Snake Oil Salesman

I would say a good portion of FB friends have their news feeds blocked so I don't have to see them. For good reason, every time I do take a wander over to their feeds I want to pound my noggin into the keyboard. They repost such ridiculous amounts of flimflam, rubbish, hoaxes, or basic complete idiotic stupid stuff. For instance:

• "Every-time you click "like" on this post,  the FB donates 3 dollars." Now, think about, how the hell is the FB going to tract that or even pay up? 
• "Coca Cola is putting Human Fetuses in some of their products..." oh yes...the Food and Drug sensors would have let that one just slide...what the hell is wrong with you people?
• Then there all those Obama posts...government posts -that include really flawed information about:
• Health Care - going to replace your muscle tone with cheese
• Food - they are going to take your cheese
• they are sucking your brain of knowledge
• and basically any other sort of rubbish anyone can slap on a posting. 
• Buy this new "bla bla bla bla" organic ...health...GMO free...Gluten free product...it will ward of disease..fatigue..weight...grow your back hair...like a Ninja.

"Lets scare up fear!" is some peoples slogans. Lets scare up fear, repost shit, that we haven't checked for accuracy, validity, or quality. Kinda of reminds of Snake Oil Salesman who would ride into town peddling their wares. People would buy it cuz the salesman would say it did everything: Got you a wife, gave you babies, grew your hair back, made bigger boobs, or even caused your cows to breed, or you corn to grow. Salesman left town with your cash and several months later your teeth turned yellow and fell out.

Well my teeth aren't turning yellow or falling out, yet, but I am forced to block FB feeds and really make sure I avoid rubbish e-mails from family. The delete key is my friend.

Then I read 4 Reasons Christians Need to Quit Sharing Hoaxes by Jayson Bradley and was like WOW, dude...you are right! I checked the FB feeds I have blocked and discovered, well gosh darn-it, a large quantity that repost random hoax crap are evangelical Christians! Pretty much Jayson puts the nail in the coffin on this one.

Jayson says the 4 Reasons Christians Need to Quit Sharing Hoaxes are:

1. They’re credibility killers
2. They spread fear
3. They engender phony activism
4. They elevate emotion over accuracy

I have a 5th one: The main reason one should quit sharing hoaxes is that they make you look stupid.  As Jayson points out, it is easy to check a source. I do enjoy a good source check and generally always end up at the final conclusion: gosh "insert name" is stupid.