WTFery about brainwashing kids w/stuff

[misscam]

Hmpf. Why am I awake? Oh, right. Work. Work which today is basically watching the phone while everyone is away and zilch else to do. (Seriously, I even asked for stuff to do, but no.) Time to stalk my flist?

(And I know I am late with fic - sorry! Got distracted by helping someone move, work, WoW (yay netherdrake) and autumn. Oh yeah. It's autumn in Norway and I am getting rained on. Brrr. I shall try to refocus.)

So during the weekend I watched a program about 'Kids on Fire' Bible camps in the US and got scared out of my brains. Kids being indoctrined, fundamentalism-is-the-only-way, thinking prayer solves everything, the hostility to science and firm conviction evolution is a fraud, the pushing of children into advocating anti-abortion, the firm belief in Satan - this world boggles me.

Okay, being an atheist I suppose I am not in the best position to understand it in the first place, but there was a time I really, really wanted to be religious. There is a comfort in it. I did seek it once - I just found that belief in a God was not something I had. It doesn't bother me that friends are religious - only if they attempt to push it on me. (Similarly, I don't try to 'save' them into atheism. You have to make your own mind up about these things.)

But the world the program was showing was something far away from the religion I am used to. It was that children were being not taught about the faith, but indoctrined, using methods that usually decribe sects. (Mass meetings, brainwashing techniques, no contact outside your own movement.) When one mother were homeschooling a seven-year-old boy and saying "You see now why evolution is wrong?" I think my brain kinda fell out. I know it did when the same woman openly admitted she was incotrinating the kids and claiming this was good. Then they showed scenes from a camp.

...

What the fucity fuck with a side of mcfuck? Seriously, the stuff they showed was scary. And eerily reminicent of some things.

Hitlerjugden, thought I. Not because I compare Christianity and Nazism, but because I compare the methods. As the woman running it herself admitted, what you learn at seven stay with you for life. And these kids were sent out to preach and convert and were encouraged.

They even referred to it themselves as an army. Kids. An army of God, yeah, but you know what? Proclaiming to do something in the name of God has never been a guarantee it is a good deed. The Al Qaeda did their shit in the name of Allah, but just as many would use Allah's name to condem them. (I'll use basical moral indignation - get stuffed,, you revolting men using religion to excuse your dickheadness.) God is not your get-out-of-jail-free card.

I get worried when people think they can do no wrong because they represent their God. It worries me a great deal when they start teaching kids the same. It scares my poor widdle brain a great deal when independence of thought is seen as an enemy.

Why are you doing this to kids?! I mean, there's a huge difference between teaching and indoctrinating. You're not giving them faith. You're giving their brain a straightjacket and everything outside it is Satan.

Surely someone choosing to believe of their own free mind would please a deity more than someone only believing because he's been brainwashed? I really, really don't get it.

Am I just better off not understanding this?

Other stuff:

- Albin the albino moose is spared again. Awww. Also aww is Future Queen Ingrid Alexandra. She's really starting to grow :)

- Rosenborg managed a draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, to much amusement for many Norwegians and non-CHelsea fans. Also beacuse apparently Swedish expert commentator Glenn Hysén promised to crawl 120 kilometres if Rosenborg were to get points from the match. Glenn? Start crawling. 8He's apparently agreed to keep his promise if the distance is reduced. Heh.) Day after teh match, Chelsea coach buggers off. I guess he wasn't good enough at turning the omelette. Ah, football. I wub thee.

- Heh, yet another comm has 'borrowed' Page-A-Mod. Suppose I should be flattered so many like my idea - even a community owner I know loathes my gutts has snagged - though renamed it, of course.

- People of Supernatural fandom, is the chick of this wank as fandom batshit as she seems? Because wow.

- I read on the train to and fro work and since I read fast, I go through a lot of books. I quite often buy cheap books at a place in Oslo central station and the guy working mornings there now recognises me and makes comments about my book buying. I find this bemusing.

