Then everyone born and raised in the West is an ardent Christian? Doesn't work that way, and you are one of many who can testify being born into a Christian family doesn't make one a Christian.
*cheap non sequitur
I never wrote “everyone born and raised in the West is an ardent Christian?” Overwhelming, religious belief is inherited based upon familial and geographic location. I can testify to that with supported data.
No need to. It's pretty much common knowledge that about forty percent of children leave the faith into which they were born. I am betting the study you are referencing are about those who remain. "After studying those sixty percent who stay remain in the faith in which they were raised, nearly a hundred percent were raised in that faith." Great way to gloss over the forty percent who left, isn't it? Are you good with the reality: "Over a third of those who are raised in a religion, have left it at some point during adulthood.
Yes. Quite curious that belief is, far more often than not, simply a matter of geographic location and family heritage.
Why do you find that curious?
What about you? If you were born elsewhere, would you have a faith?
For all the unquestioning, absolute belief held by religionists that their religion is the “true” religion, those beliefs are arbitrary and capricious when viewed in the context of geography being the deciding factor of what that “true” religion is.
I would have rejected the predominate faith of my place of birth elsewhere as here after investigating the faith.
See, we are alike. I did a like investigation of the faith into which I was born...and there was God. I do not walk by faith, but by knowledge. I am a staunch believer in "Blessed are those who do not see, but believe." Living with knowledge is much more difficult than to simply walk by faith.
There is quite a roll call of gods as countless believers have claimed to investigate their faith and found the unique gods of their respective religions.
This is why I love the story of Abraham's youth. Tradition says that Abraham came from a family that sold totems--i.e. carving of images that were believed to contain the power of the image. Abraham was given the job, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, wiping the dust off the totems and polishing them to a high sheen. All his friends were outside doing something more exciting!
You had your questioned answered. You didn’t like the answer so you retreated to your safe space of self-delusion.
There are atheists in my family. I am married to an atheist. No atheist that I know has ever led anyone into alcoholism, drug abuse, broken relationships, and suicides.
Nobody has to account for the embarrassing lies you made up to beg strangers for attention on the internet. What an embarrassing freak you are...
My understanding is that it is Jewish folklore, a story that was passed down word-of-mouth in the Jewish community. Impossible to know if it is true, or a made-up story about Abraham. Remember, Abraham was the first we know of that insisted there was only One God, the God of all--not just the God of a single nation, so while the narrative fits, the story did not make it into the Bible.
