A word of advise – priests are paid to lie, and the biggest lie of all is the concept of god. When you are ready for truth rather than superstitious lies, come back here.

Second, it’s funny when atheists come up with a great theory about religion that is actually a PART of religion. Umm, you know that a lot of religious people use the words “mother” or “father” or some variation when referring to their god? It doesn’t take critical thinking to come up with this theory.:) But I do definitely agree. I think that most people are much more comfortable when the rules to the game are supplied for them by an authority. Most people cringe at the idea of anarchy and envision people running in the streets murdering each other. I think they feel much the same way about a world with no god. How could we possibly get on? How could there be any meaning? It’s too much work to have to come up with values and morals on our own and much easier to trust someone more powerful to sort everything out.

Now that I have toddler, I find myself thinking a lot about how I’m going to teach her – not only critical thinking but also the kind of habits and social behaviors that will most likely set her up for a happy life. It is a challenge to figure out how to teach a child ANYthing without teaching them to obey authority at the same time. Obeying authority is not necessarily the lesson I aim to teach her, but there are some things she would much better learn through my experiences than her own. It is quite a challenge to ponder, and the outcome probably just as much depends on her personality as it does my efforts. I do think that most parents give in and use their authority a LOT, and most kids are afraid to question it until the teen years (they get yelled at for “talking back” when they do!). So begins the religious personality. And I think it’s critical to teach my daughter something other than the religious personality, so I guess I’ll be talking to myself in the shower for years to come in preparation for all those discussions that are in our future!

I agree most heartily with your post. Over the past years, I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about human nature that results in people everywhere being so religious. One of the factors that I think is involved is “a credulous childhood”, as you described above. As children, not only do we trust in the authority of parents, but we must trust in their authority if we are to survive. When they say “don’t go in the woods, there’s a tiger”, or “don’t chase a ball into the street”, there’s a very strong selective pressure for believing those warnings. So we are saddled with this inclination to trust parental authority, even when it is no longer appropriate.