Question

[robvalue]

Rob, that makes perfect sense to everyone who isn't infected with the mind virus ...

Yeah I'm sure it's going to sound blunt and outrageous from the other side, but there's no way round it. I don't say it to insult people, it's just calling it as I see it, and hopefully getting people to think things through.

I think that the religious beliefs become ingrained and people are emotionally dependent on them. Then they construct all kinds of rationalisations as to why it's reasonable to have such beliefs. They then manage to convince themselves that it's the other way round, that they came to those beliefs through some sort of unbiased evaluation. But it almost always just so happens to be the beliefs they were taught as children.

I know what it's like, I've experienced it myself, just not in a religious setting. Things that happened in my childhood have shaped my beliefs about myself, and it has taken me all of my adult life to be able to challenge them. They still haunt me even now, and I find myself saying things I objectively know aren't true and can't be true, but I emotionally believe them anyway. It's the same with religion, it favours feelings over logic, and the feelings will always win because the religious belief is drilled down so far into the brain that it's become part of it.