Before this subtopic got hijacked by the anti-science - anti evolution crowd...
According to the
OP this debate was supposed to be about people becoming Christians primarily because of childhood teaching (Let's not get wrapped up again in the tangents inspired by words like "indoctrination" or "abuse."
NO ONE has countered the stats from the OP:
In support of this proposition I quote from the Southern Nazarene University website,
http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/ages.htm where they claim 85% of Christians have their conversion experience ("are saved") at ages 4 to 14.
In general Christians become Christian because, and
only because they were taught, inculcated, exposed to or otherwise bamboozled
into that faith during their formative years when they were relatively defenseless to scams, fairydust, tall tales, propaganda, and the general repertoire of slick talking salesmen and televangelists.
The point is that in general people do
not become Christians (or join any other faith) because it is 'the truth,' logical, fact based, or for any other rational reason. No, they do so because of childhood 'teaching.' Then they use reason (sort of) to defend the childhood decision.
One additional point (or concession
):
In addition to making the decision during one's immaturity, in the U.S. at least our
culture is predominantly Christian. It is hard to escape. People like to conform. It takes strength to swim against the tide.
More data:
Most people come to their religion, not by choice, but by accident of birth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions_by_country
Many countries tend to be 90% Christian or Muslim or whatever. It is not truth, but custom, culture, and if you will, "indoctrination" or something similar that determines one's faith. One might even say, considering atheists are in the considerable minority, that non believers represent strength and independence of mind, vs mere conformity.