The combination of practical thinking combined with "Magical Thinking" has kept the human race alive for hundreds of thousands of years

As someone trained in college to think like an anthropologist this is pretty obvious to me. And traveling around the world meeting people has also increased this belief in me too. Why?

I think the most overwhelming example of this was meeting people in India and Nepal who were very poor economically. Most people go and stay in 5 star hotels from the U.S. and don't meet people of every economic level like we did.

Often people thought I was (because I'm 6 foot 5) that I was either a God or something else because of my height. Why was this? Because people in most places where I visited were under 5 foot 6 in height. 

People who are my height or taller usually are from people who have been herders of goats or cows and by drinking the growth hormone in the milk from goats or sheep or cows it tends to increase the height of people like this by about 1/12 of an inch on average per generation. The real problem with this is that among human beings the heart of a 5 foot 6 inch person and the heart of a 6 foot five or 7 foot tall person tends to be the same size. So, you can see the health problems that can result potentially from this change in genetics of taller and taller people over time.

However, magical thinking (at least how we would see this in the U.S. and Europe) is rampant worldwide especially in third world nations that goes back thousands and thousands of years and whether it is good or bad is always debatable by everyone.

In the end people either survive or they don't (But what actually keeps people alive?)

"Man does not live by bread alone" Or woman or children either.

So, what keeps people alive. Hope.

And where does hope come from. Beliefs.

So, on one level it doesn't really matter at all what people believe as long as they believe in something that keeps them alive.

For myself, as a 12 to 30 year old person (many years ago now because I'm 77) I realized that even if someone believes the moon is made of Green Cheese and this helps someone to stay alive and not go jump off a cliff somewhere onto the rocks or into the ocean with rocks then that belief is likely helpful.

Of course then there is the whole tribe in South America that died because of what they believed.

They believed a wooden post was their God and as long as it was there they could stay alive.

However, one day the termites ate that post and it fell over and all the people in the tribe laid down and stopped eating and died one by one until everyone in the tribe had died.

So, I guess "Be practical but be very careful what you believe in!" Because what you believe in likely will decide when you live and when you die.

By God's Grace