GULLIBILITY OR DUMHEIT
By Peter Fredson
Most people want simple answers to complex questions or processes. "What makes the sky blue?", "What causes lightning?" "What is death?" are examples for which serious explanations could run to considerable length, involve a lot of personal commentary, and might actually confuse someone who really wants answers.
Gullibility stems partially from the desire to know enough to satisfy one's curiosity but without demanding specifics as to dimension, time, space, interlocking functions, and other complex factors. A gullible person has a curiosity that is easily satisfied by a simple answer to an involved situation. If a question can be answered by a single sentence, or a few words, then most curiosity can be vanquished.
It is satisfying when we can reduce any question or argument to simple "yes or no," without "manipulating" the data or overlooking ambiguities and uncertainties. Of course a person who furnishes answers may not have enough information to settle any matter but in most cases that does not preclude positive-sounding answers from being given. Evidently a component of gullibility involves giving indefinite answers to complex questions, making it a two-way street called "balderdash."
The situation is complicated further by unstated or unconscious assumptions from previous indoctrinations, thus converting many questions into individual idiosyncratic answers that seem to satisfy but actually lead to heated arguments. This is why a certain vast uncertainty accompanies all simple explanations.
In religion "faith" substitutes for either reason or logic. The first condition to become a True Believer is to blindly accept whatever is in some sacred book, or is emitted by an intermediary between humans and invisible entities. The necessary life of all religion dogma depends on never questioning any of its assertions, postulates and sayings. The more gullible the people the more superstitious nonsense can be instilled into them as articles of True Faith. Humans seem to be born with the capability of believing in fantastic schemes, entities and processes, without the slightest evidence or desire to prove them true, as long as their curiosity is addressed.
Religion gives the most egregious example of gullibility being satisfied by definite vagueness. For any question regarding the origin of anything, like "How did the Universe begin?" the answer is "God Did It." This answer answers absolutely everything about beginnings. If anyone is still curious and asks questions referring to "why", or process, the answer is equally stunning, "God's Ways are Mysterious." Or "It's a Divine Mystery." Case closed!
Humans learn from personal exposure to their environment as well as from indications from family and trusted friends. Thus when children are sent to a church Sunday school by parents, the children are met by a sweet old lady who tells them all about Baby Jesus, and Virgin Mamas, and the 3 Wise Men with gifts, and a magical star that guides them. When this is repeated without end for years the children do not ask for evidence of such magical occurrences. They are stuck for life in a web of fantasy, treading a narrow line between reality and fiction.
They are willing to believe that someone without a space suit or any source of power "rose up above the clouds", sailed up to heaven, 2,000 years ago, and is waiting someplace up in space to come back to earth. In fact one preacher gathered his flock of about 2 dozen people in a rented motel to await the "second coming" and, when the announced date of return passed long beyond reason, simply said that the people "did not believe sincerely enough." And undoubtedly this will occur frequently because gullibility was not stretched to the point where anyone protested. As someone said, "Please sir, hit me again."
It is interesting that True Believers will laugh at the beliefs of people in other societies, but as they as infected with a Gullibility Virus they will believe anything told to them by a local televangelist, or faith-healer, or any jackanapes with a bible to thump. There is a strange willingness to believe highly improbable stories. In fact, the less probable a story becomes, the more a gullible True Believer will cling to it. With time gullibility becomes a prerequisite to avoid ridicule. With time all of the dogma, preaching, texts, inerrancy assertions, miracles, faith-healings, etc. no longer arouse skepticism or laughter, but produce awe or fear and become sacrosanct. Virgins appear on toast.
A fine hoax spread rapidly a few years ago. A young man attended a party, where he imbibed generously. He went to sleep and he awoke in a bathtub full of ice. Then he realized that his kidneys had been stolen. It turns out that human organs for transplant will bring a very high price, so some people were making a hefty but dishonest living by cutting out people's kidneys.
Many people believed this story which was repeated in many magazines and newspapers, and a hue and cry resulted with people demanding FBI action to apprehend the dastardly culprits.
Recently, during 2004 elections, some Republicans of West Virginia spread the rumor that the Democrats were going to forbid the reading of the Bible, reminding us of the furor caused by rumors that atheists were going to forbid all mention of God, the Bible, and Prayer. Several million complaints ensued, before it was exposed as a hoax of True Believers. But gullible people believed it, heart and soul, and were willing to spring to arms.
