We really need a category called “damned scary” for this blog. I don’t have a graphic and I’m not going to bother Sean for one this time, but we all need to read this, I think. Richard Dawkins has said more than once that bringing up children who don’t yet have the ability to think and make critical choices (i.e. religion) is a form of child abuse. Originally I thought he was going maybe a tad far, but I’ve reconsidered over time, and this example is DEFINITELY an example of child abuse.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0929-08.htm
Also, read a very nice piece about Judge John Jones on today’s Red State Rabble
You know as well as I do that if ANY parent told their child they were unclean and evil and forced them to “wash away the devil” their children would be taken away and they’d be locked up.
But if you add religion to it, suddenly it’s perfectly acceptable.
I’d love to see these two do a documentary on Camp Quest just to see how the xian assfucks react.
Personally, any parent to sends their children to this camp should have their children taken away.
Anyone else still want to deny that xianity is a cult?
I couldn’t agree more, Matt. That scares the shit out of me. Dawkins is completely correct in his assessment that it’s child abuse to subject kids to silly shit like fucking “Jesus Camp”.
Whatever happened to teaching kids to use their heads and think for themselves?
I’ve been thinking about being a father lately and how I was going to raise my kids, and I’ve decided that I’m not going to raise them in any specific thought process. All I’d ask is that they know what it is they’re talking about.
So I honestly couldn’t care less if they became religious, as long as they looked into what they were going to believe in.
And yet if you ask those assfucks in the movie, they’d call me a bad parent.
I watched the trailer for jesus camp, and the pudge of a woman leading the camp has no right being in a role modle position. For Christs sake she can’t even take care of herself.
The “war talk”, he said, was allegorical.
Yeah, right, and 7 - 12 year old kids, especially if they’ve already been brainwashed, will know the difference?
“I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine.”
So these camps are training Xian suicide bombers? Sick doesn’t even come close.
Matt, when Ken and I decided to try for children, we agreed pretty much the same thing as you. (Well, in my case I also decided to face the way my parents raised me and do the exact opposite - no abuse of any kind, no denigration, and ALWAYS to listen, not think I knew everything.) We’ve encouraged Kai to always ask why and how if he didn’t understand a thing, or felt uneasy with it, no matter who was speaking (and that includes us!) It’s annoyed a few of his teachers, but now, at 11, he’s bright, self-confident and strong, a rational thinker with a strong scientific bent and a deep, deep distrust of religion - which he’s mostly come to by himself, as we’ve tried very hard not to indocrinate him.
We don’t own our children - they’re the future. It’s our responsibility to love and protect them, and prepare them rationally for that future, and force-feeding them lies is not, in my opinion, the way to do it.
I agree with Dawkins 100%. Christianity is a form of child abuse. Lets not forget that christians tell their children that they will go to hell for this reason or that reason and when children cant live up to gawds standards they fear hell. I cant tell you how many nightmares I had of hell as a child being raised catholic. They stayed with me on into my early twenties whenI realized there was no gawd and no hell. It is absolutely a form of psychological torture.
As far a raising children, I have been having great success with raising my kids as atheists. My husband and I teach them to question EVERYTHING and that not all people in authority know better than they do. I do teach them about ALL religions, but I also teach them the truth about them. So far it has worked great, I have three well rounded children who make good grades, have lots of friends and are very kind to animals.
From the first link in Catherine’s post: Jesus Camp is “a sarcastic documentary that paints evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic, and politically concerned Christians as very shrill, warlike and dangerous,” a critic wrote on the Christian website MovieGuide.org.
Yes, that’s about right; the truth hurts, doesn’t it?
At one point Pastor Fischer equates the preparation she is giving children with the training of terrorists in the Middle East. “I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam,” she tells the camera. “I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine.”
I guess that means you also want to see them radically taking lives for the gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine. I’d add “insane” and “abusive” to “shrill, warlike and dangerous.”
I wonder if we’ll ever see Columbine events start to take place in the megachurches out in stripmall exurbia. I mean, come on, all you disaffected youth, you wouldn’t even have to walk from classroom to classroom to find your targets. They’d all be in their places with bright shining faces, gazing in adoration at the pastor. Not that I’m endorsing that sort of behavior, mind you. But it’s time that our atheist children learned to lay down their lives for their faith…oh, wait, they aren’t that stupid and they don’t have any faith.
I’m still flabbergasted by the little mulletheaded kid who decided, at age 5, that he “wanted more out of life”, when what he should have wanted was a haircut. Hell, his mullet alone was child abuse without even factoring in the mindscour of Becky Fischer.
Honestly, fuck these people and their bastardized form of christinsanity- minus, apparently, the christ part- that war, killing, torture, and hatred are somehow justified by a product of their sick imaginations. Really, they’re on my fucking last nerve, to a point where I avoid even family functions because I know I won’t be able to hold my tongue with them- and I really want to keep getting xmas gifts.
some more GOPycrisy. . .
Rep. Foley Resigns!
Did you guys watch the trailer on YouTube yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_EKHK1C2IE
I’ve always hated those evil-child movies - such as “The Omen 1-20″ and “The Children of the Corn/Wheat/Cereal/Whatever”, etc. I thought they were scary but ridiculous, but knowing more about the Reich and how kids were trained to turn in people - even their own parents - I guess these films could be seen as allegories for the real thing, couldn’t they? But I still don’t like them. (I mean in terms of actually getting a kick out of them.) The horror just doesn’t work for me. I need something like “Night of the Living Dead” or “Poltergeist”. Maybe what I really need is a good film; Damien and his compatriots probably don’t qualify.
Catherine, here’s teh scary.
