"They Told Us to Just Believe" (Critically thinking about the origins of beliefs - Are they real?) explores the difference between religious beliefs that are factual and those that are something else entirely - it combines religious history and critical thinking to help readers of all beliefs to have "not-so-blind faith." More broadly, getting better at differentiating between what is real, what is fantasy, and what is unknowable makes us savvier about misinformation, less likely to be fooled or taken advantage of by others, and it makes us more tolerant.

I wrote this book for people like me, raised in a religion, and also for those raised in a non-religious family. We all "inherit" some beliefs and, to some extent, blindly believe or follow them. In my case, I always had some doubts - the sneaky suspicion that maybe this stuff, these beliefs, were fabricated. But I was persuaded to keep believing. You may have had some of these same reservations about your beliefs.

Never in the history of the world have we had so much knowledge available, and such a high level of literacy. There is no longer an excuse for people to be blindly led by their leaders because of illiteracy and ignorance which was a common occurrence for thousands of years.

Most books written on the topic of religion and beliefs approach it from a philosophy of religion point of view about what you should think, or from an atheist point of view trying to prove why religions are idiotic and evil, or from a theologian or world religions history professor point of view who teach how wonderful all religions are in their own way. This book is more pragmatic and primarily goes after the question - "What's real and what's not?"