college Professor

[Angrboda]

I think there are a few actually important things that you can glean from there this particular spam mail that Christians believe.

1. The likelihood of people to believe something simply because it reinforces their beliefs.

People are amazingly uncritical of things which agree with their viewpoint. It's not just a Christian problem, it's a human one. Our psychological biases are such that belief ratchets itself ever tighter, even in the face of contrary evidence. I would admire people who read sources from all sides of the issue, except I'm extremely skeptical that a) they really do, and b) that it has the effect of "rectifying" their opinions (as noted, bias naturally inclines us to mishandle sources that disagree with us). Me, I'm too lazy. I'll look for the first credible source I can find, and *bam* I post that.

2. Demonizing the education system. This is that science or philosophy doesn't contradict their ideas, but rather it's all just some higher education conspiracy to produce atheists.

Anti-intellectualism is quite popular in conservative religious people. It's sort of a pre-emptive strike I suppose, because intellectuals never have anything good to say about religion. What's that old saying, "If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If both are against you, yell like hell."