When I was in high school, I sometimes found myself in my counselor’s office when it wasn’t strictly necessary. He was a bright guy who enjoyed talking with intelligent students, and I was happy to get away from many of the other students at times. However, he was also the girls’ basketball coach, so they often hung out in there too. This combination prompted a few memorable quotations from the basketball girls, one of which was, in response to something I’d said, “You’re one of those people who knows too much for his own good, aren’t you?”. At the time I was kind of shocked by this deliciously ambiguous question.

I look back on it after having read The God Delusion, and it strikes me that perhaps this question comes from a desire not to know, not to be challenged, and to make it easier to believe what the questioner has already decided to believe. After all, one good way to protect one’s invalid beliefs is to block any evidence that might contradict them. I’ve not stumbled onto anything new here, but I find it interesting how pervasive this attitude is. The thing I should be most concerned about is heading off this tendency in myself.

Or maybe I should just turn my brain down a notch and not worry about it so much. Hah, right…