Are humans capable of believing almost anything?

Question

Given the amount of wild 'n wacky things humans have believed (and that's only the stuff we know of since it happened in written history) is it safe to say that yes, you can make humans believe almost anything?

Answer 1

Oh, I definately agree with you. They drank the poison Kool-Aid in the seventies and then in the nineties they thought they were gonna catch the tail end of the comet. Yes. It is possible to make a person believe anything.

Answer 2

"Are humans capable of believing almost anything?"

YES! When you have a vested interest in something being true - whether it be the satisfying myth of an afterlife, or something equally implausible - the human mind will find away to ignore reality because the belief is so pleasing.

What is most important to the true believer is not the veracity of the belief, but rather its intensity. They literally create their own reality.

A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.
— G. Goebbels

There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.
— William James

"There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity."
— Arthur Schopenhauer

One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and - whole the events of that year were certainly of some importance - the world did not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, Oh, did we say '1914'? So sorry, we meant '2014'. A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren't inconvenienced in any way. But they did not. They could have said, Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with God so He spared the Earth. But they did not. Instead, the did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout. It is astonishing in the fact of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough- mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
— Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain

Answer 3

First, I have to say that your avatar is truly disturbing. Secondly, yes it is safe to say you can make humans believe in almost anything. Look at all the examples in history to back it up, and you won't have to go back far. With mass suicides orchestrated by one man, murders being carried out unquestioned by one man's word. Of course, one could argue that only a weak mind can be controlled, it certainly appears as though it would take a weak mind not to question the rightness or wrongness of a deed someone else wants done, like "Why don't they do it themselves"? Look at what happened in Roswell with the "aliens" landing.

Answer 4

Oh believe me, they are!!!
I would even go further and leave out the 'almost' for some humans.
If you are willing to give your life for something you were just told and never saw any proof?!!
It sometimes amazes me, how some people make up their own world, and I'm not just talking religion or aliens here! ;)

Answer 5

To paraphrase an old idiom...the more unbelievable the story, the more there are that will believe in it.

Explains a lot about religion today.

Answer 6

P.T.Barnum of Barnum and Bailey circus hit the nail on the head.Theres a sucker born every minute.I'm not completely sure he coined this phrase,but if he didn't he should have.

Answer 7

Yup, I know a girl that thinks fairies are real, everything on MTV is relavant, and the government is run by Aliens.

But then again, look at Tom Cruise.

Answer 8

yup

there is always a way to make someone believe something
whether it be thru fear and manipulation, or by the physical threat of violence.

Answer 9

Yep. Heaven's Gate - 'nuff said.

Answer 10

Yes, but is there a point to the question?