The things people believe

Some people believe the most ridiculous things and come up with the most hilarious questions. They will fall for anything. This can be super entertaining or potentially dangerous.

On the entertaining side, I listened to a woman at a restaurant on top of North Peak in Keystone go on and on about the mysterious snow cats she had heard about.

I had to stifle a laugh. The only snow cats we have in Colorado are giant vehicles used to groom the slopes. The man next to her had to bite his lip to control his laughter. I assumed he was her source.

I chimed in and told her that snow cats are nocturnal and travel in packs, that they are huge and could gobble up a person whole, but they have very distinctive tracks and aren’t very stealthy, so they are easy to avoid.

When I pointed out the snow cat that happened to be passing by the window, she gave the guy next to her a dirty look and a punch in the arm.

As hilarious as this was, this kind of gullibility turns dangerous when people blindly believe politicians or the news media.

When Todd Akin said that when a woman is legitimately raped, her body has a way of shutting things down, most people probably stared at the television with jaw-dropping astonishment, but there were probably others sitting in their living rooms, shaking their heads in agreement or thinking, “Huh, I never knew that.”

That thought must have passed through Akin’s head when he was given the false fact for the first time too because he regurgitated it as if it was the truth, the I-am-saying-this-on-national-television-so-I-can’t-deny-it-later truth.

It doesn’t speak too highly of our politicians when they are gullible enough to accept statements like that. And it doesn’t speak too highly of us when we believe it. We need to question what we are told.

There’s that old saying, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Well, if something seems too unbelievable, maybe you shouldn’t believe it—whether it is harmless or not.