I just finished watching the movie “Camp Hell,” this movie took me back to the night when an old fishing buddy and I, were on an overnight fishing trip with our children. My friend and I were telling the children “ghost” stories. I have always found it most interesting that when you raise children without religious superstition and ignorance, just how that they have little to no fear of the supernatural either. And despite the fact that our children, except for two, were all still preteen; most of our children found most of the stories interesting, but not so scary. In fact, the older ones had gotten so bored that they simply went back to playing with their handheld video games. At that point, my friend began telling the story of his experience at a Catholic summer-camp, that he had when he was in his early teens. He said that the first day that he had arrived, that the priests started talking to them about sex and masturbation – and how sinful masturbation was. The priests told them that “god” sees everything that they do, including masturbating, and if they happened to die after masturbating, and if they happen to die before they were able to “confess” this horrible “sin” of masturbating, that they would be sent to “purgatory,” where they would then suffer great pain in cleansing them of this “sin,” before they could then continue on their way to “heaven.” He then went on to tell us how the priests had privately told most of the other campers, that it was ok with “god,” for them to have sex with priests – and after he had this private conservation with one of the priests, who then started fondling him – he said he told the priest that if he didn’t stop touching him, that neither of them would be “happy campers.” He said that he had his dad pick him up at the camp, the next day; however, his dad never believed him about the priests.
Two of my children found his story so frightful, that they both had nightmares that evening.
I found the movie Hell Camp both interesting and entertaining for the most part, and slightly better than most other B-movies of this type – however, it gives a good look into the mindset of these ignorant priests, and into one of the ways in which they use fear in controlling child behavior, and how they can so easily victimizing a child as well – however, none of the children are raped in this movie.
I happened upon this video on You Tub while searching the Jesus-camp ones – the child in this video could as well be the poster-child for Christian lunacy. What I found most interesting is that the boy makes this statement over and over: “God loves the little children,” as he proselytizes outside of an abortion clinic. Yes, “God” loves the children, and he loves them to death even – yes, that deluded and evil fucking old ghost in the bible, loved the children so much, that “he” killed everyone alive on the earth in a massive flood, including all of the little children. And today he loves the little children so much, that he allows 100’s of them to be ass-raped by priests each day, and 1000’s more to die of starvation each and every day.
I don’t know about you – but as an atheist; I’m sure as “hell” happy, that the evil fucking ghost doesn’t love me!
I always find it funny when a Christian says something of the likes of: “all of you stupid atheists, believe that nothing created something – and when everything we need to know is written right there in the bible.” Another feel-good misconception of theirs is that we are all immoral (they simply try to fuck-over each other, and then they simply ask their “GOD” for forgiveness). As an atheist, I simply try not to fuck anyone over in the first place – and when someone is in need, I’m not going to decide whether or not to help them, based on whether or not they’re religious or not. And if I see someone turn blue and pass out on the street, I’m not going to decide whether or not to call for help, or start CPR, simply because they might have a cross around their neck; however, I’ve seen Christians behave that way all the time – I have seen Christians start praying over someone who was having a heart attack – I started doing CPR on the guy, and continued until the medics arrived. After which a Christian asked me: “how could you give mouth to mouth to a dirty homeless person like him.” I asked this Christian if he was any less worth helping, simply because of his social status; she simply replied: “thank god you came along – you’re a better Christian than I am.”
I couldn’t believe it at first when I started receiving so much negative feedback from some of my close friends, after I had posted a story about some problems that a young man was having with his mom. She had lost her job, and she became depressed over the lack of available job opportunities here in Seattle’s banking industry. She was simply a causality of the financial meltdown, and she is only one of 100’s of banking employees, who lost their jobs here because of the bank buyouts and consolidations here in Seattle – however, she became convinced that her job loss was due in part to her lack of “faith” in “jesus.” So she started sending away large sums of money to those TV preaching con-artists and charlatans, that she had started watching on the “Christian television networks.” After he explained his story to my friend and me, he asked us for our advice. The friend that I was with at the time, usually, always has to put in his two-cents worth, whenever he hears me giving my advice about anything and to anyone – if someone asks me something as simple as how to change a flat tire on a car, he always has a better way of doing it – I understand his ego, and that understanding of him, is why we have been friends now for over 35 years – however, he had no advice at all for this young man . About an hour after our encounter with this young man; he simply said: “fuck that crazy Christian-bitch.”
