From *The Skeptical Review Online*:
by Farrell Till
The longer I live, the more puzzled I am by the way that people will cling to beliefs that are clearly disputed by the realities that they see around them each day. These could be social, political, or just any kind of testable beliefs, but religious beliefs are the most tenacious of all. With earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, mudslides, tsunamis, avalanches, famines, epidemics, and other natural disasters killing thousands of us each year, people will still believe that a benevolent, loving deity watches over us, and some will believe that this deity even assigns personal guardian angels to protect us. When disasters such as those just mentioned create a cognitive dissonance between personal beliefs and the realities of the disasters, those who desperately wish to believe in a benevolent, caring deity will close their eyes to reality and continue to believe what they want to believe.
