If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction.
— H.P. Lovecraft, in a letter to Maurice W. Moe, August 3 1931
(Thanks to Andrew M. Kuchling)
I’d agree, with one emendation: Because of our fallen nature and because we have so much to unlearn from our culture (sorry, nobody comes into this world a tabula rasa, and failure — or refusal — to receive truth is widespread; see Rom. 1:19–20), we need to learn how to search for truth and test what is found. But once the toolbox is supplied … go for it!
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