Quote:
Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
I'm not calling you out or anything, but I'm pretty curious what exactly you mean by this.
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Magical thinking in general for one. (And religions are of course not the only source of this). Correlation does not equal causation, but magical thinking encourages one to think that it does (I prayed for a bike, I got a bike, therefore my prayer worked). The brain is wired to make decision about causation before any reasoning is applied, and religion I think exploits this (not intentionally, it's evolved to do so).
Read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan for more info along those lines.
Obedience and subjugation to authority is another. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and
lean not on your own understanding". Rather than thinking for one's self, one is encouraged (or required even) to see the Bible and/or the church as the ultimate authority in one's life, since they're proxies for God. And not even just authority, saying that there's one absolute Truth (tm) fosters an absolutist style thinking.
Us vs. them, teaching a child that their way of thinking and their beliefs are True and everyone else's are false and deceptions from satan. Rather than building bridges and finding common ground, it's instead my way or the highway. Christians are in this world but not of this world is a popular phrase.
There are other things more specific to evangelical circles as well, such as the combination of faith/healing/prosperity and the social structure of the church... if someone is visibly poor, their faith must not be very strong and there's a social influence that ties in with that. Or if you aren't healed, and you prayed, then it's some sin in your life or something you are doing wrong or your relationship with god isn't right (god's promises are true, so god can't be at fault), that's not the kind of thing to be feeding into a kid's head.
Of course I realize not every single church or denomination has all of these things, and that there are other sources for bad patterns of thought, that's why I said the details are important.