Wacky belief systems abound. Members of the Heavens Gate suicide cult believed they were taking a ride to heaven on board a UFO. Muslim suicide bombers expect to be greeted after death by 72 virgins. And many fundamentalist Christians insist the entire universe is just 6,000 years old. Of course its not only cults and religions that promote bizarre beliefs significant numbers of people believe that aliens built the pyramids. How do such preposterous views succeed in entrenching themselves in the minds of sane, intelligent, educated people and turn them into the willing slaves of claptrap?

Stephen Law is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London. He has written several well-known introductions to philosophy, including the prize-winning The Philosophy Gym, and edits the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK: Philosophy For Everyone. Stephen is Provost (or Head) of the new Centre For Inquiry in the U.K. and puts on regular events. He was also commissioned by Oxford University Press to write their Very Short Introduction to Humanism.

His latest book is Believing Bullshit: How Not To Get Sucked Into An Intellectual Black Hole.

stephenlaw.blogspot.co.uk/