Below you will find the video "Jesus Camp". It is an exciting and interesting documentary. While some of the people may be "extreme" as anyone who grew up Pentecostal will tell you; people like you see in this video are not that far from the norm, nor that hard to find.
Many people will condemn this and say it doesn't represent them, their church or the fundy's they know. However, that is largely not true. Those i the movie may be more persistant in their faith, but the logical conclusion of the faith professed by most Pentecoastal's/fundy's is found in the lives of the people in this documentary.
I was saddened, deeply saddened. And also sickened by this video. It was too real, and it really made me feel cheap and sad to watch many of its parts. I felt bad for the kids, for the way emotionalism and extremism are masking for spirituality. I felt sad for the way organized religion retricts and holds its converts captive. I hate and detest the way religion, specifically fundamental religion, seeks to keep free thought down. If there is any one sin that rises to the top. It has to be the suppression of free thought. To me, a true sign of a religion founded in ignorance is reflected in its opposition to free thought. WHY would people fret that G-d would be intimidated by mankind's free thought. Do we really think that he would create us as sentient beings and then expect us to not use the minds and intelligence He/She gave us??? Is G-d really that ephemeral and temporial that any human of average to above-average intelligence can blow the cover. The answer is no. However, what that same person can uncover is the ridiculousness of religion and the underlying oppression of organized religion.
I am not saying everyone should believe in G-d; nor that my atheist's friends do not make a logical point. But the point I am making is that people can continue to debate in the existance of a G-d (in whatever manner); but that organized religion, especially when it is fundamentalist or so steeped in (selective) literealism, is derived from some sort of delusional conscious or subconscious decision to suspend logic, reasoning and free thought. One has to suspend their knowledge of real vs. fanatasy; and suspend their own inner thoughts on logic and reason to really buy into this midset. Someone on another blog said it was easy for her to keep her religious identity in a box. That is so true, that is what every fundamentalists have to do in some sense. Keep there religious identity and/or logical identity seperated from each other--each in their own box. The trouble is, the more you learn, the harder it is to keep that box in tact. You want to tear it down and throw it out because it defies logic. You overcome, you adapt, you blame this on Satan and doubt. But the barage continues. Eventually you either decide to not hold it to the scrutiny of logic and just wall it off completely; or the wall crashes and you are left to deal with the bitterness and disbelief.
More later . . . watch the video below and comment away!
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