repetition is mother of belief
There was a happier time, when I used to think that people who say things like "I don't believe in god, but I believe there's something" were just dumb version of atheists who think that there has to be some truth to that religious mambo jumbo, simply cause they've heard it for so many years, ever since they've been born, and it has been around for nearly ever. I thought that my own upbringing, was pretty much a definitive proof that that was the case.
You see, being born in communist country, I was not told about gods, fairy tales and afterlives, until I turned 13, and then only cause we were watching american movie, in which granny died, and mother lied to her kid that granny went to a better place. I was like "what? I though she died?" so my mom had to explain "you know, in some undeveloped countries, people believe that, yadda yadda and so on". So the fact that I'm so adamant that nonexistence of gods is obvious and beyond doubt, comes from the fact that I was exposed to no bullshit during my formative years.
However, over past year or two, I've come to unfortunate conclusion that people are even more dumb than I've previously suspected. It does not take for a myth several decades of one's life, or several millennia of cultural heritage, of constant repeating, to become accepted as the matter of fact despite complete and utter lack of evidence, or even worse, evidence to the contrary.
- they have been repeating for months now that Russia has hacked american elections, despite the fact that america has completely undemocratic election system, in which some 500 establishment members, dubbed "the electoral college" decide the fate of the nation, with complete disregard for the interests, and votes of majority of american citizens and I don't care if you're Russian, you can't hack 500 people under any circumstances, not yet at least.
- they have been repeating that Assad is a dictator gassing his own people, even though he handed all of his weapons over to the internationals, and was winning a war at the time, and was being inspected at the time, and there was not a shred of evidence for it, and the claims were contradicting eachother on every level, and the only sources for the claims were known terrorists, and despite the fact that he was very popular in Syria, and literally every world politics analyst was saying, prior to the war, that there's no way there will be a war in Syria, or even something similar to the Arab spring, cause there's simply no negative sentiment against Assad in any significant quantity, so he clearly had no reason to gas people who liked him, still, they just kept on repeating it, over and over again,...
Either this lady doesn't care much for breathing, or there are two Assads, one that corporate media is talking about, and one that we wrongly think about, when they are talking about the right one, silly us
- North Korean threat. North Korea has pleaded with several potus' to stop attacking them, and even promised to dismantle its entire nuclear arsenal (that's nucelar, if you're american), provided america 1) gives them a "nucelar" power plant so that they can light up their nation, and 2) stops its military "exercises" (showing of force) in North Korean air space. Each time, and each potus declined. Also, to date, america remains the only nation to ever use "nucelar" weapons against 1) nation that has already capitulated to Russians at the time, 2) use it again on a nation that remained capitulated to the Russians even tho two days have passed, 3) use it against indigenous tribes in the pacific Marshal islands, for no reason. Despite that, North Korea is the one presented as "nucelar" crazy one, and a major threat to american security?!?
Obviously, "nucelar" capable nation can figure out how to electrify its villages, they just choose not to, because they just love star gazing, they can't live w/o it. Much like Syrians can't live on air and require serin gas to stay alive, apparently
And out of these three claims, not one was proven, even remotely to be true, but over the course of last few months or so, they were all repeated over and over again, that there are now americans who actually believe in some of them, or even in all three of them?!? There's even been that Hawaii false alarm, and I bet you that in few months, there will be americans convinced that North Korea has nuked or tried to nuke Hawaii, but was stopped. You wait and see.
It literally takes just few months, of constant repeating of whatever nonsense, to get people to believe it, with 0 evidence provided. So it's no wonder that people are convinced that sea ice around the poles is definitive proof that there is no global warming, and that number of people who believe that earth is flat, and that vaccines cause autism is growing at alarming rate. These are all the things that corporate media keeps repeating at them, constantly. There may be 98% of scientists that claim there is, and 2% of scientists that claim there is no global warming, but if they decide to talk about this, they bring 1 scientist of each, and the one that claims there is global warming, most of the time, is a children's tv show host, bill nye. What else are people to believe?