..says CNN - "Kate Ramsey, a Caribbean scholar at the University of Miami, says that the "pact to the devil" that evangelical Christian Pat Robertson suggested led to Tuesday's earthquake is a 19th century "fabrication" meant to discredit its slave rebellion and Vodou religion. "
- http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/14/haiti.updates/index.html
When you say "these people", do you mean the missionaries or the Hatians? Are these missionaries lying or somehow confused? Is Kate Ramsey in error? Has the fabrication of the 19th century managed to become the reality of the 21st?
I don't care what percentage of society is cluless in this regard even if it is 99+%. I am just proud to not be one of them. A large percentage of the populace thinks they run the best, most secure OS in the world; indeed the only one. Did they become right by way of their mass delusion?
Considering that language is just a bunch of grunts(spoken) or squiggles(written) with agreed upon meanings...yes. As long as the meaning the speaker intended is imparted to the listener, they served their purpose.
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know.