Just caught a commercial for an upcoming program with actor Tim Curry playing a serial-killer type, and I couldn’t help thinking, “He looks pretty good for a dead guy.”

Several years ago, a coworker claimed she’d heard on the radio that Curry, star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, had died. My brother happened to phone, and I passed along the erroneous news—which he’s never let me forget. Curry is one of the most booked actors in the business, and with each appearance, my brother notes, “He looks pretty good for a dead guy.”

Can’t blame my brother. He doesn’t get many opportunities to rib me about falling for wild rumors. I’m the kind who wouldn’t believe the sky was blue unless I checked it myself. To say I’m not trusting is putting it mildly. So it’s mind-boggling to me why otherwise rational people will fall for anything that arrives in their in-boxes promising: I SWEAR THIS IS TRUE. That’s usually the first indication it’s not.

Every e-mail of this type I’ve received has been a hoax. It doesn’t matter that it includes legislative numbers, photographs, video clips, or testimonials. The legislative numbers are fake or refer to legislation decided years ago. Photographs, video clips, and testimonials have been edited or taken out of context. Celebrity names have been attached to a bucket of hogwash. A tidbit of truth has been buried among lies to lend credence to a bogus story.

If you want to avoid being a patsy, keep these things in mind when checking your e-mail:

• Truth matters. Most friends have stopped forwarding me MUST READ missives about gang rituals carried out at gas stations, “In God We Trust” being stripped from our coinage, or David Letterman interrupting his show to make heartfelt patriotic speeches. (David Letterman??). But I’m not sure if that’s because they’ve become more discerning … or they’re tired of me debunking these urban legends and spoiling their fun.

Sorry, but the fact-checker in me can’t justify letting friends work themselves up over distortions, half-truths, and outright lies. People create this stuff to further business or political agendas—or like virus creators, because they feel powerful making mischief and seeing how far it spreads. But I wouldn’t run door to door screaming about a gas leak in our neighborhood unless I’d confirmed it with the authorities—nor would I let my friends terrorize my neighbors without at least trying to stop them. I feel the same about forwarding those ridiculous e-mails.

• Lies cost. Who cares if you pass along an urban legend? No one gets hurt.

You’d be surprised.

A friend once argued relentlessly with me that the president of Procter & Gamble had appeared on Oprah and declared himself a devotee of the Church of Satan, as evidenced by the company’s moon-and-stars corporate logo. She believed this solely because it came to her in an e-mail from a friend she trusted. Her friend may have been trustworthy, but she forwarded a lie. The incident never happened—and that particular urban legend goes back decades before e-mail and Oprah to the days of spreading nonsense by word of mouth. Back then, the CEO supposedly appeared on The Merv Griffin Show or Phil Donahue.

In the excellent 2001 book The Cost of Deception, which specifically targets Christian readers, John A. Williams wrote that P&G had received more than 150,000 letters about its bogus satanic connection—despite efforts by well-known ministers like Billy Graham to help debunk the myth. In fact, the company’s moon-and-stars logo was designed by a 19^th-century crate maker in a contest to decide what symbol would mark crates carrying P&G candles downriver from Ohio to New Orleans.

Similar hoaxes have cut profits at Snapple, Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Claiborne, and even McDonald’s. People wouldn’t find it so harmless if their jobs were slashed as the result of an Internet smear campaign helped along by “good” people everywhere. And unless it was about a local issue you know well, if you’ve signed an Internet-circulated political petition, it’s likely all you’ve done is take money out of your own pocket. For years the U.S. government has routinely spent our tax dollars dedicating employees to answer petitions from well-meaning citizens campaigning against nonexistent legislation—for instance, the mythical removal of “In God We Trust” from our coinage—all thanks to hoopla stirred up by unsubstantiated rumors and e-mail forwards.

• Discernment counts. “The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things,” wrote 18^th-century essayist and moralist Samuel Johnson, “the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.”

We’re all quick to embrace material that reinforces the political and societal views we already hold. But are we reinforcing our views at the cost of our principles? Has supporting our ideology become more important than having the power to tell the genuine from the counterfeit and to prefer the genuine? If you were a jeweler, would you hire employees who couldn’t distinguish diamonds from glass—or worse, didn’t care which they passed on to your customers?