Oh the irony. Technically though, some atheist-humanist groups do have their version of church. Not sure they sing the praises of science or anything but they recognize the social benefits of church.
And a lot of people preach without it having anything to do with a religion. Health food advocates, for example, or doctors, or environmentalists, or ... But really, the saying is not confined to religion. I think everyone knows it just means exhorting people who already agree with you.
In all honesty, I think your message would carry a lot more weight if you were to really criticise the flaws of Christian culture, and if you made it into a non-fiction account. Is there any reason why it has to be fiction? It's just not the kinda thing that's terribly easy to write in fiction. In my experience, allegorical stories are notoriously hard to write. I've tried, and trying screwed up my entire manuscript. I'm glad to see you started this thread though - shows me you're thinking and you genuinely want your book to be a good one, beyond simply hammering a message. If I may give you my two cents, you need to truly understand something before you can really critique it. That means trying to understand why Christians do what they do and think what they think. There are a number of critical Christians I've met in my life - people who are open to think and criticise their own religion. In my opinion, these are the people you'd probably want to target. People who may already see something's off but may not always know exactly what, or may be looking for an alternative way of thinking without necessarily betraying their faith. For this reason also, it would be unwise for you to antagonise the religious groups. Btw, I'm a Christian I still go to church every week and my own mother's a preacher. In fact, both of my parents are currently studying a laypreacher's course with the Baptist Union (the umbrella authority over the Baptist denomination in the UK). I grew up going to church. Much of my teenage life was occupied by youth groups, Bible studies, church weekends away, retreats, Christian camps, outreach events etc. Heck I probably went to church 3-4 times a week, every week thanks to these activities, and went to 2 Sunday services regularly as our church had a regular morning service, and then an evening service, which eventually became a regular youth service (the youth ran it and arranged the talks and music and drinks etc). I've been part of running/volunteer for such youth services before. And I'm saying, if you wrote a book that honestly, genuinely showed me deep understanding of my religion and from that position of understanding you can offered valid criticisms of it, I'd certainly be interested in reading. I think very likely I'd ideally be one of your target readers, but paint my religion like a caricature of fundamentalism and I'm gonna close the book. Just saying. There are a few things I can think of that discourages you from questioning the Bible. Okay I've written a frigging essay, so I'm putting this in spoiler quotes so I don't take up the entire page. Spoiler I'm not talking about fundamentalism - I'm just talking about regular Christianity. Good, healthy churches. And believe it or not, I grew up being taught that I should always question and make sure things from the Bible are interpreted in context and not supported by only one verse but across the entire book. Questions are encouraged, in this sense. However, there's a circular logic to it. If you question the Bible, another verse from the Bible (or several) will be used as an answer to your question. At that point you're generally expected to simply accept the answer. To question further at that point might make you come across as if you're simply too immature to understand the Bible well, or perhaps you're lacking in faith, or worse, you're "backsliding" or "going astray". The implication is, if you trusted God, then what's in the Bible should be evidence enough for you to believe it. While in good, healthy churches, the people around you do not necessarily make you feel this way, ultimately because of what you believe the Bible to be etc, you feel the pressure to accept the biblical answers anyway. Think of it like this: Questioning the Bible too much = not trusting in God. Not trusting in God = lack of faith. Lack of faith = getting further away from God. Becoming far from God = darkness, death, becoming "lost". All of this implies maybe you don't love God, maybe at all. Maybe you're not even a Christian. This is now shaking the very core of your identity as a person - and that's earth-shattering, if you think about it. Thus, there's immense internal pressure (it's not always from bad influences) to not question too much, I think. I actually say this from experience because more than once I've asked myself if I'm even a Christian, considering I ask so many questions and someone throwing out a Bible verse at me just doesn't cut it anymore. The doubt is intense, and it's coming only from myself - no one's making me feel this way. The core of it comes back down to the whole "salvation by faith" - it's not what you do, but what you believe that identifies you as whether you're a Christian or not. While I do still believe this, what can happen is that by not adhering to your churches or denomination's consensus on what the Bible says about such and such an issue, you feel you're deviating from what you should believe in. And if you deviate from believing as you should, your faith is no longer quite the same. Now if you're identified as a Christian by the faith that you hold - and the host of beliefs that come with this faith - you can see, once more, why it can be detrimental. So when you say "don't trust your holy book over rational thinking" - you're speaking into a lot more than you think. And the thing is, just because I see flaws in the way things are done and the people in the church doesn't necessarily mean I've stopped believing. It's not that I want to leave my God and religion - but I want to see if there's a better way of going about things, of living. Now if I had an answer for this, I think I'd write the book myself lol. As it is, I'm still searching for such an answer. For your book, if you somehow managed to speak into that, rather than simply tell me all things I already know, I'd certainly be interested. Going back to the circular logic of the Bible being evidence enough for all your questions - here's where "Christianese" is likely an equally big problem. Christianese is essentially "Christian jargon" - specialised or technical terms that honestly, you only hear amongst Christians. Some of these words and phrases are picked out of the Bible, others are not. The fault with this is that a lot of the times people cease to know what each other really mean. People are also not encouraged to question these terms so much because it's assumed that everyone understands. When evangelising, Christians are of course encouraged not to speak "Christianese" but to expand on their points. But amongst Christians, Christianese gets used for certain. The first time I noticed this as a flaw was actually quite recent - over Christmas, actually. We were doing a Bible study together and this verse from Romans came up, where it said - and I'll paraphrase: "Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world..." It was a study between myself, my husband and my parents. They went on to talk about how it's important to separate yourself from ways of living and thinking that does not adhere to the Bible but that is nonetheless the norm for the rest of society. My mum gave the example of partners living together outside of marriage - because that's an acceptable way of living amongst non-Christians but that is against the standards of the Bible. (I was immensely grateful she did not bring up gay marriage here...) I offered very little - and my silence was taken as a lack of faith, btw. I know this well, and who knows, maybe my faith is lacking. I'm not convinced my faith is awfully strong considering the sheer amount of issues I seem to have with all this. (btw, this echos what I have already said about questioning the Bible too much and thus being seen as a backsliden Christian - eg. one who is lacking in faith and is not close with God) In any case, the reason why I offered very little was this: in my head, I couldn't get rid of one question. What are the patterns of this world? Here you see what I mean by Christianese - no one thought to even question what was meant by "patterns of this world". No one thought to expand. My mum gave only one example (that of cohabitation). But if we do not properly identify what is meant by "patterns of this world", how are you supposed to "not conform" to it? However, in general, the phrase is taken to mean anything that is against the moral standards of the Bible. It's a broad, sweeping generalisation of what the world is like, in other words, and the need to separate ourselves from its ways and thinking. This is the same reason why you hear so many Christians crying that they're being "persecuted" because gay marriage has been legalised. We see it as another step the world is slipping away from God and His standards, and by our supporting the "right" way, the "true" way (as according to the Bible), we are hated. We're being called bigots, and whatever else. Hence, "persecution". Persecution of Christians certainly exists - in places like North Korea and Nigeria, and other places. But in Europe? Nah. Anyway, from the question on the "patterns of this world", another question came to mind. How can we be sure that our understanding of what is in the Bible is really the right way, and we're applying it correctly? How can we be sure that there aren't some things in the supposed "ways of the world" that are actually - God forbid - closer to how God intended it than us churches have ever managed? But I don't ask these questions - they are complex, and will take a lot of time, and truth be told, I don't particularly want to shine a light on my own "doubts". I don't honestly believe there's a cut and dry answer to my questions, in any case. Black and white answers are for children. So, that's just one example of phrases from the Bible whose meanings aren't generally questioned, and it leads to assumptions - not always a good thing, I think. Christianese go further, however, and is a strong part of Christian culture. Yup there's such a thing as Christian culture. And what happens here is that there're a lot of things people conform to that are not necessarily from the Bible, but they're so ingrained in the things that Christians tend to believe that we all sorta assume it's from the Bible. For example, let's take my mother's example of cohabitation. The Bible never says anything directly about this. It's true that the Bible was written at a time when such a thing didn't really exist and obviously the practice was disapproved - but if we're encouraged to read the Bible always in context, then I think it's valid to ask if the standards of not cohabitating isn't something limited to the Bible's historical and cultural context, as opposed to a universal truth that can be applied today. Maybe people shouldn't live together in a romantic relationship before marriage - maybe - but