Theism is literally childish

[Whateverist]

It doesn't apply to true generalizations, remember?

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He didn't infer that. He said he would hope that that wasn't what you meant. In truth he very reasonably left all options open for you but you chose to pick the one that made him look the most unfavorable.

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I agree. Thankfully the OP is claiming that theism is childish, not that theists are childish.

I don't think you're a childish person, for example, I think your belief in God is a childish belief, but there's a lot more about you as a person than your theism. You are clearly a mature adult.

The thread title is calling theism childish, but the entire post itself is full of assertions and generalizations about theist people themselves.

I am curious to hear why this doesn't break the recent rule against provocation and rash generalization. Im not complaining or anything, and I'm not going to reported it. Just curious.

Well, it is speculative and doesn't give any citations.  Funny how I didn't notice at first because it is logical even if built up on generalizations as you say.  Sounds like you were provoked.  I can see why but I suppose many of us think something like this, and I imagine it feels as condescending as do most apologists.  

Somehow things like this need to come up in order for people to realize their stereotype is hurtful and less universally applicable than one assumes.  A challenge for that rule I think.

Though I do think religion can have an infantilizing effect on believers, I don't think all succumb to it.  People are pretty resilient and we all rise to many challenges.

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Hey, way to make it personal.  No one singled you out.  She is just looking hypothetically at what the fallout of religious indoctrination appears to be.

I am characterising the phenomenon of organised religion.

This is different to saying that theists are by nature immature, but religious indoctrination is counter-productive to the maturation process of becoming a fully independent adult.

The question I'd like to interest Mathilda in is this: why is religious indoctrination the way of the world?  What survival value favored human groups which passed along such beliefs to their offspring and how might religious practices have influenced the sort of mammal we've become, what we call our humanity?

I believe it is a symptom of how our brains work. Brains generally seek the easiest solution when presented with some need. Whether that's to maintain homoeostasis, or to achieve something that ultimately achieves this. We see this as progress in society as everything becomes more efficient and redundancy is eliminated.

But sometimes this can lead to taking a short cut that comes at a greater cost by hacking our own brains. Take stress for example. You can change your life-style to reduce stress and do some meditation, or you can pour yourself a whisky or consume cannabis. The former is the better method in the long run but takes more effort. Some people take narcotic drugs when their life is painful and / or tedious and this can form an addiction when the better method my be to seek counselling and face up to whatever trauma is affecting you. I fully agree that religion is the opiate of the masses, almost quite literally because a good church service can lead to the release of endorphins, opioids, seratonin etc and can lead to many of the same highs that are triggered by drugs. Religious attendance is essentially brain hacking. Outsourcing your moral decision-making process to reduce doubt and uncertainty is a similar shortcut to drinking a dram of whisky to reduce stress. But it's more similar to a drug addiction that affects that rest of society because organised religion always seeks to ensure your continued attendance through a conditioned fear of hell while at the same time using their believers to expand its power base by spreading ignorance.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. It just a matter of who picks up the bill.

Thank you for this. I completely agree about singling out organized religion for being an easy way out. Prior to organized religion, there was direct religious experience. But the way of the shaman was often painful and risky, though also cathartic. In some primitive cultures the shaman would undergo the risks and everyone else would apparently derive some benefit, leastwise the institution seems to have been respected - though I can't tell you where I picked up that impression exactly.

Maybe direct religious experience puts us in touch with something more primal, more grounded in our mammalian nature than our hypothetically inclined rational mind? In the end, just as people found they could make do with vicariously witnessing one individual in the band undergoing the experience, perhaps organized religion is an attempt to synthesize that experience into an even safer, more convenient form? I don't think it is potent enough to satisfy us and there are other ways to get there as you intimate with drugs, alcohol, dance, art, risk taking, etc.