On Rationality

Last night I caught a little bit of the show Wife Swap ( or maybe it was the other one) Anyhow, there was this christian family that traded places with a pagan family. The pagan family believed in fairies. They prayed to them, spoke to them, worshiped them, made them baked goods, etc.

When the new mom came and read the "house rules" book about who they are and what they do she kept on saying "Oh they're crazy." I don't disagree with that and I'm guessing most of America that was watching was thinking the same thing. "Anyone who believes in that is nuts!"

What strikes me is that reasonable people can look at a pagan religion and see people who believe in talking trees, spirits, and magic and they can instantly see that it is a bunch of hookum. However, these same people see absolutely nothing wrong with believing that 2000 years ago a god impregnated a virgin and the resulting kid (who could walk on water by the way) was killed and then magically came back to life. You want talking to trees? How about the burning bush? Believing is spirits and magic? Heck, christians believe that they can commune with spirits by magically turning bread into the flesh of a guy who died thousands of years ago. They also turn wine into his blood. By magically combing these elements in a ritual, their soul is cleansed of sins.

Yes, yes, this is totally rational and every other religion is crazy.