Are fairies real?

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If you pulled the 'really sloppy superstitious thinking' from my post my response would be - kind of. Calling something superstitious or sloppy isn't the same as saying that absolutely nothing's there. It's more commenting on a decision to throw out critical thinking, not examine incongruities in evidence, and it usually comes in the form of some kind of ideological commitment.

Having spent a lot of time reading up on religious philosophy, reading various authors on mystic and magical traditions both western Hermetic and eastern, I get the impression that the matter is a lot more abstract than people are comfortable with and what's also painfully abstract is just how much of those phenomena are products of our brain and how much of it is actually conscious non-human forces in the universe. I'd say with a good degree of personal certainty that neither one of those two sources are at 0% - sometimes it's one, sometimes its the other, it could clearly be one far more often than the other (I tend to side on the psychological with that), and it can be almost impossible to tell quite often because you just don't get enough context clues or hard data points to hang your interpretations on unless you're getting hit with something like really strong geographical synchronicities or certain manipulations of experience that selective attention just can't account for.

I really think two big problems come into play when people make decisions on what they believe: 1) group identity and group signally makes critical thinking on these things nearly impossible and 2) We don't have patience for things that don't fall into clean categories and we'd rather be wrong in a way that seems expedient than actually right on all of the particulars. Human beings as a species tend to place group bonding over truth quite often, to a degree it makes sense because the people you'd disagree with can exile you, block your gainful employment, they can excommunicate you if they don't like what you're saying, and from all of those angles survival tends to be the much bigger concern than integrity. The problem with that last point of course is when we all decide to go with a lie and socially enforce it we create a hostile environment for pursuit of further truth and nuance and that sort of thing tends to stunt the progress of knowledge.

From personal experience - when you are driven to the edge, and multiple times (thanks family) you start to look for alternative reasoning to logical answers. i.e. you think there’s a driving force behind everything, and believe there is a reason behind it, because why else would such horrible things happen? And when you believe that, crap like fairies, religious crap and all the bundle that goes with it becomes completely real.

Just my twopence.

“Alternative reasoning” leads to “alternative facts”, which have a tendency to shatter when confronted with reality. That may well be the mechanism, but by following it, you only hurt yourself even more. You’re better off learning to resist it.

LTNS Spiderpig.

I’ve learnt my lesson, albeit harshly.

I think there’s a reason people dying, and people mourning from that turn to religion. Not that anybody around me died, but my family ditched me and it hurt like hell. It still does. Emotional trauma, other people gaslighting and scapegoating a person seriously messes up even the most logical person’s brain. Being treated that way is one of the most traumatic things that has ever happened in my life. I would compare it to being ditched romantically. I never ever thought my family would stop loving me and actively avoid me, and purposely go out of their way to hurt me and make me feel suicidal, on multiple occasions. I’ve never experienced such hatred from anyone.

ergo...fairies are real!

If fairies were real, I would have some messed-up fun with them.

Fairy: "Hey! I'm stuck! What is this?"
Me: "It's a web. Now tell me where Lucky makes his Lucky Charms cereal and I may set you free."
Fairy: "What? I don't know who you are talking about! Please let me go!"
Me: "Not talking eh? Here comes the spider!"
Fairy: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

If the government gets mad at me for feeding fairies to spiders, I'll just tell them that the fairies are a communist fifth column trying to destroy America. Then, I'll be legally allowed to use enhanced interrogation ... which may or may not involve the use of DDT.

If you think that enhanced interrogation is the same thing as torture ... then you are an America-hating communist! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Overall, I just plain hate fairies because they defy rationalistic biological classification. Are they vertebrates or are they arthropods? Their anatomy makes no sense in either case.

If I discovered that fairies were real, I would fight for the legalisation of DDT.

What??? Fairies ARE real. My wife is at least part fairy if not all fairy. That is the only rational explanation for her awesomeness. Plus that thing that happens when she gets mad...

Actual footage:

And at Fillory...