the fact that cohabitation is a sin is taken as fact, as something direct from the Bible, and it's hard to say if it's not Christian culture rather than the Word of God. Christians are also "called to a higher standard" (another example of Christianese here), so the sense of duty, of doing what you should do and living the right way is very strong. In my opinion, sometimes this blinds us to people's souls and their hurts. Again, I am speaking from experience - an experience I had just yesterday! My mother-in-law and I do not have a good relationship and frankly I don't want a relationship with her. My Christian friend immediately proceeded to berate me for feeling such and kept saying, "We as Christians are called to a higher standard and we should pray for those who persecute you and who have wronged you." When I insisted that I'm not interested, she said, "Well I pray God changes your heart." (more Christianese here for ya - it's another way of saying, "I don't approve or agree but there's nothing I can do about it, but I'm concerned for you! - and maybe also your faith.") Don't get me wrong, I actually agree with her - that we should forgive and be kind to those who have wronged us. But there's a way of going about it, of speaking into it - it's not just a matter of what is right, what you should do - it's a matter of a great degree of pain. And when you speak into someone's pain and scars, you must tread gently. Sometimes telling them what they should do doesn't help, no matter that perhaps you're right that they really should do it lol. All this "higher standards", "do not conform to the patterns of this world" also speaks into why Christians would trust the Bible over whatever sound logic you might offer them as an counter argument against what the Bible says. By virtue of you not adhering to the Bible, you're pretty much automatically wrong and your thinking and ways of living can be called into question. Don't forget the analogies of "darkness and light" - the ones who follow Jesus Christ are in the light, and the ones who do not are blind. Why would you follow a blind man? God has made it clear - this is the way, walk in it (that's a paraphrase of a verse, actually) - so why wouldn't you? Anything and anyone attempting to make you deviate from the Bible is probably a temptation from Satan. I'm not kidding. There's probably more to say but I honestly can't remember anymore. In any case, "rational thinking" isn't the problem - Christians are perfectly capable of rational thinking. The thing is what they base their thinking on, and why should you tell us that that is wrong? Just as you would not appreciate me telling you whatever you've based your reasons on is somehow wrong. What you got to understand is that we simply started from very different basic assumptions - and from that, the trees of our logic grew very differently, but both trees are equally solid. What you got to tackle is the blocks on which the rational thinking is based. What made me start questioning was actually all thanks to gay marriage lol. If Christians can use the Bible to support the kinds of atrocities they're wreaking upon the gay community, then how can I be sure what I've been taught, how I've been taught to interpret the Bible is actually correct? What makes me think my understanding of it is absolutely correct, when I've come to realise even pastors and church leaders I've relied on to point me in the right direction can get it so horribly, horribly wrong? And if my understanding isn't completely correct, what makes me think the non-Christian's understanding is right or wrong? It comes back to the way you think, actually. What makes me think the non-Christian doesn't have very, very good reasons for believing as they do? (likewise to you, what makes you think we Christians don't have very, very good reasons to believe as we do?) And that's when the whole "darkness and light", separate yourselves from the world stuff got broken apart for me. I do still believe there's one right way and I still believe Jesus is the Son of God etc, but I can no longer dismiss other ways of thinking as easily as I used to. If the Gospels are an example to be trusted, then what I know is this: the Pharisees, the teachers of the Jewish Law, were convinced they understood the Torah and were pointing the people in the right direction. Yet it was the Gentiles - the "sinners" who were close to Jesus, the sinners who received grace, the sinners who understood the truth before the Pharisees ever did. It's my opinion that that is still the picture of the church today - us "Children of God" are the Pharisees, convinced of our own truth and our own understanding, shunning the "sinners aka non-Christians" whether intentionally or not. And perhaps it's the non-Christians who actually have it right, just as the Gentiles did. Christians often see that if the whole world is against them, somehow that's proof that we're going the right way (because after all, how can darkness aka non-Christians follow the ways of God? It makes perfect sense to come up against opposition!) But I've come to believe that sometimes, it might honestly be because us Christians are doing it horrifically wrong. The Bible also says, even though people may accuse you of doing evil, they will see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. But in such a situation, while there'd be strong opposition, there should also be strong support from unbelievers coming to see the light of God - simultaneously. So far I'm only seeing strong opposition and none of the so-called "revival" such opposition is supposed to indicate. We're doing something wrong.
