The Belief Instinct Quotes

“theistic equivalent of slapstick or a clumsy God or perhaps one sneezing or kicking up a pebble—can account considerably better for our present situation than can an intentional act of Creation. The humanlike God we’re prone to worshipping could be a long-dead intergalactic sea horse that, rooting through an ancient seabed for plankton in some unknown dimension, incidentally dislodged the one grain of sand that held all of our own infinite cosmos intact.”
― Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life

“Thoughts said aloud are mutant by nature. No matter how expertly one plumbs the depths of subjective understanding, Gorgias realized to his horror, or how artistically rendered and devastatingly precise language may be, truth still falls on ears that hear something altogether different from what exists in reality.”
― Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life

“Contrary to the common assumption that superstitious beliefs represent a childish mode of sloppy and undeveloped thinking, therefore, the ability to be superstitious actually demands some mental sophistication. At the very least, it’s an acquired cognitive skill.”
― Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life

“Human beings operate with an “optimism bias,” a way of looking at the future that causes us to downplay the likelihood of negative personal outcomes. Among other things, this bias leads us to assume that we’ll be successful at tasks in which we feel we’re even remotely competent, including, sometimes, antisocial acts. Our prisons are filled with people who had very different plans for themselves.”
― Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life

“This type of psychological loneliness is perhaps felt most acutely when we are as close to another person’s body as is humanly possible. As the poet William Butler Yeats wrote rather dramatically, “The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul.”
― Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life

“almost succeeded in single-handedly shooing the faithful out of their pews in the French cathedrals. Unfortunately for him, this notion of God the Creator is nearly as rampant in the world today as it was when the first prophet sat down to put words in God’s mouth.”
― Jesse Bering, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life