I believe it because it is absurd. To the history of one false quote

A character or book tells about something completely incredible, perhaps even logically contradictory. And yet they believe it. Why? Because if they wanted to lie, to mislead, they would not take listeners/readers for fools, and would try to come up with a lie that would look less absurd, more believable. If such nonsense is presented with innocent eyes, it means that perhaps it is the truth, for the truth can be anything, and since you have undertaken to tell the truth, you must tell it as it is, even if it is absurd.

If they still don’t believe this (even though it is true), then it is Cassandra’s truth.

If this is still a lie, then it is blatant or skillful.

Examples[edit]

• The very name of the trope (Latin - Credo quia absurdum) is an expression attributed to the theologian Tertullian, meaning that the inconsistency and improbability of the Bible precisely indicate its truthfulness, for anyone who would like to mislead would do so plausibly and consistently. It is not included in the generally accepted body of Christian theology, since the author in the last years of his life switched to the Montanist sect, but in disputes on the topic both
  sides like to use the expression. The title of the trope is not a direct quotation, but a paraphrase of Tertullian’s words: “The Son of God crucified is not shameful, for it is worthy of shame; and the Son of God died - this is absolutely certain, because it is absurd; and, buried, rose again - this is certain, for it is impossible” (“On the Flesh of Christ,” 5). A lawyer by training and a man of a very violent disposition, Tertullian loved hyperbole and openly demagogic techniques. In this treatise, he polemicizes with the teaching of the heretic Marcion that Christ did not have a body at all, but simply took the form of a man so that his sermon could be understood by his listeners. For Tertullian, such reasoning is not only a heresy against Scripture, but also a blasphemy against God, because “nothing is impossible for God, except what He does not will,” and what right does any Marcion have to decide for God, how should he do better?
• Terry Pratchett puts the phenomenon differently: “The main difference between a lie and the truth is that a lie must be believable.”
• Robert Heinlein: “Every truly good story is not marred by a shadow of plausibility.”

Literature[edit]

• C.S. Lewis, “The Chronicles of Narnia” - a little girl seriously claims that the way to a magical land is hidden in an old wardrobe and she spent the whole day there, although she was only absent for a couple of minutes? You shouldn’t laugh at her: the child hardly knows about the paradoxes of time, which flows differently in different dimensions. To be fair, Professor Kirke, who, unlike his brother and sister, did not laugh at little Lucy, not only knew about time paradoxes, but also found himself in Narnia at one time. True, not through the closet (and he made the closet from magic wood).
• Strugatsky brothers, "Inhabited Island". The underground believed Maxim Kammerer that he was not an intelligence agent, but an honest man with unusual abilities. (For an earthling, his abilities are the most ordinary, but the Sarakshians do not know about the existence of other planets and generally think that they live on the inner surface of the ball.) They believed it because Mac’s scars clearly indicate healed mortal
  wounds. The intelligence services, in principle, could have faked the scars - but the underground decided that they would not send such crude work to them.
• The story “The Martian Potion” from the series “The Great Guslyar” by Kir Bulychev - this is how they believed in the story about an alien potion that prolongs life.
• “7 days in June” - when a group of Russian special forces contacts the command of the 10th Army remaining on the Bialystok ledge and talks about transferring the entire former USSR into the past from 2010, Army Commander Golubev suddenly realizes that this is true - no saboteur would do such nonsense invented. And I wouldn’t talk about “countries that emerged in place of the USSR” either...
• “On the other side of the dawn” - “And what did they say: that they themselves escaped from the Dragons and crossed Nahar, that the red-haired one reached Kargond alone and with a song lifted the spell of unconsciousness from Beren, that this spell was cast in advance by the sovereign Finrod... But who will believe in such stories? No, if Sauron’s hand had been here, he would have come up with such a story that a mosquito wouldn’t undermine his nose. And such nonsense cannot but be true.”
• K. Kostin, “I don’t understand mine.” Mister Charles believes the main character, who came to hire him as a servant, because if they wanted to send a spy, or even a murderer, to him, they would have come up with something better than to catch somewhere one of the last representatives of the race of cannibal savages (looking like fanged three-meter monkey people) and send him to him, teaching him to tell a completely crazy story. Moreover, the yuggai speak approximately as the book is named, limiting themselves to a vocabulary of a few hundred words. Few people can understand what the yuggai is carrying, except Mr. Charles himself.

Cinema[edit]

• “Incorrigible liar”: all the time no one believes the hero who tells the honest truth. And during the final credits, the director is doused on the street from head to toe by a sprinkler. Tyutyurin knows too well what absurd explanations are not to believe his former boss. Moreover, the same thing happened to him during the film, but the director said that this was impossible.
• “Watchmen” - Rorschach immediately believes Moloch’s story about how a sobbing Comedian burst into his house in the middle of the night precisely because this story sounds completely incredible.
• Spider-Man: Far From Home: but here it is absurd, but it is precisely the lie that is believed.

Anime, manga, light novel[edit]

• Full-length “The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi” and the 4th volume of the light novel: Haruhi agrees to believe in the incredible story of “John Smith” about time travel and parallel worlds simply because it’s more interesting
  .

