Yeah, college definitely just happened all over my life. Does anyone else think it’s a little barbaric that we drag children (and don’t tell me I’m an adult, because whatever the law says, I am definitely not one) out of their homes at age eighteen, uprooting them entirely, and then shoving them into a new environment and expecting them to succeed?

Not that I don’t enjoy college, because I do. I just also find it a little weird. My new friends are also weird, but that’s to be expected. I’m from Illinois, and my college is in Massachusetts (don’t stalk me, I know kung fu), so there’s a tiny bit of culture shock, mainly when we watch films in Anthropology class that involve people in the Midwest saying/doing something ignorant, and everyone else in the class (Massachusettsians, Vermonters, Connecticuters, etc) is shocked that anyone in America actually does such things, and then I just go, “Sounds like a block party in my old neighborhood,” and feel kind of like a hick even though I live within easy reach of Chicago and can both read and pronounce Goethe (It’s almost like Gerta, but you gloss over the r a little bit). One of these films was Jesus Camp, and it seems like everyone and her mother want me to watch the damn thing: Anthropology, my atheist club, etc. I couldn’t keep my damned heathen mouth shut in Anthropology (I’m always surprised by how many people don’t know about the Ted Haggard scandal, and I feel they need to be informed to get the whole irony of the experience, particularly the bit when he says, “We know what the Bible says about homosexuality. I know what you did last night. If you give me ten thousand dollars, I won’t tell your wife.”

Then he gets caught having had sex with a male prostitute and doing crystal meth. You really cannot make hypocrisy like this up. Seriously, if you did, your creative writing teacher would probably tell you it was too easy a moral.

Speaking of creative writing (which I really ought to be doing right now), if you’ve gotten fives on two English AP tests, taken two years of creative writing from an absolutely epic teacher, or anything in a similar vein, DO NOT TAKE AN ENGLISH 100-LEVEL CLASS. Even if you think creative writing is “different”– actually, you’re right. Rather then simply being boring, it’s boring and full of people who don’t want to write analytical essays for their writing requirement class. And have subject-verb agreement issues. Lots of it (I’m being funny, so don’t tell me I’m a hypocrite). 

I guess the point of that was that college has not been, at least for me, as big of a transition as everyone seems to think, or maybe I’m just sociopath-good at compartmentalizing (I’ve been accused of this, but I won’t worry about it until the accusation comes from an appropriately accredited psychologist and I’ve finally gotten rid of the last vestiges of my Protestant guilt).

And until that day, homework comes first, or at least a really close second. So in keeping with that spirit, I must be off to write Arabic words in my vocabulary notebook and fret some more about the class for which I am trying to register at another college…because I could never just take the easy path, I’m basically designing my own physical anthopology major/ back-up plan, which means essentially that Emily majors in cultural anthropology and English and unofficially minors in Bio while also taking classes at other schools for physical anthropology, trying to get in enough government credits to make back-up plan #3 (kick-ass lawyer) possible, while also learning as many languages as possible and taking kung fu in case I have a drastic realignment of politics and personality and decide to fulfill the fantasy derived from too much NCIS and Silence of the Lambs about joining some supercool government agency. The main reason I could not actually do this is that I can’t do hierarchy or gag orders.  This is also the reason kick-ass lawyer is a backup plan.

I’ve rambled on enough for today. Hopefully updates will become considerably more regular. And hopefully people will actually begin to read this…or I’ll just talk to the ether, whichever.

Robin and her husband from Cartersville, Georgia used to be Sunday school teachers until about two years ago, when they left their church and never went back. She came to the conclusion thet religion was harmful and that everyone would be better off without it, but doesn’t know exactly what to tell her young children that were brought op in the church. Robin watched the documentary “Jesus Camp” both before and after her de-conversion.

Personally I tell my kids the truth, this is your only life, don’t waste it.

Stupid guy, basically: Support human rights = go to the imaginary hell, be against human rights = Spend eternity kissing the ass of the imaginary mass murderer in the sky
Ohh and it’s all real.. da creator exists uhhaa

Nationalism in America’s churches is in many ways more explicit and more unnoticed by participants than even 1930’s Germany. The church I work at has decided that it’s far more acceptable to say the pledge of allegiance than to take communion on a regular basis. This shows a church that has lost its way, a community not gathered around the cross, but around a constitution, around not God’s Word, but the republic.

The church I attend is confesssional, it has creeds, it has liturgies, the sad fact of the matter is that these liturgies are America’s ideology. Our creeds are not the Christian creeds, but the creeds of America. Our pastor stands to decry a godless society week after week in love and patience, but, cannot even begin to articulate the problems which we really face. I’ve heard sermons about the evils of evolution and how serving Jesus is like being in the American service, I’ve stood in silent horror as my brothers and sisters salute a flag, pledging allegiance to a bloodthirsty nation in the very community that was built as a community of peace, and cross bearing discipleship.

I’ve heard our pastor thank veterans for defending our freedom, when really, there hasn’t been anything near a just war in the history of America, and the only war that comes remotely close is the European theatre of WWII. But even that was invalidated by our decision to as a nation commit the greatest act of terrorism ever known to history. There’s no defense of freedom in the wars we fight today, or in any of our wars, it’s never been about the defense of freedom it’s been about the unnamed expansion of empire. It’s been about cultural indoctrination and the self-entitled right to supremacy assumed by the American people.

The “tolerant” Americans have sought to excuse themselves from their imperialism by calling it other things, including: a war on terror, defending our freedom, liberating the oppressed, taking out a threat to our national security, disabling a mass murderer, bringing democracy to a people in need of freedom. The rhetoric is all the same and all underlies what’s really going on. America is a darkened face, and a nation willing to commit seedy acts to save her image, to save face. Just like Two-Face and Batman in the Dark Knight, our image has been marred by the publication of torture acts, of really looking at the things we’ve done in order to save “this fair city” from “madmen”.