Was trying to look for this Christianese video I saw a long time ago. Couldn't find it, but I found something else instead that's really funny The first is Christian cliches, and the second is Christian worship music. (I've come to find Christian music so dull btw, so that video was kinda cool) Christian cliches: Christian music: (notice powerpoint joke - spot it lol)
I think there are two big problems one faces with this sort of thing: 1) Not allowing the story to become a rant, hitting readers over the head with the message instead of letting them get immersed in the story. 2) The extremely broad generalization about religion and fundamentalists. That, in itself, would be almost impossible for most readers to ignore, whether or not they agreed with you. Again, difficult not to let that interfere with the story itself. So agree with Mckk - if the whole religion thing is the point you want to make, write a nonfiction book so people will know what to expect, instead of trying to slide it into a novel.
If you deliver the message indirectly, sure. If you tell us this or stress how religion caused the problems, then it will get old, VERY fast.
First thing I thought of when I read your post was, "Sounds like someone wants to end the whole ISIS thing on their own." ...Yeah. There's a guy, a French writer by the name of Bernard Werber, who's written nothing but novellised versions of his own point of view... which hasn't evolved a single bit in the past 10 years. The guy's a hit. His books are crap though, but apparently not that many people pick up on the fact that he's been feeding his audience the same story over and over again. So yeah. Pushing opinions at your readers can make you a living. But it won't work on a critical reader, and I don't see how it can get people to change their point of view. If you're targeting critical readers, they'll probably be critical enough not to delve into harmful funtamentalism in the first place, whether they be religious or not. What worries me the most is the question you felt the need to ask, which in turns leads me to believe you only have little understanding of faith as a whole. Please do correct me if I'm wrong. In any case, should you chose to pursue this project, I can only advise that you make your readers ask questions rather than spoon-feed them. An efficient fiction book on the subject would have to make the reader feel intelligent, not insulted or stupid. Or, go into non-fiction but it might be quite a struggle to find your audience there.
I share in your celebration, but I was referring to stormcat. I just skipped every post in this thread. I can't really deal with this thread. It's a paradox in the first place. What if I say no? Then the message is bad. Then what? Fundamentalism not bad? No, not indefinitely. Not fundamentally. The right to exercise religion isn't bad. Then is her message bad? Well, no, if it were seated on a fundamental belief. But then it's referencing to itself as bad.
I'm religious myself - but I generally think that most things can be good premises if executed properly and not overly politicized - including the ones I disagree with or that offend me. A guy in my writing group one time brought in a retelling of the Garden of Eden story from the point of view of the snake - it was a bit offensive to me as a religious reader...it was also one of the most well written and imaginative things I've read and I spent most of the "afterparty" explaining to him what real-life Young Earth Creationists (which I don't classify myself as necessarily but have spent a lot of time around) actually believe so that he could sharpen his critique. That said, relentlessly preaching one's own positions with regard to politics or religions is usually not a good idea. The story I'm working on right now was a premise I started back in college as a very political, almost partisan, piece. I'm a staunch political conservative and the plot was rooted in left-wing media bias at a cable news channel - taken to the extreme for dramatic effect. After giving it eight years to marinate, I realized that the overtly partisan elements of it were crap, holding back the story, and that if I wanted to make a point about partisan politics I could just write op-eds which are far easier to publish. The story itself had to be about something deeper. The base plot still hasn't changed - if anything my villainous editor has gotten more radically leftist because she's now modeled on RT's point of view rather than MSNBC's. BUT she's not a political foil anymore - she's a parable about how ANY idea, taken to the point of extremism, can turn into something really ugly (in her case starting from the basically good ideas of women's equality, tolerance, and human rights - which makes her even more jarring when she allows those views to forge her into a bigot against groups she defines as oppressors - namely men, Americans, and religious people.) The Republican nominee for president is still going to be a heroic figure, and agree with most of my views - but now his campaign is also going to expose a lot of the blind spots I see within people who agree with me (and the Dem nominee is going to come out looking better than half the Republicans, despite holding some views I abhor). So, is "Fundamentalism Bad" a workable premise - yup. Could it be good? Yeah. Is it original by itself? Not really. And could it go horribly wrong if it's shallow and preachy. OH YES. So, think deeper about the behaviors you're trying to critique. Could someone who technically agrees with you take your own ideas and twist them such that they become exactly what you're trying to preach against? Those are the type of questions that take you in fun directions. You want to critique fundamentalism? Fine, have a go (and that's coming from someone who self-identifies as fundamentalist in some ways) - but fundamentalism based in what and practiced by whom, and to what end?
