Just for one instance, try to imagine the brainpower wasted on prayer throughout history. Let's say 20 billion people throughout the life of our species believed in one form of Flying Spaghetti Monster or another. Their individual lives averaged 40 years of which they spent 30 years following the strands of pasta to nowhere.
30 years, 365 days, 8760 hours/5840 waking hours
20 billion people from age 10 have wasted 11,680,000,000,000 hours creating or following tangled strands of spaghetti that lead nowhere. That's the mistake that I suspect should be addressed. Imagine what the world would be if all that brainpower was used on fact based reasoning.
