> By far, relationships determine the happiness of ones life, and relationships are not beholden to truth. In fact, they are very commonly built on the opposite. Whether a boss' reprimands are deserved or not, employees bond over a common enemy. Entire groups form on the basis of beliefs, false or otherwise. We have a word for this: “religion".

> Despite organized religion dropping in attendance, religious patterns of behavior are still everywhere, just adapted to a secular world. Health, exercise, politics, work, self-improvement -- these are all things I've seen friends employ their religious muscle into, across all spectrums and political aisles. And as we get older, I'm seeing more and more of my supposedly-secular friends engage in such behavior.

I have a hypothesis that all humans are compelled to indulge in a certain amount of magical thinking. We seem to be hard-wired to believe there is more underlying metaphysical order and pattern to the universe than there actually is.

I presume this is evolutionarily advantageous because it's better to assume you have more agency and ability to predict than you actually do. Over-assuming leads to occasional disappointment and frustration when things don't work out, but under-assuming leads to having less impact than you actually could have.

If that hypothesis is true, then probably the best thing for society is to provide cultural structures that let us indulge than impulse in non-harmful ways, instead of, say, giving it to religions that also tell us to murder gay people.

Sort of like how sports function as a safe pressure release valve for the compulsion towards competition and violence.