There's that, and there's the fact that people of mainstream faiths tend to resent their beliefs being compared to primitive animism, and there's the fact that those comparisons are also an Internet atheist activist trope.

But more generally it's a little weird asking someone outright why they belong to a particular religion. It's not something you're meant to litigate. We rightly feel irritated when fundamentalist Christians proselytize to strangers; this is another instance of the same thing.

> But more generally it's a little weird asking someone outright why they belong to a particular religion.

Even in a thread whose whole point is a discussion of religious belief and why people are religious?

> We rightly feel irritated when fundamentalist Christians proselytize to strangers; this is another instance of the same thing.

When people proselytize for their religion they are implicitly if not explicitly telling you that your current beliefs in that area are wrong and that theirs are right. I agree that is irritating.

I don't think that asking someone why they believe their religion is the same thing.

I'm comfortable disagreeing on these issues (especially since they're subtle) if you recognize the concerns I mentioned that didn't make your reply. :)

Sure.

I wasn't trying to compare to animism. I included the Wikipedia link because I said that there were hundreds of creation stories and thought that if I didn't give some link to a bunch of them someone might get testy over the number. (I'm kind of surprised that hasn't happened anyway, as the Wikipedia list only has 40 or so).

It's interesting to consider how many things you believe at your core that you can't easily connect back to rationalism. Most western cultural values are ahistorical and disconnected from any modern notion of biological imperative.