For many of us, one of the greatest, and most frustrating, enigmas of the whole "Covid" episode has been trying to understand why vast swathes of the population appear to be so utterly impervious to basic reasoning and rudimentary logic.

Basic logic such as: all the world's ruling classes are openly committed to dramatically reducing the world's population. So, if there really was a "deadly pandemic" threatening to do just that, wouldn't they just let it run its course, rather than moving heaven and Earth - and spending a gargantuan fortune - to prevent it? What possible motivation would the ultra-wealthy 'elites' have for investing colossal sums of money into preserving and prolonging the lives of billions of people, when ,according to said elites, the number one threat facing the world is overpopulation?

It is infinitely more logical to assume that the social architects orchestrating world events are trying to reduce the population, not preserve it, and that they are therefore incentivised to take steps that expedite death, not that prevent it. There's simply no logical argument to be made that our ruling classes - who, again, are all very openly and unashamedly committed to dramatically reducing world population - would spend billions on preserving and extending life. As I've said before, if the Covid injections did what their advocates claim they do, they would be so expensive, no ordinary person would be able to afford them (you know, like healthy food and warm houses).

At the current time, we live in a situation where the essentials of life - food and warmth - are increasingly scarce and expensive (especially in Shanghai, where citizens are currently being held under full house arrest and forced to rely on wildly overpriced and understocked delivery apps for food), whilst experimental injections, concocted by serial felons in a hurry, are freely and widely available. If the ruling classes had any investment whatsoever in protecting and preserving health, they would prioritise essentials (food and warmth) over optional extras (injections). That's just embarrassingly obvious logic. So why is it that so many millions of people just can't see it?

The reason is that most people are fundamentally wired to be motivated, not by reason and logic, but by religion.

At first glance, that may seem a ridiculous statement: after all, some of the most hardcore Covid zealots and vax-happy plague enthusiasts do not belong to any overt religious movement, and many of them are atheists.

But when I say 'religion', I don't just mean conventional, deity-based religions - I mean religion in a wider sense: to quote from the dictionary, "a particular system of faith and worship: a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion."

When you define religion that way, you can see that the die-hard Covid zealots are extremely religious indeed, and that their belief system encompasses religious rituals (daily testing), holy texts (the NHS website and "science"), and sacred sacraments (injections). They also display their devotion with special clothing - just as a devout Muslim may wear a headscarf, a devout Covist wears a mask. And, of course, they worship and elevate to a special pedestal the "high priests" of their religion, doctors and scientists.

This kind of religious scripting can be applied to multiple different movements, and, in many circumstances, it can be benign and often beneficial. Religion has evolved in every human society all throughout the ages because it has benefits - it can be used to promote social order and advancement, as everyone is united under a shared belief which makes them more likely to cooperate and work together. It seems that human beings are fundamentally religious for this reason: because a shared belief system forms a basis for a level of unity and therefore collaboration and progress, that would be much more difficult if everyone had separate, independent, and conflicting beliefs.

When you have a sane society with non-psychopathic leaders, then the constituent members of that society being united under a system of shared beliefs, is a healthy and desirable thing. People who deviate from those beliefs - literal 'deviants' - are a threat to the stability and sustainment of that society, because the more different beliefs there are, the more divided, unstable, and ultimately vulnerable to collapse, the society becomes (hence the huge success of 'divide and conquer' as a military tactic).

So, here is the central issue: those of us who are able to employ dispassionate reason and logic to analyse the current situation are perceived by the ultra-religious masses as a threat to the very fabric of society, because we are not invested in their belief system. They possess fundamental religious hardwiring to fear and despise people who think differently to them - since, in a sane society, dissidents and deviants challenging the beliefs that hold the society together, would be a very real threat.

This is why, traditionally, "heretics" and "blasphemers" have been so detested and reviled - and, not uncommonly, persecuted to the death. It's because questioning dominant religious orthodoxies, whatever they happens to be at any given time, is perceived as a huge threat to the continued existence of the society that promulgates those orthodoxies.

