Triple Six

You mean the plan that included her getting cancer in the first place?

Or was that part somebody else's work?

Brahma's atheist

Gullibility is universal. Take a look at all the religions and superstitions of the world and the way people go to priests and shamans and other such manipulative charlatans. The bibile thumping TV rev's who rake in millions of dollars or whatever currency by telling people they are in contact with some god or other.
In India there are God-men. They have a lot of power and some have millions of followers.A group of rationalists Caught up with one of these Godmen who claimed to have healing powers. The people believed it. He was given a dog that had just been injected with a lethal poison and was told to save it . Of course the dog died. Yet people will still believe they are blessed.
Clever people can use gullibility to gain power over the stupid and ignorant and desperate. I'm sure you can come up with some names, eg Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, x number of Pharoes, priests, witches and so on.
Desperation does lead people to turn to anything. If your village is dying of starvation, if you're going through a holocaust or if you are dying you will turn to what ever higher power is there forgetting that if there really was this higher power it put you in the situation in the first place.

DRFseven

And gullibility is probably, to some extent, a genetic variable. As someone mentioned a few days ago in one of these forums, gullible people have higher levels of dopamine; the more gullible, the higher the level, in fact.

Dopamine levels are probably not caused by the gullible attitudes; it's probably the other way 'round, because when sceptical subjects receive dopamine injections, they become more gullible. Interestingly, the already very gullible subjects don't become any more gullible, which suggests a plateau over which people just can't become any more credulous.

And, yes, religious people have higher dopamine levels than sceptics.

NOGO

Thank you for sharing that with us.
Desperation is different from guillibility. What I am saying is that we tend to believe without proof anything that may help us when we are desperate.

Despair is a relative thing. We may not know when we are to die but we all know that it will happen. Sensitive people may show signs of despair quite early. Religion helps these people while the rest of us think that we can make it on our own.

rudolk

To add to the topic, my father prides himself on being a critical thinker of sorts. He's very opinionated, and likes to think that he's very grounded in his views. Yet he continually makes remarks about wanting to be on John Edward's show.

He's lost a lot of close family over his life, and he's had trouble dealing with it. Especially the recent loss of his mother. The fact that he believes in this seems ridiculous to us, but Edwards puts on a convincing enough show to make those who have lost love ones want to believe.

And there's a lot of money in that. I say the John Edwards and Jerry Falwells of the world need to prey on human weakness. It's the only way we can identify and eliminate it. If someone figures out a way to bilk the weak out of all their money or even follow him to a mass suicide, that's one less pigeon in the gene pool.

Kurt (a recovering pigeon)