Well I guess your prayers didn't come true jungle. Keep murmuring.
As for my son, alternate views and research is exactly how it went down. He checked out the Koran ( or Quran, Qur’ān, Alcoran or Al-Qur’ān) himself. He went to a school where most kids thought the earth was 6000 years old. A few years ago, one kid told him he was going to hell because he was wearing Harry Potter socks. He asked me if that were true and why that kid would say that. One kid said Israel has been around since the beginning of time, and another kid told him our life spans are getting shorter and shorter, because people used to live to 900 years old. All of these incidents needed rational explanation. THAT started our research in to the subject.
Borrowed but awesome:
Top ten signs you're a fundamentalist
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
Nope, as a matter of fact my question for some of the real religious zealots is, what about people that know nothing about Christianity/Islam/etc. Are they still wrong?
9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Religion I think is sometimes used to fill the void in what we can prove. Read: Creationism
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
Got nothing here
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
You're talking about Biblical history, vs modern day terrorism? Really?
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
I love curry! I think India is one of the more interesting places I've been, albeit dirty.
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
Back to creationism. I remember when I was a kid, southern baptist were trying to convince us of the same "the earth was just made" story. They used the fact that NASA Scientists had said that 1" of lunar dust collects on the moon every 10,000 years. However when Armstrong stepped on the moon there was only 3/4 of an inch! So the moon can only be 7500 years old! I remember sitting there thinking "no dumbass, it just means those NASA scientist were wrong."
4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
Again, does a Taoist Chinese family, that knows nothing of Christianity or ever even heard of it, go to hell? By the way there is hippocracy in every religion.
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
Huh?
2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
Prove it otherwise. If God answered everyone's prayers, life would be to easy and no fun. We'd have 250 hour commercial pilots running around in the left seats of 747-400's.
1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.
Education does not equate to faith. I think this statement is more a function of the fact that different "sects?" of Christianity all have different ideas and interpretations of particulars where as someone from the outside looking in will look at a bigger picture. Doesn't mean they are any less faithful.