Jack, I choose not to understand their psychology.

A few posts up, I said I was not qualified to engage with pete the star.

It IS a serious topic and for governments looking to the future of society, a deep ernest topic. All the more reason not to give credence to stupidity and superstition. Whilst ever politicians pander to them to get votes, whilst ever old bigots with pointy hats are allowed to influence the UK House of Lords, whilst ever the old German who tried brushing kiddy fiddling under the carpet is met at the airports by heads of state...

I find laughing at them and dismissing them as having a mental illness is far better than getting paranoid and confronting them. That's my choice. The choice of many is to say they don't represent the religion of said many, that's their choice. But every nice old lady who arranges the flowers in church gives respectability to medieval (and beyond) methods of controlling people, and that is why they need to be irrelevant. Leaders of religion encourage or fail to control fundamentalist idiots, so they are to blame also in my view.

I take it your light hearted start to the thread was based on what society can do about people who believe nonsense, but it soon degenerated into a reality versus bollocks debate, and that in itself helps prove my point. Give them oxygen and they tend to breathe it...