Seriously, I wonder about the effect of filling kids heads with stories
of magic and so on. I think it leaves them with a predispositition to
believe in religion (the bad sort, not ours). It took me until my
teens to purge the worst of that nonsense, but I still notice
corruption in my neural nets from time-to-time.
I found Sunday school to be particularly frustrating as well. My
parents sent to a Baptist summer camp once -- when I asked the minister
a bunch of questions in an informal service, he refused to answer them
in front of the crowd. He suggested I come to his cabin afterwards (no
he wasn't a Newfie priest) for a private discussion, but I still didn't
buy in. Looking back on it, that's one of my prouder moments.
Even so, I think it would be more politically correct for us to discuss
brainwashing of the young using the Sunday school analogy (or perhaps
Boy Scouts), than say the Hitler Youth. Or Young Republicans.
"Can you tell the difference? I can't tell the difference."
Sean Morgan