Richard Dawkins denies any alleged ties between himself and the atheist re-education camp “Camp Quest.”
Richard Dawkins replies to claims he is “grooming” kids to become unbelievers.1
Camp Quest is still hard at work projecting a politically correct public relations facade that seeks to hide its anti-theistic pro-atheistic premise.
Camp Quest organizer Samantha Stein stated,
Most of the kids who come here are atheist anyway so it’s very difficult to indoctrinate someone into becoming something they already are.
It may be difficult to indoctrinate atheist children into atheism but it is not difficult to reinforce atheism in children whose parents have raised them as atheists.
Oh, I see, wait a minute-this is actually a point against Richard Dawkins having anything to do with Camp Quest. We will see why it is a point in just a moment; let us first consider his denial as Jasper Hamill reports it,
One article in The Sunday Times, that began with a version of the famous Jesuit line (“give Richard Dawkins a child for a week’s summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life”), irked Dawkins so much that when I asked him about the article, he furiously replied:
“Contrary to The Sunday Times – it is, after all, a Murdoch paper – Camp Quest has no connection with me, except that my foundation made a charitable donation to it of, I believe, £495. I know nothing of the camp itself and don’t even know where it is. That Sunday Times article was an outrage, saying that I was ‘grooming’ your atheists, and quoting that disgusting Jesuit boast.”
While Dawkins clearly plays no part in Camp Quest – and we would dare not invoke his wrath by implying so – religious critics on the opposite end of the scale still see the event as part of a war to brainwash kids into thinking there’s no God, no purpose to life and that the Earth’s construction took an awful lot longer than seven days’ worth of divine labour. For some, Dawkins is a kind of Trotsky figure, always scheming and plotting to bring down religion. Evangelical Christian groups would certainly rather there were no atheist camps. Justin Thacker, head of theology at pressure group Evangelical Alliance, insists Dawkins’s fingerprints are all over Camp Quest.”I think it’s quite amusing,” he says. “Perhaps Dawkins realises that his propaganda doesn’t work with the adults, so now he’s going to try it with the children, which, in a strange way, is as if he’s taking his atheism and acting more and more like a religion. I don’t think he’ll find he’s any more successful there”…
Camp Quest organizer Samantha Stein stated “Most of the kids_are atheist.” Yet, surely, Richard Dawkins would be furious at her for imposing such a label upon a mere child.
He has stated,
It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue.2
A phrase like “Catholic child” or “Muslim child” should clang furious bells of protest in the mind _ Catholic child? Flinch. Protestant child? Squirm. Muslim child? Shudder.3
Surely, he would proclaim that it is evil to describe a child as an atheist-flinch, squirm and shudder.
It would appear that his financial support and good words about Camp Quest have inexorably tied him to Camp Quest and this tied that bound appears to be in appearance only.
Yet, what an appearance it is:
At Camp Quest the little children are made to sing John Lennon’s atheist anthem “Imagine” to which Dawkins made reference in “The God Delusion.”
Is “Dawkins is a kind of Trotsky figure, always scheming and plotting to bring down religion”?
Certainly, and it does not help his woe is me faa&#a7;ade that with regards to raising children according to one’s faith he wonders whether there is occasion for “society stepping in”4 and he ultimately hopes that this interference “might lead children to choose no religion at all.”5
Camp Quest has also exacerbated the Camp Dawkins Quest perception by offering a prize of “a £10 note with a picture of Charles Darwin on it and signed by Dawkins” for any child who can prove that invisible unicorns do not exist. In the US the prize is a $100 bill from before the government put “In God We Trust” on US currency (but Camp Quest is not anti-theistic-No! No! No!).
Does Richard Dawkins realize “that his propaganda doesn’t work with the adults, so now he’s going to try it with the children.”It certainly seems that way as his “Out Campaign” is aimed at the college crowd and he has also lectured to children and told them things such as,
We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA_It is every living object’s sole reason for living’_fulfilling a purpose of propagating DNA_There is no purpose other than that.
That is right kids-now be good for goodness sake!
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For more observations of Camp Quest’s underbelly see:
Atheist Re-Education Camp for Children
Atheism Camp – Camp Quest Freethought Camp of Childhood Indoctrination