Thanks Kate I’ve been watching the trailors and other clips. I think the part that bothered me the most was how the kids were told to come up and wash away their evilness as the kids were crying. It looked like they really felt bad about themselves and they really believed they did something horible wrong. That is the ultimate psychological mind fuck. I feel so sorry for those kids.
Raindogzilla said:”I wonder if we’ll ever see Columbine events start to take place in the megachurches out in stripmall exurbia.”
I think we will definitely see more neurotic behaviour from these kids. Remember that one kid who killed his girlfriends parents?
Beg pardon if I offend anyone, but there’s really one word that comes to mind when I read this:
“Fuckers.”
That’s probably the most adequate (and certainly the most concise) way to describe the sick people who are brainwashing these poor kids into such absolute idiocy. While I don’t mean to devalue the cases of physical or mental child abuse, I would agree– this sort of spiritual abuse is just awful.
Gah. That makes me so angry.
“That is the ultimate psychological mind fuck.” - Say No To Christ
What more can I say? Exactly what I was thinking. It is child abuse. I just imagine that those of us who were mixed up with this sort of thing before becoming atheists can see that some of these kids will realize it, eventually.
I’ve been thinking about being a father lately and how I was going to raise my kids, and I’ve decided that I’m not going to raise them in any specific thought process. All I’d ask is that they know what it is they’re talking about.
Matt, I’ve got a 15 yr old son and an 11 yr old daughter. We did pretty much as you mention (with an emphasis on a decent education) and seem to have ended up with 2 beautiful, “well adjusted” kids. The older oftens looks over my shoulder while I’m looking around here and tends to like what he sees. The younger says she doesn’t need and couldn’t care less about xianity, or any other “brand” for that matter.
The bible and Quran are both available to them and get spoken about often enough, there’ll be at least one discussion a day that includes either or both, but because they’ve been taught to deal with life as they encounter it, neither holds any attraction for them other than as a story. My boy started the bible a few weeks ago, is only half way into Genisis and is already asking how anyone managed to read it all in the first place. Man did I laugh…:)
Jesus Camps are definitely frightening, but there’s an even more wide-spread influence on children by these fundies that should be addressed. The New York Times today published an article on the use of corporal punishment in many states. Even though the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of School Psychologists and the American Medical and Bar Associations have come out against corporal punishment school districts, primarily in Bible Belt states, continue to have policies allowing teachers to beat kids with paddles. This practice is based on Biblical teachings and should be entirely unacceptable in public schools.
You can imagine the increased brainwashing potential of Jesus Camps when torture (bruising of behinds) is allowed to be implemented along with the badgering and hysteria utilized by fanatical Ms Fischer.
Yeah, but don’t you think it’s a little bit funny that the camp’s called “Kids on Fire” and they’re at Devil’s Lake?
That would be the only humour in it, though. I believe this variety of fundie will soon be (if not already) universally recognized as a brainwashing cult, in the tradition of Moonies, Davidians and that ilk. There is no doubt that children brought up in these cult conditions will suffer the trauma of this abuse for the rest of their lives. Some will go on to become leaders in their own cult, but the saddest fact is that most of them will probably just suffer their developing mental disorder quietly and painfully.
Crushing the spirit of an innocent child should be a criminal offense.
Sorry, folks, I don’t know why that link above didn’t work once submitted. In the preview it worked.
The NY Times article is entitled “In Many Public Schools, the Paddle is No Relic” by Rick Lyman. Hope you’re able to check it out online.
Plonka, you can tell your son that I’ve read 9 different translations and used even more to verify certain contradictions.
Obsessive? No. I just have a lot of time on my hands.
From the first link in Catherine’s post: Jesus Camp is “a sarcastic documentary that paints evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic, and politically concerned Christians as very shrill, warlike and dangerous,” a critic wrote on the Christian website MovieGuide.org.
Eve, whenever I read really obvious statements like this, my first response is, “And your point being . . .?” What a good description this is.
“. . .and I really want to keep getting xmas gifts. RDZ”
Raindog, hee to the above.
Also, yes, I forgot about evil seed Patty McCormick. Poor kid, did she ever do anything else after that film?
Steady on Matt! It’s a wonder you can still do any more than dribble and mumble incoherently…:-) I’ve only read 2…
He’ll get there though. He’s at another “begat” bit and can’t remember all the names yet. He’s persistant though, so I’m sure I’ll be fielding more questions again soon enough.
Okay, I just watched that trailer for the movie and I think I figured out something really important about Becky never-been-laid Fisher.
When SHE watched “Carrie” she thought the Mom was the hero.
GET IN YOUR CLOSET AND PRAY!!!
What if this was a vid on American Satanists training their children or Muslems in America training their children like this. HHMMMM I think they’d be shut down and heavily investigated.
“Yeah, but don’t you think it’s a little bit funny that the camp’s called “Kids on Fire” and they’re at Devil’s Lake?”
How deliciously ironic! I smell a script for a horror flick.
“Yeah, but don’t you think it’s a little bit funny that the camp’s called “Kids on Fire” and they’re at Devil’s Lake?”
Maybe this is really satan’s camp and he is “possessing” and tricking people to send their kids there.
A long time ago, when my husband was still in the Air Force at Little Rock, our neighbors talked us into going to their church with them one sunday. It was one of those Pentecostal churches where people go into emotional spasms and dance and jump around in the aisles. It was a frightning experience! People mumbling (supposedly talking in tongues) and crawling around the floor and some shaking in spasms. Kids were right there in the midst doing whatever the adults did. Some were stomping and waving hands in the air and shouting and crying. We were like holyfuckingshitgetmeoutofhere!!! At the time I had said to my husband it seemed they were in need of a mass exorcism!
It’s not just Richard Dawkins who has been saying that religious indoctrination in children is child abuse. I put this link on my blog and mention it around the commentosphere all the time.
What Shall We Tell the Children? by Nicholas Humphrey.