Question for those not raised in religious homes

[AFTT47]

I was raised by parents who didn't talk about religion but by a grandmother who did.

I went to a Catholic kindergarten and attended Catechism for the first several years after secular school.

My experience leads me to strongly believe in the theory that our brains are hard-wired for emotional conviction over logical conviction.

No 5-year-old is engaging in rational, critical thinking. But at that age, I clearly recall wondering why the hell these old women in penguin suits were feeding me these incredibly ridiculous stories. I didn't take them seriously for a moment. I was simply befuddled as to why I was being told them.

I believed in God at this point - just as I believed in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. I had been told those stories by adults and had no reason to disbelieve them. I just didn't make the connection between the obvious fantasy stories of Genesis and God. They seemed like two different things. I accepted one as truth and the other as obvious fairy tales.

I was somewhere around 12-years-old when I realized (much to my shock) that the adults around me considered the biblical stories as fact. It suddenly became obvious to me that God was as ludicrous as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy.

So to answer your question. I'm really not sure. I was exposed to religion early but it was largely not enforced by my parents. I think emotionally, I could never accept religion. Not because I'm smart but because I'm emotionally deposed to favor logic.

Google "The Accidental Mind" to see where I'm coming from. It is a book about the brain written by a neuroscientist who makes the case that our brain is a hodgepodge gaggle of evolution. Far from being miraculous or perfect, it is a mess that we should be greatfull works at all. Most interesting to me is the finding that we are physiologically incapable of thinking purely logically. Every thought is processed through an emotional filter.

Atheists are not necessarily smarter than theists. We are simply more emotionally driven to favor a logical world-view.

So, was my emotional predisposition to science and logic influenced by parents who didn't shove religion down my throat? I don't think so because my grandmother tried to do it and so did the penguins.

In my case, I don't think it mattered.