Religious People are Not Stupid

[PureX]

"Most people"? If most of the 2.2 billion Christians accept the bible as allegory, that leaves us with perhaps 1,000,000,000 Christians who do believe in talking snakes and a wooden boat loaded with two of every kind of animal. That's not very comforting.

Then perhaps you should remind yourself that there are many billions of people in the world that aren't Bible adherents of any kind. And then add them to those who recognize the allegorical artifice. Then you'll get a more reasonable picture of how small the percentage of Biblical literalists really are.

It sounds like you've traded up from a belief in talking snakes to a higher level of mysticism.

I am an artist. So I naturally recognize that there is a significant difference between the artifice and the content. The content, in the case of the Eden story in Bible is not especially mystical. It's about human nature, and how we fall short of the divine because we want to BE divine: we want to BE gods rather than be the reflections of God (the divine). It's really a lesson how our lack of humility results struggle, strife, and disaster.

 

[suncowiam]

Wait... Are we now debating talking snakes and donkeys?

 

[rrobs]

No, religious people are not stupid. They are just human.

Have you considered you don't really understand the Bible very well? I can see several places in your post where you take tradition for truth. Tradition, the teaching of most churches, makes the Bible of none effect.

Mark 7:13,

Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
​

It's tradition and not truth that causes the problems you mention. If you study the scriptures carefully you would see that for the most part those who believed in the Bible were in a super small minority. What's really bad is that hardly ever did the religious leaders themselves understand God. They were responsible for teaching people about God but they blew it in a big way. Most of the time there was only one or two people who actually believed God. Noah comes to mind. Of all the people on the earth in his time, he was the only one who knew and understood God. The rest of the people get everything wrong all the time.

Gen 6:5,

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.
​

When Jesus died there was only a handful of people who stuck by him (John 6). And that despite all the miracles people clearly saw him perform. Paul, the messenger who brought most of the New Testament, saw the same thing happen to him.

2Tim 1:15,

This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
​

The situation remains pretty much the same today. The churches favor tradition over truth. Make sure you understand the difference. One works, the other doesn't.

 

[Spiderman]

I do realize that the study of the human condition, including its genetic and psychological make-up, is not an exact science. No two humans are exactly alike, and no two humans will respond exactly the same way to the same stimuli. But there are general behavior and response patterns that do demonstrate some level of consistency. Since your comments were that the Bible is stupid, and that I can't offer any proof regarding my comments, what particular comments do I need to prove that aren't already self-evident or naturally intuitive? Which comments do you disagree or agree with?

You don't know that spirits don't exist.

Roughly 90% of the world believes in supernatural entities.

What makes you sure you know better?

 

[Truly Enlightened]

Yes. Because to know this to be so we would have to know every interaction between humans and snakes and donkeys, from the perspective of those involved, to ascertain whether or not communication occurred. Which we cannot even come close to knowing. Therefor, all we can do is surmise from our own limited experiences, and from those of the people we do know and trust, whether or not such events are likely to have occurred, or not. The reason some people believe such things might have happened, or did happen, is because they know that they cannot know that they did not happen, or tat they could not have happened.

And they are right: they don't know this, and they cannot know it. And neither can you.
Everything that we humans claim to "know" is presumptive. Because none of us can knows how wrong we might discover ourselves to be if we had more information. Ad since we are not omniscient, this condition remains a constant.
What I 'know' has just been established as being speculative. Same as everyone else. So why are you asking me this as if the answer were going to define some sort of absolute truth?
Deliberately disregarding the profound limitations of our own subjective perspective sounds like a rather dishonest and debilitating cognitive course of action, to me.
I don't know what people "believe", nor do I care. I'm more interested in what we can and cannot know to be so, and how we choose to move through our experience of existence given our profound ignorance.
And I condensed them into one reason: the profound ignorance of the human condition. We can believe in all sorts of things, nonsensical or insightful, because there is so much that we simply do not and cannot know to be so, or not to be so.
A lot of people are "art-blind". Maybe you are one of them. These are people who do not understand the mechanisms of artifice. And so tend to take everything at absolute face value.

