I agree one hundred percent. I'm always disappointed when I discover someone that I know to be an atheist tells me they believe in reiki, chakras, crystal therapy, etc. I feel that spiritual people still want the benefits religion promises, but they make up their own rules.

Okay, I don't need to go on; you got it.

"It's not what you believe, it is belief itself that is the confounding problem of the human race."

Disagree, knowledge is Justified, True Belief...belief is a necessary (but IMHO not sufficient) condition for knowing. If we don't believe in what we hold to be true then we don't know it.

The other things in your rant, Karma, fictions, all are all examples of things that can be believed, but are not justifiable, hence not true knowledge.

hey good point concerning beliefs. to answer your question, why? according to dr jesse bering, it is a human instinct called the belief instinct. in his book, the belief instinct- the psychology of souls, destiny and the meaning of life, he suggest that it is a strong human desire to believe in something greater than themselves. it is the explanation that helped me understand how i could so easily believe in god, and government. kind of embarassing to know how easy it was to fool me. it was because I WANTED TO BE FOOLED. all religious people, want to be fooled so badly that they will believe lies are true, and the truth is a lie

Agree

Our educational system doesn't promote critical thinking. The masses are better controlled (manipulated) that way.

From one perspective, belief is divisive and unnecessary, yet belief is what we have. It seems to be part of the human condition, maybe because we need to make quick value judgments sometimes in order to survive. I think that it is in trying to analyze and understand our reality that belief is inappropriate. It is inappropriate because in the final analysis no one really knows anything except superficially.

A belief is just an emotion, a value judgment, an opinion, a statement about the person and it has little significance regarding the issue at hand. A mathematician would not say that she “believes” a certain theorem. She would say that the theorem is in accord with other mathematical assertions previously held to be true, and that if the theorem is false then the entire logical system is false and based on incorrect assumptions.

I don’t know anything about crystals but karma is an interesting concept, well worthy of discussion IMO. The irrational beliefs that I notice on this site have to do with an irrational, religious-like faith in the tenets of scientism.

Who you are at this moment in time is determined by all your experiences you had and decisions you made in the past and the situation that you are now. That's what they call Karma (Wikipedia: Karma is the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.) It is not really religious based and not really forced into people's minds by some religious institution. One can believe that or not, but it's a quite logical assumption. Karma has not so much to do with religion, other than a wise person (who appeared to be religious) who thought a philosophical- and psychological concept that he shared and that was adapted by others.
For the rest, I can pretty much relate to your complaits. But hé, we are talking about people. People are genetically and socially indoctrinated and in that way destined to follow rules, flock-wise. During millennia of indoctrination and suppression people are so much discouraged in many ways not-think themselves, that I'm not surprised. It's all about controlling the masses and masses that love to be controlled because it gives some security.

I have a friend who keeps using the phrase "Everything happens for a reason". I keep explaining, "Yeah, because you fucked up".

i completly agree

I agree, but some people will always remain gullible, it's sad state, how can we change it?

you should read "Sapiens" by Yuval Harari. it will show you why and how.

I couldn't agree more!