My uncle got that way. Reasoning was impossible, his opinion was the end all, at least to him. My wife's cousin who has a PHD in psychiatry now believes that the earth is the center of the universe. I haven't asked him what he thinks of progression and regression of the planets. I'm sure it's because god made it that way. Ignorance or denial of reality is now the new norm, a feature. I see plenty of it here in the hinterlands of VA. It's not uncommon, even among the educated.