Thank you for your response. I have no idea what "ärt-blind" means, other than a song by the Japanese band P-Model. I certainly don't want to learn or understand any mechanism that espouses trickery, deception, deceit, or dishonesty(mechanism of artifice). Since there are no absolutes in reality, there can be no absolute face value. Although I may not be as esoteric as you seem, I do generally take things at face(not absolute) value.

Deliberately disregarding the profound limitations of our own subjective perspective sounds like a rather dishonest and debilitating cognitive course of action, to me.

My statement was, "Our only real limitation is our subjective perspective. A perspective from which we can never escape". How am I deliberately disregarding the profound limitations of our subjective perspective? How am I being dishonest, or do you simply throw esoteric word salad at the wall and just hope some of it will stick? Not a very honest and cognitive course of action to me.

Very few people will use an argument from ignorance(fallacy), to wholly support their argument. It is normally used in defence not offence. You are truly the exception. This fallacy states that,"...since we don’t know something (or can never know, or cannot prove) whether a claim is true or false, it must be false, or it must be true". The default position will always be that you are right, since you are talking about absolutes. You also use another corruption of the argument from logos(equivocation fallacy), a tactic used usually in American jurisprudence. When I use the verb "to know", I am using its general meaning, "to understand", "to be aware of", or "to perceive". You have distorted the verb by adding the red herring (fallacy), "absolute" to mean "äbsolute certainty", and then contrived your own straw man argument(another fallacy in informal logic). By your logic any evidence would become irrelevant, since that evidence itself would also need to be absolute. I'm afraid in a 4 dimensional universe where there are no absolutes, we must rely solely on degrees of certainty, and leave arguing "absolutes" to your "mechanisms of artifice".

I will stipulate that we do not have absolute certainty about anything. But this does not negate having a very high degree of certainty about a great many things. There is an extremely high level of certainty, based on a convergence of evidence, that animals do not talk to humans; that the dead do not return to work, or that the laws in nature have never been suspended. My question for you was only designed to allow you to provide any evidence to support your position, other than simply using a logical fallacy. Again, maybe you can point out examples where the dead have returned, the laws of nature were suspended, or animals have spoken to you?

Your logic is fundamentally and logically inconsistent. In order for you to know that "profound ignorance" is a part of the human condition, you would need to possess absolute knowledge yourself. Do you have absolute knowledge? So, how do you KNOW that profound ignorance is part of the human condition? Or, are you just giving your opinion, and not making a truth claim?

Again, my OP focuses on why seeming intelligent rational people, can believe in irrational and ridiculous things. These things are not just limited to talking snakes and donkeys. Maybe you might care to discuss my rationale rather than my examples?

 

[Truly Enlightened]

I don't know that I'd go down the rabbit hole of intelligence too far on this as that is only a part of our psyche. In all but the most extreme psychopathic minds, emotion is a very strong force and at times can trump logic due to the depth with which we feel things. We can often be swept up in the feeling we experience. Love is a great example here and suddenly a highly rational adult human animal can be reduced to a quivering, gibbering, blubbering mass of flesh.

Like Fox Mulder, from the X-Files, most of us want to believe. Sometimes our desire to believe gets the better of us and we abandon rationale because we succumb to a delusion of our desire. We fall in love with how we think things are instead of letting the rational side hold that ideal in check.

Aside from this, just because one is intelligent does not mean they cannot say or do some incredibly stupid things, not that I know anything about that personally, of course.

Thank you for your response.

By compartmentalizing intelligence simply provides a rational "blind-spot", for accepting irrational ideas, if you will. This, I agree may be only part of the answer. Rarely do we sit down to a table of facts and choose the most logical and rational explanation, regardless of our own core preconceptions. Most of us come to our beliefs for reasons that have nothing to do with empirical evidence or logical reasoning. These variables include our genetic predisposition, parental predilection, sibling influence, peer pressure, educational experience and life impressions. These all seem to shape our personality preferences, that eventually lead us to our beliefs. We then sift through the data/evidence and select which facts will best support what we already believe in. We simply ignore or rationalize away any contradictory facts.

This is called , "confirmation bias". Thirty percent of adult Americans believe that UFOs are space vehicles from other civilizations; 60 percent believe in ESP; 40 percent think that astrology is scientific; 32 percent believe in lucky numbers; 70 percent accept magnetic therapy as scientific; and 88 percent accept alternative medicine, and 87 percent still believe in ESP.

