[lit-ideas] Re: kid camps & passion

---- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 6/26/2005 12:25:04 PM 
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: kid camps & passion


Hello aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,


In reference to your comment:
A.A. Do you ever talk about atheism with her?  
She gets plenty of that from her peers at school, 


A.A. Things sure have changed since I've been in school.  Religion was never a 
topic in my public school.  Now it's an obsession apparently.  


not to mention the kids who assert that they are pagans, wiccans, etc. because 
their parents have told them so -- while the kids have scarcely a clue what 
that means.  


A.A. Pagan atheists.  No wonder the kids don't know what the parents are 
talking about.   Wiccans, they're in the Medicaid program, aren't they?  Do 
parents ever talk about anything other than religion and how good George Bush 
is?  Rhetorical question.  I know they don't.  

For Michael Chase, I don't know much about Relativism and can't find it the 
Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia.  Given that absolutes presumably come from 
god, who is as inconsistent as it comes, whose absolutes are we talking about?  
I'm asking seriously.


Long day,
Andy Amago



But sure, I've talked with Bronnie at length about the fact that not everyone 
believes there is a god, different ways atheists believe what exists came into 
being, how one might behave differently based on whether or not one believes 
there is a god, etc.  She's pretty sophisticated for a 13 yr. old.  I've also 
told her that the God I believe in loves variety -- just look at the 
magnificent variety in the universe -- and that religions are things humans 
invent to try to make sense of their world -- not things God invents.  That if 
there is a God I am sure S/He understands every individual's attempt to connect 
with and honour Him/Her.  My 11 yr old on the other hand eschews all such 
conversation, refuses to attend any religious service of whatever stripe, and 
is content to curl up under or in trees, being companions with her cats.  She's 
going to be, I think, one of the people who find God everywhere in everything 
and have no need for doctrine or dogma.  She is profoundly empat
 hetic and takes up for the underdog with a passion.  When hearing on the news 
that someone has hurt a child, her response is invariably, "somebody probably 
hurt him when he was little and he doesn't know it's wrong.  Someone should 
teach him."  Her naivete she'll outgrow.  Her love for creatures human and non, 
I hope not.

Julie Krueger

========Original Message======== Subj:[lit-ideas] Re: kid camps & passion
Date:6/26/05 8:14:04 A.M. Central Daylight Time
From:aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent on:    


----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 6/25/2005 12:04:50 PM 
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: kid camps & passion


My daughter is somewhat confusedly with what guidance my husband and I can give 
her finding her own path.  Jim (hubby) is Jewish and we've attended a number of 
services, rituals, festivals, bar/bat mitzvahs, pesachs, simchas, with her 
along.   She spent a few months studying written/spoken Hebrew with her.  My 
Mother is a profoundly devout Pentecostal woman, to whom my daughter is very 
emotionally close.  I have allowed Bronwyn to visit a number of different 
denominations with friends of hers.  I want her to have a decent understanding 
of the varieties of beliefs of other people and cultures.  We talk a lot about 
different paths and their validities.  



A.A. Do you ever talk about atheism with her?  



I had no clue they were going to show the movie, was appalled, relieved that 
she didn't end up watching it, and will be spending considerable time 
debriefing her over the next few days.

The thing that astonished me most, however, is the notion of a "PG13" version 
of it out there.  I'm still trying to figure out if that one is true and if so, 
what in the world it is like.


A.A. Personally, I think the entire Bible is pretty X rated for both sex and 
violence.   The old testament is the story of a psychopath.  The new testament 
is a pretty accurate portrayal of human nature in my opinion.  People love 
gore, public hangings, etc.  Beheadings were in the Bible long before the 
Islamists.  Charles Bronson did PG versions of theBible.  Born agains do a good 
job of sanitizing for the public as well.    I would imagine an effort to make 
a PG version of a slasher film would acknowledge that it could be harmful to 
children.  I would argue it's harmful to adults as well, but I'm an atheist, so 
what do I know.


Andy Amago


Julie Krueger

========Original Message======== Subj:[lit-ideas] Re: kid camps & passion
Date:6/25/05 10:45:06 A.M. Central Daylight Time
From:writeforu2@xxxxxxxxxxx
To:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent on:    


Julie -

I thought you were Jewish. Sending your Jewish daughter to a Christian bible 
camp sounds even more problematic to me than watching a passionately 
anti-semitic film about the passion of Christ. (And watching it without you by 
her side to add some perspective to what she sees.)

This is not a bible camp with an interfaith component to it, is it? Unless I 
overlooked that. Your daughter's not getting a perspective on the bible that 
comes from comparing and contrasting the Jewish with the Christian versions. 
She's getting a "true believer's" perspective without any countervailing view 
to temper what she learns. 

If this were in school, I would hope it would be looking at the bible as 
literature. In a bible camp, I really don't think the teachers will be looking 
at the bible as literature. And you won't be there. If they brought parents 
together with their kids in a learning environment, that would be different. 
She'll be there alone without the intellectual tools or maturity to raise 
challenging questions and dare to openly dissent against what all the other 
kids will blindingly accept as gospel.

I would spend some time with your daughter now examining, analyzing, and 
discussing all the accepted wisdom she's ingested by herself.

Stan Spiegel
Portland, Maine

----- Original Messa
ge ----- 
From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx 
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 8:52 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] kid camps & passion


Okay.  The atheists can skip the first part.  The second part I would love a 
reaction to from anyone with any thoughts, insights, etc.

My daughter (13, going into 8th grade in the fall), begged me to go to a 
Protestant church camp because some of her friends were going, it would add 
some fun to her summer, and she "needed a week to study God."  I pictured an 
innocuous place where they would swim in whatever water was their, do 
"girl-talk" after lights out, and have some Bible study.  It's in Excelsior 
Springs, just the side of Kansas (Marlena, I should have checked with you 
aforehand and you might have given me a head's up).  In any event, I sprung the 
$100 for the week of fellowship and fun.  To my horror, she called me on Tues. 
eve telling me they were showing The Passion of Christ for the group and was it 
ok with me for her to see it.  I still don't know if parental permission was 
required or if she was just checking in because she has heard me talk about it. 
 I took a deep breath, told her I thought she would find it incredibly 
disturbing, that I had not seen it because of the amount of non-stop gore and
  the Biblical inaccuracies, and that I thought she would not be happy with the 
experience.  I also told her she had my permission to make her own choice about 
it.  (The fastest way to make sure a teen does something is to forbid it -- if 
when she comes home today I tell her I want all her dirty clothes on the floor, 
leftover food wherever she was eating it last in her room, and that trash is to 
be thrown anywhere it's convenient, her room would be spotless in 30 minutes.  
Hmmm.....that's an idea.)

The other day a Mom I know from another non-Xian group and I were talking and 
she said there was a "PG13" version of the movie "The Passion" out there.

Now I ask you.  How do you make 2 1/2 (or is it 3?) hours of unmitigated 
non-stop gore and torture, culminating in an excruciating death, softer, less 
offensive?  They digitally removed the blood throughout?  They removed any 
obscenities which were shouted in Aramaic?  The guy doesn't really die at the 
end?

Please -- if anyone knows anything about this, fill me in.    I thought I had a 
pretty good imagination, but this is beyond me.

Off to get kid food -- you know, massive pizzas, taco chips, string cheese, ice 
cream.....

Julie Krueger

It

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