Reply #42: Yes, but I wouldn't put it that way. My parents sincerely believed it

[NAO]

and so neither they nor I considered it "indoctrination" any more than teaching me that 2 + 2 = 4 is "arithmetic brainwashing" or telling me that if I jumped off a building I would fall to the ground is "shoving gravity down my throat".

Now unlike eeyore, I am unapologetically anti-religion. My threads are usually very harshly critical of religion. But that's because I believe that the tenants of religion are not true. It has nothing to do with how it was presented to me as a child and everything to do with the fact that it is talking about the way the world is - and the world is not that way.

I am of course referring to religions that make statements about the world - such as "this book was written by god" or "after death, some people go to heaven and others go to hell, based on whether they call god by the correct name" or "god created the universe and he is all powerful and all knowing". I have no beef with religions that are merely poetic or aesthetic responses to the world.