Watch "UKIP: The first hundred days" if you can. It's a British TV docudrama about the effects that an overall majority being won by UKIP in our General Election this May would have. It's quite watchable, but talk about preachy!
I actually watched UKIP: First 100 Days. It was probably the best-written preachy-political-screed near-future I've ever watched - but that's a low bar to jump. And as someone who writes near-future political stories I was ticking off all the things they did wrong and how they could have done better, even if I disagree with their basic ideological premise. I actually thought their protagonist, Deepa Kaur, was a great character, VERY well constructed, and that Priyanga Burford absolutely NAILED her performance. The foreground story was actually really cool, it was the background reality that was just lazy and in some cases bigoted (I love how they threw in a random Israeli flag into a crowd supporting neo-Nazism - even though it had no relevance to the plot or even the politics of the plot). That and while I thought the brother Das was a good character, they didn't do their job if they wanted me to like or identify with him, because I thought he came off as a raging jerk, and the fact that he ends up as the "voice of morality" in the story doesn't add up because he comes off as such a snarky, mean-spirited, bitter person. If I was Nigel Farage (which I'm not, and sadly politicians don't employ fiction writers on their PR teams - which is sad), instead of pouncing on it, I would have come out and said, "Look the premise of the movie is absurd and frankly and attack on the working class, but honestly I think Deepa Kaur is really the model of what a UKIP MP should be - and I'd like to think that if any of us found ourselves in her position, we'd do exactly what she did at the end. Honestly, their fake-UKIP sound like horrible people and if they we're real, they'd deserve everything they got. But I'm here to tell you that the real UKIP wants to bring an entire caucus of Deepa Kaurs to Westminster - and I think even the people who made that movie would think that's a good thing." *Disclaimer: I'm not British, and while I'm firmly Eurosceptic, I'm not actually a UKIP fan and prefer to support the more Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party in that country. So, if anyone wants my cards on the table, there you go.
I get the impression this whole thing was thrown together in a hurry (for chrissakes, we've got an election in May and we can't show any programme critical of any political party after the xth of y month!) and UKIP have no announced policies (Nigel Farage has both come out in favour of the NHS and said that he would scrap it), so the programme just focussed on some of their more public statements. I agree with you about Deepa Kaur/Priyanga Burford - excellent character and performance. The problem is that a lot of the film was newsreel footage, so it's a bit difficult to deny that they actually said those mean-spirited things. The big advantage that UKIP has got is a total absence of policies. They're on record as saying "It's not about the policies". So, they can't be held accountable when they renege!
Yeah I really don't like future mockumentaries full of re-purposed archive footage. They always look choppy. That said in this case they did accomplish their side goal of highlighting some of the genuinely stupid things that have been said by UKIP officials I did get the feeling it was written too quickly and poorly timed because they wanted to blunt UKIP at THIS election. Really what they should have done is wait this election out, hope that ten to twenty UKIP MPs get in, then spend the next year or so sharpening their script so that they could make a more relevant, slightly more plausible, and hence scarier "UKIP majority " that takes office after the 2019 election. That, in that case, they could have come up with some excuse to bump off Nigel as party leader in the next four years and have a new UKIP leader played by an actor. That said if my own book ever were to be put on TV I'd probably need a lot of archive footage of everyone from Rand Paul to Alex Salmond - so I probably shouldn't knock it. But then again if we go that far down the rat hole I'd probably have my production team harassing Alex Salmond's office to see how much we'd have to pay him to cut some voice-overs, because there's no way in heck that I'd be able to cut together a montage of what I have him doing as Scotland's First Prime Minister after he won the referendum.
This word Religion, and how it's bantered about with most relating it to someone - such as I - that fully believes in the God of the Bible. That qualifies me to be called religious. But that word can be used by anyone to describe, in a monster-sized brush, they to believe in something. Be it a rock, perception, dictatorship or whatever. Religon is defined as" "something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience:" My two bits.
I believe the esoteric quality of religion isn't supposed to be excluded from objects. As a matter of fact, I believe in rocks too. I fully accept and follow their devotion to physics as an accepted model of the universe. Rocks are there for a reason, and it'd be unthinkable to start denying them cold turkey.
