Research has found that some people are actually born with a predisposition for believing in God (no hope for those buggers, is there?)
"The underlying tendency to spirituality is partially heritable and part of this heritability can be attributed to the gene VMAT2. This gene acts by altering monoamine levels and spirituality provides an evolutionary advantage by providing individuals with an innate sense of optimism."
In other words, some people inherit what has come to be known as "The God Gene".
Then there is the rest of the population born without this gene who "develop" a sense of spiritualism. You have well-meaning parents who may think it is the right thing to send the kids to Sunday school each week and of course, they get spiritualism by means of societal pressure. Being young and impressionable, most kids will take on board some of the myths learnt in thy hallowed hall of worship. In any case, we get to find out later that it was all just a bit of a ruse on the part of parents who just want a bit of "quality time" with each other on Sunday mornings.
We also get cultural pressures influencing kids to socialise and attend religious functions and accept the presence of God as a given...."Derrr, well they're grown-ups so they must know what they are talking about".
My experience is that I was fortunate enough not to have inherited the God gene but, like other normal kids I went through the same gauntlet of spirituality. Walking down the street, we would never dare step on a crack in the pavement for fear of being cast off into the black hole. Whenever we walked past "the witch's house" we would hold our breaths otherwise we would catch the plague. Then there was the (church-sponsored) boys club. At the end of the evening, the pastor would pace up and down with a red face shouting out brimstone and fire and an eternity in Hell if we did not repent and we could be struck down at any moment. I would race home and quickly lock the door behind me; pretty scary stuff that was.
Then I grew up.
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