Believe it or not

It seems to me that people don't question enough. Some people go through life blindly believing what they are told from any figure of perceived authority - whether that be an MP, your parents, or even some bloke down the pub.

Here's an example. We are told that we can't use mobile phones in petrol stations. So, generally we try to avoid doing so. Nevermind that there has been never been any proven link between mobile phones and setting petrol alight. It just so happened that once, when a petrol station exploded, some guy happened to be on the phone. That's it. Not particularly scientific. In fact, 'Brainiacs' proved that you've more chance of blowing up a petrol station from the spark from a nylon tracksuit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnl4bK_veg0 . Now that's science.

One of my favourites is this one: "Did you know that every night when you're asleep, an average of three spiders drink from your mouth?" My first reaction would be to try and justify it in my head and make my own judgement. But many people's reaction is to blindly accept it as the truth. I'm not kidding - people actually believe this stuff.

Now, religion's a bigger subject than I can hope to tackle here, but I have to mention the lamest justification of the existence of God I ever heard, which was on a TV programme about child evangelists:

Reporter: "Why do you believe in God?"
Child: "Because it says so in the Bible"
Reporter: "And why do you believe the Bible?"
Child: "Because it's the word of God"

Genius.

Not that I can blame a child for believing his parents of course, but the scary thing was that this was how the parents were justifying it to themselves, with no apparent understanding of the term 'circular argument'.

My final word on this would be to follow the wise words of the Buddha (whose existence I can neither confirm or deny I'm afraid): "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."

Of course, some people have neither reason nor common sense, which explains why they sleep with gaffer tape over their mouths at night.