I am surprised by your scripting comment, I think the logic skills (if then, etc.) are pretty paramount to programming. Sure they are structured differently, but I don't see how they couldn't help to get a feel for things.
Well, really, anything could help, I probably overstated. It's just that the scripting languages often have rather weird corners to their syntax, and people get hung up on that.
Probably what matters more is motivation. I know that, despite people trying to introduce me to it, I didn't really get interested in programming until I had a problem I wanted to solve but couldn't solve with paper and pencil, and then I used the first language that came to hand (which was C, probably not a great first language!)
