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ancestors through the terrifying night. Let’s grow up.
    But can we or will we? For some of us, the answer, sadly, is no. There are all kinds of reasons for this, rooted in fear, ignorance, and lack of social support. That makes it all the more imperative for those who can entertain such changes to take their first steps toward doing so. Consider that we take similar steps every day. Biological predispositions are overridden regularly. For example, we diet. We resist impulses toward violence or sexual aggression. Even if it doesn’t come more naturally to us, there is no reason we cannot also think more clearly and less primitively about the world around us and our place in it. Admittedly, this is difficult work. And it will be more difficult for some than for others, just like dieting or resisting impulses. Changing how we think about the world around us will require effort and force of will.
    What makes it so difficult? First, it is important to remember that the mental predispositions we are talking about have their roots in biology. That doesn’t mean they can’t be changed. It just means there will be work involved, like pushing against something that’s been in place for a long time. But it will move.
    Second, there is strong social support for much of this faulty mental work. People who share belief systems and perspectives bond together. The sense of belonging within a community feels good. As many have learned, communities do not suffer defections and defectors lightly. You may suffer disdain or worse if you withdraw from a shared belief system.
    Third, you will be losing comfort. This particular comfort comes in two flavors. It entails the comfort of familiarity—you may have held these beliefs for a long time. There is also comfort in the beliefs themselves. As we shall see, many widely held mental distortions are geared to keeping the existential demons (like the impermanence of life or our insignificant place in the universe) at bay. They offer the mental equivalent of a thumb to suck or a skirt to hold. Which leads to the fourth reason it can be difficult to change how we think about the world around us: Fear. Alternate views of the world may not only be unfamiliar, they can be downright scary.
    There is comfort in the status quo even when it isn’t right. Ideas attain a status quo position for a lot of reasons, the majority of which are nothing to be proud of. There was a time in most of our lives when belief in Santa Claus was appropriate. 10 It felt good and it had the social support of your parents and your friends. It doesn’t anymore. The Flat Earth Society fought valiantly to maintain its dominance over its upstart rivals. The pre-Copernican view of the universe was not quickly cast aside when a few extremists suggested that, despite the loss of comfort and power to some, Earth was not nestled firmly in the center of the universe.
    Many of these ancient shortcuts we’ve inherited lead to incorrect conclusions about the world around us. Earth is not flat. Neither is it five thousand years old. And, in the words of one comedian, Adam and Eve did not ride to Sunday school on the backs of dinosaurs. To borrow Richard Dawkins’s humorous (if intemperate) comment, “That is not just wrong. It is catastrophically, utterly, stupefyingly wrong.” 11 There are many additional beliefs that are also not true. The spirits of dead ancestors do not swirl around us, influencing the lives of the living. Nor do the living speak with the dead. All of these views, many of which are widely held, constitute factual errors that can result from Caveman Logic.
    But there are other reasons to abandon such mental distortions. In addition to a factual argument, there is also a moral one for upgrading our thinking. As we note on several occasions in this book, a strong case has been made by writers like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens that incorrect supernatural belief systems can and do lead to atrocious acts of