Oh Creepy!!

Oh my GOD! I hate to tell someone else's excellent blog story, but the phone rang just now and it was Squid, who said that at Iz's tennis camp this week they have been breaking at 11 each morning so they could indoctrinate the children in discussions of how science is wrong, how the dinosaurs didn't happen, etc. OH MY GOD! I'm totally shocked. I mean, I knew they were creepy and etc, but this is over the top, particularly, as Squid said, because they didn't mention anything about it in the literature that described the camp.

Squid is on her way up there to have a talk with the management. Send energy her way. "It's a good thing our girl is strong-minded, and has been going to UU sunday school for years," she said.

I know a lot of people who are members at that club up there. I wonder if they understand what they've joined? Others have been denied membership because they list "Hindu" as their family's religion, or are a same-sex couple. Unfortunately it's the only decent pool in this town. How hard would it be to raise the money for a public pool? Gah!!

Comments

[badgerbag]

Holy fuck! that should be written up immediately for the mc list, the parents' list, and the newspapers. Details, please!

[Keith]

Unbelievable, yet believable. I still recall my own soul being eternally saved one summer as a child, tricked into acceptance of Christ while snacks were dangled in front of our hungry eyes. The whole lot of us would have freely agreed to anything.

But my favorite Christian outing memory are the teenage co-ed campouts, where after a night around the fire listening to the adults tell stories of Christ's greatness and God's forgiveness and what-not, we kids would all retreat to the darkness and our sleeping bags, sneaking around so we could kiss and feel each other up. Pure Heaven.

I'm just thankful Christianity has a no-return policy on acceptance. If I'm wrong, or the rules have changed over the last thirty years, please just keep it to yourself. I'm perfectly content living in the dark.

Seriously, indoctrination of children, especially other people's children, is just wrong on every level imaginable.

['mouse]

I recall the summer when I was 10. I was a devout athiest, and I was sent to grandma's for several weeks. She enrolled me in vacation bible school as the only daycamp available.

I complained to higher authorities and my mother said, "it won't kill you."

I proceeded to memorize more bible phrases than anyone else and won the prized bible which I never read, but which followed me around for years.

It didn't kill me. It didn't indoctrinate me in the least. More like "know thine enemy."

(Personal anecdote alert: My kids recently got uninvited to play with the neighbor-nuts after my girls said something to the neighborkids to the effect of "I think your imaginary superhero in the sky is as bullshit as believing Superman is real." Ooops. Time for some lessons in discretion.)

By the way, aren't UU's supposed to be welcoming of different viewpoints, including those that are patently stupid?

[Melanie]

I think the real problem here 'mouse is that Squid didn't knowingly send her daughter to hear sermons about dinosaurs not being real. She sent her to tennis camp not bible school. It's sneaky and wrong, whether you are accepting of other views or not. Squid's choice was taken away and that's just not cool.

[giddy]

Yikes! Jo, I must tell you that I dreamt about you again, this time visiting you, and the interior of the Eichler was DIVINE. Then we went outside, initially to "watch a movie" being live-action acted in the nearby woods, but then we realized it was not just a movie but real life, and we proceeded to perform Sydney Bristow-esque feats of daring to save the world. Trees, cables, orange jumpsuits...something...don't remember much else.

I don't get why I dream about you and not Squid....

['mouse]

Ah yes, Melanie, well put. I remember a book recently where for one culture the taking away of choice was the the only crime under the penal code. Everything else was varying degrees of the same crime. Interesting concept.