Then after hearing this young man’s friends talking about how crazy his mom was acting, and how they felt that she might even be suicidal; I convinced another kid’s mom to go and talk with her. The problem with most delusional people including most devout Christians, is that they believe that everyone else is crazy, and they’re the only normal ones (most crazy people believe that everyone else is crazy, except for them). And after I made the suggestion that she attend a church, where I felt that other Christians might have been willing to help her – some of my friends, both young ones and older ones, started raking me over the coals big-time. At first I didn’t understand the level of contempt which they have for Christians (like, fuck those ignorant-folks – where’s their fucking “Jesus,” let “him” fucking help her/them). One asked me if I thought, that if it was my atheist-ass who needed help, that any of those deluded Christian, fucking morons would offer me any help – he said that if I were drowning, he said “yes, they would help you drown, they would toss you a fucking anchor” – or they would simply say: “let us pray for him.” I thought where I have seen this type of mentality and attitude before; I’ve seen it in Christian aid workers in Africa, while withholding food and medicine from dying Muslim children - and I’ve seem Muslim aid workers doing the same thing to Christians.
As someone who is both a progressive and an atheist, I simply don’t hate someone for what they believe, or don’t believe, and I hold myself to a higher ethical standard, than that of any of the Christians that I have met. The concern and companion that I felt for this bat-shit crazy woman and her children, was far greater than the level of contempt that I fell for this deluded mind-virus, and the stupidity and ignorance that Christianity causes in some people – and I don’t even hate those kinds of people – I simply hate their ignorance and stupidity. In the past I have went out of my way to help both Christians and Muslims – only to have Christians go out of their way and try and fuck me over – and I don’t even hate them – I’m not going to allow myself to become as hateful and bigoted as that ignorant Christian-trash.
I can now understand why some of my friends feel the way that they do about some Christians; however, I believe that as atheists, that we should take a much higher moral path, than the path that most of those of the ethically challenged and morally bankrupt, Christian-trash have in which we complain about have – I believe that some atheists are becoming just as hateful and ignorant as the bigoted ignorant Christian-trash that they complain about are – and do we as atheists have any real justification for this attitude? And should we call them out on this – lest we become just like the moderate Christians, who remain silent in the face of the Christian extremists?
I started taking issue with Christian organizations using the public schools and community centers as a means of promoting their particular brand of religion to children, after my son’s favorite weekly activity at our local community center, was hijacked by a pack of religious morons. The staff members at the community center had allowed members of a local church to come into the community center under the guise of giving the children a talk about stranger-danger. Our son informed his mom, who thought it seemed innocent enough, that she didn’t even bother to tell me about it. After our son came home from the event, and told us what these ignorant morons had really talked to the children about, I quickly became infuriated. They told the children that they had come to talk to them about someone who loved them and cared about them, even more than their own parents did – and that person loved them so much, that he died on a cross for them so that they could be saved. Our son said that their conversation then turned to sex-ed, Christian-style.
They told the children ridicules things like condoms didn’t work in preventing pregnancy or the prevention of HIV and AIDS transmission – in fact, they told them that God gets mad when people have sex before they get married, and he sometimes gives them AIDS to punish them. They told the girls that they could become pregnant simply by masturbating (I guess that could happen, depending on what the girl was doing with her hands, before she got started??? But still, the children that they were talking this tripe to were only between the ages of 7 - 12). My son said they went on talking to them for over an hour about “sin” and death, and how only the “blood of Jesus” can save them, from burning in hell for all of eternity.
I believe what pissed me off the most about all of this was; at the end they were trying to sign the children up for Sunday school. They then gave the children cards with the address of their church, and a phone number for them to call if they needed a ride – the church was willing to pick the children up at the community center on Sunday morning; and with or without the parents’ permission (talk about children being put in danger by strangers).
