[lit-ideas] Re: kid camps & passion
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 20:44:38 -0400
---- 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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