They don’t, sadly, and what makes it worse is the endless amounts of religious indoctrination and bullshit media constantly feeding us the narrative that people in general grow and learn over time and become better people, and that sentiment has been internalized at every possible level of society at large, but (as a general rule, nothing is universal) things couldn’t be further from the truth.

I agree with you here of course, quite strongly.

I’m glad my Pop is a badass and taught me how to think and not what to think.

So that’s the thing I think about a lot. How much influence did he really truly have on you vs you both just happening to be like-minded to begin with? Ties in with my thoughts on free will vs determinism too. My belief in a weak mind being born doomed now comes into this picture. But I’m one of those annoying compatibilists because my own father has moved slowly from staunch conservative to centrist over time. Maybe only because I’m his kid, who really knows. I’m 35 and only just got him to finally admit he was pretending to be Christian to stay with my mother. I always suspected.

Here’s where I’m coming from, so the perspective can hopefully makes more sense:

• born in a monocultural conservative town 1990 99.5% white people. Seriously I can only remember one black kid in school.

• my mother co-founded her own Baptist church.

• I wasn’t rebellious, and I even attended youth groups and bible camps regularly.

• my 2nd earliest memory I can still recall is fucking surreal: In a public elementary school, the principal lead a morning prayer once a week in the morning gym assembly. Everyone. Everyone stood up student/admin/teacher/janitor. Everyone bowed their heads to repeat the principal’s prayer. Except one of my classmates one day, she remained seated. This blew my mind. I sat down with her, and she gave me a wide grin. Who knows why, but this moment was cemented into my skull surrounded by the overwhelming majority and choosing to sit out of their mindless tradition.

I never at any point believed in any gods, nor was I at any point a conservative. How could this be given the environment I was raised in?

I think it’s simply because I was born with innate critical thinking. I also did not believe what anyone not even my own parents when they told me things at face value. The early internet and the library was where I went to see if something I was told was true or not.

~80% of humans are theists, it’s incredibly sad.