Only dumb people believe dumb things right?

And I am much too smart for that. I cannot be manipulated.

Therefore I am not being manipulated.

We think this don't we?

My father thought this. He is by any account a brilliant man. A Ph.D toting Fulbright scholar who had been a University professor for three decades when in 2009, he lost half of his life savings in a Ponzi Scheme. It was only last year, years after the leader of the scheme had been sentenced to a life in prison, than my father finally was able to admit to himself that it was in fact a Ponzi Scheme. For years as he fought off depression, he tried to claim it was all a political show by a government looking for scapegoats to blame for the financial crisis , and that any bank would be " exposed" as a ponzi scheme if truly investigated.

He could not allow himself to think he had been fooled. I mean come on... a smart person like him?

It works the other way too. One of the reasons why religious people do not wish to engage with us is because they assume we think all of them are idiots. And who wants to talk to someone who thinks you are an idiot?

They think we laugh at them mocking them. This is why they accuse us of arrogance and superiority, even when we do not feel superior to them in any way. Because in their mind we MUST think ourselves as superior to them... otherwise how could we discount their faith and believe their beliefs ( which they see as core to their identity) to be erroneous?

Thus the more absurd the beliefs of a group appear to an outsider, the more those within the group cling to those beliefs,

The excellent theremintrees made this phenomenon the subject of his newest video. I strongly encourage you all to watch it.

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My father thought this. He is by any account a brilliant man. A Ph.D toting Fulbright scholar who had been a University professor for three decades when in 2009, he lost half of his life savings in a Ponzi Scheme. It was only last year, years after the leader of the scheme had been sentenced to a life in prison, than my father finally was able to admit to himself that it was in fact a Ponzi Scheme. For years as he fought off depression, he tried to claim it was all a political show by a government looking for scapegoats to blame for the financial crisis , and that any bank would be " exposed" as a ponzi scheme if truly investigated.

At least in this case it was "only" money and pride that was lost. The number of otherwise intelligent and educated people doing horrendously stupid things such as forgetting their infant in the backseat of their car in summer (with lethal consequences for the baby) are grim proof that smart people don't act smart all the time.

The moment we think we are somehow above being manipulated or making stupid mistakes, that's when we're most prone to it.

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There are reasons why a good scientist questions everything under the sun.

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¡Bravo!

4764128 This video made me think.

4764959 I think you will be interested in the second half of my long long blogpost on my experiences with religion. I talk explicitly about how I encountered two different religions that both called themselves "Christianity" but where in fact COMPLETELY OPPOSED TO EACH OTHER. And yet both groups of believers obtained the same benefits from their religions. And insanely, both groups ( despite again having completely opposite world views) used the exact same " evidence" to argue their worldview was correct.

This really opened my eyes. I saw devoted members of both groups claim the exact SAME psychological benefits from their religions. The religious ecstasy of one group was IDENTICAL to that of the other group... but their worldviews were completely opposed. If there was such a thing as a true religion(s) it would be impossible for both of these groups to be TRUE religions, yet the transcendent religious experiences that both groups provided their believers seemed identical.

That is when it hit me. A person could not rely on their own experience to assure themselves that they believed in the true religion, because I had seen with my own eyes that these experiences were essentially identical in completely opposed religious traditions. Thusly the root of these experiences had to be something OTHER than the veracity of the religion itself, and similarly whether or not a given religion was true was a question whose answer could best be determined OUTSIDE the experiences of the religion itself.

If anything was the turning point in my voyage to skepticism and secularism, it was this series of realizations.

4765094 How are your parents and your community taking your drifting away from religion?

4766463 Well I presently don't live in the same community I did when I was religious. All my friends i have now date to either high school or more recent than that and I stopped being vocally religious circa the ninth grade, so they have never heard me discuss religion in any way. I have said that I am " not religious" on several occassions and people take that much better than saying " agnostic" or especially " atheist" which are much more stigmatised words.

My dad does not really care and my mom who does care makes a point of not arguing with me ( it helps that I am a lawyer, she basically feels that whether or not I am " right" I possess the tools to destroy her in an argument so she doesn't try) Since my attitude is " I don't give a damn about religion" in much the same way that say, I don't give a damn about organized sports,( as opposed to " I argue against religion) it really isn't something that comes up.

4766757 From the way you've been arguing against religion, I'd think religion is on your mind quite a lot.

Too bad we agree on everything. I'd love to test your armor in debate.

4766903 It Is. it fascinates me from an almost anthropological view. But that doesn't mean I express myself on it too much in person. Online , behind the veil of relative anonymity, well that is a different subject.

4766956 People show their true self online. What we see in RL are just walking masks, afraid to express themselves.