>>(snip) Personally, I believe that most of this stuff is hokum, most possessions actually are psychological or mental illness and maybe charlatanism, etc., but that a small slice of it is something altogether different. Something very real. BTW, that is the general view of the Catholic Church, too, FWIW.
Didn’t seem to do the 3rd Reich or the Aztecs much good. How many battles through history were joined after intense sacrificial petitions for victory from a host of anthropomorpized id monsters. Victory went to the side with the best intel, leadership and discipline. None of these “magicians” are on Las Vegas’ watch list, not a one.
This mumbo jumbo is nothing more than various flavors of hypnosis, hysteria tooling and authoritarian sadism, the reasons for which need to be better understood by our superstitious Freeper peasantry.
I respect your opinion. I also respectfully maintain my own.
As to your civilization/war examples: you omitted one critical element: the spirit and will of the people fighting. Even if every religion and all things supernatural are hokum, the spirit and will of the people is critical for a civilization’s survival. Agreed?
If you disagree, then may I suggest reading any serious book on warfare that teaches victory is only achieved by breaking the enemies’ will to fight? Try Sun Tzu, which is still required reading at our military academies. BTW we as a nation have forgotten this (even though our military is taught it before being fed a bunch of PC hokum), which is why we keep losing wars after utterly dominating on the battlefield.
For some people, in fact most people, faith is critical to maintaining such spirit and will.
I take it you don’t believe in God?