Johonebesus wrote:I have seen people who come from liberal Christian or even non religious households suddenly turn to fundamentalism.
I have met many fundamentalists, and while they often claim to have come from a non-religious background, I have found that upon further investigation, this always turns out to be a lie. There is always a significant religious influence on their early upbringing.
I don't think they are brainwashed right away. It seems to me that these people desperately want to believe in God, but need some kind of material proof of His existence, which of course does not exist, so they turn to someone who tells them that the Bible is literally true and science and reason are flawed.
Of course, rank stupidity helps too.
It takes a while for them to become well versed in all the fundamentalist rhetoric, but the initial decision can come with only a little encouragement from a recruiter. And it often happens during adolescence when they are searching for something to give their lives meaning.
It still takes someone who is predisposed toward that particular form of idiocy, which in turn requires a certain level of brainwashing.
While it is certainly true that no-one comes to possess detailed religious doctrine without being taught it by a church, one can and often does decide which sort of a doctrine to seek out. Why should a man raised in a liberal Catholic household decide to reject all he has been taught and become a born-again baptist?
He has been brainwashed to believe that truth comes from the Bible. That is the brain bug that can grow into fundamentalism.
It is not brainwashing. It's his desire for faith bumping up against logic.
No, it is brainwashing. No one, even with a desperate desire for faith, is willing to entertain the notion of the Bible being literally true unless they've been indoctrinated to some extent in that particular notion. It is so wildly stupid that no thinking person can possibly accept it unless they've been "prepared".
If the former is stronger, he will seek out or become easy prey for evangelical recruiters. Nobody independently travels the path of a particular religion, but they may independently seek a path, and independently decide which path looks the best.
And no one ever decides that Biblical literalism is the best unless they are already predisposed to think that way. Even a child can see the monstrous flaws in Biblical literalism if its "God-breathed" nature has not been indoctrinated into him.
