I can tell you that I have had many conversations with people shut down by them saying "Well, that's what I believe." as I present a litany of facts and or truths to show why that belief is not valid. In this country, we've reached the point where beliefs are more important to some people and oddly, you are supposed to respect beliefs but you don't need to respect facts or truths. Instead facts and truths are met with skepticism and doubt and it is more accepted to fall back on beliefs for some. This has led to an insane proliferation of conspiracy theories that now are promoted by people like our former president, Mr. Trump. They are all an easy sell now to sections of the population because they WANT TO believe them. 

Overall, I can understand why this leads to people feeling other people are stupid, but the unusual thing I have discovered over time is smart people, intelligent people, fall into this belief trap as well. It's not as simple as just some are poorly educated and are not very bright, some bright people choose to believe absolutely asinine things as well. This can be truly confusing. 

I'd say we all have beliefs, generally driven by the fact that we can't know everything. So, in some areas we do have to fall to looking at the information we have and deciding what we think is the most likely scenario. 

The hardcases are the ones that just want to believe things because they align with how they want to see the world. We seem to have a lot of that going on and obviously, that is really frustrating for those of us that try to inject facts and truths into how we weigh things. 

It does seem the internet, with the tsunami of disinformation being pumped out aids this game of Pick and Choose what to believe based on what I like. I also feel like it has infected the media to such a degree that they now have a hard time doing their job.