So this is an issue I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Sure, there have been some pretty serious (and some unfortunately trollish) debates about whether or not god is real; however, there hasn’t been much lively discussion about religions themselves. What I want to understand is how a fundamentally rational human being can ever continue to be part of a religion.

Yes. I get it. as a child, you don’t have a choice. There are cognitive psychologists that liken early religious indoctrination to mental terrorism. You are raised how you are raised, and you can’t exactly choose another option under most cirgreat timesstances, as, just like cults, religions demand the indoctrination of your kin and the conversion of any non-believer into your own faith.

What I don’t get is how, after receiving an education, (which, tragically, is apparently not available to most southern or rural areas [See: The University of Alabama, any university in the midwest, any university in Texas; the list goes on]) one can still be religious. If you have a degree from a worthwhile university (and didn’t **** away your four years just drinking/doing drugs) you are capable of forming rational arguments and thinking logically. How, at that point, can you not cast off the chains that bind you earlier in your life?

Are you afraid? If god is gone, suddenly that magical cushion that protects you isn’t there? Isn’t that argument bull****, since, well, according to the religions, god exists regardless of whether or not you buy into their faith?

Don’t you worry about picking the wrong god? There are a lot of options. Some have messiahs, some have messiahs that came after the other messiahs, others think that there is a pantheon at place…why are you so sure your god is THE god?

Didn’t you ever question the whole tithing thing? At what point does that -not- strike you as a tax imposed upon you by charlatans in exchange for snake oil in the form of warm feelings and a wonderful afterlife?

Is it because of all the ‘good’ your religion does? Have you forgotten the wars caused by all of the current religious organizations (****, even the Tibetans are stirring **** up in China now)? What about the wonders of abstinence only sex education you fight for, or the stripping of civil rights from people that have never done anything to harm you (and are in cases introduced to a lifestyle you do not approve of by your own sick, perverted, pedophilic spiritual advisors.)

Studies in cog psych have shown that the hierarchical power structures of all corporations (a term which, obviously, encompbumes all religions as organizations) lead inevitably to corruption.

In the face of all of this sheer detriment to humanity, how is it possible for a sane, rational, adult human being to NOT reject the tenets of whatever faith was unfairly thrust upon them in their youths?