I think the lure of pseudo-science is sometime too alluring to resist, no matter how smart we are.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

A simple test of logic and common sense, if you will.


A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

 

[Brickjectivity]

I believe that intelligence is compartmentalized, or partitioned as a normal function of our brain.

Don't forget male and female. Lying and believing are social necessities.

I believe that even the most intelligent person will believe in any nonsense if you start young enough.

It depends on the individual, but yes.

I also believe that the religious notion of sin and human brokenness, only instills the idea that we must distrust ourselves.

This actually is the ideal instilled into slaves to keep them obedient, worldwide and across all cultures.

We are taught indirectly, even before we could read of write, that human reasoning cannot be trusted. "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (Jeremiah 17:9).

This particular verse is not intended for that purpose, but you are correct about how it is being read in the USA in English.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts"(Isaiah 55:9). T

This particular verse also has a different use but is being used as you say, to instill self doubt. To be fair though we do have internal difficulty with self honesty as you have pointed out partially about compartmentalized knowledge.

We even learn from an early age that whenever our powers of logic and reasoning conflict with the teachings of the Bible, God must always trump human logic and reasoning. Since it would be impossible to disagree with the word of God.

The fundamentalism is pushed hard by many ministers, true. They have gradually constructed systems and techniques I think to maximize control. I have pointed out in previous posts that mid nineteenth century some began experimenting with the new sciences of hypnotism and psychology and have since realized its potential whenever possible. Their techniques are spreading.

Finally, I believe that it is the social pressures to remain faithful that keeps people from freely embracing their own cognitive dissonance. The social need to belong to or identify with a group, is a very powerful security blanket. Many would prefer death to excommunication or exclusion.

This is true everywhere and used by the educated and privilged against the rest. Try living in China sometime. Whats sad is that Christianity is a tool to combat this kind of thing but has been coopted instead. I dont think we can continue doing things like we have been. Organizations are springing up in protest. Liberal Christians are becoming more vocal and writing booms.

 

[PureX]

Very few people will use an argument from ignorance(fallacy), to wholly support their argument. It is normally used in defence not offence. You are truly the exception. This fallacy states that,"...since we don’t know something (or can never know, or cannot prove) whether a claim is true or false, it must be false, or it must be true".

That's an irrational conclusion. Not knowing anything for certain means that we can only presume that what we think we know to be true, is true.

The default position will always be that you are right, since you are talking about absolutes.

The only absolute, here, is our uncertainty. And that remains regardless of how certain we presume ourselves to be, so long as we remain non-omniscient.

You also use another corruption of the argument from logos(equivocation fallacy), a tactic used usually in American jurisprudence. When I use the verb "to know", I am using its general meaning, "to understand", "to be aware of", or "to perceive". You have distorted the verb by adding the red herring (fallacy), "absolute" to mean "äbsolute certainty", and then contrived your own straw man argument(another fallacy in informal logic). By your logic any evidence would become irrelevant, since that evidence itself would also need to be absolute. I'm afraid in a 4 dimensional universe where there are no absolutes, we must rely solely on degrees of certainty, and leave arguing "absolutes" to your "mechanisms of artifice".

Certainty does not come in "degrees" unless it is also uncertainty, which is an inherent contradiction of the term. What you are referring to is relative surety based on limited and incomplete information, experience, and understanding. What you are referring to is an informed opinion.

I will stipulate that we do not have absolute certainty about anything. But this does not negate having a very high degree of certainty about a great many things.

This is a meaningless boast that we cannot back up, because we cannot logically know how right or wrong we are without having ALL the pertinent information. It is an opinion trying to pass itself off as "near certainty". I recognize that we humans do this all the time. But I also recognize that it causes us no end of problems when we do so. Basically, because it's dishonest, and thereby invites misunderstanding and dysfunction.

There is an extremely high level of certainty, based on a convergence of evidence, that animals do not talk to humans; that the dead do not return to work, or that the laws in nature have never been suspended.

Again, this a boast that you can only assert by ignoring your own profound ignorance. By ignoring what you don't know and how it would effect what you do know if you could know it.

