Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay.

Cognitive dissonance is the answer to your query.

When I was young I asked my dad, do you think a good, humane Buddhist goes to heaven? Do you think that Gandhi went to heaven? My dad tells me of course, God is a perfect judge of character and would not damn an innocent person.

Years later it comes up again, the pastor had taught how Jesus is the only way one can find salvation. I bring it up again, this time as a teenager. My dad says, well, Jesus is the only way, so no, I don't see how they could enter heaven.

It was right around this time that I was leaving the faith anyhow. (Or I already had and my curiosity got the better of me.)

I think a lot of it is doctrinal. Left to our own devices I think we rely on our human morality and therefore are more forgiving. A shame religion impedes this process!

This is coincidentally the strongest argument against any one religion.

The very fact that there's more than one religion discredits all of them. If they're all worshiping the same god and the same book of his infallible word there would only be one god, one holy book, and one faith but there are 10,000 sects of Xianity alone and none of them agree with the other then there's all those other religions and gods around the world.

So to justify their personal faith they've all convinced themselves everyone else is wrong and they're the only ones worshiping the right magical man in the sky.

I remember, when I was a younger believer, thinking how lucky I was that I was raised in a country that worshiped the correct god and in a home that knew the correct things about this god. As I got older, this made less and less sense to me. My first step away from belief was my accepting that other people's beliefs were as valid as mine. I then left organized religion, for a myriad of reasons, and began a decade long journey that ended in my realizing that I am an atheist.

That was an issue that always bothered me when I was religious. I asked myself many times, even as a child, “Why was I so lucky?”

You might be asking the wrong crowd, but... yeah.

Anyone who adheres feverishly to one religious doctrine is basically an atheist toward every other religion. Therefore, every believing person knows exactly what it is like to be an atheist. I find this thought amusing.

In order to be drawn into any cult it must offer something exclusive that other religions don't offer. Of course the person must be conveinced that said religion/god is real(by faith.) Each religion claims to have special knowledge and privilages that others can not have as the other religions are false.

While looking at this makes it obvious that religions use the same play book, for one that has not seen it written plainly like this, it is possible to only accept the first source from which it came. Thus family groups, culture, childhood indoctrination and geography usually determine which religion one will actually become involved in.

Emotional connection made from a so early age that it mixes with their own identity.
You would imagine that:
They believe in Christ thus they are Christians
but the correct is:
They ARE Christians thus they believe in Christ.

That is why there is so many cognitive dissonance and irrationality. The identity and the "part of a tribe" comes first.
And the same is valid for all the radical groups around.

"I am member of the superior race, thus I am racist (but I will never admit)2
"I am a supporter of (insert any sports team) thus I support the team even with violence"
"I am a soldier of this army, thus I am different from the other soldiers and I can kill and disrespect other people"

The identity comes first and once you assume the identity of a tribe, reason leaves the building.
we are humans, we are made to work as groups, as tribes, we need a huge brain effort to not follow the flow and conform with the tribe.
That is why fake news spreads easy, that is why by creating many fakes that looks like part of the tribe, you can steer the behavior of the tribe, because the fakes give the illusion that the tribe thinks like that, and as you already assumed the identity, you move together.

That is how Trump, brexit, Bolsonaro and other improbable ideas are being elected, they find and identify the tribes and by a huge number of fakes and fake news they convince the members of that tribe that the tribe is supporting this ideas.

The FSM is the only real god. Anybody who believes in any other God or Gods is wrong.

Also, I've heard religious people respond to the "what about other gods" question either by saying it's really all the same god with different stories behind it, or that even if people believe in the wrong god the fact that so many people believe in the concept means gods are real.

I think it's complex. In some cases, the debate is over which 'holy texts' are the most authoritative, and thus the debate is over documents, their source, veracity and authority. In other cases, the debate is over which experiences matter more (experiences of the divine), and, in those cases, there is a tendency to be more inclusive of other faiths, though not always.
In all cases, there is a blindness to one's own presuppositions, and that's the key.

It's easy and requires no conflicts with one cognitive dissonance to not question. I think most of us have been there at one point and it took time and perhaps a transformative incident to wake us up from our hypnotic sleep.

Through various cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias, anchoring bias, Dunning-Krueger effect, etc. Remember too that these people are usually surrounded by people who believe the same things - it's self re-enforcing, particularly in smaller circles.

Because ‘you’ are special so no one can share that ‘specialness’

Pretty fucked really but that’s people for you.

I was taught not to think certain things because if I did, I would be punished by God. The church was true and any ideas that pointed away from that were to be avoided. It sometimes demanded unbelievable mental gymnastics but I navigated them no matter what because the alternative was far more fearful. Of course, it helped to have actual parents ready to harshly punish me in god's stead for straying outside the lines in word or deed.

It was actually quite hard work to keep that up and when I did finally allow just a small amount of doubt to settle in, I didn't have to do much for the house of cards to collapse. It took a relatively short amount of time and very little effort to go from devout believer to non-believing.

Baffles me too...

Why wouldn’t they. It’s naive to think it could be any other way . Same with political parties, sporting affiliation. The dependant variable is people.

It is called a "disastrous failure of reasoning". In terms of logic, it is the logical fallacy of special pleading.

This video will explain it. It's one of the best TED talks I've ever seen. Not specific to religion. "being wrong feels just like being right, because until you realize you're wrong you think you're right."

Its going to depend on a few things, the person, how they were brought up and what religion. Religion isnt the only blind spot people have, I speak from my own stuff, there was a lot of stuff I didnt want to see. Working on my issues though I had to face the mirror, the good the bad and the ugly. When i say that , its a practice as I 'm sure not perfect, I was tempted to say sure as hell (lol) but im not as sure of the place but I am sure I have been through my own. Old 12 steps statement, religion is for those afraid of hell, spirituality is for people who've been there

When you wear rose colored glasses all the time it's hard to see the red flags in other people you are with or the red flags in your own personal thoughts. Try it some time at the store: Find some red tinted glasses and look around. All those red flags pointing out sales and new items look gray to black. People under the rose colored glasses walk around seeing other people as black or white and they naturally look at themselves and hate that other guy. That's my 2 cents, anyway.

Well USSR or red China often broadcast news different from western media. Because they can‘t be consistent such none of them can be true is however a fallacious conclusion.

Faith is tied so closely to the core of a persons upbringing and family connections. What people feel about their religion is particular to how they were raised and any other religion is just not the same. It's THEIR experience (cut to someone clutching a teddy bear and mumbling "mine." )

If you present anything that confronts that core of who they are – the place and circumstances in which they were raised – you're out of bounds and they dig in their heels despite logic.

Sometimes it's an affront, as if you are putting down their roots and where they come from – Invalidating their upbringing.