How can so many people be so easily deceived?

Have you been amazed at how so many people can be so easily deceived?; Even people who seem to be fairly even-tempered and practice common sense are surprising some of us when they reveal that they have bought into various common lies in today’s culture. It seems sometimes that many people have completely lost their minds. They’ve lost their ability to think… to reason… to discern what’s really true. So consequently, confusion prevails. And where confusion prevails you inevitably have a pandemic of fear. And when people are prone to fear they tend to make hasty and bad choices. And that only leads to more confusion plus a flood of hopelessness. They are set up to bow to a false authority, promising them deliverance and unable to deliver it, or they are prepared to hear good news that can change their lives for eternity. Jesus predicted in two of the gospel accounts that “false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24, and Mark 13:22). When we see how effective the main stream media has been at persuading half the population of the entire world into the most spectacular deception in history, perhaps we can be more discerning.