The people behind snopes are Barbara and David Mikkelsen. Barbara Mikkelsen is a Canadian. Her husband, David, is a registered independent.
Not wanting to argue religion necessarily, but if you believe the prior claim why would you automatically poo-poo this one?
To the point that Facebook and Twitter now both label Onion links as satire.
And, yes, I’ve seen pretty much all of those spread by at least one person on my mom’s Facebook page. They definitely think it’s true. One guy did spread one on my Facebook once–but he deleted it before I even had a chance to tell him he was wrong. Someone had replied with a Snopes link.
Because believing in the first one usually comes with the belief that it was a special event that will not happen again.
Which has led to the invention of the “not-the-onion” tag, when some real-life news item sound too incredible to be true.
Every president since Clinton … so that’s, like, two.
You never heard any third term rumors about Carter or Bush Senior.
one of my friends posted that one on facebook. When I asked her “logic” was that October had the 13th Friday the 13th in it so ~magic~:smack::smack::smack:
Shakes
(I definitely agree)
And she demanded he do that right from 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue. 
Again, not my area, but isn’t a return specifically foretold!
The original story had me muttering “I don’t want to go on the cart! I feel peppy!”
Yeah, I know. I’m in a handbasket.
The political glurge I think tend to be right-wing oriented I think just because liberals and conservatives think differently. Something about their mindsets make it possible for right wing talk radio to thrive and left wing talk radio to wither, and right wingers are more likely to forward ridiculous emails than left wingers. I don’t have an answer as to why, but that’s my observation.
The silly completely non-factual stuff seems to have eternal life. Although it’s starting to fade, it used to be every summer you’d get something about Mars was going to appear as large as the moon in August. August came and went with no super-Mars, yet the very next year the same people would post the very same thing with the date changed. Now you get a couple times a year someone will post “this month has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays! That’s the Chinese money bags month! Forward this and money comes your way! It only happens once every 734 years!” No, geniuses, it will happen every time a 31 day month begins on a Friday, which means roughly once in every seven 31-day months.
Unlikely is not the same as absurd. He is a mostly competent president with a significant powerbase. It’s more likely than Austrian-born Governor Schwarzenegger becoming President.
Untrue, but potentially based on the true fact that certain radio frequencies put out more energy than others, and thus might cause more damage.
Is it unlikely that America might donate coffins to the affected region?
Isn’t it common for American aid to be made in America?
Isn’t it common for people to misspell million as billion.
Coffins cost ~$1000, a million dollars would get you only a thousand coffins. Ebola has been very deadly.
It’s easy to fall for stuff if you want it to be true because it fits your preconceived notions.
I admit I fell for the urban legend that Fox News went to court in Canada to defend their right to lie.
Oops! Good thing I didn’t use that one. It was on the “what’s new” page. I thought about it, though.
I’ll answer differently than BigT, although to a believer his answer is the correct one.
I wouldn’t believe it because if it were verifiably real, it wouldn’t be something you hear via email or Facebook. It would be EVERYWHERE. Such an event would have world-wide repercussions. TV and radio would be preempted. Life as we know it would stop while everyone figured out the ramifications of one religion being proved correct over all the others. There would be wars.
Yeah, but they’re stealth drone coffins. You load them with bodies, fly them to one of those Stan countries, and crash them into terrorists.
That’s it. I’ve just come across some, well, to put it nicely, gulible people lately. They believe things like, “If you see it in a picture it must be true!” and, “I must be quiet and obedient and patient when my spouse rages at me over something from work.”
Feel free to share your stories of ignorance fought, or at least attempted.
Sometime even Snopes doesn’t convince them.
No,they did that right here in the US. And they won.
Dude. It’s flu season. If I hear one more, “I don’t get the flu shot because my sister’s cousin’s roommate got it once and it gave her the flu,” I might just shank a bitch.
While this chain of events is remotely plausible, if we were sending $1000 coffins to a region where the average income is < $1/day, that would indicate some fucked up priorities.
It’s interesting to consider the sorts of ignorance that these myths target.
Innumeracy (2): Halloween and coffins
Political (3): 3rd Term, coffins, Palin
Scientific (3): fish, cell phone, ebola zombie
I do think that the “teenage girl pregnant with the child of God” one is interesting, since it’s basically an exact description of an event that lots of people believe happened at least once.
I also think the Palin one is the most believable since (a) it really only requires a simple misstatement (maybe she meant to say “attack Ebola”), (b) it’s a rare politician who doesn’t make misstatements, and (c) Sarah Palin is not that politician.