Religious belief

[Valka]

Re: Jesus Camp, I didn't watch the video, Valka, for various reasons.  Looked it up on Wiki instead.  It sounds like the bulk of their teaching methods are unobjectionable--textbooks, songs, and lectures/sermons.  Training children in oratory is actually a fine idea, and should be more common IMO.  The methods seem fine.  It's just that the *content* is totally cuckoo for cocoa-puffs, and hateful to boot.  Are you objecting more to the method or the content?  I say this as someone who's read about the Church of Scientology's indoctrination practices--those make any little kids' camp business seem tame.

I can't take your defense of that seriously if you don't watch the video. I know it's a long one - there's a shorter "highlight" video that shows some of the worst of it, but the longer one shows how this camp is combined with anti-science homeschooling, a young girl who thinks that "martyrs are cool," and a whole host of other nonsense (apparently Jesus blesses Power Point presentations and the Nestle corporation's bottled water is holy and able to wash away sin).

Getting children hyped up to the point where they're babbling in tongues, crying and made to feel guilty just for acting like a normal kid (did you know that if Harry Potter were real, he'd be killed as a warlock?), literally rolling on the floor having some kind of fit, learning songs and dances about being some kind of "God's army", having hate and intolerance preached at them by a woman who freely acknowledges on the video (not in front of the kids or their parents) some of the psychological hooks she uses on them... none of that is a benign way to teach children about love or kindness, and they can learn oratory in a way that doesn't involve preaching intolerance.

I object to both the content AND the method.

[Buster's Uncle]

Allow me to interject a personal opinion, Valka - I haven't watched the video, either, basically because I believe your assessment, but also from strong supicion that it could be triggering-level unpleasant to see...  Elok may not react as viscerally as I do to child abuse, but it's obvious that's what it is and nobody wants to see that.  You don't need his informed reaction that bad, I think.

[Elok]

I'm not watching because I'm on a slowish connection.  Also, have no means of watching without my kids seeing.  The bit about fits and speaking in tongues sounds like what I've heard about typical behavior for adult Pentecostal or charismatic types--it may not be the result of their methods so much as what they see Mom and Dad doing in church every couple of Sundays.  It's a very effusive and emotional style of worship, supposedly.  I'm not a Pentecostal so I don't know for sure, but that's the scuttlebutt.

At any rate, getting back to Dawkins's remark: we Orthodox run church camps, I went to one every summer for ten years, and mostly we just went to church twice a day and played sports and stuff the rest of the time.  It is entirely possible to teach religion to children without giving them PTSD.  Much of the time Sunday School, as Buncle notes, is simply taught by morons.  Not monsters, just morons.

[Lorizael]

Not sure if I've discussed this w/you (and maybe Ken or Moby) on Poly before, but my general policy on this score is that if the truth of the universe is indifferent to me, then I might as well be indifferent to it.  If the atheist rots in the ground just as surely as the most pious churchgoer, I have no reason to be an atheist unless it happens to appeal to me personally, which it doesn't.  Evidence--not that there can really be any for this kind of claim--doesn't enter into it.  It's hard for me to buy any appeal to absolutes of truth, justice, etc. either, if once we've thrown away the absolute of absolutes.  If there is no God (or equivalent thingy like karma), there are only contingent and subjective goods based on my interests or desires, or what happens to be expedient at the moment.  I dislike that thought intensely, so I reject its logical precedents.  Which is not itself "illogical" from my perspective, if there is no profit from knowing the truth.

Actually, I think I have mentioned this to you before.  But hey, I haven't done it on this forum before!

Yeah, we've had this discussion before. I agree with you that anything short of god-level truth and absolutes don't hold much appeal for me. This is why, absent certainty about the supernatural, I am principally amoral. And that's why my general life goal is to figure out what's beyond the universe, which (a) probably requires omniscience and (b) is a goal that lends itself to a certain ethical framework, which is why I have opinions about things that I admit don't "really matter."

[Valka]

Allow me to interject a personal opinion, Valka - I haven't watched the video, either, basically because I believe your assessment, but also from strong supicion that it could be triggering-level unpleasant to see...  Elok may not react as viscerally as I do to child abuse, but it's obvious that's what it is and nobody wants to see that.  You don't need his informed reaction that bad, I think.

I will say that I did not see any of the kids being physically struck. The abuse is being done to their minds - mentally, emotionally, any way you think about it. Some of the kids in the video are only about 4 years old.

I'm not watching because I'm on a slowish connection.  Also, have no means of watching without my kids seeing.  The bit about fits and speaking in tongues sounds like what I've heard about typical behavior for adult Pentecostal or charismatic types--it may not be the result of their methods so much as what they see Mom and Dad doing in church every couple of Sundays.  It's a very effusive and emotional style of worship, supposedly.  I'm not a Pentecostal so I don't know for sure, but that's the scuttlebutt.

