On faith's erosion of critical thought

Christopher has been taught all of his life that 2+2 = 5. He weekly goes to a classroom filled with hundreds of other people who all insist that 2+2 = 5. His parents, family, and friends make a point of reiterating that 2+2 = 5 on a daily basis. One day, Christopher is playing Batman and Robin with his friend Marcus who mentions to him that 2+2 = 4. Christopher laughs at this and states that his friend is clearly wrong. Marcus raises his eyebrows and asks him why Christopher thinks he is wrong. Christopher states that he was taught to 2+2 = 5 and that everybody knows that 2+2 = 5. Marcus asks Christopher to sit down and to let him see his Batman action figures. They each have a Batman and Robin set, so Marcus puts the two Batman’s together and the two Robins together and then counts up to four. He looks at Christopher. ‘That’s 2, and that’s 2, and together, that’s 4.’ Christopher stares at the sets of toys for awhile and his brain reacts with dissonance. At this point has one of three options. The first is to accept the fact that what he has been taught does not match reality, and to modify his existing worldview based on the evidence in front of him. The second of these is for him to not give in quite so easily, as he does not want to go against all of the thinking of the people he knows, but to allow a seed of doubt about his worldview to sprout in his brain: from now on, new information coming from his family and friends will be examined a little more closely than in the past. The final option is sadly the one most often chosen by those committed to a faith-based worldview. Because the cognitive dissonance of the evidence in front of Christopher is distressing, Christopher will distract himself from the situation and avoid playing with Marcus again in the future. He will return home quickly and seek reassurance from his family and friends that 2+2 = 5. He will raise the question with his father or pastor that he saw what looked like 2+2 = 4 earlier in the day in order to hear the divinely-inspired justification for why 2+2 remains equal to 5. He will be reassured by them and praised for sticking to his convictions, thus reinforcing his approach to determining what is real.