Ok, it has been many years since I took my first psychology class. Still, I remember a question that the professor posed to the class like it was yesterday, "Are we shaped more by our genetics or by our upbringing?" He referred to this as Nature vs Nurture.

I come from a long line of religious nut cases. I am NOT saying that all religious people are nut cases, but both sides of my family are.

I was brought up as a non-denominational christian. We had church of christ on one side and church of god on the other. I am still not sure why my parents tolerated each other let alone married. They kept us at a safe distance from both sides. Even now, they do not pick sides but defer to a sort of new age woo (spelling certainly incorrect). Members of the extended family moved on to other protestant faiths.

I was a sitting duck for the mormob.

I had not learned to apply critical thinking to religious or social matters. My family was nuts. I was surrounded by unquestioned faith in questionable faiths. (I make apologies to members of these faiths. I do not mean to offend, but I do not accept your doctrine.)

When the mormons entered my life, my folks left the choice to me. Damn. I wish they had locked me away until I grew a brain.

I see that that nature vs nurture may be a moot point for me.

If you were a mormon, which was more influential to you?

For me, it was 100% nurture. Both sides of my family had been in the cult for many generations.

Nurture kept me in. Nature got me out.

Heavily indoctrinated from birth by extreme to the max Mormon family. However, something inside me just could not bond with Mormonism in the end, and while at BYU my nature finally won out over all their damn nurturing. Millions of years of genes in my pool could not be silenced and had no intention in drowning in Mormonism.

In normal psychology the debate is usually conceded by admitting its both, and a complicated interaction.

Life circumstances collided to make me susceptible to brainwashing (I was a convert) also set up by a rather traumatic childhood.

If by nurture we mean self determination then that contributed to getting me out. There’s something about my personality that doesn’t take kindly to being told what to do all the bloody time.