How sad the author of the God Delusion will start messing with kids’ 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. Â They look at the Catholic Church’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’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 — and their parents? Â Sheesh.
+Katia
————
DAWKINS SETS UP KIDS CAMP TO GROOM ATHEISTS
By Lois Rogers
The Sunday Times
June 28, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6591236.ece
Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life.
The author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers, where children will have lessons in evolution and sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine.
The five-day camp in Somerset (motto: “It’s beyond belief”) is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.
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 £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.
Instead of singing Kumbiya and other campfire favourites, they will sit around the embers belting out “Imagine there’s no heaven . . . and no religion too”.
Dawkins, who is subsidising the camp, said it was designed to “encourage children to think for themselves, sceptically and rationally”. All 24 places at the retreat, which runs from July 27-31, have been taken.
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.
* * * * * * * *
I sent this to my gnostic Archbishop (the bishop who consecrated me) and he wrote back:
“Woe to you (Pharisees)! Ye search the entire world for converts and make them twice the children of hell that ye are.” Yeshua paraphrased.
What’s funny is that I know many spiritual people who accept the spiritual path followed by others without calling them stupid or delusional… I believe that if athiesm makes someone happy, they should follow it. But the athiests I know truly believe people who have faith in a spiritual power are stupid. It’s sad that they can’t let others have their beliefs.
I agree with you Katia about the majority of athiests being one step from being gnostic… I think the majority of athiests (that I know) are pissed off christians LOL.
I guess for me I always felt that atheists were a bit on the arrogant side. That they believed there is nothing greater than the human race in this universe. I always feel sad for them as well, because they do not know what they are missing by disbelieving in a higher power. Perhaps before they die something will happen to change their minds, that’s all I can hope for them.
I like Dawkins’ talk of Memetics. Those virus like, self-replicating bits of information sound alot like demons. But, I can’t handle his attacks on ‘religion’. What he is attacking is a narrowly defined view that most people who profess a belief in god could not accept. But he made a career out of beating an old argument to death, I guess thats respectable. I think we should pay attention to memetics if we want to learn how to create ideas that will travel further than the act of our speaking them. It is a useful way of looking at the ecology of mind.