the slippery "F" word - my solution

[Amethyst]

not half but about 90% of the US. As for calling it brainwashing - I wouldn't quite agree, since when we talk about brainwashing this implies a party who is "sane" feeding the other one false information on purpose, and, while I'm sure there are secretly-atheistic priests most of the time I think the parents/priests/community probably believe it themselves. But if you want to include those people as well then what about just a few hundred years ago when basically everyone was a theist and there were no alternatives in society? what about tribes with no contact with the outside world- are their views about the world brainwashing, or or perhaps more simply they don't know any better? And perhaps we have some facts about the nature of the universe wrong that might be corrected in the next decades or hundreds of years - that would then also have to be included.

I think it's better to use the Meme and idea-organism analogies to describe what is happening.

I disagree, as one who was formerly brainwashed in the Lutheran church. I also was forced to go to a religious school til 6th grade, when I begged my parents to let me go to the public school because I was being bullied, and my idiotic religious teachers did nothing when I told them what was going on.

Brainwashing = the repeating of ideas on a day in, day out basis, which does happen when one is forced to endure it daily at school.

Here's my example. Say there is an island with no contact of the outside world. The island teaches every child from birth onward that the sky is purple. Now, the sky happens to be really blue.

Let's say that a shipwreck survivor arrives on the island, and hears the villagers talking about the purple sky. (For the purposes of this story, let's assume they just happen to speak the same basic language, and they have concepts of both blue and purple.) He tries to correct them and tell them it is really blue, but is laughed at.

A couple of weeks later, the survivor finds 2 flowers. One is blue, one is purple. He shows them to the villagers. The villagers, being brainwashed, argue that the purple flower is the color of the sky even though the blue flower matches the sky perfectly.

Let's also add, that the villagers dare not go against what their teachings say because they believe if they admit the sky is another color other than purple, they will be struck by lightning and killed instantly.

This is what arguing with Christians is like, and it's why I try not to do it anymore because it tends to give me headaches.