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As a student you don't get to see much evidence of the validity of what you're being taught. Sure you can do some experiments, but you have to trust most of wha
by afandian 14y ago
As a student you don't get to see much evidence of the validity of what you're being taught. Sure you can do some experiments, but you have to trust most of what you learn from the high-priests of education. I'd say that for a good chunk of education the material has to be taken on trust of authority. It's not really functional to prove everything from first principles, especially before you know the subject!
Of course, once you get to a certain level you can prove all the bits of science you want to prove and you can challenge a religious person to prove the validity their teaching (and see how far you get) but by then I'd imagine the individual has made up their mind one way or the other on religion.
I'd put more credence in the "the penalties for speaking out are much lower" suggestion.
- thorum 14y agoI don't think one needs an advanced knowledge of theology (or science) to reject religion: most of it just isn't relevant to the fundamental question "what makes us think God even exists, anyway?" And more to the point, while I only have a general knowledge of physics, I can Google "how do we know atoms exist" and get a pretty convincing answer, and I can search for good arguments saying atoms don't exist and come up empty. None of this is first-hand proof, of course - but it would be pretty compelling evidence. Can the same be said for theism?
- afandian 14y agoCan the same be said of your fellow-humans' inquisitiveness at a young, formative age?