My question for you was only designed to allow you to provide any evidence to support your position, other than simply using a logical fallacy.

Your lack of omniscience is all the evidence I need to reasonably assert the possibility that your presumptions are wrong, and that your boast is therefor unfounded. I am not asserting that you ARE wrong. I am simply asserting that it's possible. And that because it's possible, other people are not wrong to doubt, question, or reject your presumptions.
[/QUOTE]Again, maybe you can point out examples where the dead have returned, the laws of nature were suspended, or animals have spoken to you?[/QUOTE]I don't need to to know that you can't know what you think you know.

Your logic is fundamentally and logically inconsistent.

Then you should be able to point this inconsistency out. But so far you have not done so. All you've pointed out is your presumption-based misunderstanding of my position.

In order for you to know that "profound ignorance" is a part of the human condition, you would need to possess absolute knowledge yourself.

No, all I need is to know that I do not possess absolute knowledge of anything. This does not require that I possess absolute knowledge of anything. In fact, it only requires that I don't. Our profound ignorance is self-evident. Or it would be if we were not so in the habit of ignoring it for the sake of fear, ego, and relative functionality.

Do you have absolute knowledge?

Nope, and neither do you. Case closed.

Again, my OP focuses on why seeming intelligent rational people, can believe in irrational and ridiculous things. These things are not just limited to talking snakes and donkeys. Maybe you might care to discuss my rationale rather than my examples?

We can "believe" whatever we want to believe. What we can't do is know that what we believe is right or wrong, no matter how surely we think we know it. The truth is not ours to possess, and as humans, it never will be. Instead, we have imagination, reason, faith, and relative functionality to live by. All SUBJECTIVE qualities.

 

[Koldo]

First of all, we humans don't "know" any of the things you claim we know. We assume them to be so from our very limited personal experiences, and through our very limited cognitive grasp of existential reality. And those of us who are able to recognize these profound limitations also must cede the notion that there are many possible and exceptional phenomena extant in the universe that we do not know of.

Secondly, most of the people who read those religious stories about talking snakes and so on understand that they are mythical, symbolic, and metaphorical mechanisms for conveying otherwise difficult, complex, metaphysical ideals. All literature, not just religious literature, is replete with similar literary mechanisms with similar literary intentions even though the ideals being conveyed may be of a different intellectual category.

Lastly, the relative level of intelligence among humans follows what is called a "Bell Curve". That means that a few people are very intelligent, more are notably intelligent, most are of average intelligence, some are notably unintelligent, and a few are very unintelligent. So that it is inevitable that half of us will fall on the lesser side of the intelligence curve, and half on the more. However, it's not true that half of us believe those stories are a literally accurate representation of historical events. In fact, only a small percentage of humans are that naive.

So I think the more important question to you would be; why are you focussing on that small percentage, and playing them up in your mind to be so much greater in number than they are?

I will comment on the last bit: It is not that small. About 40% of Christians in USA interpret the bible literally [Source].

And why aren't YOU recognizing these literary mechanisms for what they are, and thereby interpreting those ancient religious stories for their complex ideological content, as opposed to their misunderstood historical inaccuracies?

I must point how funny this sounds in the light of your very first paragraph ( which I happen to agree with ).
You don't know if those scriptures were meant to interpreted literally or metaphorically.

 

[ecco]

Then perhaps you should remind yourself that there are many billions of people in the world that aren't Bible adherents of any kind. And then add them to those who recognize the allegorical artifice. Then you'll get a more reasonable picture of how small the percentage of Biblical literalists really are.

15% Again, that's not very comforting. Of the remaining there are great numbers of fundamentalists in other religions as well.

I am an artist. So I naturally recognize that there is a significant difference between the artifice and the content. The content, in the case of the Eden story in Bible is not especially mystical. It's about human nature, and how we fall short of the divine because we want to BE divine: we want to BE gods rather than be the reflections of God (the divine). It's really a lesson how our lack of humility results struggle, strife, and disaster.

You are reading too much into it. Remember, Genesis is only one of thousands of creation stories that man has concocted.

In the case of Eden, it's just a put-down story in keeping with the views of one group of people: God made everything perfect and man messed it up.

