Thanks. I agree that intellectualism has its negative side effects. Years ago when I started writing these kinds of articles on my blog, one of my first articles was called "The Curse of Reason." Whether these side effects are part of a diabolical alien scheme is obviously another matter, though.

You're the second reader in the last week to suggest to me an alien conspiracy as an explanation of what's really going on. The problem is that alien visitors look like naturalized versions of angels or of other archaic spiritual beings. It's the reworking of religion to suit the secular zeitgeist. In that case, though, modern standards of believability apply, which means it's an empirical question rather than one that can be settled by an appeal to faith. Mind you, there's likely no such thing as a rationally airtight belief system, so we always start out trusting in something.