… all believers are irrational, sometimes mildly so, and sometimes wildly so. When I mentioned this to someone I know, she replied, “Belief makes people stupid.” I don’t know that I’d go that far, at least not with all people, but what people do in the name of belief is sometimes puzzling, and at times mind-boggling.
Here in Utah, there was a newspaper story about woman, described as an intellectual, who was ex-communicated from the LDS faith years ago because of her “liberal” views, who still attends church services, although she cannot enter a temple or take part in any “higher” church functions. This is a faith that has just threatened to excommunicate LDS women who have spoken out decrying the lack of women in church leadership. Why do they still want to be LDS priests and bishops in a faith that, for all its protestations to the contrary, minimizes the position of women, as evidenced in cold, hard fact? Utah, with a legislature overwhelmingly male and LDS, has the greatest pay discrepancy between men and women. It also extols marriage for time and eternity, yet has a divorce rate above the national average. There are also LDS gays and lesbians who still want to be “part of the church.” Why? Why would anyone wish to be part of a faith that funded the initiative in California to outlaw gay marriage, or part of a faith that denounces acting on same-sex attraction as a sin against God and nature?
Christians don’t fare any better on the rationality test, either. One study showed that eighty percent of Christian pastors under the age of 45 did not believe in global warming. Seventy percent of evangelical Christians don’t, either. According to a Pew survey, over 80% of American Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. More than 60% believe that the story of Noah was factually accurate and that the entire earth was covered in water within historical times.
“Belief stupidity” isn’t limited to religion, either. Why is it that almost a third of conservative Republicans, the Republican true believers, insist that President Obama is a Muslim, while only eight percent of Democrats do? Or why 75% of Tea Party Republicans deny global warming, while 67% of the population as a whole say that it is occurring? Devout Democrats are no better in their irrationality; they’re just irrational on different subjects. More Democrats than Republicans believe that astrology is scientific; lasers are made from sound waves; genetically modified foods are harmful; vaccines are harmful; organic food is more nutritional than conventional food. And when facts conflict with political beliefs, studies show that something like sixty percent of both Democrats and Republicans will choose their political loyalties over conflicting facts that are scientifically and factually verifiable, and then they’ll argue that the facts are “wrong” or go well out of their way to find one example or fact that seems to support their views.
All of which suggests that perhaps the most dangerous words are “I believe.”