{"id":277,"date":"2009-06-28T20:02:45","date_gmt":"2009-06-29T03:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=277"},"modified":"2013-03-16T22:53:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-17T02:53:19","slug":"dawkins-sets-up-kids-camp-to-groom-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"Dawkins Sets up Kids Camp to Groom Atheists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How sad the author of the <em>God Delusion<\/em> will start messing with kids&#8217; minds now, too. See announcement below. I have always felt that atheists are just one step away from becoming gnostics, if they could just get over the hump of their anger toward the Christian Church that they feel has so wronged them. \u00c2\u00a0They look at the Catholic Church&#8217;s many mistakes over the centuries and either obsess or gloat over them all the while forgetting that the Roman Church is not Christianity. It&#8217;s a fine line between agnosticism and gnosticism, methinks. If only they understood that yes, their scepticism is healthy, but so is a luminous spiritual life. Howabout a little bit of both for these kids &#8212; and their parents? \u00c2\u00a0Sheesh.<br \/>\n+Katia<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>DAWKINS SETS UP KIDS CAMP TO GROOM ATHEISTS<\/p>\n<p>By Lois Rogers<br \/>\nThe Sunday Times<br \/>\nJune 28, 2009<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/comment\/faith\/article6591236.ece<\/p>\n<p>Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week&#8217;s summer camp and he will try to\u00c2\u00a0give you an atheist for life.<\/p>\n<p>The author of <em>The God Delusion<\/em> is helping to launch Britain&#8217;s first summer retreat for non-believers, where children will have lessons in evolution and sing along to John Lennon&#8217;s Imagine.<\/p>\n<p>The five-day camp in Somerset (motto: &#8220;It&#8217;s beyond belief&#8221;) is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.<\/p>\n<p>Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war. There will also be a \u00c2\u00a310 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of singing Kumbiya and other campfire favourites, they will sit around the embers belting out &#8220;Imagine there&#8217;s no heaven . . . and no religion too&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Dawkins, who is subsidising the camp, said it was designed to &#8220;encourage children to think for themselves, sceptically and rationally&#8221;. All 24 places at the retreat, which runs from July 27-31, have been taken.<\/p>\n<p>Afternoons will be filled with familiar camp activities such as canoeing and swimming but the mornings will be spent debunking phenomena such as crop circles and telepathy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>* * * * * * * *<\/p>\n<p>I sent this to my gnostic Archbishop (the bishop who consecrated me) and he wrote back:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Woe to you (Pharisees)!\u00c2\u00a0 Ye search the entire world for converts and make them twice the children of hell that ye are.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 Yeshua paraphrased.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How sad the author of the God Delusion will start messing with kids&#8217; minds now, too. See announcement below. I have always felt that atheists are just one step away from becoming gnostics, if they could just get over the hump of their anger toward the Christian Church that they feel has so wronged them. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/?p=277\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dawkins Sets up Kids Camp to Groom Atheists<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":726,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernway.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}