- I loves NRK for sending The Daily Show five times a week now. Give me a hug, you big state-owned channel. YOU BRING ME THE AWESOME.

- Robert Jordan died??? Wow. I started reading Wheel of Time when I was a lot younger and though I did lose interest in it, I do have fond teenage memories of it - and it was the series of books that got my brother reading, for which my mother is enternally grateful. (Now he reads a lot.) :(

- "I steal your fics because I'm whacky like that!" Bitch, please.

I need lunch now.

Comments

[tearcreek.livejournal.com]

Cam? Your HTML broke... :S

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Already fixed it.

This is what happens when I post on four hours of sleep. Ow.

[belegcuthalion.livejournal.com]

Am I just better off not understanding this?

Definitely yes.. Even I don't, and I mostly understand how those folks think. I firmly believe in the existence of Satan, too, btw., but accepting the fact that there's an eternal evil is no excuse to switch off your brain. But of course things get increasingly easy once you have neatly divided the world in two parts of white and black.

I feel sorry for the kids.

[miss-andromache.livejournal.com]

As someone recently escaped from the cultishness of fundamentalism, I totally agree with the scariness. Along the same vein as the people teaching 7 year olds things to "equip them" to go out and preach and convert and so forth, the book that I recently read about Hillsong, one of the big fundamentalist AGO churches in Sydney says that Hillsong started an orphanage somewhere in Africa under the guise of looking after children when it was really done in the hopes that they could raise up a pentecostal leadership base in Africa as the kids grow up. I feel sorry for them.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Satan as a sort of metaphor for evil in the world or an actual fallen angel actively inspiring people to do evil?

Black and white does not fit the human world. Just doesn't work for me. I mean, even if I were to believe there was a fully good God and a fully evil Satan, it seems to me that most humans wander somewhere in between. I mean, plenty of 'righteous' Christian fundamentalists do bad shit, but the moment Someone Not of Us do something not great it's because they're the spawn of Satan?

Humans are bloody walking shades of grey - but of course, those shades vary immensely from person to person.

[tearcreek.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Ouch. *winces* do I dare ask?

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Oi. See, that's a problem I have with some (note some, there are plenty of charities based on Christian values that do very admirable work) Christian chairities sometimes - when the chairty is just a mean to convert and not something good in itself.

Makes the charity seem less like charity and more like preying on the world's misery for your religious aims.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Own fault, really. I was quite sensibly going to bed at 10, but then I was just logging on WoW to do a few things - and got drawn into doing a heroic instance and blah.

Really, really my own silly fault. But I got a nice primal nether out of it.

[tearcreek.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I see. Teh internets. They consume us.

[kibebe.livejournal.com]

The 'Kids on Fire' stuff is scary, especially because they are based in my home state.(Although, I'm not totally surprised by that.) When I see kids, or anybody, blindingly following something, it just seems unnatural to me. I really hope the kids don't become too messed-up from all of that.

"People of Supernatural Fandom ..."

Yes. Have you seen her other appearance? She definitely has a few screws lose.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

They even referred to it themselves as an army. Kids.

'I will never march in the infantry
Ride with the cavalry
Shoot with the artillery
I will never zoom o'er the enemy
For I'm in the Lord's army (yes, sir!)'

I used to have to sing that with the Girls' Brigade (the Girls/Boys Brigade are like a Presbyterian version of the Scouts here. Only not fun.) As a kid I assumed it meant that Christians should be conscientious objectors in wartime, but given that I was a bit confused as to why all of our meetings and displays started with military drill practice...

[misscam.livejournal.com]

It's always extra scary when it's next door. But brr, kids. Those don't even have a way of getting out of it when it's the parents dragging them in.

I've gone back and read a few now and... Ye, that's... Yeah.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Duh.

Lots of stuff goes over kids' head, really. I mean, I missed the fact that in Narnia, Aslan=Jesus. He even turns into a sheep and I missed it. Kids, not so much with getting the contect sometimes...

