Firstly; yes I am a newbee and yes I probably am not worthy of using this forum with such intellectuals but ... I am going to anyway.
Secondly(and the point of this discussion)Does anyone have any strong feelings or points to raise regarding the Channel 4 Prog 'Jesus Camp'?
Let it be known that I am an atheist but am able to try and understand a person's need for faith. My point being that my atheism is not something that prevents me from accepting religion in others lives and the benefits it offers some people. I do not have to be religious or agnostic to do this.
I do not however think it is acceptable in any circumstances to indoctorinate the minds of the innocent youth of this world with the religious beliefs held by their parents or 'summer camps'.
These children were shown incorrect models of foetuses in a very disturbing 'sermon' on anti-abortion, pro-life thinking. They were told that that God has wrtten the story for life before they were even conceived and that abortion is preventing these aborted children from fulfilling Gods plans for them. Additionally, it was said that these children had been denied 1/3rd of their friends through foetuses being aborted by the evil people.
This appalling behaviour by any standards. If their religion is soooo great then surely allowing children to develop a mind of their own, an open mind, a strong sense of self, then and only then will those children grow to make a greater informed decision about religion. Surely the greatness of the religion will speak for itself.
I shall stop here befoe I get angry and type incessantly for an inapporpriate length of time.
I shall return calmer and ready to discuss when you are.
ParanoidEyes 'You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise'
ParanoidEyes
"You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise"
I had heard about this documentary from other sources, but it did not prepare me for the feelings of rage that welled up inside me as the programme progressed. That there are still people not only willing to 'teach' this stuff but, even more unbelievable, people who are prepared to inflict it on their children!
I must say I'm *really* surprised there aren't more comments about it on this forum. Surely it wasn't because the programme was on so late?
Originally posted by Roy P: I must say I'm *really* surprised there aren't more comments about it on this forum. Surely it wasn't because the programme was on so late?
It was indeed such a good example of what happens when you take theism to its natural conclusion. You wouldn't expect comments from theists attempting to defend the indefensible and atheists really don't need to say anything other than 'see'.
I am surprised there aren't any comments from first time posters though.
Originally posted by ParanoidEyes: Let it be known that I am an atheist but am able to try and understand a person's need for faith.
hi, i didn't see the programme, but on this point above i think belief in god fulfills two basic human psychological needs - one is for the ultimate parent who never abandons you and for whom you are always the child (Freud and psychoanalysis has much to say on this human need) and the other is to assuage the terrible realisation of one's own mortality and insignificance that comes as a result of having a brain sufficiently developed to think beyond one's own place and time. No surprise that animals do not need god.
Human's are creatures that are hard wired to deconstruct, order, understand and manipulate the world and really struggle to accept 'not knowing', so what we don't know we fill with confabulation and fantasy, which is why even quite intelligent and otherwise sensible people appear to believe in god.
As for religion (doctrine, rules, etc) that is and always has been purely about the exercise of (human) power.
Originally posted by ParanoidEyes: Firstly; yes I am a newbee and yes I probably am not worthy of using this forum with such intellectuals but ... I am going to anyway.
Many thanks for those of you who have contributed to this thread/discussion thingy.
The programme was a cracking piece of programming from the point that it has made me accept that this horrific indoctrination of young minds still exists to such a degree.
I was gripped and incensed. Yelling at my TV and tutting and sighing excessively. As you do when you feel totally useless and unable to stop these things.
I can't beleive that they encourage these children to be such extremists. The preacher actually said how useful children are to their cause because they are easy to mould. She wanted to see them lay down their lives for their religion as other martyrs do for theirs.
I was quite surprised to hear the programmers state the 75% of home tutored children in the States are pentacostal christians. The mothers were indignant about the benefots of having them at home and teaching them about the evils of the world.
Why aren't children allowed to keep their innocence and naivity any more?
(Apologies for spelling errors etc, little bit of dyslexia creeping in)
ParanoidEyes
"You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise"
Originally posted by ParanoidEyes: I can't beleive that they encourage these children to be such extremists. The preacher actually said how useful children are to their cause because they are easy to mould. She wanted to see them lay down their lives for their religion as other martyrs do for theirs.
