“Why do smart people believe in crazy things?”
The first obvious answer would be that it is not crazy according to their experience and beliefs.
What is crazy then? It is easy now a days to fell superior to some primitive culture… we know the earth is not the center of the universe and so on… But hey, I just saw a scene in a famous TV show where a character fells superior to another because he “knows” there are no white zombies….
But I guess that , a crazy idea is one that, while believed in, its not true.
How do I know what is true ? ….
I suppose that if we had a scientist and a religious man debating it would be much easier for the scientist to prove that what he is saying is true, due to science more tangible nature. But if you really strip everything away, every notion of what you know , what we know as a species etc… if you take all that away and look at them you will see that both of them have a dogmatic attitude and while one of the arguments is very easy to label as beliefs the other side of the debate is also based on beliefs ( Just like the geocentric belief or the white zombie situation)
If you study history you see that this was always the case … All this dogmas where later accepted to be incorrect. Right?! Every idea or accepted fact has been changed or questioned. Right?
So why do we know with all the luxuries of science and technology, still act in a dogmatic way in our individual experience and world view?…
I will assume that it is a emotional reaction to an intellectual confrontation… like in most things the ego gets involved … ( and we all know the weight the ego has in our current world)
Like the football coach that won’t change the team until minute 80, because the emotion of fear of behind wrong won’t allow him to admit that the intellectual choice he made was actually wrong.
Why do I believe in what I believe ?
Because it fells right. Because every experience and thoughts I had , make my beliefs convenient to my existence…
Allow my ego to come out and wrap up with a “true” statement ( yes, I’m not on a high horse) : I do believe that somethings are true: like, killing innocent people is wrong, I want my children to do good, cult leaders are evil scam artists… ( Again this article is talking about personal experience, world and universe views and not social interactions.)
So… Why do smart people believe crazy things?…. I really do not know… The title of the text was a question and the rest of the writing is another question.
But instead of trying to get an answer for it , I will be carefully observing how the ego is involved in defeating any particular view.