Before I answer your question, I need to make a couple of things clear. I grew up in a christian fundamentalist family. Like most children who grew up in such environment, I grew up being a christian fundamentalist. When I was about 19-20 or so, I began to have serious doubts about my faith in the judeo-christian god. This shift in attitude could be attributed to 2 things: my increasing love for people and spending many after-school hours talking to my philosophy professor. I am now an atheist.
That said, the answer to your question is quite simple. It is the same answer why children who grew up under the Pol Pot regime were able to commit atrocious acts while they were still under 12 or so. It is the same answer why nazi youths were able to commit such atrocious acts against the Jews under the nazi regime. It is the same answer why when I was in college I saw 8 year olds holding "god hates fags" signs among christian protesters.
The answer is get them while they're still young! Kids don't know any better! You drill nonsensical things into their heads when they were young and they will grow up believing in nonsensical things!
Any sane adult would tell you that killing every man, woman, and child in a city is immoral. Any sane adult would tell you that people can't live in whales. Any sane adult would tell you that women can't get pregnant without being contact with human sperm. But wait! they all make perfect sense if you said they're from the bible. Then suddenly, we have a whole population of "sane" adults believing that killing every man, woman, and child in a city is moral, that people can indeed live in whales, and that women egg could be fertilized without a human sperm.
Here are a series of videos that should at least partially answer why people have such faith in religious texts.
You can find and watch the rest of the videos. Just how do you think these kids will turn out when they grow up?
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