Self-enslavement...

It’s inadvisable, of course, to call people stupid for believing propositions which are palpably untrue. I'm aware that criticising - or mocking - irrational beliefs may actually serve to strengthen them. And it's hard to find the words to describe people's willingness to, first, embrace religious beliefs and then to deny themselves the opportunity to leave them behind. It’s intellectual incarceration by choice, like walking into a prison cell, locking the door from the inside, then throwing the keys through the window bars. There must be a simple, elegant metaphor to describe this mindset of self-enslavement; I’ll have to sit down with a thesaurus and see if it comes to me in a ‘eureka’ moment.

Licensed today: the harbour and lighthouse at Maryport, on the Cumbrian coast...