Let me tell you my family stories. I have five nieces and nephews. I educated three of them in critical thinking when they were about five years old. They are now all adults. Three of them are atheists, and two of them, whom I could not educate in critical thinking when they were children, are religious.
I am one of four children who were brought up in a Christian tradition. We’re all adults now. I could not possibly be more atheist. Two of my siblings are wishy-washy-havent-really-thought-about-it agnostics and one is even more crazily religious than my parents, which is saying something.
In my more optimistic moments, I see this as a win. Religion didn’t catch with most of us because (at least in my case, I can’t speak for my siblings) we had a rudimentary education in critical thinking. We achieved this by moving away from our parents as soon as possible: some of us went to university, some didn’t, but either way, three of us found that we could no longer sustain any belief we had once we’d escaped the direct influence of our parents….. and one went entirely the other way.
I take this to mean that we were more or less susceptible to reason and also more or less susceptible to believe what we’re told by our parents.
So I completely agree with your point. A more prominent secular and critical-thinking based education at an early age might have helped us all become the sort of unapologetic atheist I turned out to be.
Critical thinking and truth.
Prick enters chick.
Prick pleasure, chick pain.