The Comfortable Alien

[RobbyPants]

Is religion hard to let go of because it’s a habit?
...
Could it be tradition?
...
But then tradition isn’t really getting to the root of the question. I think maybe identity is the key here.

It's a lot of things, really. Any religion that survives for thousands of years has developed ways of keeping people in the fold. It's not an accident. Here is something I wrote when I joined TheThinkingAtheist:

When you think about it, Christianity has a lot of pretty good safeguards built into it:

• Teach kids when they're young enough to believe in Santa.
  
• Tell adults that doubt is normal, and everyone experiences it.
  
• Tell them that any dissenting point of view is just another lie from The Deceiver. Even (no, especially) if it sounds reasonable.
  
• Threaten them with a super-scary, non-falsifiable punishment system.
  
• Also, for good measure, strongly encourage them to primarily hang around people with similar points of view.
  

I mean, you have to break free of all of those to stop believing. Even if you get through several layers, any one of them can pull you right back in in such a way that you have to break through them all again.



Also, welcome!