I'm just saying please don't defend the contents of this video if you haven't watched it. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention even a small fraction of what's actually in this.

The kids are not copying their parents because they think it's fun. Becky Fischer has both kids and parents in an auditorium and she tells them to do this. Next thing, everyone's babbling in tongues, kids are crying... it looks like a whole roomful of people have gone insane. And that's supposed to be good?

At any rate, getting back to Dawkins's remark: we Orthodox run church camps, I went to one every summer for ten years, and mostly we just went to church twice a day and played sports and stuff the rest of the time.  It is entirely possible to teach religion to children without giving them PTSD.  Much of the time Sunday School, as Buncle notes, is simply taught by morons.  Not monsters, just morons.

There's a considerable difference between a couple of church services and being allowed to do normal kid things the rest of the time... and the stuff these kids were put through by the people who run the camp shown in the video. They actually show one little boy expressing doubts... and later on he's babbling and shaking on the floor with the rest of them.

When I was 8 years old, my aunt insisted that I try out the Sunday school at her church - a Pentecostal church. I went twice, and then my dad found out. He hit the roof, forbade any more Sunday school, and I was honestly glad of that. It's unsettling to think I could have turned out like the woman in the video or the parents of some of those kids.

[Unorthodox]

I can't take your defense of that seriously if you don't watch the video.

This video contains content from Magnolia, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

We are at an impasse. 

[Lorizael]

Re: Silly Wiccans, I largely gave up criticizing individual beliefs and believers a long time ago because doing so feels pretty similar to BU's xkcd comic. I recognize that people who believe things I find incomprehensible or weird or stupid see the world in a way I have trouble doing, and the reverse is probably true, too. Combined with the fact that I don't claim any moral superiority, I don't see any reason why I should get my panties in a twist when people don't choose to live their lives in accordance with my bizarre philosophy.

[Buster's Uncle]

A major long-term goal of my life is to understand everyone and everything.  Accept my assurance that, if I do not truly understand my burnout friends of my showbiz days, had I not already spoken about them I could launch a defense here that would fool even Wiccans into thinking I am one, if not a master at all.  I DO understand them THAT much.

---

Valka, I didn't say anything about violence - that's fodder for police action, not discrediting webs video.  Still child abuse, and I don't want to know about child abuse I can't do anything about.

Incidentally, I found out today that Marvel Comics deluge-era Atlanteans had a goddess named "Valka".  Believe it.

[Elok]

Valka, I'm not sure how I got into this argument.  I'm willing to concede that I am not familiar with this Jesus Camp, and judging by your descriptions it's at least borderline-abusive.  I'm not going to try to defend it any further.  It's also not representative of all religious instruction.  Your typical Catholic school these days, for example, is all but identical to public schools.  They just have an extra religion class in addition to chemistry, drama, algebra, etc.  I've also been to an open house for a Christian homeschooling group; they struck me as flaky, obscurantist, and far too cozy with the post-Reagan chimera of Faith and 'Murica, but not in any way abusive or brainwashing.  The main harm done is that, if any of those kids wants to be a biologist, he's going to have some remedial classes to take.  So nuts to Dawkins and his opinion, which he apparently expressed in The God Delusion, that my kids should be taken away from me and raised as atheists.

Lori: It's odd how you emphasize your amorality while being one of the most consistently decent people on Poly.

[Buster's Uncle]

Let's have a conversation instead of an argument, if I haven't already suggested that.  I had a reasonably fun argument at that WPC link(s) I posted, but conversation need not agree and is better for not being adversarial.

Lori: It's odd how you emphasize your amorality while being one of the most consistently decent people on Poly.

THANK YOU, Elok; I've been thinking this forever, but needed you to come along and articulate it.  QFFT.

[Lorizael]

Lori: It's odd how you emphasize your amorality while being one of the most consistently decent people on Poly.

Part of this has to do with the fact that my usage of the word morality is not exactly standard. Morality, to me, is solely concerned with actions geared toward an objectively important end (and I'm not yet aware of any of those, which is why I say that I am amoral). Obviously, however, when most people talk about being moral, they're talking about human conduct as it relates to the welfare of humans/living things/Earth/etc.

I have a standard of conduct for how I treat people, and this standard derives from my philosophical leanings (also, obviously, from my psychological makeup; I'd be lying to myself if I thought otherwise), but that standard is not something I believe to be objectively important; it merely serves my interests.

