Scotty

I think it comes down to a matter of questioning what you believe.

When you are a child, you are told stories where if you don't do what you are told you will be punished, but the people who do what they are told are loved by God.

If you learn this when young, you really don't question why you think that the information is true or not, it just is. In the back of your mind, this information is true but you never question it. If you go to a church once a week, this information is reinforced, because nobody else questions it either...you just go to Sunday school and teach it to your children, not thinking about what it means.

I can also see people in desperate times, turning to find a reason for everything, and even if they don't necessarily find the information logical, they grasp for something to help them through hard times, and it is a good thing for them.

Does any of this make the people rational about what they believe? Well, not in the sense that they don't question the information, but in everything else, they could be hard-core rational. It is a core belief, not rational thinking.

Even when confronted with unyielding evidence (if evangelizing) they just assume the position of truth because they have a lot of backing from a lot of people and it is comforting. For the most part, I don't see them questioning it, and if they do, they have many people that will just tell them to forget about it.

I know I put funny titles on things, but this is similar to my <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000795" target="_blank">Analogy of Fruit Death</a>, and in brief shows where your thinking goes when you believe something that just rings odd.

-Scott