 

[ecco]

...
The situation remains pretty much the same today. The churches favor tradition over truth. Make sure you understand the difference. One works, the other doesn't.

TRUTH is in the eye of the beholder.

There are no reasons to accept things like the Great Flood as truth any more than there reasons to accept any other creation stories as truth. Actually less, since the Great Flood has been proven to be shown to be completely false.

 

[ecco]

...
This is called , "confirmation bias". Thirty percent of adult Americans believe that UFOs are space vehicles from other civilizations; 60 percent believe in ESP; 40 percent think that astrology is scientific; 32 percent believe in lucky numbers; 70 percent accept magnetic therapy as scientific; and 88 percent accept alternative medicine, and 87 percent still believe in ESP.

I think the lure of pseudo-science is sometime too alluring to resist, no matter how smart we are.

I agree, it's not about smartness.

For the record, I don't believe in any of the things in your list.

 

[BilliardsBall]

We all know that donkeys and snakes don't literally speak to humans. We all know that dead people don't revisit their loved ones, or return to work after their own funeral. We all know that the physical laws in nature can't be dismissed, suspended, or ignored. We all know that even the most complicated ideas, lifeforms, natural or man-made creations, are all rooted in some simpler form. So, why is it that perfectly intelligent humans can believe in ghost, angels, demons, a flat earth, intelligent design, original sin, heaven and hell, or the existence of the supernatural? I guess the simplest answer is, "..that's just how humans are". Humans unfortunately, are just not entirely rational creatures, including the most intelligent and educated among us. Sometimes our rational understandings are replaced by superstition, subjectivity, confirmation and cognitive bias. Science is aware of how our emotions, experiences, prejudice, and personal interest, can affect our ability to critically think. Hence, the need for the scientific method of inquiry to avoid these problems. So why do people succumb? Is it a "response bias(gullible)", or a defective änterior cingulate cortex(B.S. detector)"?

I believe that intelligence is compartmentalized, or partitioned as a normal function of our brain. This allows for even the greatest minds to be totally inept in the intricacies of social interactions. These minds may use the most up-to-date, state-of-the-art tools of their field, but may get their theories for an unrelated field, from places like the Institute for Creation Research. Which have stopped putting out new theories since the late Bronze Age. We should also never give a person who is distinguished in one field of research, the same level of authority in another field that they don't deserve("halo effect").

I believe that even the most intelligent person will believe in any nonsense if you start young enough. An argument could be made that human reasoning only serves to rationalize and validate the emotional content that is already in place in their psyche from their earliest years. In other words, "We think in order to rationalize what we already believe". Our knowledge base and critical thinking skills would, at best, only circumvent this early belief structure, and not challedge it. It is very difficult to challenge our inner core beliefs, that were in place before our critical thinking skills were ever developed.

I also believe that the religious notion of sin and human brokenness, only instills the idea that we must distrust ourselves. We are taught indirectly, even before we could read of write, that human reasoning cannot be trusted. "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (Jeremiah 17:9). "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts"(Isaiah 55:9). There are many, many other similar quotes. We even learn from an early age that whenever our powers of logic and reasoning conflict with the teachings of the Bible, God must always trump human logic and reasoning. Since it would be impossible to disagree with the word of God.

Finally, I believe that it is the social pressures to remain faithful that keeps people from freely embracing their own cognitive dissonance. The social need to belong to or identify with a group, is a very powerful security blanket. Many would prefer death to excommunication or exclusion. When your entire life is built around any idea, challenging that idea might threaten the core belief of who you are, both psychologically and socially. For some, it may even threaten their entire world.

No, religious people are not stupid. They are just human.

I think you missed your main point early on, where you wrote: "...that's just how humans are".

Most humans of all backgrounds and educations believe in spiritual things.

I'd also change we must distrust ourselves to "we have a helper, an advocate, a friend, a guide, who can smooth the rough spots in our lives," a great thing.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

Don't forget male and female. Lying and believing are social necessities.

It depends on the individual, but yes.

This actually is the ideal instilled into slaves to keep them obedient, worldwide and across all cultures.

This particular verse is not intended for that purpose, but you are correct about how it is being read in the USA in English.

