Maybe we need to start smuggling seditious rationalist literature into America, because look at the state of our fellow citizens’ minds:

More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion. In a poll of 1700 respondents, 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel.” The responses defied standard class and denominational assumptions about religious belief; the majority held up regardless of denomination, region or education — though the figure was a little lower (37%) among respondents earning more than $150,000 a year.

It’s a weird little article in the interpretation department, too. It keeps saying these numbers indicate something more than belief, and are experiential, whatever that means. It sounds like they are trying to imply that this is something more substantial than just a goofy delusion.

If you ask whether people believe in guardian angels, a lot of people will say, ‘sure.’ But this is different. It’s experiential. It means that lots of Americans are having these lived supernatural experiences.

No it doesn’t.

It means that a lot of Americans are experiencing ordinary, natural chance events and are after the fact, and with no evidence whatsoever, crediting fortunate outcomes to invisible, intangible men with wings in diaphanous robes. It means the culture is so saturated with magical thinking that millions of people are seeing the mundane as the supernatural, in a nicely self-reinforcing lunacy that makes reality a supporting prop for their hallucinations.