Jesus Camp ?

[yorsubs]

Hi,

I just watched the film "Jesus Camp" tonight.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...arch&plindex=0

I looked on this site for some comments about that film, but I could not find any.
Without biasing people's opinions, I was wondering what you all thought of the film and whether you liked, loved, hated, were indifferent to it, or whatever ?

Cheers,

Roy.

[Jimmy Higgins]

It was disturbing what a fringe of Christians are willing to do in order to propagate their religious beliefs. To emotionally manipulate children in the fashion those people were is absolutely absurd and borders on abuse. The most disturbing part was the exercise they did regarding using violence to protest something they disagreed with.

If these people represented the mainstream Christian faith in the US, this country would be intolerable. Thankfully, they are a relative minimum.

[yorsubs]

Thanks for that Jimmy,

It worried me a lot on hundreds of different levels also. I get the impression that you are a Christian, and like the Christian radio presenter in that film, it's good to see that you abhor what that woman was doing to those poor children.

I completely agree with every word you said here.
There is a problem though, and that is, if "dogma" is taught in science classes, it also logical concludes with people like this brain washing children. i.e. if you teach people to not look for answers in their own lives, and that THE BOOK has all the answers, that's what happens. People QUOTE the book (and call it TRUTH, "well, it says so in the Bible, and the Bible is TRUTH, so that's that !". i.e. this is dogma)

Creationism is a good example of this. Creationism is technically Theology, it is NOT a Scientific Theory. This is a fact, not an opinion. The reason for that is that Scientific Theories are very well defined, ie. they have to go through massive peer review, massive verification, and massive experimentation (and when I mean massive, I mean MASSIVE, some theories have taken up to 50 years to become accepted as all counter-arguments must be considered and analysed). Creationism is simply dogma, written in a book. There is a good argument about why Creationism is dogma, it goes something like this :

Someone believes in the Bible before all else, as the true and accurate word of God, and thus Creationism is real.
BUT, this book was written, re-written, and re-edited by fallible men, hundreds of times, i.e. the 360 AD complete rewrite etc. And man is fallible, and lies, and there is almost certainly a large part that was re-edited in there for political reasons of the Emperor who oversaw the re-editing. But this is a small point.
A bigger point is : To believe Creationism means to reject all that MASSIVE peer review and investigation and evidence from all over the world (earth record, fossil record, ice record, atmosphere, oceanic evidence, etc etc). So that person rejects ALL of that evidence in favour that the Bible is the true and accurate word of God.
But, the Bible was written by men. And men are fallible and lie, even great Christian teachers lie (i.e. Ted Haggard, Meth snorter and goes to male prostitutes while condemning homosexuals to hell every sunday in church), so there is undoubtably many things in the Bible that should not be trusted.
Let me say here, that I would never say that the Bible is a bad book. I think the teachings of Christ, are beautiful and worthy. What I am saying is that quoting from the Bible and taking the literal interpretation is dogma, and that a lot of the things written in that book should not be taken literally.
But that's PRECISELY what Creationism does. it says the Bible is the word of God, and so infallible and true, and so
But the evidence in the earth, atmosphere, gene pool, fossil, ice core samples, etc etc is massive and overwhelmingly compelling ... while Creationism simply has "THE BOOK IS RIGHT !" as an argument with nothing backing it up.

And this is worrying relating to Jesus Camp, because if you allow that dogmatic style of Christianity AT ALL, you inevitably will have people like that woman, calling herself a Christian, but abusing children's delicate minds with dogma, anti-abortion politics and all the other foul things in that film. Teaching Creationism is the tip of an iceberg. If such things are taught to children the next logical step are people such as in Jesus Camp. And frankly, that women in the film, I would like to see taken up on child-abuse charges and imprisoned for a very long time. Children's minds are precious and should be filled with the wonder and joy of living, not with "Abortion is evil!", or Creationism, or the Bible as dogma. To do so is brainwashing. The brainwashing will work, because a childs mind is delicate, but brainwashing a child is evil and disgusting. Let a child learn the joy of living, and then when they are adults let them come to Christianity if they want, or not if they find answers and meaning elsewhere. Being a "Christian" is a label, it does not mean that person is a good person (i'm looking at you, Ted Haggard, a foul deviant scum, head of a church of 30 million, filling all 30 million of their heads with creationism and his lies and deception). and 30 million people is, fairly mainstream ... Being a good person is what's important, whether Atheist, Buddhist, Christian, etc.

