Restating My "Religion Does Good" Post More Explicitly

[David Sklansky]

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="blue"> Childhood indoctrination, I already agreed, can make a difference in close cases like politics. </font>

I think this is just wrong.

<font color="blue"> Their upringing wouldn't sway them to believe in astrology or alien abductions would it?
</font>

Why not? The only reason astrology and alien abductions are less likely to stick is because there aren't enough other people that believe in them. But if you brought up a child to believe in astrology, and he sees that his neighbors and extended family are all astrologists, and he sees buildings erected all over the place to study/worship astrology, and he sees even the news media taking astrology seriously, do you REALLY think a 130 IQ is going to be the deciding difference in whether he believes in astrology when he's 30? If so, why? There's no fundamental difference between the two dogmas. The only difference is one is taken seriously all over the world, and the other is not and is even laughed at by most people.

Again, I think you're very (and unusually) wrong on this.

[/ QUOTE ]

The difference between the equally nonsensical notions of astrology and any specific religion is the upsides of believing in it. One of those upsides is indeed pleasing your parents and "fitting in". But there are other upsides to religion that astrology doesn't have. So if your parents believed in both, there would be less subconscious psychological pressure to keep you believing in astrology than religion and it would be more likely that an intelligent person would be able to break away from their parent's belief in astrology then lets say Christianity.

How is that not obvious?