Genetics Influences Whether Someone is Religious Or Not

Thank you for accepting my challenge, little youngin'. Note: The numbers in parentheses refers to the numbered reference links on the bottom. I will also set each of my points/rebuttals in a numerical list to keep it ordered. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. "I am not defending the proposition that genetics has a bigger impact on someone"s religiosity than his or her environment does. I"m defending the much simpler proposition that genetics influences how religious a person is, or can be." On the contrary, I believe that to completely counter the idea that "genetics influences one's religion," one must note what DOES influence one's religion. By understanding what truly does the role more, I can persuade the opponent of just how little, or not at all, their genes affect their religion. But lets not debate about how to debate, right? Although, I am sure that with the two of us, we are going to break most of the rules anyways. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Lets be on the same page of what "genetics" is. Genetics: The study of the patterns of inheritance of specific traits. Relating to genes and genetic information. Also known as "heredity." Modern theories explain how traits are passed down from parent to offspring. (1) The idea of a parent passing down a genetic trait to an offspring can be explained by the scenario of a Huntington's disease-positive mother passing down the Huntington's disease traits to her daughter or son. This offspring can inherit their mother's mutational, normal, and disease genes in terms of BIOLOGY. After all, genetics is rooted from Mendelian principles which is structured by biological principles. (2) Now, with the idea of religious views, religion is the " set of BELIEFS concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies." (3) Beliefs: MENTAL acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity, especially of a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons Genetics may help determine one's physical characteristics and even subtly contribute one winning an Olympic trophy over another, but to say it can help determine your MENTAL views after you come out of the womb is a stretch. I can understand if you mean your genes can always play a role, whether small or big, on what happens in one's life, and that can lead to some mental patterns, but religion takes many processes, thoughts, decisions, and life lessons/messages together to strike the question. Having the right gene to skip all that experience and answer for you is hardly realistic. To put it in societal perspective, if genes influenced whether a human being becomes religious or not, there would not be nearly as many "rebellious" atheists in the midst of strictly Catholic family and religious people from nonreligious families. The variety of society itself, not just including religion, should show the limitations of genetics, and one of those limitations is its influence on religiousness. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ References: 1. http://www.biology-online.org... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org... 3. http://dictionary.reference.com...