I'm a former Christian, and I'm fascinated by intelligent Christians' ability to compartmentalize.

In every other area of their lives, Christians can be savvy, skeptical, rational...only to be credulous when it comes to religion.

In fact, they compartmentalize even at the "faith" level. Christians can give plenty of rational reasons why miraculous claims by Muslims are obviously dubious, but feel sincerely justified in believing supernatural elemants of their own creed.

In my efforts to understand what is going on in the mind of Christians, I've (currently) concluded the following:

• It's largely emotional and psychological, separate from rational components of their mind.*
• There is often childhood indoctrination involved.
• There is often a significant life-changing event or existential crisis involved prior to conversion.
• There is much to lose from leaving—Social, professional, emotional networks.
• There is little to lose by staying. Pascal's Wager, etc.
• Many don't actually "believe" in any true sense of the word—they just play along and don't make waves.

*Some seem to be able to reason about their beliefs (apologetics), but most of those attempts deconstruct down to some form of Pascal's Wager or Kierkegaardian Leap, which are essentially the same thing—"Why not believe? Life is hard and it can't hurt."

There are a few Christian/spiritual thought schools I'm impressed with. They have depth and devotion, admit agnosticism on many issues, don't dogmatically ignore evidence, etc. To what extent this group can be called "Christian" is disputable, but it's how they see themselves, so...