Okay, let's talk about magic.

Magic is the technology we use to change our minds and perceptions with our thoughts. For example, the placebo effect. The mere thought that you've taken medicine can cause a psychosomatic healing effect. I'm a chaos magician, which means I believe in using psychology to take magic a step further than mere placebos.

Magic is powered by belief. Your classic medical placebos are powered by your belief in medicine. Studies show that placebos work even if you know they're placebos. I call that faith. You know, choosing to believe, and the belief having an observable effect. Faith is a form of belief powered by will. And you can will yourself into all kinds of things, which is pretty cool. You don't even need the placebo effect if you're strong enough to will yourself to get better.

But that's exhausting, and not everyone has that much faith in themself. We can actually multiply the effect of faith to get a bigger result, using belief structures. You know, like medicine. We choose to believe in medicine, take a sugar pill, and believe the medicine will heal us. It's more efficient, takes less will to get more healing.

And religions are useful because they can provide large scale systems of belief to multiply the power of our faith. I mean, there's also the way they can influence society through memes, but let's focus on magic. Religions make magic stronger.

I've seen it happen. I've seen mortals pray to gods, and the idea of their god gives them strength, multiples the effect of their faith. Because human beings are a social species, and aren't really designed to do anything alone, including magic. With a coven or a laborator or an atelier or a cult or a relationship with a god, magic gets stronger. Minds get stronger and can do more.

Critical thinking helps you with truth, and truth is great. But truth isn't everything. Knowing the solution to a problem and doing it are too different things. Religious magic can help people do what critical thinking says is the right solution to their problems. That's religion and critical thinking working together.