ご指名質問回答：buy#4

ご指名をいただきましたのでお答えいたします。buy #4 - 田邉祐司ゼミ 常時英心：言葉の森から
ここでのbuyの用法についてです。記事では滅亡説に対するマヤの人々の反応について書かれています。

buyといったら当然「買う」という意味を第一に思い浮かべるでしょう。LDOCEでは"to get something by paying money for it"と第一に定義がされています。
第３番目の定義(ibid)には" to believe something that someone tells you"とあります。つまり、「（誰かから伝わったものを）信じる」ということでしょう。記事では、マヤの人々は終末論を信じていないと述べられています。
簡単な動詞にも色々な意味があることについて、このbuyも私は存じ上げませんでした。とても勉強になりました。(Minnesota)

Some believe Friday is doomsday on the Mayan calendar; the Mayans don't

Merida, Mexico (CNN) -- There may be no one left on Earth to say TGIF this week.

Some believe the world is coming to an end Friday -- on 12/21/12 -- which is when an important phase on the ancient calendar of the Mayan people terminates.
Mayans don't buy it.

At least the ones living in the city of Merida, Mexico, don't. Neither does anyone in the Mayan village of Yaxuna. They know the calendar their ancestors left them is about to absolve a key phase -- the end of an era and the heralding of a new one -- but they don't think we're all gonna die.

"It's an era. We are lucky to see how it ends," said wood carver Santos Esteban in Yaxuna, a sleepy village of fewer than 700 Mayans, located in a territory that once belonged to the ancient kingdom founded around 2000 B.C.

He feels it is a momentous occasion and is looking forward to the start of the new age. He is not afraid.
"Lots of people say it's the end of the world, but we don't believe that," he said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/20/world/doomsday-coming/index.html?iid=article_sidebar