The Jesuits have a saying sometimes attributed to Francis Xavier, “Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.” The Jesuits were a tad optimistic, but ample research on identity formation shows that religious, cultural, and political identity become established by early adulthood and rarely change thereafter except in response to crisis. In fact, even in the face of crisis, core beliefs about who we are and why we are here, can be remarkably resilient.

This is due in part to the fact that individual beliefs do not exist in isolation. Rather, each exists as part of a whole network of other beliefs, memories, and attitudes. The more central or important any given belief, the more it is entangled with the rest of our world view. And the more it is tied into the tangle, the harder it is to change. Because religious views are so central, they are particularly resistant to change.

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