Because most people are not sophisticated thinkers, religions of any stripe have to be quite simplistic in their basic "commandments", e.g. "don't do that or you'll go to hell". This is because, if your aim is to promote social unity, then you need very simplistic messaging in order to gain compliance from as many people as possible. So, with the Covid religion, we have "get the vaccine or you'll die", "wear a mask or you're selfish" and so on. Very simplistic, dogmatic, and black and white messaging.

This kind of incantation - literally, repetitive mantras - is central to religious cults, as it triggers the religious fundamentalism that does seem to be hardwired in many people. These people seem to like and respond to forcefully dogmatic, strong and simple messages (and as I say, there are solid social and cultural reasons why this might be).

But of course, the binary opposite of religious fundamentalism and extremism of any stripe, is logic and reason. All fundamentalist movements - whether we're talking Jihads or trans extremists - rely on illogical fantasies, and the suspension of reason in favour of "faith", to survive. A man is a woman because he says so. The virgins are waiting in heaven because God put them there. Deep investment in religious fundamentalism, to the extent it motivates extreme action (whether suicide bombing or suicide injections), is completely reliant on the suspension of reason and logic.

That is why no amount of data and facts you present to devout Covists will make a single scrap of difference to their beliefs. For the same reason trying this approach with any religious zealot or evangelist won't. As they say, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, and belief in Covid and all its attendant symbology and sacraments is not based in reason, it's based in religion. This is why people push for continued mask wearing, lockdowns, and endless injections, even when the evidence is overwhelming that none of these things work. It's because they believe these things are symbolically good: religiously good.

If you are someone whose world view is not shaped by a powerful religious force (and again, I'm not talking exclusively or primarily about deity-based religions), then you are very unusual, because most people's are. The way you know if you're part of a religious movement is the degree of parity (and parroting...) within your circle. Covists all have exactly the same beliefs - masks must be worn, tests must be taken, needles must be injected. Equally, the anti-Russia religion currently gaining rapid momentum (and disciples) has clear commandments and shared beliefs, too - Putin bad, Zelensky good, Ukrainians martyrs, Russians evil, etc. There's no room for nuance or variation. Everyone has to think and profess exactly the same thing.

What is unique about "conspiracy theorists" as a large social group is that, unlike almost all other large social groups, "conspiracy theorism" is definably not a religion, because every person within the group has distinct beliefs (which they often argue about, endlessly...). Some believe Covid is a complete hoax and doesn't exist at all: some believe it does exist, but is far less serious than the government claims. Some have another permutation of beliefs. And that's the same with all issues about which "conspiracy theories" exist - the conspiracy theorists that discuss them don't agree, there's no parity or overall deep unity within the "conspiracy community", and that is what distinguishes it as a non-religious movement - and why the constituent members of that movement have such a hard time understanding why they can't get through to "normies".

It's because they're religious zealots and you're not (you may belong to a conventional, deity-based religion, as many "conspiracy theorists" do, but this is a far cry from fundamentalism and cultism as characterises Covism).

Indeed, this may actually be perceived as a weakness of the "conspiracy" community - that we're not more organised and impactful because we're not united: we disagree on too much and (as is human nature) find it difficult to put powerful differences aside "for the greater good". As I say, social orchestrators across the ages have understood just how vital shared beliefs are for the stability and longevity of a society, which is why dissidents and deviants, heretics and blasphemers, have always been perceived as such threats.

The bottom line is that being devoutly religious ('religious' as defined at the beginning of the article) is extremely common: the standard, the status quo. If you operate from a different belief system, one based on reason and logic, data and facts, you are very unusual indeed, and that's the fundamental, immovable obstacle we will always encounter when trying to get through to "normie" Covid culists.

You cannot reason someone out of their religion. And when it comes down to it, religion is a far more powerful and passionate motivator than reason is. Millions of people don't go to war over reason. Hundreds of generations don't shape their most profound life events around reason. People don't build temples to reason, or worship effigies extolling logic. People are fundamentally religious, not fundamentally reasonable. The social controllers understand this implicitly, and that is exactly why they've been able to orchestrate the Covid pantomime and get away with it: by appealing to people's powerful religious instincts, rather than their, generally far less developed, reasonable ones.

Ultimately, the future belongs to those who are able to understand the religious inclinations of the vast majority - but, unlike the overlords, harness these for good.