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Welcome to The Secular Gospel According to Jess! In this blog you’ll find everything from cartoons that make me laugh, to quotes that inspire me, to stories of my own personal experience when it comes to dealing with religion and pretty much everything in between. The title of my blog is intended to be ironic, as one doesn’t often hear the word, “gospel”, associated with secularism, but my intent is to preach, for lack of a better word, what I think gospel should really be about: love, rationalism, fairness, equality, human rights, science and truth. Enjoy!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Nature vs. Nurture?

I don't think I have ever met a really religious person who was not brought up, from infancy, to be religious.

I have, however, met many agnostics and atheists who were raised religious and broke away from it, realizing that they believed what they did because they were told to believe it, but that they could discover other ways of thinking on their own.

I have NEVER met anyone who was raised in a secular household whom, upon reaching adulthood, became a devout believer in God. (Though I make an exception for anyone who has struggled with drug abuse or alcoholism and has enrolled in a 12 step program where they are taught, at a very low, desperate point in their lives, that they cannot get better and let go of their addiction without the help of God.)

Doesn't this suggest that it is not that we are born with a need or desire for God, but that it is through indoctrination from an early, impressionable age, that we learn to need and desire Him?

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