Colbert: Threat Down: Atheists!

[Synnical]

Video here ---- > http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=72089

Sorta kinda transcipt which lacks the laughter from the audience:

I'm talking about Camp Quest, a network of summer camps dedicated to sunny
day fun from a strict atheist and agnostic perspective. As their catch
phrase says, "It's beyond belief". Though Camp Quest provides regular camp
activities like hiking and horseback riding, according to the Cincinnati
Inquirer, children also, "Learn about the canons of rational thought,
critical thinking and scientific inquiry." And in one activity, "Campers
must try to prove that invisible unicorns, as a metaphor for God, don't
exist." The campers are also given other untenable philosophical challenges
like proving teatherball is fun. Well, Camp Quest, here's another activity:
how about canoeing on a lake of hellfire for all eternity (graphic of
campers canoeing on lake of hellfire). Sleep tight kids!

[Maat]

1. Colbert! What a cut-up! (n/t)

[no_hypocrisy]

2. There really is a Camp Quest. I met the Kagens who run it.

http://www.camp-quest.org/

[Synnical]

5. USA Today has an article about CQ today

And the Kagins are the nicest people, but they're stepping down from running the camps. Edwin is a hoot.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2006-07-26-camp_x.htm

Camps sign up freethinkers

Ah, summer camp: Canoe. Swim. Climb rocks. Tell tales by the fire ...

And — perhaps hear lectures on famous freethinkers at Camp Quest West, an hour's drive north of Sacramento. It caters to young people whose parents are skeptics, humanists, atheists and agnostics.

<snip>

Unlike the thousands of traditional Christian and Jewish camps and vacation Bible schools that weave God's glory into their programs, these are camps for future "nones" — campers whose parents answer "none" when pollsters ask their religious identification. Surveys count 14% of Americans in this category.

<snip>

And there's the expansion of the Camp Quest network with two new camps this summer, including Quest West, where teens can toast their marshmallows and test conventional social wisdom about the Judeo-Christian world with their peers.

"All our parents sign a statement affirming the humanist manifesto so they realize we are a camp that is secular in nature, and the majority of staff are individuals who identify as atheist or agnostic," says Camp Quest Ohio's registrar, Shawn Jeffers.

The article is also about "spiritual" summer camps.

[FairVotes4all]

3. No offence to Atheists...

But whats the difference between this and Camps that are agressively Christian?

[Random_Australian]

4. They promote atheist stuff.

Sheesh.

They never said they were different in bieng aggressive.

Wait a tick, are you saying that 'critical thought' is the main theme of Christain Camps?

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. !

:spray: "Wait a tick, are you saying that 'critical thought' is the main theme of Christian Camps?" :yoiks:

[Warren DeMontague]

7. None, except there are probably a lot more of the Christian kind.

Has anyone been criticizing those?