Why do people pass on garbage as truth?

Question

People post the most silly things on here they can't possibly know, I don't know if they are making it up or repeating what someone else has made up or what. But seriously, "The spirits are attracted to the candle because it's a represenative [sic] of the light". Did someone ask why spirits are attracted to the light, and the spirits explained this to you? And the whole concept of the division between our world and the next being thinner at certain times of the day, so spirits can pass through or something. Why would this be and how could you verify it? The person who posted this recently claimed this weakness in the division traveled around the world to be in the correct time zone at the right time. She claimed it was a well known fact. Do you think this made up homespun "wisdom" helps or hurts people who are looking for real answers?

Answer 1

I want to preface this post with a note that I don't have any animosity toward any of the posters on this site, and that I don't believe that it is appropriate for questions to single out specific posters.  It is important to maintain respect for one another on this forum.  Having said that...

I think that people post this type of information for the same reasons that people post things like "There is no viable evidence that psi phenomenon actually exists".

Oftentimes, people are quoting things that they either read on an internet site or heard from a friend.  The information seems to resonate with them or support some existing belief that they have, and so, they accept it as truth.

My impression of this forum is that most of the posters really don't have any experience in with the information that they are posting, but instead are relying on resources that may or may not be biased.  The internet (in and of itself) is not a completely reliable resource.

So, somebody hears that spirits should be told to "move toward the light", so that must mean that any light would attract spirits.  Or, somebody hears that nobody has won the $1M challenge, and so that must mean that there is no evidence for psi abilities.

If you want opinions, this is the right forum.  If you want facts, you have to go out into the world and look for them yourself.  Reading a few web pages about a topic is not going to help you reach the truth.  You need to have personal experience, read many different types of journals, or speak to researchers in the field to determine what is actually legitimate information and what is myth.

And, yes, this type of information does confuse the facts and detract from the legitimacy of people who are actually in the field doing the work.  Any type of mis-information will obscure the truth.

Answer 2

Maybe because high profile people like Sylvia Browne write books about every sort of twaddle and people believe it because it is written by a person that is supposedly an expert in the field.

It's hard to believe that adults lap up so uncritically the obvious BS invented by some of these authors in their effort to sell yet another book of baloney.