Our brains defend our tribe ferociously. an evolutionary adaptation from back in Adam and Eve’s day. Where if you didn’t agree that marriage was between a Man and a Woman, your tribe would just let the wolves eat you.

We see ourselves as objective truth seekers. Carefully measuring evidence and coming to the most logical conclusion. Looking around, we see others coming to wildly different conclusions. At which point, we assume that we are just smarter.

Now, totally unrelated, but here’s some observations about Utah from a BYU fan. (Totally objective and evidence based.)

1. The U is a place for the Mormon counter culture to coalescence and greatly exaggerate the trials and tribulations from living in a conservative, religious state. The amplifying effect is so great, they convince themselves that not being able to buy booze on a Sunday will go down in history with Jim Crow laws.

2. Because of these vicious persecution, yewts are justified in ridiculing or belittling Mormons. They hate it when fans from other schools assume they are Mormons. That’s BYU!! Not us!!

3. Despite this, there are a lot of ALUF’s out there. Mostly because they couldn’t get in to BYU. They see BYU as prideful hypocrites that give everyone else in the church a bad name. They downplay the hate for the church coming out of their school. They are also convinced the brethren will shut down the sports program at BYU any day now.

4. When Utah got invited to the PAC12, they finally had the evidence to prove they were the better school. In sports at least. “In your face little brother! Always thinking you are Better than us. Now we know we are better than you!”

When BYU got the Big 12 invite, they worked hard to slander the entire “truck-stop”conference. But then their own conference imploding, largely due to their own AD being a terrible negotiator. At which point, they had to accept the Big 12 conference. Where all the schools hated them because of their outspoken belligerence. “But just you wait!!, you’ll hate BYU soon!”