Thursday, February 19, 2009

Scaring the Shit Out of You and Me

I'm talking about the documentary film Jesus Camp. It's definitely a must-see movie, even though it will be upsetting to those of you with half a brain who dwell over here in the Reality-Based Community.

It's absolutely frightening to see the brainwashing that goes on, convincing children that they will become "Soldiers for Christ", at a pentecostal summer camp located in, believe it or not, Devil's Lake, Minnesota.

Also, believe it or not, this camp is called the "Kids on Fire School of Ministry". Brainwashing? Yep, in full measure. Anywhere else, in any other context, and this would be called what it really is, child abuse.

Of special note is a conversation that takes place between 12-year-old wannabe preacher Levi and now-disgraced religious-right-homophobe/secret-sodomite Ted Haggard. It makes you wonder what was really going on in old Ted's head (heads?) during the course of that interaction...

Anyway, these children represent the next generation of Soldiers for Christ, and we ignore them at our peril. Remember the admonition from Voltaire that now graces the left column of this blog: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

In just a few years, these little zombies will be taking up their weapons in their "war" against us infidels. While they may claim that their weapons are "Jesus" and "The Truth", blah blah blah, how long will it be before one of the little soldiers takes the whole weapon thing a little too literally?

3 Comments:

Ben There said...

I've seen this crazy shit and it would've been funny if it weren't so damned terrifying. And we aren't talking about a lunatic fringe here. Scary stuff. You see that kind of thing and it's easy to understand what happened to the United States.

Farnsworth68 said...

Thanks, Ben.
These people are fucking scary. I've been calling them -- for a long time now -- the American Taliban, and if they ever achieve their goal of taking over this country, they will institute an Xian theocracy that will make Iran under the Ayatollah Khomeini look like an episode of Sesame Street.
--The F Man

Anonymous said...

I watched this movie last summer and yes, it is scary. This is a toast for all those people who look at religion and ask "What harm can it do?"

The reality is that the very foundations of our democracy are being attacked from within by the very people who would NOT exist without these foundations in place. This is how great societies collapse from within - through the breeding of ignornace, claims of stupidity all based on this magical crap that claims that you must belong to something greater than yourself without regard to your own self-interest.

The bad part of this is that these people all accept the social engineering - for engineering is what it is - and think the are doing the right thing. And these camps all go unchallenged.

Look up Pastor Becky Fischer.

There is a reason for the separation of church and state. There is a reason there has to be a purge of religion from government and NOT a reintroduction like that piece of shit Bush did.

This thing will destroy us all and in the end, it will destroy itself. History has story after story of civilization after civilization.

Ours was supposed to be different.

We need a purge.