religion-is-a-mental-illness: www.reddit.com/user/exfunadamentalistI understand where everyo
religion-is-a-mental-illness: https://www.reddit.com/user/exfunadamentalistI understand where everyone comes from with the whole ‘don’t debate creationists because it gives them money and legitimacy’ argument but its not always the case.I was raised a fundamentalist, bible-thumping, tongue-speaking, young-earth-believing creationist christian. The indoctrination is wildly successful. If you keep those kids away from the legitimate scientific facts of evolution and just teach them bastardizations that dumb down the science and simplify arguments down to ‘if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys,’ the kids are satisfied and they don’t ask questions.BUT (I wish I could capitalize bigger) if those kids are exposed to the legitimate scientific evidence that they had never been exposed to, it begins a slow process of poking holes in what they once believed as fact. They were programmed to not question anything because everything is explained by god. As soon as a shred of doubt starts in their minds, everything starts caving in. They begin to question the things they once believed were unquestionable facts.Not once in my childhood and early teens did I question the story of Noah’s Ark. We weren’t raised to question things. I took it as truth and proof of 'god’s wonders.’ Then someone mentioned something about plants being underwater for a year, freshwater fish not being able to survive, the amount of water on earth not being enough to cover the planet. That was all it took to begin the process of asking questions.I saw kids in the seats at the creation museum during the debate and I’m sure some were watching online. I guarantee there were some impressionable youths that had never questioned anything about the stories of the bible until last night and last night a shred of doubt was planted and their natural curiosity that has been suppressed for most of their life is starting to fire back up again today.It’s not always about winning the debate. A lot of times, all that’s necessary is planting the seed and natural curiosity takes it from there. That’s just my opinion from my experience though.TL;DR It’s hard to understand the viewpoint of an indoctrinated fundamentalist youth without having been one.This is why believers try to manipulate non-believers into remaining silent: ”you talk about god so much you must believe; if you didn’t believe, you wouldn’t talk about him,” “you must have so much hate in your heart to disrespect people’s beliefs,” “why would you want to take away something that gives people peace?”They know that people can just think their way out of these beliefs. Anything could be the chip that makes the crack that becomes the fracture that ultimately shatters someone’s faith.Never shut up. It makes a difference. -- source link