Hell and the Play Nice Christian

[Thumpalumpacus]

This is why the latest international studies from Oxford Uni have concluded that children left alone to develop on a desert island with no outside interference, would come to believe in God, while they would have to be taught atheism.

Support this claim with a link to the study.

From your links:

A three-year international research project, directed by two academics at the University of Oxford, finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife.

The £1.9 million project involved 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries representing a diverse range of cultures. The studies (both analytical and empirical) conclude that humans are predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife, and that both theology and atheism are reasoned responses to what is a basic impulse of the human mind.

You're clearly misrepresenting the study's results (if they are indeed being reported accurately), because nowhere does it indicate that children would come to believe in God, but rather, gods.

And according to your Bible, that dooms them to Hell -- for all eternity, says your Jesus in Matthew.

And:

In a lecture to be given at the University of Cambridge's Faraday Institute on Tuesday, Dr Barrett will cite psychological experiments carried out on children that he says show they instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose.

In one study, six and seven-year-olds who were asked why the first bird existed replied "to make nice music" and "because it makes the world look nice".

Okay, that does sound simplistic enough to pass for Christian theology.

But I'd like to read the study itself. Do you have it on hand? Considering that the Dr Barrett in question is noted for his religious beliefs, I'd suspect bias on his part, especially since he leaps from "children believing that almost everything was designed for a purpose" to this is evidence for God ... a leap you foolishly follow.