(Also, that song is vaguely scary.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Makes the charity seem less like charity and more like preying on the world's misery for your religious aims.

Because that's exactly what it *is.*

[belegcuthalion.livejournal.com]

I mean, plenty of 'righteous' Christian fundamentalists do bad shit, but the moment Someone Not of Us do something not great it's because they're the spawn of Satan?

Yes, exactly. I know that is sick. And no, I don't think Satan is a mere metaphor... but I also don't think he should be instrumentalized the way those people instrumentalize him. Christians like these are actually afraid of using their brain. What the bible says is a general base for my life and my decisions, too, but I don't use blinders, because they have the tendency to make me miss the obvious... which is what those people do.

[sliven.livejournal.com]

Ouch. They showed exactly that same program over here a few months ago.
It gave me nightmares, more or less. *shudders*

[fantasyprone.livejournal.com]

*insert total agreement over brainwashing stuff*

- Robert Jordan died??? Wow. I started reading Wheel of Time when I was a lot younger and though I did lose interest in it, I do have fond teenage memories of it - and it was the series of books that got my brother reading, for which my mother is enternally grateful. (Now he reads a lot.) :(

That happened to me too - I started reading Wheel of Time in year 7 (six or so years ago now) and though it's kind of a guilty pleasure (I think it's not great fantasy, and I do object to the sexism in it) it was kind of a significant point in my life. Now I've found out he's dead and I don't quite know what to think.

[falena]

That 'Kids on fire' thing is definitely scary, oh yes. Even from my religious POV. Btw, one of the things that I liked the most about Dawkins's book is that it made me think about the question of children indoctrination. The line between teaching faith and drilling it into someone's brain can be very fine.
Sometimes I think I am religious just because I was born and raised into it and it is part of life as I know it. Of course, at least I've always had (and always will have) the possibility of giving it all up, if I wanted. Some of my relatives are even atheists, so iI guess I wouldn't be disowned. :P

[greyladybast.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I totally missed that one when I was a kid, too, and I'd been dragged to Sunday School and supposedly knew better.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

They do it because they think that any deviation from that particular path will lead to damnation. So they fix that paradigm in their kids early, and hope they stay that way, so their eternal souls receive salvation.

The majority of them don't do the bad shit they do out of sadism, I think, they do it cos they think it'll save them. Not that this exonerates them, but it can be hard to break indoctrination.

[chicklet73.livejournal.com]

Am I just better off not understanding this?

I think so. Because if you did, we'd have to wonder about your sanity.

What's going on in that camp is some scary shit. At least, it scares me. An army? *shiver*

I get worried when people think they can do no wrong because they represent their God.

I'm with you...

[immoralilly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's like that Jesuit saying - give me the child before he is seven and I will give you the man. Something like that anyway. I really object to forcing anything on a child that strongly - they're just not old enough to get what's happening, and so what you tell them is going to be accepted for the rest of their lives.

Also, yes, ckll really is that nuttily insane. Moreso, behind locked posts, I think. She's our Very Special Wanker.

[lyricalviolet.livejournal.com]

Hey, when I borrowed Page-A-Mod, I totally gave ya'll credit :)

[mademoisellenon.livejournal.com]

I've heard about that documentary but still haven't gotten around to watching it unfortunately. Perhaps this is motivation enough.

Living here I've seen plenty of people (by that I mean tourists) shocked when they arrive to NYC and see Buddhist monks praying on one end of Times Square, women in hijabs rushing to and fro, others claiming to be JC reborn... You get the idea. So I am not surprised so much by kids being trained to be an "army of God", though it goes without saying that 99.99% of all wars generally start in His name. What sickens me are the tactics and that children are forced to go in one way and one direction only, not realizing that there are plenty of options out there.

That's a nightmare to me, this inability to make your own choice. It's uglier than anything this people could do.

Bon appetit, Camié!

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

That, that . . . I just don't have words. (the top bit of your post) o.0