The Shoutbox
The animated Tron series is awesome.
"Well I'm sorry to disappoint you but you're gonna live to enjoy all the glorious fruits life has got to offer - acne, shaving, premature ejaculation...and your first divorce."
Originally Posted by Sexy Celebrity
That's fine. You don't have to talk about it. I don't even really care to myself much anymore.
Cannot compute...
Originally Posted by donniedarko
Woah, sexy passed John in shout count
It was inevitable. Dude just won't shut up.
It's going to be a sad day when SC passes Yodas count.
Woah, sexy passed John in shout count
Isn't there a thread for this?
Now, I guess, to a cynical observer, my story probably just looks like a Christian kid inevitably coming to believe what his parents do. But it didn't feel at all inevitable while it was happening, and I've noticed most of the people who advance this explanation regard themselves as exceptions to it. I think it's seductively easy to think of other people's beliefs as determined by superficial things, but our own as being the result of serious consideration.
Originally Posted by Powdered Water
Really? So, you weren't born into any kind of religious family whatsoever? You came to faith entirely on your own? I think this is a pretty important point, actually. Because if you were raised a certain way I tend to think you're totally predisposed to believe certain things and are also more likely to deny other things from outside your group or life circle or whatever. Do you think about that at all?
I'm surprised you have to ask, given that it would take a staggering lack of self-awareness not to think about that, no matter what you believe.

Yes, of course I've thought about that. And when I do, I see that being raised religious has produced some of the most anti-religious people I know. Virtually any standup comic you can think of that rants about religion was raised Catholic. If I had to aggregate it, I'd say being raised a certain way probably makes you more likely to believe it than not, but nowhere near enough to be dispositive. Way too many exceptions.

When I was a teenager, I realized my beliefs were largely habitual, and that I'd never examined them much. So I started to. My old man gave me Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian, and I read it. Then I read Lewis, and it was an absolute revelation. The kind of stuff so brimming with insight that it made me laugh out loud, even though it wasn't funny. That's when I was convinced.
Most people that I know that are non-religious grew up in religious homes.
Originally Posted by Yoda
It's the other way around: I'm religious because I don't find that stuff convincing.
Really? So, you weren't born into any kind of religious family whatsoever? You came to faith entirely on your own? I think this is a pretty important point, actually. Because if you were raised a certain way I tend to think you're totally predisposed to believe certain things and are also more likely to deny other things from outside your group or life circle or whatever. Do you think about that at all?