Morality does not come from God. we all know this simple fact. Humans had morality in societies dating back 5,000 years before the New Testament and pre-dating the Old Testament, and they worshipped other Gods, so this is a simple truth of humanity. There are of course mysteries in life, there always will be, and humans will always strive for meaning, and how that is done I have no problem, through Christianity, or philosophy, or meditation, however a person finds peace is up to them, but to enforce Christianity as THE WAY, and say that America is a CHRISTIAN COUNTRY (it's not, it's secular), is dogmatic, and wrong, and only about power-mongers trying to bully others so they can have more power. But the teaching of things like Creationsim, is not the teaching of Christ, it is dogma. Any dogma, whatever it's form, leads to problems. It is the tip of the iceberg. As long as Christians think that it's ok to say :
"Evolution is just a theory, and so is Creationism so it is equal to Evolution" (which is as false as saying that black = white. Creationism is theology, so should be taught in Theology classes it has no basis in science for the reasons that I point out above. Evolution IS a scientific theory, this does not mean it is fact, it means that it is a scientific theory ! a very well defined thing, based on vast amounts of evidence, fallible, and open to criticism. Creationism is open to nothing. it is dogma. Any Christian who is open-minded and wise knows that this is just dogma, and gets on with the good things in Christianity, i.e. the teachings of Christ). Believing that the word of the Bible is TRUTH, and absolute truth, is missing the point of the teachings of Christ. Take the teachings of Christ, and don't spout or teach dogma, ESPECIALLY to children.

Jesus Camp is not about the Love of God, as written in the Bible, it is about HATE. But Creationism and any literal interpretation of any Holy Book, also will ALWAYS lead to hate-mongering people like that woman.

Please don't let people talk about Creationism in biology class. Doing that has one agenda, to undermine education to give POWER to the church. Anyone that thinks the church is not a powerful organisations that want dominance is truly under the spell of the brainwashers. All human endeavours, including Christianity include corruption and people who want power (again, Ted Haggard is a fine example). Talk about Creationism in church, or Theology class, and don't fill your children's delicate minds with what is, in effect, political agenda's (which is ABUSING the intent of Jesus' teaching. He did not teach people to abuse children, or force Christian views on the world, he taught them to love one another - and it makes me incredibly angry to see those children abused in that way on that film, as angry as I feel when someone rapes a child. brainwashing children with the Bible is abuse, and, if Jesus was real, abusing children was NEVER the way the he intended it to be used).

[Storico]

Moderated By: storico

This thread's been moved to Apologetics 301, as the conversation's more suitable there than in Cultural Anthropology. (You might also get more replies! ) As ya were....

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publically complain or whine, please take it to the Psychotherapy Room unless told otherwise.

[Jimmy Higgins]

* moderator notice *

I'm sorry, but I couldn't tell whether that was a moderator notice or not.

[Storico]

I'd like to reiterate that nobody's been "moderated" for this thread. I moved the thread. Our notices are big, loud and red to ensure people see them, and I'm glad you've seen it, Jimmy. Good eye you've got there.

If anyone has opinions on this film in particular, please feel free to post in this thread. Apologetics 301 would give everyone a chance to do so if they wanted to.

[Thedonhopeless]

I have seen a little about it, I like the over all idea of creating little christian soldiers, but not the extreme fanatism they created in those kids. I also dont liek when fellow christians teach their kids that things are wrong ( global warming) without giving any scientific reasoning. why tell your kid global warming is wrong just because liberals say its real?

we have already gather that soemthing is wrong, the question is why and on what scale, but to outright tell you kid its wrong is stupid.

the same thing with evolution, i dont believe in species changing into anothert species, but there are many things that evolution is riught about, but to give blanket sayings like " evolution is a lie" and thats that, is stupid. make the discernment of why its not factual, and what parts.

anyways, the movie was very interesting from the parts i seen, but i probably couldnt watch the whole thing, way too much crazy people!

[the_light]

Sadly I watched it.

Many of those activities and beliefs are not specific to evangelicals... you can find most of that stuff in any conservative church regardless of denomination.

The close-mindedness is staggering... what trumped everything was when the girl said that un-vivacious churches (which I assume include Catholic, Lutheran, and many other protestant denominations) are "dead churches" and God isn't in those places The classic - "they're not like me, so they're evil"