Have we had a thread about the Richard Dawkins atheist summer camps for kids yet?

[policywonk]

here

Though #1: Dawkins is a loon.

Thought #2 (following very closely on the heels of Thought #1): DS1 (6) - who is alone (in his class of 30) in having been taught about the Big Bang rather than the creation story - might well get a lot out of something like this. At the moment, he's beginning to suspect that his father and I are cult leaders.

(Nah, I knew it was you even without the en-dash)

I suppose the thing is that lots of parents do use this summer camp model now (in the UK I mean), so an atheist one is no more or less money-grubbing than a cookery one, or a sports one.

Heh, I was wondering why this thread wasn't showing up in my Active Convos - it's because I've hidden this topic

There have been some really good discussions here sometimes. All the nuanced doubt, as distinct from the 'religion is plain stupid and irrational' doubt. Plus all the interesting faith, of course.

Yes, I hate the summer camp model.

OK for something like kayaking, that needs equipment and safety certificates I suppose. DS2 is desp. to go on some sort of survival training in manner of Ray Mears. I wonder how well that would come out of the dumb-down-and-make-ridiculously-safe process

Yeah, I dunno why I hid it. (I think it might have been the prayer threads. Not that there's anything wrong with them, they're just extra stuff that I'm not interested in, like the postnatal threads.)

Are you an 'elf and safety rebel then? I don't mind it myself. I rather like the fact that someone else it taking responsibility for the DSs. Heaven knows I'm not qualified to do it.

I'm quite in favour of my boys being healthy and safe on the whole, but I do steel myself to encourage risks tree climbing, penknife wielding, pell-mell sprints towards near-certain doom, that sort of thing. It feels a bit like giving them the MMR you kind of know it is right for the most part,but you hate being the one to say 'ok'. So I would quite like it if a Trained Professional said 'ok' on my behalf.

But I don't want a Trained Professional to encourage free thought because, for the most part, I can manage that myself and you don't need first-aid training.

Heh you are a funny lady. I let the DSs push health-and-safety boundaries, but it's as much to do with laziness as anything else.

Dawkins is proving to be a bit of a tit. I can't believe he is not embarrassed by all this proselytising. If it was billed specifically a science camp that would be great. But it strikes me as thoroughly unscientific to bring God (or lack of) into it.

"Groom", as used in the headline, is a somewhat emotive word.

I wouldn't personally send my children on one of these as described, as it would be like sending them on a camp to tell them the Earth is round and that gravity makes things fall.

I wonder if it really is as described, though. (I mean, "Imagine", FFS.)

I do think there is a place for young people having structured discussions about rational attitudes towards crystal healing, crop circles, reiki and all that crap. Maybe something called Rational Thinking could be introduced into the school curriculum.

Sadly I have to agree with the comment that he is asking for trouble by doing this.

But rational thinking should be taught across the school curriculum -- and in my view it is (though at the rather unstretching level that everything is taught. Science lessons in primary school, for example, seem to place a lot of emphasis on schooling in the scientific method, rather than just concentrating on substantive truths of science.

Troube is with taking 'rational thinking' out and studying it of itself, rather than in the course of other subjects, is that it can be done extremely badly

Could be right, yes. Philosophy is taught in some schools, isn't it?

DS2 would adore this camp. DS2 has written for the school newspaper arguing stridently against Creationist hymns in a school setting - he has a particular problem with "All Things Bright and Beautiful". Then there's a song which seems to thank the Lord for helping the children pick up rubbish...

However, DS2 also thinks that anyone who believes in any God is an idiot. He and DH worship instead at the altar of Dawkins, and the irony has passed them by. So I was really taken by GuvK's comments about Dawkins' hostility to religion undermining faith in one's own views, the freedom of thought etc. We need Agnostic Camp, possibly: the "disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge" Camp. Might be a bit wordy.

I am loving the idea of an agnostic camp. Everyone bursting with an empathetic open-mindedness that makes them so eager to give a positive hearing to one another that they all lean too far forward on their logs and singe their hair on the campfire.

How about "We just don't know so stop fighting about it".

I like "We need agnostic camp, possibly"

lol at guvk and the singeing

But in all seriousness, yes. Rational thinking amongst other things involves at least awillingness to put the most plausible construction on the views of those with whom we disagree, so that we are not just glibly reinforcing our own prejudices by attacking a straw-man version of an opposing view. I think we should singe our hair.

That sounds like something my dh would sign our son up for....

I would very much like to see a grammar camp. Possibly your children would never forgive you for sending them on that one though.

In Screenburn this week, there was a review of a programme about dissecting elephants which also features Richard Dawkins, who apparently "appears so delighted and enthused by the process of evolution, he manages to talk for several minutes without once calling all organised religion a bastard." The idea that even Charlie Brooker is more tolerant than Dawkins amused me greatly.

Haven't read whole thread but just wanted to add something that had me laughing last week. DD (5) and friend (6) walking home from school last week. Friend (boy) says to me "Did you know we used to be monkeys?" I smiled and said "And do you know how we turned into people?" DD and friend both thought for a moment, they hadn't considered this question before, and then DD shouted out "God!" and her friend "Meteors!" and they both went running off down the road laughing away! It was hilarious, a merging of two theories, which seems to be an answer us grown ups haven't thought of! (DD and friend are both at a faith school btw, but neither family are 'believers' btw)

Dawkins really is good at describing evolution and conveying its elegance and its adequacy to the task of explaining an as-if intelligent order without an Orderer. It is a shame that he is becoming known less for explaining how our well-ordered biological world does not need a religious explanation, and more for a generalised hostility to religion. How does he get from one to the other? Is there meant to be an argued connection? I should know this I'm sure, but I don't.

I love Charlie Brooker very much. There's nothing wrong with being intolerant of specific acts of stupidity/cruelty etc as he is. He would have to start spouting blanket "all TV is rubbish" type comments every week to become as boring and intolerant as Dawkins.

That is a good question govk. I think perhaps he believes that we have recently emerged into an enlightened science-based Humanism which is A Good Thing, and that this is under threat from the dark forces of organised faith-based religion (which is A Bad Thing) and that therefore he is obliged to fight the good fight until everyone agrees with him.

So really his attacks would only gain purchase on religion that aimed to displace or complement scientific explanations of natrural phenomena, or religion that needed 'scientific' confirmation?

Whereas in fact lots of religious and scientific practitioners are quite happy to look at religion and science as (in some sense)autonomous spheres.

He dislikes religion for attempting to colonise natural phenomena with religious explanations but he is himself a scientific colonialist? -- collapsing all forms of reasoning into scientific method; whereas in fact there is plenty of entirely appropriate non-scientific (not anti-scientific) reasoning.

what we need is a humanist camp.
I agree it would be nice for kids to be around others who thought along similar lines (3 of mine went to a C0f E high school, was a constant exercise in tolerance on their part, which must have been quite wearing.