Judging from my personal experience with my own development, I agree completely. I had a thought similar to this a few years ago. I was still religious at the time when thought the following: Wouldn't god look more favorably upon someone who actually tried to question his existence and failed, than someone who never even dared to think about it at all? I became an atheist a short time after, for reasons that are obvious in retrospect but this basic creed has stayed: As long as it's just a thought, no bad can come of it. It is dangerous to ignore the thought and risk overlooking something but there is no downside to thinking the thought (except for time). This mindset has helped me a lot and I am far more intelligent now than I was back then (which admittedly doesn't mean much).