[geeks] Goodbye, I guess

[Phil Stracchino]

N. Miller wrote:
> Although, Amish don't proselytize.  They are anabaptists--and left  
> Europe due to the persecution they received for not baptizing at  
> birth.  This is part of the reason that the kids seem a little wild-- 
> they don't make the choice to stay in the church until 16.

Which I'm all in favor of.  I think something like religious belief is
something kids should be left to make up their minds about until they
can think rationally about it for themselves, not indoctrinated and
programmed into it from birth.

In fact, I personally believe the indoctrination-from-birth method is
the only way most of the world's religions maintain more than maybe
about 10% of their followers.  I suspect that if left to decode for
themselves as young adults, most people would say, "OK, so I should
believe in God/Allah/Vishnu, but not in the Easter Bunny or the Tooth
Fairy, *WHY*, exactly...?"

And that's undoubtedly a large part of why they do it.  So hurrah for
the Amish!


-- 
        Phil Stracchino                CDK#2
 Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net   alaric at caerllewys.net
 Landline: 603-429-0220           Mobile: 603-320-5438
        It's not the years, it's the mileage.