Yes, that's why so many simpleminded and naive people will get swayed.

I believe an evangelist might say something like this, and we may all be evangelists in one way or another, but I think we have different views of it.

There are shades of gray not being discussed. Some parents force their kids to do everything they want them to, some only protect them and set boundaries, some do nothing. Kids are raised, people are molded, by a variety of factors, of which many are evangelically put into their heads. Ideas of status, wealth, happiness, meaning, intelligence, normalcy, are all instilled as you say...but I would seem to think parents should be wise enough to know the motives and / or reasons of the axioms of society, whether they are religious or not, and question their own beliefs - before they have kids...and to not label a child's mental belief system until he/she actually develops it.

But maybe that's my own crazy opinion .

Evangelism is the process of helping guide people to Jesus. Everyone is on a road that leads to Jesus, but not everyone is going the same way, as some are hostile to Jesus, and some are closer to Jesus than others but aren't moving much closer. Others are closer still but haven't yet quite gotten close enough. Where ever you are on this road we share, it's the job of the evangelist to move people a little closer to Jesus than where they are.

we as adults tend to attribute adult abilities to children. If were are talking about evangelizing to children. Developementally they don't even start using serious rationalization skills until the age of 11. They are hardwired to acquire language, culture, etc... it really does not matter the force with which a parent, society, school, pressures a kid to do this or that because they are already hardwired to aquire what they are exposed to. By not pushing an agenda they aquire the agenda of not pushing an agenda, or rather they aquire the agenda from elsewhere, normally the area in their life in which the agenda is most aggressivly pushed. Thus the reason why so many schools and education systems assume the role of parent, and the reason why after the age of 10-11 a peer group's agenda most often supplants those of a parent, or religion.

In children there really is not that much grey area, one needs to rationalize a grey area. Look at it like a circuit, it is eithger opened or closed without a medium to filter the input (rationalization). This is not to say children are stupid or can't think, or do not operate by an inner logic, they do and have skills to do so, if not they would all be run over by cars having never learned the rational skills not to look both ways before crossing a street, yet much of this is almost pavlovian, as any one who has raised a child can testify, sometimes they are the most sage beings on earth but more often its a never ending cycle of "I don't know why you don't understand that leaving your socks on the floor will get you in trouble every time!"

In adults however who can rationalize, as I said before, once an ideal is fossilized there is no more need to waste precious cognition power to re-rationalize the ideal every time something comes up concerning it. It then becomes an operational dogma.

You make a certain point, for sure. Some people just draw the line differently in relation to the evangelism mentioned in this thread - religious. I have yet to have children so I can't make anything but idealistic claims on future actions - and thus my perspective. But I hope I will provide, in some way, freedom from religious obligations of any kind, whether theist or atheist, and instill the values religion claims to, plus others.

BMC: this all stemmed from my original post, which was calling attention to a perjorative stereotype, and that the OP was not a call for rational discussion of evangelism like many of us have had on this thread, but an outright call for condemnation of evangelism/religion based on the tenor of the forum in recent months.

This is a great point. Generally anyone who expresses an opinion with the notion that this opinion is a gift....is something like an evangelist. The talk radio boys are political "evangelists." Environmentalists are "evangelists." Spreaders of the good news, right? Spengler called Nietzsche a socialist, by which he meant a person concerned with the behavior of others. It was a good point. Cynics, atheists, skeptics...still find a way to evangelize. The good news is...we no longer have to trouble ourselves with hoping for good news. Or the news is the impossibility of news. What tangled webs we weave when first we practice to tell the truth.

Evangelism is enthusiastic expression,
It is art that prefers to be bought.