America’s two face is the presidency and the CIA, agencies we love to praise, that we now have no choice but to see as disfigured and disfiguring aspects of our society. So we’ve created the idea of “the troops” and “freedom” as our heroes, who bear the weight of our guilt, for better and for worse, we shove off the blame on the president, the vice president, the government agencies, the powerlessness of the american people. The mask we’ve taken on for ourselves is a deliberate and overtly intentional rebranding, a way to distance ourselves from the war we find ourselves in. Yet it doesn’t change the reality that is Two-Face, the reality that our white knights have turned out to be monsters.

Our nation is a people determined to be free of guilt, obsessed with ignoring the past to live in the eternal present. The death of metanarrative and historical unity in American culture is a sign of the ways in which the American project is mediating its own failure to itself. We have become dejected and rather than acknowledge our place in history, we’d rather displace ourselves from it in what Foucault called differance. Trying to make ourselves differ from the past and even our present, making America an ideal, an invisible unity, a sinless body removed from the sins of individual persons.

America’s ecclesiological apologetic for itself is that it is an invisible body, perfectly unmarred by the sins of the past. The ideal still lives on, despite historical failures, because these were the failures of presidents, of leaders, but not of America. Underlying America is a strong belief in her invisible unity, despite her radical inclusion of most peoples (although there are some dissenters like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh). But nevertheless, the claim of America’s idealistic unity and legitimacy as this ideal society in the minds of both conservatives and liberals stands.

As Christians, we do not hope for America, we do not hope in America, we do not take oaths of allegiance, to church or state, baptism is our yes. We need take no oaths of allegiance to the church, to the bible, to the Christian flag, to Jesus. Baptism is our yes, so let us live as though it matters. Pledging allegiance to the Christian flag is rarely if ever done without pledging allegiance to the American flag first, and it just goes to show where the priorities are.

I think that this video shows the problem in explicit detail so you know i’m not just making this up.

the only difference between that first video and the one that follows is not all the children in the first video have flags, but the sentiment is the same. The only difference between American and German fascism is that Americans are gathered around the invisible church that is “Christian America” rather than a charismatic leader. Fundamentalist churches have displaced the invisible church with the visible america in need of “restoration”. My only question is, were we a Christian nation while we moved in slaughtering indians, or after that, when we decided to import slaves to create our livelihoods? Was it at our earliest founding, by Catholic missionaries? Or was it when Puritans decided to betray the natives who had taught them to work the land?

What separates the “Christian” nationalism above from the one presented below?

What would Bonhoeffer say? What would Karl Barth say? What might St. Paul say? Augustine?

This is a look at a Pentecostal Summer Camp- Eloquently titled “Brain Washing”.

Is this right? or is this wrong?

Comments please?

I cannot help but think religion is a big old joke. I should preface this with the comment that I identify as an atheist but I do have a relatively thorough understanding of quite a number of religions thus making my position a fairly educated one. To me it seems, so strikingly, that religion is a crutch for people who are too scared to face the reality of what it means to be alone in the world. I do not necessarily find this problematic; I am all for people having their beliefs if it makes them feel better about life and the world. Just don’t bring your beliefs anywhere near me. If you ask me my religious stance I am more than happy to tell you that I am an atheist. The difference is however, I will not go about proclaiming this and pushing other people to be of the same position.

One of my biggest problems with religions are this misogynistic underpinnings. In Buddhism, no woman can ever be Buddha, yet ‘any’ man can be. In Christianity, especially in the Bible, women are nothing more than the bearers of children, and boys at that. There is considered little practical use for women other than this. The Qur’an itself is slightly better than the Bible but the actual practise of Islamic societies who use the Qur’an as the basis for the running of their society are quite clearly and quite damagingly oppressive and discriminatory against women. These are the three religions I know best so feel free to add in comments any other oppression within other religions.

Then there is the issue of religion and war. Many people make the comment that religion is the cause of nearly all wars and to a large extent they are right for religion is the ground on which many societies distinguish themselves from the ‘other’ and thus use this as reasoning for their attack. Furthermore is the interesting idea both sides have that ‘their’ God is on their side and helping them to defeat the other. Clearly, problematic.

The most troubling aspect though of religion is when children get involved. A perfect example of this can be seen in the 2007 documentary Jesus Camp. It is a documentary about the far right in America, the ‘Evangelical Christians’ and the ways in which children are a part of this movement. Pictured are scenes where children are physically distressed and crying and screaming after being preached at and told of their sinful nature. They are also shown standing outside of the Capital building, with tape across their mouth and the words ‘life’ written, protesting against abortion. These are young children, some no more than six, who have no idea what sex is, let alone abortion. Most of the children are home-schooled, they are taught that creationism is the only answer, the global warming is a lie and that George Bush was a great, great president.

Religion does seem to have a place in the lives of many people but examples such as the Evangelicals illustrate just how dangerous and damaging religion can be.

I’ve expanded my TV watching from just iPlayer to include 4oD.

Jesus Camp

This sort of thing doesn’t help with the idea that Christianity is just a method of social control by brainwashing people.

As we heard at my church last Sunday, you can (and should) try to bring up your children to live Godly lives and teach them the Bible, but you can’t make them Christians.

But when an interviewer suggested to Becky Fischer that there’s a difference between learning and indoctrination, she said she thinks churches should be indoctrinating their kids more.

Fischer talks about Muslims putting weapons in the hands of 5 year olds and claims we’re at war. Now, the Bible does use language that suggests a battle, but I think she’s got the wrong idea about who we’re fighting and the way to go about it.

It’s kind of scary, I think these people would agree with my definition of Christianity, but they act it out really very differently. Whipping people’s emotions into hysteria isn’t what Christianity is about.

There’s a kid preacher here too, he was apparently saved when he was 5. He wanted more out of life, this life just wasn’t fun. At 5. Do you know any 5 year olds who already find life boring?

Some adult tells him that God has his life planned out (true), then tells him that God has written that he’s going to grow into a preacher that will shake America, “What do you think of that?” (Personally, I’m fairly certain he’s talking out of his backside).

