(December 26, 2015 at 2:16 am)Stimbo Wrote: For me, it's more that I was never exposed to any of this stuff during my formative years. I was encouraged to read from a very early age (my parents taught me to read - and spell, sorry - way before I started school) and I digested masses of information voraciously; one might even say rapaciously. That plus my father encouraging my interest in the night sky meant that I saw the Universe and never the heavens. By the time I read up on how the bible was put together (hint: it wasn't dictated by any god) plus the political rise of religion during tha Dark Age and backed into the forum world via da Vinci (long story), the immunisation was long complete.
Put another way:
I was never taken in by the con trick back when I was alive. I'll be buggered sideways with a rusty chainsaw before I fall for it now.
You appear to have much in common with the Hitchens brothers. They were raised in a non-religious home, and, like you, both were committed atheists well into adulthood.
Yet, while Christopher remained an atheist until his death, Peter became a believer. So, it does happen that adults who were never indoctrinated into belief in God during childhood occasionally come to that position by way of their own mature reasoning.
One other minor point: People who accept the Bible as the "word of God" don't hold that it was dictated by God. It was inspired by God, but the people who wrote it were true authors. The Qur'an, on the other hand, is considered to have been dictated by God to Mohammed word for word.
