Bart Ehrman's "The Religion of a Sixteen-Year-Old."

Bart Ehrman's blog is a subscriber service that I'd love to subscribe to. Rarely does he post an article without having it behind a paywall. I don't know if he just forgot to make the digital fold for this one, but I appreciated this complete reflection from the fellow. He calls it, "The Religion of a Sixteen-Year-Old." Ehrman writes,

But here is what struck me.   About what other form of knowledge or belief would we say that it is better that we should think the way we did when we were 16 than the way we think now?

Would we say that our understanding of science was better then?  Our understanding of biology or physics or astronomy?   Were our views in 1972 better than our views now?   Or how about politics?  Or philosophy?  Would we be better off thinking what we did when we were 16?   Or what about our views of sexual relations?  Or literature?  Or economic investments?  Or … Or anything else?

Isn’t it very strange indeed that so many people of faith – not all of them, of course; and arguably not even most of them; but certainly some of them; in fact a *lot* of them in evangelical circles – think that even though they are supposed to grow, and mature, and develop new ideas, and chart new territories, and acquire new knowledge, and change their understandings  as they get older in every *other* aspect of their lives, they are supposed to hold on to pretty much the SAME religious views that were satisfying to them as a sixteen year old?

I've considered this myself, but never as clearly as Ehrman does here. I can't think of anything about me that hasn't changed since when I was 16., My music taste has changed; my tolerance has changed; my hobbies and occupations have changed.

And I'm very glad that my attitude towards religion has changed since then.