When someone asks the kid what his favourite subject is to preach on, he replies “faith”. What? I think most preachers worth listening to would choose a favourite Bible passage to speak on, rather than say “faith”. In the clips of him preaching that were shown, he was holding a Bible, but talking about what he felt God was telling him, that “this generation is a key generation”. Definitely sounds like he’s just regurgitating what the people running the camp are saying, not much to do with the Bible.

Baby Bible Bashers

(At time of writing this is still available to watch)

This was interesting because I was less suspicious of the way these kids became Christians, but there were other issues.

Despite Samuel claiming to be saved at 3, it somehow seemed more like he’d decided for himself than some of the kids at Jesus Camp. He hasn’t experienced any other ideas though, so I think he’ll face some serious challenges as he grows up.

I don’t think ordering people on the street to repent or go to hell is the most effective way to tell people the gospel. I’m all for open air preaching, but not in the way they were doing it, with a board listing all the people who are going to hell. That doesn’t seem like a good way of getting people to listen.

Terry Durham hears voices that “sometimes sound like me, but I say no, it’s the Lord”. hmm. I can’t find or remember the exact quote, but a friend suggested something along the lines of how amazing it is how often “what God wants” matches the desires of the person who claims to know.

I reckon if it’s not from the Bible, question it. If it is from the Bible, still check it, it’s not too difficult to take things out of context and say pretty much anything you want.

His dad was made to look very much like he’s using his son for financial gain. Good preachers don’t aim for celebrity status. They wouldn’t want to be welcomed onto the stage with a round of applause. But I guess my definition of ‘good’ is different to theirs.

Ana Carolina’s dad is her choreographer. I think that’s enough said really.

Ένα συγκλονιστικό ντοκιμαντέρ για το Jesus Camp, μια αμερικάνικη κατασκήνωση όπου τα παιδιά “εκπαιδεύονται” από πολύ μικρή ηλικία για να γίνουν “Στρατιώτες του Ιησού Χριστού“. 

Μέρος 1/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gj-q1853Fs
Μέρος 2/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK-ahuTkGXc
Μέρος 3/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI3wPdXP2Z4
Μέρος 4/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0THExLOf_c
Μέρος 5/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi-nUPCQPdQ 
Μέρος 6/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hF0h5X-5wY 
Μέρος 7/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB1VZ_KKILA
Μέρος 8/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frEQQmXQRoU 
Μέρος 9/9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T90cLQbflik

The Freedom of Religion is a granted right in the first amendment of the Constitution. As a US citizen, we all have the right to choose any religion we want: Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, etc. Therefore, from birth, The United States addressed that there will be no national religion; one should not be held higher above the other in this country since this country is supposed to represent the people (all of the people). Now I ask, who didn’t get that memo?

My parents gave me the choice to discover the religion that best suits me, if there be one out there at all. Although they had been raised with strict demands as to what religion they would become, they wanted their kids to figure it out for themselves. It was up to me to find my own religion, not just adopt theirs. After a few years of experiencing and learning about different religions, I found Buddhism. It represented my philosophical beliefs as well as enlightened me to new ideas that I had never before considered. I also liked the fact that this religion never gave answers to the unfathomable questions (Where did we come from, Who created us, How will it end, etc), it just focused on being a better person each consecutive day you live your life, until the last. To me, it’s less of a religion and more like encouragement towards a rewarding life. To this day, I consider myself a proud Buddhist who is learning new things about myself and my religion each day, and am not ashamed to admit that I will never truly understand the extent of either.

It’s hard to think of where I should start when trying to give examples of how religion has penetrated government. It would be appropriate to mention that religion has always been intertwined in power. As far back as the Mayans, Egyptians, and Romans, there was always a collective religion. The United States is one of the first real attempts by a dominating world superpower to try and maintain freedom of religion (so far). Read More

But it doesn’t seem like we’re doing much different from anyone that came before us. Religion became a cornerstone of US politics at conception. From the Puritans that immigrated to escape religious persecution, to the Southern Baptists that supported slavery, promoted racism, and influenced politicians to pass bills that appealed to their desires during the Reconstruction Era, to George Bush disregarding human rights to all US citizens because his religious beliefs say that marriage is between a man and a woman. “In God We Trust,” written on our currency. The propaganda-saturated “Pledge of Allegiance,” whose title frightens me enough, not to mention my horror once I get to “One nation, under god” (and to think as children we’re forced to recite this cult chant every morning under strict supervision of over-influencing teachers)!

The point I’m trying to make is: if we are a nation with the freedom to choose any religion we want, why aren’t we acting like it? The answer: Most of us vote for the candidate that reminds us of someone we could be friends with (because of the commonalities shared). For example, if you were an Episcopalian that didn’t care much for politics but still went out and voted every 4 years, you would most likely choose the guy that you knew shared your religious beliefs, because you might assume that he has your ideals in mind above others. It’s this self-preservation mentality that resides in us all and tempts us to vote for the guy we’d like to have a beer with, or the most attractive one who gives credit to God at all opportunities. Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln (arguably 2 of the most influential Presidents in US history) had no religious affiliation and in fact both spoke out against the fraternization of religion in government. It is a somewhat deflating point to make, since we seem to be going in the opposite direction concerning this topic.

For anyone who has seen the movie “Religilous” or “Jesus Camp,” you may have already noticed the underlying trend of religion raping the government for self-advancement. I won’t shoot into another history lesson on how we’re no different than any other former superpower, but the Vatican City is a perfect example of the marriage between religion and politics, which I would encourage everyone to research.

My soapbox concludes with the most encouragement I can muster after a rant like this… The more knowledge we gather, the more light there is shining in dark corners of our minds. When reading articles like this one that promote ideas that may stir up your thoughts, don’t ever take my word for it. Do your own research and figure out who you can trust. Can you trust CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC to deliver you 100% truthful information with no spin? Absolutely not. Can you trust some college kid ranting on his blog about conspiracy theories? No. But you can trust anyone in the world once you already know the answer before they speak. Should God and Government be keeping the neighborhood up with their loud promiscuity? You tell me. Knowledge really is power.

