
As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject
of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction
in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless
conversions -- to anything -- less likely.  Brian now realizes this and
has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with.  The 
problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to
a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy
is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and 
irrational -- the powers of reason are suprisingly ineffective in 
changing the believer's mind.
- Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of 
  Conviction", edited by Philip Berman
