People are going to believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence, regardless of fact. Belief trumps fact; it shouldn’t, but it does. This past week, upon seeing a ludicrous claim posted on a friend’s social media profile, I felt the need to spare him any more public embarrassment, hoping to encourage him to remove the post, by showing him, via Snopes.com, that the claim was bogus. He replied that Snopes was untrustworthy because they are a “liberal brainwashing site” notorious for faking their articles. Sometimes you just gotta throw up your hands. Anyway, this linked-to article made me think of Snopes, and how some people will continue to believe the article instead of the refute of it. The former claims that China is shipping canned human flesh to Africa.
Poor China always catches it. I remember a few years ago how some people were aghast because pics were released online of Chinese people munching on human fetuses. Photoshopped? Naturally, and yet some refused to accept that the charge wasn’t true. It’s just so easy to blame all kinds of atrocities on the Chinese, isn’t it? These latest rumors have become so prevalent that the Chinese ambassador to the African nation of Zambia has had to publicly address them. We humans do love our Horror stories, don’t we? And far too many of us are willing to believe ANYTHING—well, I won’t say “we” because I never believed it and hopefully you didn’t either. SOME people are willing to believe anything. I wonder, why is that?