-Andrew Neal
WMHW Central Beat
Investigative Journalist
neal3ae@cmich.edu

According to Christianity Today, Becky Fisher’s “Kids on Fire Summer Camp” — featured in the movie Jesus Camp has shut down due to “negative publicity.”

Of course, there are still plenty of other Jesus Camps out there, most of which are indistinguishable from Fisher’s.

Way high up on my list of pet peeves is children’s choirs where kids are trained sing vapid preachy platitudes.  Few things are more obnoxious sounding than a child’s programmed moralizing and it never sounds quite as ugly as when it takes the form of song.  So, really, I don’t care if they’re singing about religion or politics, when listening to children sing about adult matters they can’t possibly have reasoned judgments, all I hear through their voices are the sounds of adult brainwashers.  So, while I of course have no problem with the President giving a talk to kids and telling them to work hard in school, there’s really no need for stuff like this, which is manages to be awful on numerous levels:

And I do agree, btw, that right wing outrage over this nonsense is quite misplaced and ridiculous for the sorts of reasons The Daily Show highlighted the other night.  But that still doesn’t make it any less creepy to me in principle.

But at least it’s not quite this horrifying:

To cleanse the palate, here are the haunting demonic voices of children used for good instead of evil for once, no children were harmed with political or religious brainwashing in the making of this song:

Your Thoughts?

When summer vacation arrives every May (or June), parents everywhere scramble to think about ways to kick their kids out of the house. With no more school, homework, or classes to attend, no self-respecting mother or father would want to torture themselves with having to take care of their kids during the whole day for three months out of the year.

Hence, the popularity of summer camp comes to light. Kids need something to do during the summers. They aren’t old enough to get a job (but then again, in this economy, who can find a job?) and can’t really take care of themselves. Paying a babysitter to watch over little Suzy and Billy can get costly after a while. So why not dump them off to an organized camp that takes the burden of having to entertain them all day off your shoulders?

The choices for which summer camp to send Suzy and Billy to are plentiful. There are a vast array of options ranging from traditional sports to hiking, craft making, water skiing, pottery, glass blowing, religious themed gatherings (think “Jesus Camp”), nature exploring, and anything related to the performing arts.

Sports are, of course, a typical cliché of summer camp lore. Sports like baseball, soccer, football, basketball, and hockey are good ways to train your kids with skills in physical athleticism, teamwork, and hard work. And what parents wouldn’t want their kids to learn a little bit of that? Besides, they might grow up to become the next LeBron James.

But sports doesn’t really allow you to express any form of creativity. There are those who argue that sports is an art, but those arguments run pretty thin after a while. How many times can you hit a baseball and make it look cool? Home runs do look spectacular at first, but seeing a hitter casually job around the bases is just so boring. Baseball is a great sport, but it’s limiting in what it can teach someone to become.

That goes for all sports, to an extent. The ultimate goal of any athlete is to become the best that they can be. They want to win and win as often as they can. That’s basically it. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it can get a bit monotonous. Any endeavor where there’s hard and fast rules doesn’t really allow you to explore any creative outlet.

But enough about bashing sports. I say this because I never played sports when I was little. I wasn’t very good at catching a ball and still can’t really do anything too amazing. But where kids these days should really consider spending their summer is at theatre camp.

Theatre camp? Yes, a summer camp dedicated to the dramatic arts. Sounds nerdy, but it is. There’s an old joke that kids who can’t catch a football are then signed up for band camp because sitting around and playing an instrument takes no athletic prowess at all. There might be some truth in that joke.

But theatre camp is something that I actually did when I was little. As kids, myself and many others would spend our summers indoors practicing our lines, going over our blocking, and learning the basics of the theatrical arts. As a result, I think we’ve developed better social, verbal, and professional skills then kids who learned how to hit a ball all day.

Theatre is a team sport. There are many components that go into putting on a production. There are actors, directors, producers, lighting designers, set designers, set builders, a stage manager, grips, assistants, a prop master (or mistress), a costume master (or mistress), a costume builder, makeup artists, special effects designers, light board/soundboard operators, house manager, playwright, photographer/graphic designer, box office manager, and many other jobs. Putting on a show, obviously, takes more than one person. And these are roles that children are learning at these camps.

Granted, most kids are learning the acting portion of the theatrical process, but as they get older, they start to realize that they are only one part in a very large machine. Very much like how we all function in society. In order for society to operate, we need doctors, lawyers, writers, accountants, teachers, students, caretakers, storeowners, architects, transporters, entertainers, politicians, and every other kind of job imaginable (reality TV star does not count).

Besides, kids get to learn that they can become part of something that is bigger than themselves. Too often we get caught up in individual achievements and forget that people could not live without other people. I’ve worked at summer theatre camps as a director and have seen first hand how kids learn that it is not always about them. It is about the group. It is about the big picture. We need to teach our kids more of these lessons.

So before you consider sending your child off to band camp or water rafting camp next time summer rolls around, consider this: are there alternatives to just the same old sack of potatoes? Or are we stuck with hoping that if our kids learn how to dribble a basketball for three months it would help them later lead productive adult lives? Take a chance and sign up little Billy or Suzy to be in a musical, or a Shakespearean production, or a mime troupe.

Know what? They may actually like it. Imagine that.

Jim Cantiello (aka @jambajim or one half of KRIM…yes, I know. People are now shipping music journalists and Idol finalists. The world is ending.) posted his newest Tweet Beat.

WATCH IT! Because Jim rocks. And he’s really, really funny. Mosquito Nets!!! Poking fun (in the nicest way…) of David Archuleta (Yo, Jim, no comment on Archuleta’s I Love Hummus Tweet?)

Wait. I think this may be the best ever David Archuleta Tweet. Hope he’s feeling better!

Wow, I don’t handle jalapenos very well Lol. about 23 hours ago from txt

(Whoa. Where was he texting that Tweet from?)

