"People become wedded to their beliefs, because the validity of those beliefs reflects on their competence, commends them as authorities, and rationalizes their mandate to lead. Challenge a person’s beliefs and you challenge his dignity, stand, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up because all sane people can see it with their own eyes. Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that god exists in three persons or that Ali was the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad. When people organize their lives around these beliefs and then learn of other people who seem to be doing just fine without them – or worse, who credibly rebut them – they are in danger of looking like fools. Since one cannot defend a belief based on faith by persuading skeptics it is true, the faithful are apt to react to un...
One word, one phrase. That's all it takes to send your mind in a million different directions. But what is the right word? What is the right phrase? That's the Sparkk.