i am amazed at how gullible we humans are. we are conditioned to believe certain things by the cultures in which we grew up, by our families, by our educational backgrounds. we accept things without questioning, ignoring reason and evidence. we engage in all sorts of wishful thinking, placing our faith in that which gives us hope, even when logic tells us we shouldn't. we look for explanations of what we don't understand, often relying on pseudo-science because it tells us what we wish were true. a case in point is the anti-vaccination movement, which tells us that childhoods vaccines against what used to be common childhood diseases is the cause of autism, despite all the evidence disproving this theory. the result is outbreaks of illnesses which could easily have been prevented.
we have a relative who has placed her trust in the "applied kinesiology" branch of quackery that is an offshoot of chiropractic. practitioners of this fake science tell their patients that weakness in certain muscles is connected to ailments in corresponding vital organs, and they diagnose based on this belief. our relative now is on a non-dairy, gluten-free diet because the "doctor" she trusts has convinced her that both she and her youngest son have numerous health problems because of their allergies to dairy products and breads that only a highly restrictive diet can cure. she believes that her son's dyslexia results from his intolerance for these foods. she has not consulted an allergist or any other traditional medical doctor, but is living her life based on what her "kinesiologist" has told her. a few years ago, she placed her family on a diet in which they the only milk they consumed was unpasteurized because someone had convinced her that this was much healthier, despite many years of evidence that this is an unhealthy practice.
yesterday another relative recounted his experience with a door-to-door salesman who convinced him that changing to the cable tv plan that the salesman was peddling would save him sixty dollars a month. no written materials were provided to him, and the salesman required that a personal check to begin the service had to be made out to the salesman rather than to the provider of this service. in the back of my relative's mind, he knew that this was a scam, and it took the threat of calling the police to persuade the salesman to return my relative's check, once my relative came to his senses. this same relative invested several hundred dollars in a seat cushion containing magnets that was supposed to cure all sorts of health problems. he knew that this was a doubtful claim, and even when the salesman offering this product tried to convince my relative that an additional investment of a few more hundred dollars for more magnets for his new cushion would result in even better results, my relative didn't balk at buying the cushion, though he did decline the extra magnets. the cushion is now packed away because the promised benefits didn't occur.
we all fall for such frauds from time to time, because we want easy solutions to difficult problems. we want to believe that a change in diet will cure whatever ails us, even when we are eating a healthy diet to begin with. we want to believe that the evils in the world are caused by some supernatural being called the devil. we want to believe that praying a magical prayer or investing in magnetized seat cushions will cure diseases. we want to believe that we can get something for next to nothing, all the while knowing that if something is too good to be true, it probably isn't true.
may we stop and weigh the evidence before we accept as truth something that is unproven. if we believe in a God, may we not believe in one that doesn't allow us to question and search for evidence. may we counter our gullibility with logic, taking time to think before we act. may we realize that just because someone is "nice" doesn't mean that someone is honest. shalom.
No comments:
Post a Comment