Unrelated side note: I just watched Jesus Camp. If you haven’t seen it, you must! I can’t believe I waited this long to watch it. Absolutely enthralling. Especially Levi O’Brien and his rattail. And Rachael, the little girl who proselytizes  in bowling alleys. She also prays before bowling, too. Jesus gave her a gutter ball.

He then gathered his disciples and said unto them, “Gather ye children once every year and send them to a camp in my name.  In that camp, thou is ordered to make arts and crafts of my image, indoctrinate the innocent in thine political views, and train them in a new crusade of violence against the evil followers of Muhammad.  If ye doeth not do this, thou shalt face the evil one in the afterlife.”

The nutty crew at Brightest Young Things has been endowed with the power of breathing life into the hipster scene of DC. They have so much pull in this city that they sweet talked the Capitol Skyline Hotel, a building in the forgotten lands of DC, to let them throw parties at the establishment’s pool. This was a weekly opportunity for patrons to fry themselves in the sun while sipping stiff drinks with hundreds of compatriots. Hotel management surely had no complaints about waves of wacky kids running around like they had just discovered freedom. Hell, the hotel never saw their building this full, and they were making money.

In exchange for a $10 cover BYT would please their guests with a new theme each week and shower them with free toys that coincided with the subject matter of the day. Themes ranged from stabbing camp councilors at Crystal Lake to going gung-ho at Boot Camp to rocking out on Karaoke. DC may not exactly be LA, but in the summer of 2009 residents of the District learned that their city has just as many crafty people orchestrating opportunities for enjoyment as any real city.

An article on Alternet today bears the ominous title: “An Army of Home-Schooled ‘Christian Soldiers’ On a Mission to ‘Take Back America for God.’” In it, Robert Kunzman discusses some of what he uncovered researching the “Generation Joshua” program for his book on the “world of conservative Christian homeschooling.” Children are quoted calling public schools tools of “the Enemy” and “quite simply humanist churches” out to undermine Christian values. (I guess they’ve never heard of Christian humanists.)

Of course, Jesus Camp probably holds the honor for the most disturbing depiction of anti-science Christian fundamentalist homeschooling:

Sure, there are positives to homeschooling. My own mother sometimes wonders if I would have been better off homeschooled, citing the wasted time I frequently spent bored and learning little in the public school system (in what are considered good schools, comparatively). The public education has a lot of flaws No Child Left Behind did nothing to remedy, and homeschooling can look like an appealing way to accelerate your child’s learning, if you can afford the time commitment. In the realm of test scores, homeschooling has its successes and failures, just like public schools–the quality of the teacher is an important factor whether that s/he is a parent or professional.

Yet the larger problem is the impact of parental indoctrination on their children. Already, kids get most of their beliefs from their parents, for good and bad; school is the other major force in their lives, exposing them to diverse viewpoints. Although schools could certainly improve in encouraging students to think for themselves, when the parental and educational influence become one, children lack the experiences through which they could grow to discern the positive and negative in their parents’ beliefs and prejudices. (Whether their parents be evangelical Christians or atheists, liberal or conservative.)

Religion, unsurprisingly, raises the stakes. The Jesus Camp documentary states that a three-fourths of homeschooled children are evangelical Christians; Generation Joshua tells homeschoolers: “America is in a culture war. A few good soldiers can make a difference. Equip yourself and come join the battle!” And, unfortunately, passing the SATs doesn’t say anything about a students’ accurate knowledge of science or history, the areas in which the fundamentalist Christian Nation agenda tends to be weak on.

Sweden might have the right idea: it’s planning on banning homeschooling for “religious or philosophical” reasons, only allowing it in special exceptions, such as medical need. On the other hand, this action has garnered a lot of opposition, mainly from religious groups citing it as inference with protected belief, but also in terms of the inadequacies of the public education system and parental rights (what about children’s rights to a real education?).

In the end, I don’t have a ton of sympathy for homeschooling. There’s such a thing as too much parental control (although an involved parent who helps with homework and provides additional teaching afterschool is a fantastic asset), not to mention the social benefits to attending school with other kids. This doesn’t even take religious completely out of the equation–private and religious schools exist as options (whether that’s a positive or not). The best argument I see for homeschooling is one that not about instilling ideology but simply providing your children with a better education, basically an opt-out route.

However, like private schooling, this removes the people with means and time from wanting to push for stronger universal education, penalizing those left behind who don’t have the time to homeschool or the money to private school.

Let’s just hope she likes to use the microwave with the door open so we don’t have to worry about offspring…

Cuando vi a la gorda predicar, lo único que pude imaginar que la mejor muerte de la que podría sufrir sería ser disparada por una Maschinengewehr 42 en toda la espalada. ¡Hay mucha espalda para lacerar joder!

Todos nosotros somos responsables de que este tipo de manifestaciones fundamentalistas. Lo que pasa es que un día vamos a despertar y va a terminar la modernidad. Por ejemplo, existen post como este y como el de nuestros compañeros de cuna, en los que no buscamos tener un mundo mejor sino uno lleno de perros pardos y de caca y de papas para golpear.

Entonces cuando esa ilusión llamada razón que sostenía este frágil mundo a medias (bueno, nunca lo ha hecho, pero digamos que hay cierta hipocresía todavía), los gringos van a coger sus bombas y sus hermosos aviones y las primeras víctimas van a ser Chidovalmen y Sancho Panza.

Ver a los niños rezar tan impúdicamente por una patria nueva, me hizo pensar que no sería difícil hacerlos llorar  y hacerlos convulsionar para que MTV deje de ser una porquería u otro tipo de beneficencia social como los abuelos que se pudren en esos lugares de mierda o el calentamiento global (esas cosas, citando al cuento de häblich que nunca leí, por lo que la cita va a ser del todo inexacta, ¿cómo decía ?”esas cosas que le preocupan al ciudadano proimedio” o algo así).

¿Y qué está haciendo Demian Valmen por todos nosotros?

