The amazing ability of otherwise rational people to be fooled by magical thinking

You might think from the title that this is an anti religion post. It's not.
I am gobsmacked on a daily basis by folks who think that things like national borders and money are real, concrete things. They are no more real than the words i am typing are. These words are symbols, they represent an unspoken agreement between you and i in order to share ideas. But that doesn't make them real. I could type the word sportscar or steak or toothbrush, but none of those things will appear. You can draw whatever lines on a map you want, but it wonk make an impenatrable crack in the earth appear. If people think the piece of paper with a dead president on it is just a piece of paper, then it won't spend anywhere.
Perhaps that is the point. If we hold on to magical thoughts like 'i have x amount of money' or 'my country, sweet land of liberty' then they don't have to admit to the giant con game we've all been played by.