The beauty of a sane nation and free nation allows one to worship as they please so long as they leave that privilege -freedom of ch0ise- to the individual. Any organization, placing or attempting to place, parameters on a belief then forcing, through one method or another, a mandatory compliance is stepping outside of that free nations constitution.
Amen. And don't forget, as for any freedom should be acted out within reasonable consent of all involved parties, to protect this humanitarian right. Even then it should be of no concern to the law, which governs to prevent abuse and such. However, religion has insufficient qualities to fulfill the role of placing parameters on people, or a nation. Therefor we keep the church out of politics. Parties with religious motifs that strive to gain political momentum are dangerous. That is, religious according to my understanding of the word.
There's a lot of debate about fiction that's character-driven versus fiction that's plot-driven. There's a reason fiction that's message-driven doesn't get any of that attention: most readers have had their fill of it by the time they start kindergarten, and are sick of it by the time they hit their teens. If you start with the message that religion is bad, your work will almost certainly be as trite and irritating as all the dross published to persuade us that religion is good. Try drawing real characters, and working out how the KKK and Martin Luther King both claimed to be Christian, how the same thing could manifest in such contradictory ways (or whether it is indeed the same thing); put real people in real situations and see how they really play out, even if they make you uncomfortable.
I think you can @stormcat You just need a somewhat calculated story. Because if you want to make the point as elegantly as you can then you have to take into account the opposing arguments against fundamentalism. Specifically the ones that are most widely believed and the ones that get propagated today. You have to pick these apart to find some insight for inspiration. Take Martin Luther King for example. If you found a way to separate this man from religion, not to set the example that his values wouldn't change but, that they would, and that it would have been for the better. That kind of set up could inspire a story which could ultimately empower the idea of fundamentalism in a way that would be original and entertaining. EDIT to add: This is, in a way counterproductive to the natural writing process IMO. Because you'll need plenty of the above mentioned example, and then figure out a way to tie the story through those ideas. Keeping that in mind while constructing the examples would be good. It does make it harder on yourself, because you want the story to be character driven as well. It's possible and it's worth the effort to put a theme in your work like that.
The main reason for a religion, any religion, is to provide an individual a code/ philosophy with a foundation to a new or different truthful lifestyle. Let's say the character in a story becomes involved with a sect/demonation/ etc/ only to find it was not what they had in mind. The plot could grow out of the initial struggle to removed themselves from their present association and the hunt for another more to their liking. The major problem with someone hunting the truth is the shock and disappointment when finding out those that said they have your back totally reject you when you do leave, or you find they are not marching by their own standards. Take a look at William Manchester's "A world lit only by fire". One other thing, then I will shut up. The religion you are leaving may demand you go on trial, and prove that leaving them is really necessary. Do you walk, out or bend to appease them? Either way, what are the consequences?
Not necessarily. It is not as if every religious person was once non-religious and then thought "My life is boring. I need a different lifestyle. A religion can provide that to me." and then went shopping for religions and then decided on the religion that supported the lifestyle he liked best. More often, someone is told from birth what is true and false, he believes what he is told, and some of those beliefs are about what is good and bad. When he does what he believes is good, his actions happen to fit the definition of "religion". Even if someone adopts a religion later in life, it is usually because other people have persuaded him that a certain worldview is true. And then his beliefs about good and bad lead him to do things that fit the definition of "religion". That is, beliefs → religion. Sure, there are a few exceptions to the rule -- people for whom religion → beliefs. But I generally give people the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they follow a certain religion because they sincerely believe it is the right thing, rather than assuming that they are just trying to fit in with a religious group or that they chose their religion because they like the lifestyle. Innocent before proven guilty, as they say. Here is another explanation of my answer to the OP: a fundamentalist is someone who begins with certain fundamental beliefs (we call those "axioms"), draws valid conclusions to form more beliefs (we call those a "worldview"), and does what those conclusions tell him is right (we call that a "religion"), even when common sense says his actions are wrong (we call that "fundamentalism"). If your message is "fundamentalism is bad", then that is the kind of person you are trying to persuade.
I agree, I would say most people become religious through indoctrination. Most people stay religious through a fear of the unknown and an inability to take personal responsibility for their actions. An afterlife takes the fear out of death and the concept of fate or a higher power acting as puppeteer gives them someone to blame for their own shortcomings.