Por ahora solo patea niños que se caen de las escaleras mientras siguen en el suelo.

Demian Valmen

]]> http://tartantanktop.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/harry-potter-killed-by-evangelicals/ Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:56:26 +0000 tartantanktop http://tartantanktop.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/harry-potter-killed-by-evangelicals/

I grabbed a big glass of wine this evening and settled down to watch ‘Jesus Camp’, which I noticed was on C4 Catch-up. Now, I wasn’t going to write about this, and I know folks like Blaghag and PZ Myers, to name a few, have posted about this, but as per usual I noted things down as I was watching it (I’m an Arts student; reading a book & watching TV with a pen in-hand is normal life…) and I ended up using so many post-it notes that I felt it was worthy of a post.

What grabbed my attention most? Hmm, well Harry Potter as the devil’s aid sure got a “you’ve gotta be fucking yanking my chain” out of me. It’s fiction you morons, fiction, fiction, fucking fiction; you know, a book, like your bible!?  *Pfft*

Smashing cups for Jesus? I have no doubt that smashing a mug is very empowering, but I don’t think it’s going to change the world. Plus, I’m surprised that Health and Safety weren’t over that camp like a rash owing to a lack to safety goggles while shards of porcelin flew around left, right and centre!

My favourite moment, however, was blessing a cardboard cut-out of George Bush — I actually had a roll around laughing moment before I realised that this was fucking serious, and they were asking these impressionable children to bless that man and everything he stood for.

I’ll not even go into the huge chunk of anti-abortion/pro-life spiel. That’s a different post for different day. Although it did totally amaze me (for a country with a constitution which clearly states that church and state are separate entities) how much religion and politics manage step on each others’ toes in the US. Surely that can’t be right.

My second favourite moment was seeing Ted Haggard in his best smug suit. What a dick. He looked into the camera at one point and said something along the lines of, “I know what you did last night” and then “if you send me $1000 I won’t tell your wife!” — drawing on personal experiences are we, Mr. Haggard? What a hypocrite! The bigger they (think they) are, the harder they fall!

The whole documentary filled me with horror and disbelief; I honestly can’t believe somewhere like ‘Jesus Camp’ was allowed, or endorsed by the general public. It should have been laughed out of business, but I guess that’s not the kind of world that we live in.

Welcome one and all to the first OFFICIAL B Blog here on WordPress! Fresh off my return from the timewarp that sucked me into an alternate dimesion, which would explain my abscence of bloggage I promised. With that all done and out of the way, lets get this show on the road!

First off, let’s kick up some controversy and talk about religion ya’ll!

Recently, while trying to find some decent horror films to watch, I came across a little documentary called “Jesus Camp” that seemed to be mentioned on every ‘Scariest Films’ list I glanced at on teh interwebs.  The movie is a documentary on a Pentacostal summer camp at Devil’s Lake (cue the ‘irony lol’) North Dakota called the “Kids on Fire School of Ministry”. Now, on first reading, that sounds more like a place for satanism or a cult gathering, well that last part wouldn’t be too far off. This movie scared the crap out of me and left me feeling nausiated and sad for society. Throughout this film, the leader of the camp (Becky Fischer) makes a constant note to say how Muslims are giving their children weapons and sending them out to kill believers of “her” God and that she thinks this is terrible. She also spends alot of the time talking about how to hook kids while they’re young and that she is training the children at her camp to be “soldiers of God” and to fight in his name. I think what got me the most was having to watch these little kids get screamed and be told that they are liars and bad people for not fronting their religion at school and in public. I can go on and on about how pissed of that makes me, but instead I will list some ‘favourite moments’ of this movie and let draw your own conclusions.

• calling Harry Potter the Devil and his fans the same
• people praying to a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush
• children sobbing and speaking in tongues
• a kid’s essay on how he was glad that “Galileo eventually decided to embrace religion instead of science”
• an 8 year old dancer who says “sometimes, I know I’m just dancing for the flesh and I have make myself stop”

Now, after getting my fill of the people that were a little too hopped up on Jesus, I decided to get a bit of opposition by watching “Religulous”.

I’d like to start by saying that I have never been a Bill Mahr fan. Personally, I’ve always seen him as a know-it-all asshole that speaks a little too freel and this movie just enforced that to me. Mahr spends the entire film mocking all religions big and small, and not even in a clever way. Seeing him take down televangilist was the only enjoyable part of this movie because he was putting people that deserve it in their place. The rest of the time though, he’s just walking up to folks with a little faith in something and telling them “your beliefs are stupid and so are you for following them”. This is not a documentary, this is just a guy being a dick. For man who claims to not believe in worship, he sure bows down often enough to the all mighty dollar.  I’m sure the profits from his shows and merchandise could go somewhere better than his wallet, considering how much he chastizes so many other groups for not giving more than they have.

So, like all stories, this one has a conclusion and boy is it EVER a ringer. The film ends with Mahr saying how the world will end unless people put away the childishness or religion, all the while clips of destruction and apocolyptic imagery flash across the scene. Not only is it trying to hard, it’s in poor taste…. so yeah it’s exactly what to expect from Bill Mahr.

While we’re on the topic of movies and dead dudes coming back to life, I’d like to give some quick reviews of all the “sex driven” horror movies I had a marathon of last month. Let’s start with the one that put things in gear, Lesbian Vampire Killers. This movie was amazing, really it was great. A British comedy about two best friends and some gorgeous collgege girls fighting off a horde of lesbian vampires in the woods, it really hits all the key areas. Funny, looks good, and perfect for repeated viewing.

Next up I watched the horrible B film Frankenhooker. When a self proclaimed ‘bio-electrician’ accidentally grinds up everything but his girlfriend’s head with a remote controlled lawnmower, he sets out to rebuild her body with some used parts. Where do you get lady parts you ask? Why, the red light district of course. Gathering all the girls in a room and feeding them ’supercrack’ that causes them to explode, he just picks out the best of everything. The final result as an unstoppable hooker that kills everything she touches basically, which happens to be all the triks she comes in contact with. Terrible movie, with terrible effects….watch it.

