Thursday 30 July 2009

Atheist Camp

The Atheist movement seems to be really picking up recently what with the bus campaign, a plethora of anti-religion books and now a summer camp for children which offers a 'godless' alternative to the usual camps where the kids sing hymns and discuss God.
As an atheist myself, i should be cheering and backing the way that God is being pushed back to the fringes but aren't we becoming just as bad as the religious people we condemn in the way we try and shove our beliefs, or lack of them, down the throat of everyone?
The biggest complaint i hear about the religious is the way they 'brainwash' their kids into their way of thinking but to me this is exactly what these Atheist summer camps are designed to do.
Why should it be about religion at all? Why not just have camps that let the kids climb trees and sleep in tents without making it about forcing them into deciding about whether there is a God or not.
You can't expect a pre-teen to take in arguments for or against religion. All they want to do is run around in a big field, yelling, getting muddy and having fun.
That's the sort of camp kids want, not being browbeaten into thinking about things kids have no place even considering until they are mature enough to decide these things for themselves without a parent or camp leader trying to decide it for them.

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