Summer Camp for Rational Teens

Camp Inquiry sounds like a camp I wish I could have gone to as a kid.

This camp is teaching critical thinking. They are teaching children to ask questions, to think and reason for themselves.

You just know this is going to get up certain peoples' noses.

Wait, what? Morality without religion? Is that even possible?

Thinking: Now with extra awesomesauce.

I want to go too!

In all seriousness, the whole article is really great. I especially liked this:

And this:

Seriously. Can I go too?

I have to applaud the reasoning.

But I also have to say, Camp Inquiry ?!

Is that a scientific method in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

Wow. Looks like tons of fun.

Looks like kids everywhere.

Next door at Camp God, the kids in Ezekiel Cabin are planning a raid on the infidels at Camp Inquiry, with frozen water balloons, india ink-filled balloons, and shaving cream balloons.

The only summer camp for rational teens is one where you could have buttloads of sex.

I don't know man, I'm not a big fan of teaching kids to single out ideologies. Teaching kids to be fair, open minded, and not drilling their heads full of guilt and bullshit ideas and all is cool, but devoting an entire camp to teaching kids that religious people are idiots... not really. I mean, I'm not religious at all, I probably agree with most of what they're saying (although I'd love for them to explain outer body experiences), it just seems like a bad idea. What happens if one kids all like "hey, I still believe in the soul anyway", then he's going to be the gullible kid no one plays kick ball with, and that sucks.

If the current political climate is any indication, Camp God is going to wreck their asses... with urine filled Super Soakers.

who's doing what now?

+1

so i guess they want to erase all the religious folk?

God is in the details.

Teaching kids to question things is not the same as teaching kids to think all religious people are idiots...

I don't know where he came up with that idea. This isn't like a reverse Jesus-camp. It is a camp for kids who are interested in reason and secular humanism.

Camp Chomsky sounds way more fun. We're gonna read Syntactic Structures!

perhaps it's the way the article is written ("God takes a back seat to reason"), but it makes it seem that these people > people of faith

Well, since most of the kids who come to the camp are already athiests, why wouldn't God take a back seat?

I am guessing (as I have never been to this camp nor a church camp) that they put it that way simply because a lot of other kids go to church camps where theology is center stage and there is very little room for argument and/or questioning.

and agnostics too. but point taken. maybe it's just me, and maybe i'm just being paranoid, but in the article, i detect a tinge of condescension. it's just in cases like these, i feel i must defend people of faith (those who do not persecute others for lack of beliefs...the 'good' ones so to speak) against those who want to ridicule them. like foe example, i feel sorry for the kid in the article who does believe in god...I just hope he doesn't get talked about negatively behind his back by the other kids.

/my two cents

I can see that. But the kid did know what the camp was about before he went there. I doubt he's being ridiculed. When I listened to it, he didn't sound like he felt too strongly one way or the other.

I would certainly hope that said kid does not get bashed behind his back. But I do understand why some kids would rather go to this camp. As a kid who was often skeptical about religion, I know how it feels to be surrounded by people who think you are a weirdo/heretic/douchebag simply because you question things, and I have a feeling that if I had gone to a religious based camp, this might possibly have happened.

What I'm worried about is them doing the same thing as Christians with Atheism, where one idea is the focus and all others ideas are discouraged and looked down upon. I hate that attitude regardless of the belief behind it. Maybe there isn't anything outright intolerant about it, but just simply the fact they create a camp to accommodate one ideology and disprove others gives an impression of intolerance. It is, in it's nature, creating and perpetrating a divide between people, in a world that already has too much division, especially the world of young people. I think it'd be more productive, and inspiring, to put kids in environments where everyone is completely different, and see them learn to work and explore together.

Then there is just the general attitude of Atheists, which I'm suspect. They do things like call themselves "Brights" and claim they follow "reason", which is just a backwards way of saying they're intelligent and logical and everyone else is just stupid and thoughtless. It's rude, condescending, and just in general not a great attitude toward things, and I'd hate to think they're passing on that attitude to kids.

Maybe I'm stereotyping or cynical, I've never been there or studied the camp or anything, but I can't help but be suspicious of it's effects.

Boiling urine-filled Super Soakers.

ScottrickBurdoit Said:

Of course they are going to encourage the idea that it is better to believe in reality than fantasy. Religion, even the most tolerant of them, does just the same. If you don't stand up for and encourage your beliefs, then why bother even having them? I'm definitely going to look down on people that insist the world is only 6000 years old, and that some magic man in the sky waved his magic wand and poofed everything into creation in 7 days. Why? Because it's not true, and brainwashing kids into believing this drivel is tantamount to child abuse.

You are again confusing the concepts of tolerance and respect. You want people to respect others views on religion, not just tolerate them. To tolerate something means that one will allow others to believe and act as they wish without interference, respect is an endorsement of those beliefs. I will tolerate religious belief, but I will never respect it. Maybe the reason these kids need this camp is that they are they victims of intolerance by a society that constantly is trying to ram god down their throat. If you don't think our society is intolerant of atheism, just take 10 people randomly off the street and tell them you don't believe in god. Most of them will give you a look like you just raped a puppy. I made the mistake of coming out to someone at work, and now even a year later, he won't even talk to me and always looks down at me. There's WAY more intolerance coming from the theist side than the atheist side. Name one politician that could possibly get elected after stating that they were an atheist? They'd be torn apart by the media.

You're really going to blame secularists for the division among people? How about the thousands of mutually exclusive (believe our version of fantasy, or you will burn in hell, not get your 76 virgins, etc.) religions around the world that ALL believe that their way is the only TRUE way? Don't you think that is more than a little divisive?

Pot, meet kettle.

"God's chosen people" "The anointed ones" Hell, there's an entire group of them who believe it was OK to take over someone else's country and turn it into their own because god said they could.

What are we called by the religious?

Sinners
Blasphemers
Soulless animals.

What is the problem in teaching your children to make decisions based on science and logic over fantasy? That argument has no validity.

Yes, on both counts. But, hey, it's OK to hate and be judgmental towards atheists. We're just a bunch or amoral heathens, according to theists. The effects will be kids that won't be suckered and scared so easily by those trying to control and manipulate them.

I think I prefer a camp that encourages kids to be intelligent, to a camp that encourages kids to be skeptical.

Being skeptical is the basis for critical thinking. These kids are going to have one hell of an advantage when they get to college.