, you may be embarassed if you forward something around that turns out to be mistaken.
