jar writes:
If you had been brought up in a religious environment that encouraged questioning any and all facets of faith, and one where the leaders had not tried to insist that obvious falsehoods like the Flood or Garden of Eden or the Exodus myth or the Tyre prophecy were fact, would it have made a difference?
In my case, no. I grew up with non-literalist Christianity, and left it. I see your point, as there's actually nothing in scientific knowledge that really cuts directly across the beliefs of my childhood, but reason and general knowledge are a problem for all religions, and I think that the concept of religious faith is the enemy of reason and any serious search for truth.
If all Christians were brought up in an environment that "encouraged questioning of any and all facets of faith", as you put it, Christianity would not last very long as a widespread belief. The same goes for other religions. They rely on indoctrinating children to perpetuate themselves. That's why, fairly obviously, we can accurately predict that the majority of children growing up in the U.S. now will consider themselves Christians when they're 21 years old, the majority in India, Hindus, and the majority in Egypt, Muslims, etc.
I don't think Christianity can perpetuate itself for too long in the west either by being literal or liberal. It's doomed either way.
™ Version 4.2