Well, hence the Jesuit maxim about the child. And Venutius is right, it is not just America where this happens.
I watched it on tape with Mrs Blast because I knew it would get us in the mood for the hour of enjoyable yelling at the TV that is The Apprentice. So we had two hours of yelling at the TV.
To answer the OP, there's no reaction maybe because the arguments have already been won. Religion, particularly religion of this sort, is poisonous and indefensible. This was a historical prog. As it pointed out at the end, Pastor Ted got busted on charges of unimaginable hypocrisy and Jesus Camp itself no longer happens. These are sad, deluded people flogging a dead horse and the tide is gradually turning against them as people wake up to what Hitchins, Harris and the Dawk are saying. Eventually people like this will be forced to stay away from children. Eventually.
Originally posted by blast99: I watched it on tape with Mrs Blast because I knew it would get us in the mood for the hour of enjoyable yelling at the TV that is The Apprentice. So we had two hours of yelling at the TV.
To answer the OP, there's no reaction maybe because the arguments have already been won. Religion, particularly religion of this sort, is poisonous and indefensible. This was a historical prog. As it pointed out at the end, Pastor Ted got busted on charges of unimaginable hypocrisy and Jesus Camp itself no longer happens. These are sad, deluded people flogging a dead horse and the tide is gradually turning against them as people wake up to what Hitchins, Harris and the Dawk are saying. Eventually people like this will be forced to stay away from children. Eventually.
You're probably right: But what a sad day that will be for humanity at large, signalling, as it will, yet a further victory for the Dark One; another day closer to Armageddon.
What time is it, Mr Woolf? Time to mend your ways, for the end is nigh.
Originally posted by Venutius: Presumably I'm not allowed to chat on C4 forums.
Dead right. No-one is. It's increasingly becoming a complete waste of time. Far better to go somewhere else than waste time carefully constructing a discussion and have it randomly deleted.
I think maybe we should start up a petition, then we can collect names easily. We should start up a spleen-venting thread to get some good opinions about it and put them into the words of the petition.
Once we have a few names, I'm sure the IT media would pick up on it. I reckon that would be enough to change things.
Originally posted by Venutius: If we base it around freedom of speech, I've got a very large circle of friends that would sign.
I looked around the C4 website to see to where it would be best to address an email but I didn't find any suitable place. Where do you think we could send it to?
By the way, you can contact me at info at timewatch org in case I suddenly disappear.
Hows this for some text:
Channel 4 Television is one of the worlds greatest producers and distributers of high quality television output of all genres, it's fan base spans every social niche creating a comunity of like minded individuals that spans the world.
C4's most avid fans are drawn to the C4 online forums, to chat about their favourite programs and exchange views.
We represent these fans, we are the C4 forum users and we love Channel 4.
But we feel that Channel 4 does not love us. In fact, we are beginning to believe that Channel 4 holds us in contempt because of the arbitary way that we are being treated by the forum moderators.
Every one of us witnesses several times a day forum posts being deleted for no apparent reason. We are never informed as to why this happens and the majority of posts affected have no obvious reason for the deletion. It's as if we are spoilt children with an overstratched nanny slapping us to keep quiet while never telling us what we did wrong.
We feel that this behaviour is contrary to our human rights, we feel that we owe it to ourselves and to the countless generations of future fans that will visit the forums to have this issue aired and dealt with.
can i just say, as someone who has been banned from the C4 fora on (ahem) a number of occasions, and argued the toss about the management and moderation of the fora on most of those....
that (IMO) its a bit of a waste of time arguing with the powers that be. there is no 'free speech' or'right' to do/post anything here: we post here purely and only courtesy of the provider, and they set the T&C and manage them as they see fit.
this is actually by far the most liberal of all the C4 forums, and although at times appearing capricious, it is pretty laissez faire on here compared (for example) to the news forum. its also the tiniest, so they really are not going to take much notice of 5 disgruntled argumentative people on a little used forum
