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Like I said, I never had deep thoughts or a serious internal conflict about the whole issue. But (and now we get on topic), I do think I can, in retrospect, identify the 'background' reason why I never believed. What it all comes down to, I think, is an ability to recognize that people can deceive themselves. People fool themselves all the time. Because they lack self-critique, because they lack necessary information, because they are deceived by their limited senses, because they are misled by their prejudices, because they want something to be true so much, that they disregard any indications that it might not be true. Because they are submerged in a culture that has all these properties.
Somehow (it may have been a case of reading the right books or whatever), I came to realise that skepticism and something along the lines of the scientific method were the only ways to seperate pseudo-knowledge from reliable knowledge. An honest attempt to work around our inherent limitations as humans. And pseudo-knowledge was just unsupported opinion and thus totally, completely and utterly uninteresting. As an aside: I feel a mixture of respect and disbelief when I see some of the people 'on my side' discuss religious matters (Trinity, salvation, the Ark...) in here. I'm always immediately reminded about the 'number of angels that fit on the tip of a needle' example. What a complete loss of time, lol. Just the observation that there are so many religions, and that place of birth seems to be the overwhelmingly most important factor which determines to which religion one belongs, was more than enough for me to catalogue religion under 'pseudo knowledge'. How do you decide between religions?
Bottom line: while the fundies always claim that science is arrogant because it claims to explain so many things, I find that the scientific mindset is actually the humble one here. And when I realized this, there was no way back (although I never was 'there', to begin with
This is very nearly exactly my view on this issue, Annafan.
While my parents are believers, unlike yours, my catholic upbringing and my attitude towards it are nearly identical to yours, as well.
"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson
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