<p>Satanic pregnancies, cowboy hero myths, nonsensical Bible stories, American gun idolatry, heathens, heretics, and the rise of the "nones." How do we explain to an alien visitor from a culturally and morally advanced civilization that we have the right to self-identify as Homo Sapiens: man the wise. The short answer is that it can't be done.</p>

Satanic pregnancies, cowboy hero myths, nonsensical Bible stories, American gun idolatry, heathens, heretics, and the rise of the "nones." How do we explain to an alien visitor from a culturally and morally advanced civilization that we have the right to self-identify as Homo Sapiens: man the wise. The short answer is that it can't be done.

Episode 2: Fundamentalism. Abandon reason, all ye who enter here.

Wait... What!? is an often humorous, sometimes ferocious, but always entertaining romp through the bizarre memes that inspire mass lunacy, religious fanaticism, and ideological intransigency where basic reasoning is overwhelmed by willful ignorance. Why do people believe and refuse to ask simple questions about the nonsense they are fed by corrupt politicians, unscrupulous religious predators, and ordinary scam artists? What is the psychological mechanism that makes masses of people behave in ways that would make lemmings point and chortle? When X-files hero Fox Mulder said, "I want to believe" he was unknowingly speaking for religious fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists, UFO true believers, nut-case truthers, and ideologues who run the gamut from skin heads to Antifa -- people for whom there can be no other side of a complicated issue. What causes these people to willingly embrace nonsense -- ideas and claims that make little or no sense -- and shut out facts and reason as if they repositories of the Corona virus? What strange predisposition keeps them from putting both hands in the stop gesture and saying, Wait... What? Howard Siegel takes us on a voyage to a world where objective, reasoned thinking has been replaced with the powerful appeal of irrationally simple answers. Howard Siegel is an attorney, author, former MSNBC legal analyst, and hapless, sysphysian golfer. He has appeared on 60 Minuets, Larry King Live, The Today Show, NPR, and PBS. He lives in South Carolina where he is a practicing heathen, heretic, and herbivore.

Share Episode 2: Fundamentalism. Abandon reason, all ye who enter here.

Sign up to save your podcasts

Episode 2: Fundamentalism. Abandon reason, all ye who enter here.

Episode 2: Fundamentalism. Abandon reason, all ye who enter here.