The Child Catchers
Stewart first notices these odd little happy Christian clubs popping up in her childs schools, and then she digs deeper: she talks to their representatives. She attends their conventions. She takes their training courses. She sees precisely what theyre doing, and gets the words straight from their mouths: theyre out to convert every child in the world to their hateful, narrow, Bible-believing dogma, even while in public they claim to be ecumenical and kind and loving.
Who is they, you ask. Its the Child Evangelism Fellowship, and just the name ought to chill you: this is an organized, well-funded group of people dedicated to proselytizing specifically to 4 to 14 year old children, the prime age for conversion.
They also have other goals, among them the total obliteration of public education. Its ironic: they often take advantage of our institutions, leasing our public school buildings for church services and Sunday schools (Theyre cheap! Professional, well-maintained buildings available at minimal cost), trading on the credibility of the schools (They try mightily to produce the illusion that their efforts are sanctioned by and part of the official school curriculum), yet privately they detest the whole principle of universal education, and their goal is to subvert the whole endeavor and turn education into Christian indoctrination.
They found something called Good News Clubs at schools, led by community volunteers, which superficially promote a kind of generic moral religiosity which often wins over culturally diverse communities you know the ones Im talking about, the kind where they might detest gay-hatin, science-despisin, Pat Robertson-style fundamentalism, but nod in happy agreement at the importance of faith, and blandly accept that religion in general is good and virtuous and that we should encourage our children to adopt a faith tradition
for their moral upbringing in an environment of conscience, dont you know. What they dont realize is that the Good News Clubs stealthily promote that gay-hatin, science-despisin, Pat Robertson-style fundamentalism directly to their children, while asking them not to talk about it to Mommy and Daddy. They will cheerfully take in the children of Catholics and Jews, so that they can tell those children that Catholics and Jews will burn in Hell.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/03/09/the-child-catchers/
longship
(40,416 posts)As usual, PZ Myers is on top of things.
Wake up sheeple! The Republicans want a Theocracy! And they'll do anything they can to achieve that end.
R&
izquierdista
(11,689 posts)Because it is a euphemism for "religion". And the eu- was put in 'euphemism' so as to take away some of the nasty stink of the old -phemism. So bottom line, "religion" is becoming a toxic word that turns people off. Counts as progress to me!