In your opinion what causes Nessies to believe in Nessie?

[Fake Messiah]

They base their belief on the possibility that a single Plesiosaur is still around 66 million years after all the other ones went extinct.

Boru

That is a simplistic view of Nessie, no doubt promulgated to you by that famous anessian Richard Dawkins. It is certainly true that Nessie, "in the sense defined" by him, is a delusion, but there are many more elaborate ideas of what Nessie is.

For example, I remember reading a comic in which Nessieans discuss what Nessie could be. Some propose that Nessie are people who live around and have the ability to turn into Nessie:




While others propose that Nessie was created by Nazis as an aquatic soldier to attack England, but only one or handful got there and ended up in Loch Ness:



While others speculate that Nessie lives in every body of water on Earth, because they are not a Plesiosaur but Earth's tentacles: you see, Earth is alive and is using its tentacles to grab people and animals to eat them:



And many more explanations.

I am so fed up with you anessieans who have this strawman idea of what Nessie is when there are much more elaborate ideas of what it could be. That's why you should read some books from serious Nessiesans on this topic, because you only know Dawkins' idea of Nessie, which is simple and childish. Dawkins lives in England and the nearby Scotland. probably has a higher percentage of people who know Nessieanism well than just about any other country on the planet. Why didn't Dawkins get on his bicycle and visit Scotland, so that he could have it explained to him why this whole thing is an argument against something which they don't believe?

[Paleophyte]

IIRC, the "real" Nessie was uncovered a few decades back. Before paleontology made the dinosaurs cool and Nessie got its pleisiosaur retcon, it was described as a boiling patch of turbulence on the lake's surface. The actual monster was never seen but was presumably some sort of faery or other supernatural beastie.

The actual "monster" is a product of the fact that Loch Ness is a long, thin loch prone to frequent wind storms. When the wind blows down the long axis of the loch all of the warm water near the surface gets pushed to one end of the loch. When the wind stops the upper surface of this warm water wedge relaxes fairly rapidly. However, the lower surface is a boundary between warm water and cold water, so it relaxes much more slowly, forming a body wave that travels the length of the loch in a few days. Nobody would notice it except that part way down the loch there's a shallow ridge that forces the body wave to the surface. The end result is that a couple days after a strong wind you can be out on the loch in very still conditions and suddenly find yourself in weirdly unexpected turbulence that has no obvious cause. It's easy to see how some superstitious fishermen might have jumped from that to a lake monster.

[Mister Agenda]

Nessie is a giant otterpus.

[Fake Messiah]

IIRC, the "real" Nessie was uncovered a few decades back. Before paleontology made the dinosaurs cool and Nessie got its pleisiosaur retcon, it was described as a boiling patch of turbulence on the lake's surface. The actual monster was never seen but was presumably some sort of faery or other supernatural beastie.

The actual "monster" is a product of the fact that Loch Ness is a long, thin loch prone to frequent wind storms. When the wind blows down the long axis of the loch all of the warm water near the surface gets pushed to one end of the loch. When the wind stops the upper surface of this warm water wedge relaxes fairly rapidly. However, the lower surface is a boundary between warm water and cold water, so it relaxes much more slowly, forming a body wave that travels the length of the loch in a few days. Nobody would notice it except that part way down the loch there's a shallow ridge that forces the body wave to the surface. The end result is that a couple days after a strong wind you can be out on the loch in very still conditions and suddenly find yourself in weirdly unexpected turbulence that has no obvious cause. It's easy to see how some superstitious fishermen might have jumped from that to a lake monster.

This is so bigoted. We are talking about a being that inspired so many branches of art, like novels, stories, movies, paintings, comics, and poems. Like this famous painting by Sir Peter Scott, who was not just a painter but also an ornithologist, conservationist, and a naval officer, and who also founded the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau.




Not to mention that Nessie inspired morality, like how many times did parents say to their kids: "If you don't behave Nessie will eat you, and if you are good, Nessie will love you." It also inspired numerous scientific papers, and many intelligent people to believe in it, like Arthur C. Clarke who said: "On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I believe in Nessie." Or when medieval saint Columba himself, with other monks, met Nessie - why would they lie about it since they are monks who vowed to never lie.

So to say that Nessie was just water surface turbulence is bigoted and uneducated. You should start reading the blog "History for Anessians."

[Fake Messiah]

I also wanted to ask you a question: What would it take for you to believe in Nessie?

If one of yours, like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Richard Dawkins or the editor of Snopes, had a Nessie sighting, would that make you believe in Nessie? Would you then leave your religion of Anessieanism in which you actively don't believe in Nessie?