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For example, imagine my car's temperature gauge is stuck and reads "Normal" all the time. If I see steam coming out from under the hood I'd better stop and check under the hood. Just because I would find it more "convenient" to accept the reading on the gauge, doesn't mean it's true that the engine isn't overheating. It's either overheating or it isn't. I should take steps to determine the truth. If I decide NOT to take those steps, and decide to ignore the steam, I still haven't altered the truth of the situation.

This is a decent example, but it describes laziness. To be more accurate you would have to shout at the hood, "Hey, who knows more about the temperature of the car, me or some stupid mindless water molecules?"

In other words, our argument isn't with the intellectually lazy who have refused to continue looking, it's with the intellectually arrogant who presume that anything they can't see must not exist.

Such people will not only stand arrogantly by their own reasoning power, they will attack the people who disagree with them rather than attacking their ideas. After all, when you're one of the gifted, those who disagree with you are idiots. Their disagreement is the proof.

Shalom.

To be more accurate you would have to shout at the hood, "Hey, who knows more about the temperature of the car, me or some stupid mindless water molecules?"

Now, why didn't I think of this? : )

Your description is clearer in showing mankind's tendency toward arrogant denial of reality.

I guess I was also getting carried away with illustrating the way in which we humans sometimes deceive ourselves that we are making "realistic" decisions. Sometimes we back up our decisions by citing some faulty interpretation of "reality" (broken gauge) which we choose to use. At times like that, we don't care what the real truth is as much as we care about having things go our way and will grab at "pseudo-facts" that back us up, (at least, they will back us up until reality bites back).