This particular verse also has a different use but is being used as you say, to instill self doubt. To be fair though we do have internal difficulty with self honesty as you have pointed out partially about compartmentalized knowledge.

The fundamentalism is pushed hard by many ministers, true. They have gradually constructed systems and techniques I think to maximize control. I have pointed out in previous posts that mid nineteenth century some began experimenting with the new sciences of hypnotism and psychology and have since realized its potential whenever possible. Their techniques are spreading.

This is true everywhere and used by the educated and privilged against the rest. Try living in China sometime. Whats sad is that Christianity is a tool to combat this kind of thing but has been coopted instead. I dont think we can continue doing things like we have been. Organizations are springing up in protest. Liberal Christians are becoming more vocal and writing booms.

Thank you for your well said comments. Out of curiosity, maybe you can expand on "Liberal Christians"?

 

[Truly Enlightened]

I agree, it's not about smartness.

For the record, I don't believe in any of the things in your list.

For the record, I don't believe in any of the things in your list.

That makes at least two of us.

 

[Thief]

So, why is it that perfectly intelligent humans can believe in ghost, angels, demons, a flat earth, intelligent design, original sin, heaven and hell, or the existence of the supernatural?

lack of belief is an indication of your fate

you are dust.

it's just a matter of your chemistry moving to .......nothing

I think we are too complex to be some sort of accident

and I believe life after death to be a consequence to how you lived here and now

of course.....if you do not believe in continuance
then likely.....you won't

 

[Truly Enlightened]

I think you missed your main point early on, where you wrote: "...that's just how humans are".

Most humans of all backgrounds and educations believe in spiritual things.

I'd also change we must distrust ourselves to "we have a helper, an advocate, a friend, a guide, who can smooth the rough spots in our lives," a great thing.

Thank you for your reply. You can have, "a helper, an advocate, a friend, a guide, who can smooth the rough spots in our lives", and still trust and critically think for yourself. Belief in the supernatural or the spiritual are not rational beliefs. But for many, they seems necessary beliefs. My post was to explain why intelligent people having irrational beliefs are not stupid. Stating that It is "just how humans are", was just a simplistic answer. I went into much more detail.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

Have you considered you don't really understand the Bible very well? I can see several places in your post where you take tradition for truth. Tradition, the teaching of most churches, makes the Bible of none effect.

Mark 7:13,

Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
​

It's tradition and not truth that causes the problems you mention. If you study the scriptures carefully you would see that for the most part those who believed in the Bible were in a super small minority. What's really bad is that hardly ever did the religious leaders themselves understand God. They were responsible for teaching people about God but they blew it in a big way. Most of the time there was only one or two people who actually believed God. Noah comes to mind. Of all the people on the earth in his time, he was the only one who knew and understood God. The rest of the people get everything wrong all the time.

Gen 6:5,

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.
​

When Jesus died there was only a handful of people who stuck by him (John 6). And that despite all the miracles people clearly saw him perform. Paul, the messenger who brought most of the New Testament, saw the same thing happen to him.

2Tim 1:15,

This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
​

The situation remains pretty much the same today. The churches favor tradition over truth. Make sure you understand the difference. One works, the other doesn't.

This is an area I hadn't considered. Thank you. Maybe you can explain this passage in Genesis to me, and clear up my confusion.

" And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever": Gen.3:22

Who is US, and why would God not want his creation to live forever? I'm simply curious.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

You don't know that spirits don't exist.

Roughly 90% of the world believes in supernatural entities.

What makes you sure you know better?

Thank you. What I don't know is whether spirits do exist. Until someone can demonstrate that they do, spirits don't exist. If there are billions of spirits out there, surely, one can be demonstrated objectively. With those numbers, I should be having dinner every night with at least one spirit, for the rest of my life. I personally not only believe that spirits don't exist, but that they can't exist. If they did, our fundamental physical laws could never accommodate for their existence.

I have explained why people can believe in irrational things. Consensus is no substitute for evidence, logic, and intuition. Before I simply jump on the consensus bandwagon, I want to make sure that it has wheels to support me. Sometimes it just takes a little voice to tell the king that he is naked, when the rest of the kingdom says that he isn't. To make a difference.