Lastly, I tackled the one that has been on my list for awhile: Zombie Strippers. This movie raises the moral question of whether dead girls can still be hot, sexy, and do able. According to the patrons of the club, yes, yes they are… hell they even go as far as saying sexier. A recruitment video for the National Necrophilia of america maybe, but it is pretty entertaining. Robert Englund( Freddy Krueger for the normies) pulls off some amazing acting and the special effect work looks pretty decent for such a small budget. Add in the horrifying scene of a zombie spreading her legs and sitting on Englunds face and then having to see the aftermath later is enough to keep my squirming for days. Strangely though, this vaginaful scene follows after another that features Jenna Jameson firing billiard balls out of her Land Down Under with enough force to take part of a dudes head off. Thank you Jenna, thank you for completely ruining my deepest fantasy.

Hey! Did somebody say segway?!?!

Recently, our little club called ‘The Zone here in KL hosted a ladies jello wrestling night. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend, but from what I was told, I’m glad I didn’t make it there that night. Apparently, during the course of jello rumble, there was some blood spilt into the pool from on of the gals. Did they stop the match though? Hell no, they wouldn’t let a little dab of the crimson spoil everyones fun! Yeah, see, here’s the thing… neither of the lady rumblers and a single cut on them.

I’ll give you second to process that…

Good, now that you’ve been sent into a horror coma, I’ll continue. Inregards to what was mentioned earlier, I guess the theme of all this is: when is enough enough? I mean not only did that not scare anyone away from the event, but they just poured more jello in to cover it up. As men, are we really that desperate to see some ‘action’ that will resort to tricking ourselves into thinking a girl is still hot, even if her breast is rotting off her ribs, or that to ladies going at it is still sexy even if they’re wading through someones monthly?

You Decide Nation!

That’s right folks it’s time for the poll area of this juggernaut of a blog where you get to have a word. You heard it right people, it’s time for you give me your opinion on the topic of… beards! You can say what you want about that other thing, but THIS is the pressing issue here folks lets get to it!

Like a furry friend that lives on our face, beards have been providing comfort, style, and protection to people for centuries. Being as they are the most craftable of facial features, they come im many shapes and sizes. Myself, I have been sporting what is refered to as the ‘Lincoln’ for the last 5 years, but as time rolls on I find that I’m becoming bored with an Honest Abe approach to beardery.  So, after extensice research and soul searching I have decided to change this and go with a ‘Lebowski’. Rocked by the Dude himself, this beard says “Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man”.

My second choice was the MacReady, worn by Kurt Russel in The Thing. Rugged, wild, and free, this beard screams “I just wanna get up to my shack and get drunk”.

So now here’s the question: Which do YOU prefer?

My face should showcase:

1. The Lebowski
2. The MacReady or
3. Keep the Lincoln

So leave some comments with your pick and we’ll post the results next blog entry.

Till then, keep your wits about you and for the love of God stay the hell out of the jello pool.

Your Brother In Arms,

-The B

I just finished watching a documentary on evangelical Christians.  It documents “Jesus Camp”, a camp attended by children and adults to indoctrinate them (their words, not mine) into their radical faith (also their words, not mine) and teach them to be faithful by their standards.  They are taught to think of nothing but God and Jesus.  Children were weeping because they didn’t feel God around them and thought the reason was they weren’t trying hard enough or weren’t good enough for him to talk to them.  So naturally, I figure if one child was expressing this, most felt it and decided to fake it to make their parents happy.  75% of evangelicals homeschool their children because they don’t like the public school system for separating religion from the classroom and not teaching creationism as fact.  Evolution isn’t even taught as fact!  It is still taught as a theory (and rightfully so)!  The preacher stood in front of the children and told them Harry Potter was evil because he was a warlock and he would have been killed in traditional Christian cultures.  She spoke in tongues every time she prayed.  All the children cried with their hands in the air and spoke in tongues.  Some would fall over as they Holy Spirit washed over them.  These poor children are just trying to please their parents by being part of the experience when the truth is that all of the nonsense they were doing were to buttress their faith.  If you are truly faithful, you don’t need any of that to be steadfast in your belief!  You just BELIEVE.  Or you don’t.  But you don’t need to justify yourself by getting pliable children around you to speak in tongues.

It didn’t take long for the political angle of the camp to rear it’s ugly head.  By the third day or so, they had a man show up and show model fetuses and talk about all of the children that could have been in the room with them today had they not been aborted.  Absolutely morbid and simplistic.  He didn’t have to craft an argument that takes into account legitimate counterpoints because he was speaking to an audience that wanted nothing but to believe him and have him approve of them.  That’s what children want!  They want to be loved and they seek approval!  They haven’t become discerning yet so these evangelists have discovered a new market.  They had one memorable kid with a mullet preaching who was nothing short of generic.  They have no original thoughts or opinions.  They just credit God with everything and then share no sense of ownership for their own success.  It’s anti-Humanist and demeaning to all that is mankind to worship this way.  There is a way to be intelligent and religious.  These kinds of groups mar the reputation of smart, faithful people everywhere.

The documentary is called Jesus Camp.  I recommend it so you can see what people really do out there.

Be quiet. Daddy is busy having a midlife crisis

Recap: I need to find something to be interested in now I’m thirty.  Let’s start by talking about children, as apparently everybody else is.  It’s no wonder I hate them: children are like a crap band that are always on the radio, wherever you go, and everybody seems to love them except you.  Although the world should breathe a sigh of release every day that I have yet to reproduce, apparently something is deeply wrong with me as an adult because I don’t yet have any desire to channel the bulk of my time, sanity and earnings into a bawling, turd-smeared goblin whose sole purpose in life is to disrupt my sleep, destroy my possessions and serve as a vessel for the toxic distillation of any obsessions, fears and failings that I have yet to blame on my own long-suffering parents.  At the very least, I need to earn a lot more money so that I can start saving to pay for all the therapy the ungrateful little bastards will probably need by the time they hit their twenties. Daddy doesn’t mean to be disappointed in you. But he is.

