It was pretty obvious he was saying that humans, instinctually, are afraid of change. Changing beliefs is a hard thing to do (internally or externally). When someone "chooses" a way of thinking they have a lot of trouble accepting anything but.

Hypothetically, if coffee were directly linked to heart disease after 10 years, would you still drink it? If someone casually mentioned it to you in a cafe would you believe them? Would you want to know the truth? Does it matter how bad it is for you?

Religion has, in some ways, been a plague on society. Not so much for the belief but rather for the resistance to anything but a person's belief. That is what religious persecution is and it's not far off from wood smoke.