That’s the question that Rachel Fox asks on Dr. Tom Cocklereece’s (oddly named) blog: “Simple Disciplship Weblog: Helping Churches Make Disciple-Making Disciples.”

The question seems to answer itself – because those people are, well, smart. Rachel, however, thinks that she has a good answer. I will spare you much unneeded reading and quote to you the most pertinent part. Essentially, she concludes it is because Jesus desires us to think like children when it comes to religion. I am not kidding:

Jesus calls for us to have faith like a child. We ought to “reason out” our faith as a child would: without theological textbooks, without doctorate degrees.

If we think too much then we will not come to Jesus. That sounds about right. Rachel would have us reverting to a child when it comes to reasoning about important and deep philosophical questions concerning the nature of reality and history. But it gets worse. She goes on to say:

We should reason according to the beliefs we already have, according to our simple faith. We should learn about Christian theology and other theologies with the understanding that what we already believe is totally true.

If we reason according to the beliefs we already have, then how did we come to have those beliefs in the first place? According to Rachel, clearly it is not through reason. So we reason according to the beliefs that we acquired through not reasoning? She continues:

Instead of beginning with the foundation, [smart people] attempt to begin by building the high walls of theology and education.

This is not setting, as she would have it, a ’strong foundation.’ Reason set upon a foundation of unreason is a recipe for intellectual disaster. Essentially, she is directing people to begin by believing whatever they want and then proceeding to rationalize that belief. If a worldview is not arrived at through reason, then it is arbitrary, and there is no basis upon which to evaluate it.

Here is the problem with religious beliefs: people, for whatever, reason, seem to think that they should approach religious claims in ways that we wouldn’t think of approaching for any other claim. Irrationality and child-like obedience are made into virtues while rationality and careful skepticism are demonized. This is also what makes religion, at its core, so potentially dangerous.

(via Conversational Atheist)