There are a couple ways in which my amorality resembles the usual variety of non-decency you might expect, however. For example, to godwinize, I don't think that Hitler was "evil," or that what he did was bad. Notice these are unqualified statements. It's clearly true that what Hitler did was bad for the continued existence of the people he (had) killed, or for humanity in general, or for the progress of our species, etc. But I (try to) refrain from making unqualified value judgments, because I don't think I am qualified to do so. When I do appear to make judgments, it's usually because I think people's actions are violating the kinds of tenets they purport to support (and which I probably share for my own interests).

The other way in which I can be traditionally amoral is that I have trouble distinguishing between different kinds of force. I'm not really a believer in free will, which to me makes it hard to tell the difference between rationally convincing someone to do something and threatening them at gunpoint. From a certain point of viewpoint, both methods of persuasion are equally repellent/equally permissible.

I tend not to mention this stuff, because it's not likely to make me very many friends...

[Unorthodox]

  You should mention it more often.

[Buster's Uncle]

You think I try to be a nice guy because my natural first impulse is to try?  It's for a lot of reasons, but a major one I'm unembarrassed to own openly is that being kind -and trustworthy- is how to make friends, something I want for selfish reasons.  You're not that special in doing the right thing for selfish reasons...

Sin of Lazarus again, pal.

[Buster's Uncle]

P.S.  I did mean the sin of rising from the dead, not the one Judas did with thinking he was special and unforgiveable - I don't make mistakes.

[Valka]

I can't take your defense of that seriously if you don't watch the video.

This video contains content from Magnolia, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

We are at an impasse.

Well, that's un-neighborly of them (Disney frequently won't let me watch General Hospital on YT for the same reason).

I'll see if another site might have it.

Valka, I didn't say anything about violence - that's fodder for police action, not discrediting webs video.  Still child abuse, and I don't want to know about child abuse I can't do anything about.

Incidentally, I found out today that Marvel Comics deluge-era Atlanteans had a goddess named "Valka". Believe it.

The police services of the world are behind the times when it comes to reporting crimes discovered online. I work for Amazon Mechanical Turk, and one time I stumbled into a child porn site - and to this day it upsets me greatly that I have no idea what to do if it should ever happen again.


Um... "Bow down, puny mortals!" (?) Or is this "Valka" character a nice one? 

(actually, I'm a bit surprised not to have run across this before, since most of the times when people at CFC ask about my username, they think it has something to do with the ancient city of Ur and don't mention the rest of it at all)
 
 

Valka, I'm not sure how I got into this argument.  I'm willing to concede that I am not familiar with this Jesus Camp, and judging by your descriptions it's at least borderline-abusive.  I'm not going to try to defend it any further.

Thank you.

Part of the reason I got annoyed with your defense of something you hadn't seen is because you were arguing with insufficient evidence.

It's like defending a book you haven't read - or even criticizing one you haven't read either, for that matter.

It may surprise people, but I get annoyed when Original Dune fans speak out against nuDune when they haven't read any nuDune books. Saying "I've heard it's bad,  therefore I think it's bad" is making someone else the keeper of your opinions. It's also an ineffective argument if you want to convince a nuDune fan why you think the books they like are awful.

It's also not representative of all religious instruction.  Your typical Catholic school these days, for example, is all but identical to public schools.  They just have an extra religion class in addition to chemistry, drama, algebra, etc.  I've also been to an open house for a Christian homeschooling group; they struck me as flaky, obscurantist, and far too cozy with the post-Reagan chimera of Faith and 'Murica, but not in any way abusive or brainwashing.  The main harm done is that, if any of those kids wants to be a biologist, he's going to have some remedial classes to take.  So nuts to Dawkins and his opinion, which he apparently expressed in The God Delusion, that my kids should be taken away from me and raised as atheists.

It actually doesn't matter to me if a Christian believes in God, Jesus, goes to church 3 times a week (yes, I knew someone who did that), read the bible, whatever... as long as they're not hypocrites about it or try to get religion-based laws enacted, creationism taught in science classes, prevent others from learning things normally part of science and health classes, shoehorn it into schools, government, and society in other inappropriate or biased ways, and force their views into the hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies.

It does matter to me if they try to argue their positions only from the bible, however. I had a friend who insisted that the entirety of Jesus' life occurred between 1 BC and 1 AD, and therefore everything I'd been telling her about 1st-century Rome didn't make any sense (we were watching I, Claudius since Patrick Stewart was in that series and I was explaining a condensed version of the history of the Julio-Claudians to her).

I know that not all Christians are like the people in the video, and they don't all go around harassing women at health clinics or insert religion into public school classes. It's those who do, though, that concern me. It concerns me in a major way if a pharmacist refuses to sell anything to do with birth control to a woman for "religious/faith" reasons.

I have not read The God Delusion, so have nothing to say about it, either pro or con. I will form an opinion about it after I've read it, if I read it. Any opinions I do have about Dawkins come from his videos and videos of conferences, debates, etc. he's participated in with other people, and interviews.