In fact, there is NO LIMIT to what people are willing to believe.
Some people actually believed in a comet, which had a space ship following it, which would stop momentarily to let a few True Believers accompany it to some heavenly place and they committed suicide in order to get on the space ship. People pay money for "psychic hot-lines" which will solve all their problems, economic, marital, psychological, etc. Some people think crime can be solved by forbidding anyone to own guns, knives, swords, or bludgeoning
instruments. Other people believe that wine can turn into the blood of some imagined savior, and in this way partake of paradise. Many people believe in winged creatures like humans that flit about the world, doing good deeds, or in a major deity looking like George Burns, complete with cigar and wise-cracks.
There is an endless quest for certainty regarding death, with fantastic schemes of other worlds, immortality, spirits, souls, demons, etc. Fear is at the back of this quest, and anyone who will give, or seem to give, answers to emotionally-charged individuals will be welcomed and rewarded for gibberish regarding a supernatural realm, without any evidence other than self-assured assertions.
We know that there is a Culture of Life by True Believers who insist that everyone be forced to live until some invisible entity calls them to die, but yet can ignore the suffering, starvation, mutilation, oppression, disease, disability, and agony of individuals in some distant land that True Believers think is a Land of Evil, and therefore don't even count the dead caused by True Believer troops.
What do we do with swindlers, con-artists, and liars who say they have "supernatural powers," and can perform magical cures for cancer or other deadly conditions by simply tapping a gullible person on the head and pronouncing them "cured?" What do we do with preachers, priests, reverends who prey on the sick and dying and are vulnerable to their fantastic assurances? Who will contradict their fictive utterances?
What medical governmental authority will investigate faith-healer Benny Hinn, who lives like a millionaire contributed by gullible people who actually believe he can cure any illness. Certainly not the present administration, that is one of the most egregious exploiters of religious credulity in modern U.S. history.
P.T. Barnum stated: "I said that the people like to be humbugged when, as in my case, there is no humbuggery except that which consists in throwing up sky-rockets and issuing flaming bills and advertisements to attract public attention to shows which all acknowledge are always clean, moral, instructive, elevating, and give back to their patrons in every case several times their money's worth" (the Bridgeport Standard, 2 Oct. 1885).
Someone else said, "A sucker is born every minute." Although Americans know this, yet many firmly believe that only foreigners believe spiritual scam-artists. This is a false assumption as American are ready to buy genuine jeweled watches for only $10.00, or used cars from fast-talking sharpers, or even the Brooklyn Bridge. We know this because many Indian Yogis, gurus, swamis, who boast supernatural powers have made millions by coming to the U.S.A. and fleecing gullible Americans.
Part of the "gullibility problem" is that most people are fairly easy-going, love to tell stories, and don't usually like to appear rude to statements of companions. They have a disposition to believe for politeness sake, with little disposition to skepticism. However, some stories are beyond the pale of acceptance, as when a movie star announces that she is the sixth reincarnation of an Egyptian princess, or another states that his body is inhabited by St. Paul, or when a person on a subway informs us that he is Napoleon incarnated. Yet similar charlatans find their way onto prime-time television to hawk their delusions.
Scam artists are not required to produce evidence for their claims. They will not submit to rigorous controls to eliminate cheating. Priests work on monologues so they can thump bibles, quote favorite verses, and spout clichés by the hour without any debate.
Popes "pontificate", claiming to be inerrant on any question of dogma, and no parishioner interrupts by requesting any slight evidence. For priests, anything in their sacred book is Absolute Truth, to be followed without question (unless it is inconvenient, like "Suffer not a witch to live.") They cherry-pick favorite verses from their book, and forget to mention those that show their god as a vengeful, grumpy, death-dealing monster.
To illustrate the depth of ignominy that credulity can sink to: there is a belief, encouraged by the Bush administration, that there was some sort of divine intervention, or sacred investiture, of a smirking, stammering, shallow wastrel to lead the American people into a wilderness of economic disaster and theocratic tyranny.
Mark Twain defined faith as "believin' things that you know ain't so." Gullible people are easily talked or tricked into confidence schemes, scams, "free" coupons, delivering their hard earned resources to scoundrels, and giving their precious votes for a mess of garbage. A mixture of faith and gullibility brings involuntary servitude to rascals who sell them slices of blue sky. Or, as the I.W.W. theme song goes: "Pie in the sky when you die