There is no greater enemy to logic, common sense and critical thinking than religion. Religion punishes skepticism and logic. In many places you can still be killed for blasphemy. When children discover Santa isn’t real, this should be an opportunity for them to break free of the gaslighting of their family religion, instead many parents double down on the gaslighting. When people are too brainwashed to accept something as simple as “fairy tale creatures are not real” their brains become mush. What would you say if I told you, yesterday on my way home I crossed a footbridge and I saw a man walking on the water. Not only that, the man was a zombie. I saw him raise another man from the dead. We should probably be getting ready for a zombie apocalypse? You would immediately think i was either insane or making some kind of joke. And if you didn’t, I would ask you to give me all your money for my new church.

When I was in the Army, deployed to Afghanistan, a bunch of junior soldiers (E-4 and below) came in from the field and wanted to get paid. They needed to wait in line at my little office inside of a hardened building. They were talking amongst themselves in the hall while they waited their turn. There were probably 50 of them. A master sergeant (E-7) came in and started yelling at the soldiers telling them to behave like soldiers and get next to the wall and wait quietly without talking. All the soldiers snapped to attention and went silent in a tight single file line against the wall. This dickhead master sergeant then walked past all of the soldiers who had been waiting in line, walked up to the front counter of my office and submitted some paperwork to have his housing allowance changed back in the states because his dependents had moved. I didn’t have the rank to argue with him so I smiled and gave him the most polite customer service you could expect from a military finance office. As soon as he left, I put his paperwork directly into the paper shredder (a crime). My fellow finance soldiers saw me do it and laughed. Fuck him for using his rank to cut in line. A non-commissioned officer should put the junior soldiers first and never use their rank to get special privileges. His paperwork got lost. It happens.