Real life[edit]

• Oh, remember quantum mechanics. You may not believe in it and not understand how it works. But it works! A popular answer to those who like to waste time searching for the only correct interpretation of quantum mechanics was given by physicist David Mermin: “Shut up and do the math!”

Tertullian on the relationship between faith and reason

A new understanding of truth needed to substantiate other forms of knowledge. On the question of the relationship between faith and reason in the comprehension of God, Tertullian categorically insisted on the priority of faith, so it was not by chance that the aphorism was attributed to him: “I believe because it is absurd.”

Tertullian believed in the earthly life of Christ; that his disciples, the apostles, spread Christianity and founded the church (shortly before the birth of the philosopher). Even in the future there were the most terrible persecutions of Christians in the 3rd century; recognition of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire at the end of the 4th century; Ecumenical councils at which the main Christian dogmas will be approved.

Apologetics of Tertullian

Tertullian is at the beginning of this path. His main task was the defense (apology) of Christianity (and Christians) in the face of the dominant pagan culture that was alien to it. The main themes of Tertullian's philosophy were: the problem of faith; the place of faith in the life of a person and society; a new understanding of truth, justification of its criteria and ways of knowing; approval of the Christian moral value system; criticism of ancient philosophy and pagan culture in general.

Tertullian was one of the first among Christian philosophers to defend the idea that the world was created by God out of nothing. Tertullian thought of God as creator, eternity, goodness (for he created the world). God is one, just as the nature created by Him is one, he is a spirit, but this spirit is corporeal.

Tertullian and criticism of ancient philosophy

Tertullian criticized ancient philosophy, which claimed to have wisdom. Philosophy is the wisdom of this world, not the divine. It comes not from faith, but from reason, so Tertullin believed that, instead of leading a person to God, it directs him along the wrong path and gives rise to heresies, that is, distortions of the truth of Christ.

Each philosopher proceeds from his own idea of ​​truth, numerous directions arise that are opposite to each other; There are endless and fruitless disputes. Philosophers seek the truth, but cannot find it, because it is impossible for the mind to comprehend that which surpasses it.

Tertullian considered the criteria of truth to be the Holy Scripture (Bible), the authority of the church and the testimony of the soul (feelings).

Tertullian on the unity of the divine and human nature of Christ

Tertullian paid special attention to the question of the unity of two natures in Christ: divine and human. He fought against statements that Christ was never born, did not possess flesh and did not rise in the flesh, since he well understood that the denial of the “human” in Christ leads to the destruction of the Christian religion.

Tertullian understood the truth of Christ as “something united and true”; it must be taken on faith, without any reflection or evidence. Tertullian was convinced that the divine beyond all doubt surpasses the wisdom of this world. “The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God” (Apostle Paul).

Conversely, Tertullian considered it impossible from the point of view of reason and logic to comprehend, for example, the unity of God in three persons, the virgin birth, “miracles,” the divine-human nature of Christ, the death of Christ, and then the resurrection in the flesh. Only faith reveals divine truth: the reality of the incomprehensible, the certainty of the incredible, the certainty of the impossible.

Nothing is impossible for God. The truth must be sought, and, having found it, one must believe, and not philosophize. Tertullian wrote: “We do not need curiosity after Christ, we do not need research after the Gospel,” “Let curiosity give way to faith, let glory give way to salvation,” “Knowing nothing against the Rule of faith means knowing everything.”

I believe because it is absurd

Tertullian was critical of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He preferred a literal understanding of the text, even if it contradicted the most elementary requirements of logic. The more absurd, from our point of view, the statement of Revelation, the deeper the secret it hides and therefore deserves the more faith. Tertullian: I believe because it is absurd.

The Church has a primary right to the truth because it is the historical successor of its holy founders - the apostles, who received it from Christ, and Christ from God. Over time, Tertullian, convinced that the official church did not correspond to his ideal, opposed it for a purely spiritual church, without hierarchy, became close to the Montanist sect, and at the end of his life created his own.

Tertullian saw the truth of the evidence of the soul in the fact that they are given to man by nature, and to nature, in turn, by God himself. Otherwise, how could one explain the fear of death, hope for posthumous reward, trust in God, fear of him. “These testimonies of the soul, the more true, the simpler, the simpler, the more accessible, the more accessible..., the more natural, and the more natural, the more divine.” The soul is older than books and words, and man precedes the philosopher and poet, therefore simple, inexperienced people, not corrupted by pagan culture, are closer to the truth.

Man, as Tertullan believed, is the unity of soul and body, the body is set in motion by the soul. At the same time, the soul is also a body, but only a subtle one; it is, as it were, spread throughout the entire human body and gives it shape. The soul, despite its corporeality, is immortal. At the same time, Tertullian was also interested in the question of the immortality of man in general.

Tertullian divided contemporary society into the “camp of the devil” and the “camp of God.” The first, paganism, is associated with the possession of this world, reveres transient values ​​and goes to destruction; the second, Christianity, is associated with the enduring values ​​of the future other world, the ultimate destination of this society is eternal bliss. History is understood eschatologically, that is, it moves towards the end of the world, the Last Judgment.