Chester McAteer observes:

Stories are told over and over until, at some point questions are no longer asked of the validity of the stories themselves, they become believed, engrained within the collective consciousness itself, even if they are fundamentally lies. That tends to be mode upon which most histories are written and we tend to believe even that which is untrue. Questions are vital to our discernment!

Tim adds:

Like claims everyone thought Columbus would fall off the edge of the (flat) world. That was an out and out lie told by a Progressive named John William Draper who wanted to tar the old Christian world by making people look ignorant back then. He wrote a popular textbook for children and it became part of our lore, even though nobody believed in a flat Earth since the time of the Greeks, and even the Old Testament agreed with a round Earth. (Job 26:7) But Americans dutifully believed this lie and even today I suspect most people do.

Repeat a lie often enough...

Another example is "Inherit the Wind" which was a work of fiction and not at all what happened at the Scopes trial (which is why they changed the name of William Jennings Bryan in the story.) I suspect most people believe the lie that Bryan was a bible-thumper shouting "I BELIEVE in GAWD!" when in fact his primary argument was that states had the right to control education - not the Federal government or the courts. Forgotten, too is the fact that Scopes was hired by the ACLU to teach Darwinism precisely so they could challenge the state law in court; he was not just this honorable seeker-after-truth as he was portrayed. But the fiction has overtaken the reality.

Ditto Galileo. He never said "and yet it moves" under his breath. In point of fact, Galileo got off easy; he insulted the Pope (his king, as he was a citizen of the Papal states) by presenting the Pope's arguments in the character of "Simplicio" the fool, in his Dialogues.

He also willfully refused to teach Copernicanism as theory but kept teaching it as settled science (sound familiar?) In those days that would lead to a problem putting on your hat; you would find it difficult to secure it to your shoulders.

I could go on but the point is made. We believe all these things because they were repeated endlessly until they became the "facts" even when they were gross exaggerations or outright lies.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:21 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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