COMMENTS:
remember: The question is not about YOU, it is about 'most people.'
Voted : Yes
Definitely. This is where the defense mechanisms come into play. Denial is a powerful weapon in protecting the ego against such things that are *too* horrible to believe.
Voted : No
On the face of it, if it is, as you say "too horrible to believe" then it will not be believed. Yes? Assuming that you mean to say that something is horrific, and that it is not "too horrible to believe," then many people might well refuse to believe it. A good example might be the Germans after World War II. Many Germans apparently found the idea that their government had been murdering Jews in death camps, that they refused to believe it. So, I think the mind does rebel against believing things that severely contradict the mental constructs and categories it has to interpret or test reality. This cerebral rebellion can take many forms including refusal to believe, inability to believe, and even psychotic breaks whereby the mind retreats into insanity because it cannot deal with something in reality. Whether or not someone would do this seems dependant on the person, their experience, and the nature of the horrific event.
margaret: You are correct, I am using the phrase 'too horrible to believe' as an anecdotal phrase.
I am curious ... you make an eloquent argument suggesting that in such a case, 'most would,' yet you voted 'No.'
Voted : Yes
Many people have a hard time coping with the truth.
Mr. Cathexis: I said "many" not "most". I think most people admit most horrific events to their conscious mind. Many people do not.
Voted : Yes
I've seen lots of cases of people blocking out stuff their tiny human brains couldn't cope with.
Maybe I'm just trying to find an explanation for the past 6 years ... 
For example, I truly believe 'most' Americans could not accept the possibility that 'their government' did something *really* egregiously bad (e.g., that officials could be tried as War Criminals for). And they will bend over backwards to argue against such a possibility.
Great ballot Cathexis.
I know of something that is for some Americans at least, just too horrible to even contemplate never mind believe, a few of them blog on this website, they fear this reality so much that they have an almost phobic aversion to examining any of the overwhelming and irrefutable scientific, seismic evidence and eyewitness testimony, because once this evidence is confronted and contemplated they will find it is impossible to deny, so they prefer instead to stick their heads in the sand wishing it would just go away, and from the safety of this embedded comfort zone some of them attempt to bully and ridicule anyone who would even suggest such a thing as being cranially sartorially challenged and/or schizophrenic or nuts etc. etc., because if forced to accept that this was even possible - never mind true -it will have the devastating ego and self esteem destroying consequences of shattering into a million pieces their patriotic, jingoistic American world view and trust in all things honest, good and safe in their 'incorruptible' government they naively believe is and always will be answerable to them and their compatriots forever.
Voted : No
In the end people come round to truths though sometimes it takes a while. The best example of this is probably the wide spread acceptance of Darwins ideas which caused a storm of disapproval for decades after they were published. The truth always gets out in the end.
Voted : Yes
Yes, although eventually the truth will always come out in the end.
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