Richard Dawkins launches children’s summer camp for atheists
The five-day camp, based in Somerset, promises to be ‘beyond belief’ - the event’s motto - and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups. Richard Dawkins is subsidising the camp which will offer children aged eight to 17 the chance to sing along to John Lennon’s Imagine and have lessons in evolution.
As well as traditional camp pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war attendees will be given lessons in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology as well as debating otherworldly activities such as crop circles and telepathy.
There will even be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.
And instead of finishing up the day with a toasted marshmallow and round of Kim-bi-ya budding atheists will belt out ‘Imagine there’s no heaven…and no religion too.’
Dawkins said the camp was designed to ‘encourage children to think for themselves sceptically and rationally.’
The event has been held in America for 13 years and was set up in the UK by Samantha Stein, a postgraduate psychology student from London.
The 23-year-old said the 24 places available were now taken and she hoped to expand next year after receiving hundreds more inquiries.
She said the camp, to be held from July 27 to July 31, was not intended to convert children but to introduce them to a different way of thinking.
Camp atheist: Children will debunk crop circles and sing John Lennon
‘It is not about changing what they think, but the way that they think.
‘There is very little that attacks religion, we are not a rival to religious camps.
‘We exist as a secular alternative open to children from parents of all faiths and none.’
The theme of the camp is evolution, to coincide with the Darwin 200th anniversary celebrations this year.
The programme includes canoeing, drama, nature walks, singing and swimming.
There will also be philosophical and scientific discussion for children who will be taught about evolution and that ethical behaviour is not dependent on religious belief and doctrines.
Christian organisations which run summer camps include the Church Pastoral Aid Society, an evangelical group which operates 100 holiday schemes ‘giving young people a chance to meet Jesus Christ’.
I WANT TO GO TO THIS.
I hope any kids I may [n]ever have don’t inherit my social anxiety, so I can send them off to this.
Social anxiety is part of introversion, the personality trait that prefers introspection to outward social or physical activity. Because the majority of people are extroverts, society is set up so that being able to talk and make friends quickly and easily becomes the only viable option.
If your children inherited social anxiety, I would suggest it is an essential part of who they are, rather than a crippling disability.
Also, OMG RICHARD DAWKINS CAMP
I think I’m the only one who finds this depressing. ‘A £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn’? But… but… I mean, personally I believe childhood should be a time of innocence and enthusiasm. The fact that the innocence and enthusiasm has to end at a certain more ‘worldly’ age just shows what an awful world we live in, but I digress. Kids should play act and make up fairytales rather than competing over money to see who can think most like a ‘rational’ adult. And the ‘imagine there’s no heaven…and no religion too’ chant just seems like a way of injecting beliefs straight into children’s brains, just like religious camps. Kids should imagine and dream and believe, and childhood seems like the only time in life where those beliefs are enjoyed for themselves rather than pompously being forced on other people. ‘Sceptical thinking’ is the scourge of the earth. Adults think sceptically when they say ‘yeah, I know poverty and environmental destruction is bad but we can’t really change it and anyway X Factor is on g2g!!’
So yeah, clever guy, Richard Dawkins. Watch out to see if this doesn’t become just as indoctrinating as the christian camps. I hate arrogant humanity.
This is almost as bad as that awful, awful, fucking I-want-to-go-die-in-a-ditch-please-just-kill-me-right-now-no-really-you-think-I’m-joking ITV Junior Apprentice, with sixteen year olds eagerly learning how best to screw everyone else over and get as much for themselves as possible.
I tend to disagree that this is bad at all. Most summer camps are Christian camps or are populated by people of religious faith, and kids are sent there as a sort of vacation. Their parents don’t expect them to come home mentally or spiritually changed too much, and the activity usually just includes sports and games and things like that; they seriously lack in the intellectual or emotional department. But some of these kids and their parents certainly do want mental and spiritual change and are not getting it at all through these camps and they continue an outlandish existence of introversion and keeping all their beautiful ideas locked away in their brains once summer is over and school is back in session.
It is usually discouraged or difficult for a curious child to talk to a new friend about his questions on faith and philosophy; a modern summer camp is not an inviting atmosphere for intellectual or emotional growth or discussion considering some of those children are not prepared at all to question their beliefs, nor do they want to, leaving the curious child at a loss and alienated. The camp simply serves the need of social bonding (which can be superficial in many cases) and physical activity.
There are almost no channels for children to be children, to talk about what they want to talk about without being alienated or shut up by older people or other more indoctrinated people. They can’t escape their indoctrinating teachers or their indoctrinating parents and modern summer camps only provide more indoctrinated children to talk to. It seems to me that this ‘atheist’ camp will at least provide a place of congregation for all those curious children who just want to go to summer camp for the reasons of learning about nature and questioning all life. It will encourage an open environment of curiosity and will teach against the persecution of others for what they think.
Our lower education system still teaches the persecution of those who think differently, classifying them with A.D.D. or Autism or what have you, and the result is that children are so boxed up and separated from each other and not allowed to think freely anymore and this carries over into summer time experience at conventional camps. These new kinds of camps, as imperfect as they seem to you, are a welcome breath of fresh air. I’m sure more developed and open versions of these camps will begin appearing, including ones with more spirituality than the straight-up Darwin-Atheist approach.
Institutions need to begin changing, and if it has to start with summer camp, so be it.
