What makes people irrational thinkers? How about tribalism? You have some ideas, or should I say convictions, that become part of the tribe. So when someone is challenging those ideas, those who believe them don’t actually listen to them because they feel like you are attacking their tribe by challenging their ideas. They are obviously not open to actual thinking, but instead, go out of their way into irrationality to “defend” their ideas-identity.
Therefore, it is said that if you believe that a carpenter walked on water, you are a Christian, or if you believe that a man flew on a donkey to the seventh layer of heaven you are a Muslim, so you can imagine that to them it is not merely thinking about if their ideas are right or wrong, but actually losing the whole identity of who they are.
Therefore, it is said that if you believe that a carpenter walked on water, you are a Christian, or if you believe that a man flew on a donkey to the seventh layer of heaven you are a Muslim, so you can imagine that to them it is not merely thinking about if their ideas are right or wrong, but actually losing the whole identity of who they are.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
