Jesus Camp

Go and see the movie Jesus Camp



Two things stood out for me. One was Pastor Becky Fischer watching a video of children being whipped up into an emotional frenzy over the issue of abortion. "Extreme liberals", she conceded, might be disturbed by that.

The other was 12 year old Levi, describing how dealing with non-Christians makes him feel "yucky". He says "A lot of people in this world are sick". He's told repeatedly that he'll be something important in the future... On one scene, he idolises Ted Haggard, who as we all know now is a "liar and a deceiver". It's hard not to see Levi as some sort of future Travis Bickle in-the-making. Poor kid.

"We can't have phoneys in the army of God", bellows Pastor Fischer at one point in the film.

And all this brought home a vital element of faith missing from the discussions in my previous two posts here on Doublethink and religious belief... That of blind, wilfull ignorance in the face of overwhelming reality to the contrary.

Simply put, these people actually believe that the crap they spout is true - and that they can safely ignore any evidence or opinions to the contrary.

Here's a quote from a religious-type, from a current Talk Origins POTM nominee post....

...my understanding is that about 90% of Americans believe in God and creation of some kind. I hear that about 50% of Americans believe in creation as the Bible describes it. I find it hard to believe that these 50-90% of Americans are the uneducated, while the unbelieving 10% are the educated and enlightened.

The vast majority of creationists and their ilk just do not get that their beliefs are based on ignorance, and that it means something that the more educated people are, the less likely they are to believe in God or "creationism".