I Want to Believe

Why do people let their desire to believe something become a barrier that seperates them from the truth of reality?

There is a book, “The Frightening Fraud” by Thierry Meyssan, that postulates that something other than a Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon. The author suppositions that the United States government performed some kind of fraud and lied about flight 77 hitting the Pentagon. You can read more about this here. I am not sure what Thierry Meyssan’s credentials are for aircraft crash investigation, but every aspect of this book falls apart under any investigation. There are also flash presentations and web pages that go over the same false reasoning. Being shown the right photos and given topical, leading statements, I am sure many people swallow this non-reality whole.

I watched a show on TLC or Discovery, I forget which. This program was about a group of amature investigators heading out to a Norwegian glacier lake to search for a mysterious monster. A few people on this team eventually came up with some evidence that rules out any very large creature living in the lake. Essentially, the lake lacked any real ecology that could support such a creature. The head of the team outright refused to acknowledge any damning evidence against the concept of a sea monster living in the lake. It was pretty obvious to me that this leader felt it was more important to believe in this creature than to find out the truth.

This motif is repeated over and over in TV shows, movies, and I even see it in some of my co-workers. An overriding desire to believe in some idea or concept that furthers their own personal world view. Holding such a belief leaves that person’s viewpoint of the world hanging in limbo when the reality comes to light in a way they can not avoid, overlook, or escape. Though, this probably doesn’t happen enough for my tastes. Being able to see the world from all different views and still maintain your own understanding of the universe is a hard thing to do, but it has great value.