"As I trust common sense and your elementary knowledge of the law should remind you, the Constitution includes an amendment that expects 'The government will not establish any religion.' This has been legally stated and supported through case law, interpreted to mean for schools that the school or its employees will not perpetuate, support or establish any religion at school," the principal's note said.
"This means teachers can't support or participate in religious activities while in the official role of a teacher. … Be as religious as you want when you're not in your official role as a teacher. Your official role as a teacher starts anytime you're involved with students.
"Please check with me or your attorney if you need clarification so I can avoid termination proceedings for those of you that don't believe me or wish to test this concept," Curtis wrote. "I'm being somewhat of a smart a&*, but I trust 'You're feeling me!'"
"While the First Amendment does prohibit the government from establishing a religion, it likewise prohibits the government from exhibiting hostility toward religion, interfering with the free exercise thereof, and discriminating against expressive activities based on the religious viewpoint of the expression," John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute stated in a letter to Principal Curtis. He went on to say:
"The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment does not permit government – including school officials – to subject religious individuals or groups to unique disabilities," Whitehead said.
"The United State Supreme Court has specifically addressed the issue of faculty involvement with religious student groups, and has ruled that such involvement does not conflict with constitutional principles where teachers or other school employees are merely involved with the club for purposes of administration or oversight," he said.
"I hope this information is helpful to you, and that you will use it to immediately correct the impression conveyed by your e-mail that the budding FCA group should be shunned by your staff," Whitehead wrote.
In response, principle Curtis sent out a subsequent email memo to his staff:
"I presented this in my candid style, intended for my faculty. I've been told it was intimidating but I had no intention other than to remind the staff of my expectations of their legal and professional behavior," he explained.
The fact is The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is just another organization of deluded Christian morons, whose agenda is simply to inject prayer and Christianity into the public to boot.
I believe we in the secular and atheist community, should show are support for principle Curtis in this matter – I was trying to send him an email of my support; however, the school’s website seems to have locked out access – but the school’s address and phone number is posted at the site.
In a recent conversation I had with my son, he told me that he was considering taking a job offer working in the field of nuclear fusion research after his current project ends. This conversation took me back to the day when I first explained the difference between nuclear fission and fusion to him, and how I felt that an isotope of helium (he3) just might be the key in making nuclear fusion reactors work. I explained to him how heilun3 is rare here on earth, but quite abundant on the surface of the moon – in fact it is believed that there is enough he3 on the moon’s surface, to supply all of our energy needs for the next 6000 – 10,000 years; however, he told me that wasn’t what stuck the most in his head. Back then I was working on a theoretical idea of producing he3 from plain old helium, and in the process of liberating one of the neutrons, creating energy in the form of heat, which could be converted into electricity while making he3 for fuel. Back when he asked me for my research papers into this concept, I had no idea where he was going with this – he used my research to develop his own concept, and after he published a paper on the subject, he received many letters of interest from intuitions that are already involved in he3 fusion research.
For the past week I have been thinking about and reviewing my son’s concept, and having delusions of him winning a Noble Prize for his work. One of the things that he told me which came as a shock to me was his lack of inertest in financially profiting from his work – he’s always been like that?
Back when I was his age, I dreamed of solving the world’s energy problems by creating a new clean, unlimited source of energy – today that dream just might be closer to becoming a reality than I ever dreamed it could be. The sad thing about all of this is the United States is dead last in this field of research. This comes as no surprise at all to me – over half of Americans believe some very stupid stuff – we are a nation of highly deluded people – it’s hard to express the importance of developing clean energy programs to folks who believe that their space-daddy, is on his way back to save them – so why even care how bad we fuck-up the planet.
I believe my son is on to something good – both of our ideas involve producing energy from converting helium into the isotope he3 – his is more complex in concept. If nothing else, I hope his ideas inspire others in this field.
Just think about the ramifications of a program like this working – cheap unlimited clean energy. I’d bet the right-wing Christians would want nothing to do with it – they would say it came from Satan or something stupid like that.