As children are currently off the menu (at least as long as I stash this pair of bulky mid-90s Nokias in my trouser pockets), I feel restricted to the limited and unattractive options of sports, half-arsed creative pursuits, or perhaps joining a cult.  Assuming that by working on this blog I’ve lazily relapsed into the middle option, I can at least spin some creative mileage out of ridiculing the other two as if I was back at university grinding out easy-target funnies for various unsuccessful student magazines.  If I can keep this up maybe somebody will give me an expense account, a photoshopped byline picture and a job churning out excruciatingly self-obsessed journalistic masturbation for the colour supplement.  My life is every bit as mundane and middle-class as every other journalist, but I’ll spew up the verbiage that much cheaper because I don’t live in North London and can happily just fabricate the necessary anecdotes about my charming, ethically-spotless offspring and our organic Labrador sanctuary.  Of course, even this fantasy isn’t fooling anybody, as we all know that most newspapers have spent the last five years subcontracting their tedious family column to a wind-powered, Fairtrade sweatshop somewhere in the more oppressive parts of China.

No, I didn’t see the match last night

His team is apparently better than your team

Meandering back to my theme, it’s lucky I picked up the metaphorical typewriter again, because even for the purpose of argument I can’t get excited by sports.  I’d rather be obsessed with trains, pigeons or Japanese tentacle pornography than sports.  Whilst I enjoy fitness as much as the next anaemic, lardy desk-jockey, there is a world of difference between my affection for tame mountain biking, crotch-moistening yoga workouts or being half-drowned at sea and the utterly terrifying prospect of being a man who is “into sports”.  I had to put those fingerquotes there, even at the risk of sounding like the one guy from everybody’s school/office/terrorist cell who uses them for his “funny stories”, because being “into sports” is your wife’s coded way of telling her friends that you are inorexably devolving into the kind of pitiful, semi-autistic pub bore who can’t manage a lengthy conversation outside the dribbling of statistical brainsnot and regurgitated punditry that apparently motivates the armchair sports enthusiast to continue breathing.  The creeping inevitability of sports interest in my age group forces me to imagine that I will soon be cowering amidst a society populated mostly by taxi drivers, Jeremy Clarkson and sadistic PE teachers; a prospect so enticing that it makes a short future as the telegenic Caucasian hostage of Somali pirates look somewhat pleasant by comparison.  I’m generally talking about football here, but things can always get worse: I might somehow end up as one of those men who collects ‘amusing golf souvenirs’. If you ever wonder who voted for Hitler, your culprit is right over there browsing for knickknacks in the pro shop.

Mongs of Praise

OMG Xenu LOL

Religion is a slightly more appealing prospect.  I love the sound of my own voice, and providing I’d be willing to narrow the spectrum of my unasked-for opinions only slightly, I could start telling my friends, family and total strangers how to live their lives in that special way that makes reasonable people fantasise about deporting the most arrogant believers from each faith to the bloodstained sandpit of the Middle East to thrash out their disagreements with sticks, clubs and flame-throwing robot donkeys.  I watched Jesus Camp last week, and although its cast of climate-change denying, Harry Potter burning, Jesus-rode-dinosaurs Christian fruitcakes are probably an unfair stereotype of the average churchgoer, the raw terror I experienced as they babbled in tongues and smashed cheap dinnerware in the name of Jesus made me simultaneously a little jealous even as I facepalmed repeatedly at their characteristic mixture of utter naïveté and alarming bigotry.  I’d like to be so into something that I was prepared to brainwash my children at home, encourage nightmares about godless public schools awash with STDs and ultimately shepherd them outside to perform the Lord’s work by aggressively brandishing papier-mâché foetuses outside abortion clinics.  I may not agree with any of their views, but I sort of wish I cared about anything enough to make that much of an arse of myself.

Praise him

Unfortunately, I think that evangelical Christianity might just not be for me.  I can do the chanting, the dancing out of time and the rolling around on the floor, mainly because I’ve spent years killing my brain with raves, so I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to start killing what remains of it with Jesus.  On the other hand, my marketing consultants inform me that even if we ignore my long-standing interest in overseeing an inflexible secular dictatorship, I just don’t fit the right demographic to spend my weekends in one of those gigantic mega-churches apparently designed along the same architectural lines as a branch of B&Q Superstore.

A non-exhaustive list of sticking points that prevent me from getting the evangelical Spirit in me might include: total non-belief in the afterlife; earnest desire to have more gay neighbours; love of Slayer; and some very fond memories of premarital sex.  Even if the last two in that list were joyously shared with the woman who is now my wife, I can’t imagine the conversation at my post-Baptism pizza party being particularly easy unless the touch of The Lord also blesses me with the hitherto non-existent ability to remain even vaguely tactful at social gatherings.  Sadly, it looks like only the Scientologists would take me: on the plus side, I do hear they have the most wonderful social occasions, and they certainly know a lot about Golf.

The entertainment world is on fire with the rumor of another creation movie from Kevin Miller, the maker of Expelled. The story is to be based on the life of evangelist creationist Kent Hovind, a.k.a. Dr. Dino, the tax dodger, the prison bitch.

In September 2009, Resurrection Pictures is partnering in the release of The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry—a heartwarming coming-of-age story about three 12-year-old boys who are shown how to apply Scripture to daily struggles—and is a 2009 Silver Sponsor of the 168 Hour Film Project & Festival. Creation, Resurrection Pictures’ first original film project— a humorous and tearful story of a high school biology teacher’s struggle to expose the lie of evolution, based on the life of creation evangelist Dr. Kent Hovind and written by Kevin Miller the writer of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is scheduled for production in 2010.

My reaction to this news can’t be expressed in mere words, so I offer you this video. Just pretend I’m the talk show host, and Kevin Miller and Kent Hovind are the guests. The fact that it’s in Dutch is irrelevant, for laughter is an international language.