Posted on 07/02/2009 6:21:31 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
News out of Great Britain indicates that Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world's most famous living atheist, is setting up a summer camp intended to help children and teenagers adopt atheism. As The Times [London] reports: "Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week's summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life."
The camp, based upon an American precursor, is to be financially subsidized by Dawkins. According to media reports, all 24 places at the camp have been taken.
As Lois Rogers of The Times reports:
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.
The organizers of the camp are doing everything possible to emulate more traditional summer camps, generally organized by Christian groups or venerable organizations such as the Boy Scouts. Campers are to learn about evolution even as they go canoeing and swimming. Like their counterparts at Christian camps, these campers will sing songs around the campfire. As might be expected, the songs will be quite different. "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.'"
Camp Quest, established in the United States in 1996, has now expanded to six locations. While its numbers are small in terms of attendance, especially as compared to more traditional camps, the camps for atheists received a good deal of media attention.
In this light, it appears that this announcement hardly adds to the reputation of Richard Dawkins. In the parlance of American popular culture, he appears to have "jumped the shark." As this phrase indicates, some figures in the public eye become something like parodies of themselves. In this case, the recently retired Oxford University professor has thrown his public reputation behind an effort that appears to be profoundly unserious when it comes to reaching the masses. If Richard Dawkins is really so concerned to support atheism, it hardly seems that a summer camp limited to 24 children and teenagers represents a bold advance for his cause.
In recent months, Dawkins has spent his personal credibility on a project to put atheistic messages on London buses and, now, on this very small experiment in a secularist camp for children. The bus advertisement campaign became something of a joke, with the signs declaring only the claimed probability that there is no God. Londoners seemed more bemused than persuaded. Now, Professor Dawkins lends both his name and his financial support to an atheistic summer camp that will teach evolution to children by day and teach them to sing the songs of John Lennon by night. The Boy Scouts should not fear the competition.
At a deeper level, the existence of this camp in Great Britain and its sister camps in the United States indicates something of the intellectual insecurity of contemporary atheism and agnosticism. The effort to create a religion-free zone for summer camp makes for an interesting news story in the media, but it is not likely to draw the masses.
What comes after atheistic bus signs and a secularist summer camp? Time, as they say, will tell.
....it appears that this announcement hardly adds to the reputation of Richard Dawkins. In the parlance of American popular culture, he appears to have "jumped the shark." As this phrase indicates, some figures in the public eye become something like parodies of themselves. In this case, the recently retired Oxford University professor has thrown his public reputation behind an effort that appears to be profoundly unserious when it comes to reaching the masses. If Richard Dawkins is really so concerned to support atheism, it hardly seems that a summer camp limited to 24 children and teenagers represents a bold advance for his cause.
How many of you want to send your kid to spend a few nights with a man that has continually refuted traditional morality and downplayed the effects of child sexual abuse?
Sounds much more like the camps for the Hitler Youth to me...
as far as Dawkins...his proselytizing for Atheism, is disgusting but not inconsistent with a free society. Taking religion away via legislation is. We walk a fine line in free societies.
There is a warning about misleading children - not that Mr. Dawkins would believe it though.
Matthew 18:6
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
You know, for someone who claims to be well versed in philosophy and logic, this seems to be Dawkins achilles heel.
If God does not exist, then no proof can be given for his non-existance.
You cannot prove a negative.
And yet all he does is try to prove that God doesn't exist.
It is all sound and fury with no substance, and it would seem to me that Dawkins has one of two reasons for railing so against what he considers a mythical figure.
Either he feels that he can gain some advantage (i.e. money) from railing so, or he has a personal conflict about the existance of God.
I really don’t see a problem with this. I’d rather atheists form their own private summer camps than try continue to force established camps to follow their views.
Apparently there are now six Camp Quests in the United States.
Seems as though there would be greater demand for religion-neutral camps—camps that have no religious activities and no anti-religious activities.
My kids pretty much hated camping after each having one experience of religious-neutral camps. I’m sure they would have hated it even more if they’d been browbeaten about their faith or lack of it.
Yeah right. What better way to teach the absence of the Creator than exposing the kids to the beauty of His creation.
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