Jesus Camp

[Valerian]

Locked to allow time for everyone to take a step back from the subject.

Edit: Unlocked. Please play nicely, kids! ~T

[Gunslinger]

Has anybody else seen this documentary?  I saw it maybe a few weeks ago...I think it's a bit sad.

All I have to say about it is, "Poor kids."

The saddest part about the whole documentary is the ones who pay the price are the kids, for the radical beliefs of their parents.

Weather you believe in god or not, you should not send your children to be trained by people who use terrorist tactics. Religion does not need soldiers it needs faith.

[Stattick]

I liked Jesus Camp.

They taught me evolution.



Oh, and we saw a massive bat hiding above the snack bar, behind a drain pipe. So using sticks and rocks, we scared it out... and it chirped, chirped, chirped, and flew around and around all mad, right above our heads, and all us little kids screamed and ran for our lives. Then everyone thought I was Satan. It was fun.  ;D

[Sabby]

I liked Jesus Camp.

They taught me evolution.



Oh, and we saw a massive bat hiding above the snack bar, behind a drain pipe. So using sticks and rocks, we scared it out... and it chirped, chirped, chirped, and flew around and around all mad, right above our heads, and all us little kids screamed and ran for our lives. Then everyone thought I was Satan. It was fun.  ;D

LOL!!! Fun times at Bible Camp, huh?

[Stattick]

LOL!!! Fun times at Bible Camp, huh?

Yep... of course they were trying to teach us how "evil"ution is wrong. Ironically, that's exactly what I thought before the course. See, I'd never actually considered the theory of evolution before then. I'd always just dismissed it without ever actually having listened. But because it was Bible camp, I actually listened for the first time, and actually considered the evolution vs creationism debate.

The teacher was quite good at presenting a fair view of evolution. As an example, they showed the evolution of horses over time, and how biologists believe that the horse slowly changed from a yappy dog sized critter to the magestic animal we know today, over the span of millions of years. And it made sense to me. I could see the progression of the skeletons over time. I could see how each form changed... the three toes eventually become just one big toe that the horse walks on... the increases and changes to the skeleton of the 10 or so skeletons they showed. It made sense. It was as if someone turned on the lightbulb over my head...

And the creationism viewpoint, the one that they were trying to force everyone to buy into, just didn't make the same kind of sense. Furthermore, their hard sell tactics backfired on them, at least in my case. "We're not leaving this room until everyone agrees that creationism is how God created the world and animals. Now, we're going to answer all of your questions, until each of you accepts the facts as they're presented in The Bible. And no one leaves until you do..." I listened very carefully to all of the questions and all of the answers. And in each instance, the evolution standpoint made more sense to me... the longer the Q&A went on, the more I was convinced that the "teachers" were full of shit, and trying to force a false viewpoint down our throats. I held my tongue, because I eventually saw that asking honest questions would only produce more dishonest propogandist responses and hard sell tactics. It was one of the most important formative events that I had at around that age. I think I was somewhere around 12 yrs old, and it was the first major instance that eventually led to me leaving the faith (Southern Baptist, an evangelical, fundamentalist, and ultimately a hate based denomination), and finding happiness with philosophies and theologies of a less hostile nature.

After returning home from Bible camp, I found out later that I was "disinvited" to attend any further Bible camps by that same organization. I was too much of a misfit for them... too rebelious... caused to many problems. Being disinvited, although it stung a little to be rejected, suited me just fine. The next few years were filled with Sunday School classes where I asked more and more pointed questions of the teachers, questioning everything. Ultimately, their Bible literalist theocracy failed on multiple fronts to hold me. By the time I was 15, I stopped going to church except for very rare instances, and I always saw a look of anxiety and nervousness on the faces of my fellow attendees and teachers on the few instances when I did attend. Apparently, they were just as uncomfortable with my questions as I was of their inability to answer them.

[Oniya]

Oh good - I thought i was the only one to get disinvited.  My 'crime' was wearing a black, Celtic trefoil T-shirt to the 'study' group, and then pointing out that this same 'three-circle devil's emblem' was embossed on the spines of the hymnals.