Brainwashing Kids at a Younger Age

One thing needs to be addressed right away: does no one else find it a little hypocritical that atheists consider teaching religion to kids "brainwashing" yet this camp somehow doesn't count as brainwashing?

But getting more to the point: are we to believe that we should be taking these children seriously? Believe it or not, I think we should. Why? I can tell these children are looking for answers; even the Bible calls on us to "test all things." In this case, it's not so much they're atheists; rather it's their shutting themselves off at such a young age to any possibility that Christianity might very well have a better answer than atheism.

I applaud some of the kids who have a Bible at home and want to read it, but overall I still blame their parents and the adults at the camp for the negative attitudes these children have. According to Camp Quests own website, one of their missions is to "Demonstrate atheism and humanism as positive, family-friendly worldviews."

First of all, atheism is NOT family friendly. Second, most atheists don't even have their own families because third, they don't even bother marrying or having kids. (Another side note: notice in the video they mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Clearly, they don't care for any thought that disagrees with the camp.)

I must ask how lazy these parents are if they let their children believe whatever they want. What if the children want to believe their parents are walking piles of dung? Would they like that?

Here's what I would do with the kids: I would sit them down and explain to them what atheism has always entailed, which would include graphic photos of what atheists have brought to the world. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but these kids seem to not understand what they're asking for. I don't want to dismiss them all as idiots, but if they stay on this path, I might have no choice.

The Fatal Flaw in Atheist Morality

Disclosure: while I don't agree with Michael Voris all the time (I really don't agree with him concerning his view of the Knights of Columbus) I agree 100% with him on this.
Another proof that atheists are idiots.

10 Reasons Why Homosexual “Marriage” is Harmful and Must be Opposed

http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/politically-incorrect/homosexuality/10-reasons-why-homosexual-marriage-is-harmful-and-must-be-opposed.html?utm_source=sm&utm_medium=email&utm_content=SAE0149&utm_campaign=MainNewsletter#.UCfDqLF2Tgc.facebook
1. It Is Not Marriage

Calling something marriage does not make it marriage. Marriage has always been a covenant between a man and a woman which is by its nature ordered toward the procreation and education of children and the unity and wellbeing of the spouses.

The promoters of same-sex “marriage” propose something entirely different. They propose the union between two men or two women. This denies the self-evident biological, physiological, and psychological differences between men and women which find their complementarity in marriage. It also denies the specific primary purpose of marriage: the perpetuation of the human race and the raising of children.

Two entirely different things cannot be considered the same thing.




2. It Violates Natural Law

Marriage is not just any relationship between human beings. It is a relationship rooted in human nature and thus governed by natural law.

Natural law’s most elementary precept is that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” By his natural reason, man can perceive what is morally good or bad for him. Thus, he can know the end or purpose of each of his acts and how it is morally wrong to transform the means that help him accomplish an act into the act’s purpose.

Any situation which institutionalizes the circumvention of the purpose of the sexual act violates natural law and the objective norm of morality.

Being rooted in human nature, natural law is universal and immutable. It applies to the entire human race, equally. It commands and forbids consistently, everywhere and always. Saint Paul taught in the Epistle to the Romans that the natural law is inscribed on the heart of every man. (Rom. 2:14-15)

3. It Always Denies a Child Either a Father or a Mother

It is in the child’s best interests that he be raised under the influence of his natural father and mother. This rule is confirmed by the evident difficulties faced by the many children who are orphans or are raised by a single parent, a relative, or a foster parent.

The unfortunate situation of these children will be the norm for all children of a same-sex “marriage.” A child of a same-sex “marriage” will always be deprived of either his natural mother or father. He will necessarily be raised by one party who has no blood relationship with him. He will always be deprived of either a mother or a father role model.

Same-sex “marriage” ignores a child’s best interests.

4. It Validates and Promotes the Homosexual Lifestyle

In the name of the “family,” same-sex “marriage” serves to validate not only such unions but the whole homosexual lifestyle in all its bisexual and transgender variants.

Civil laws are structuring principles of man's life in society. As such, they play a very important and sometimes decisive role in influencing patterns of thought and behavior. They externally shape the life of society, but also profoundly modify everyone’s perception and evaluation of forms of behavior.

Legal recognition of same-sex “marriage” would necessarily obscure certain basic moral values, devalue traditional marriage, and weaken public morality.

5. It Turns a Moral Wrong into a Civil Right

Homosexual activists argue that same-sex “marriage” is a civil rights issue similar to the struggle for racial equality in the 1960s.

This is false.

First of all, sexual behavior and race are essentially different realities. A man and a woman wanting to marry may be different in their characteristics: one may be black, the other white; one rich, the other poor; or one tall, the other short. None of these differences are insurmountable obstacles to marriage. The two individuals are still man and woman, and thus the requirements of nature are respected.

Same-sex “marriage” opposes nature. Two individuals of the same sex, regardless of their race, wealth, stature, erudition or fame, will never be able to marry because of an insurmountable biological impossibility.

Secondly, inherited and unchangeable racial traits cannot be compared with non-genetic and changeable behavior. There is simply no analogy between the interracial marriage of a man and a woman and the “marriage” between two individuals of the same sex.

6. It Does Not Create a Family but a Naturally Sterile Union

Traditional marriage is usually so fecund that those who would frustrate its end must do violence to nature to prevent the birth of children by using contraception. It naturally tends to create families.

On the contrary, same-sex “marriage” is intrinsically sterile. If the “spouses” want a child, they must circumvent nature by costly and artificial means or employ surrogates. The natural tendency of such a union is not to create families.
Therefore, we cannot call a same-sex union marriage and give it the benefits of true marriage.

7. It Defeats the State’s Purpose of Benefiting Marriage

One of the main reasons why the State bestows numerous benefits on marriage is that by its very nature and design, marriage provides the normal conditions for a stable, affectionate, and moral atmosphere that is beneficial to the upbringing of children—all fruit of the mutual affection of the parents. This aids in perpetuating the nation and strengthening society, an evident interest of the State.

Homosexual “marriage” does not provide such conditions. Its primary purpose, objectively speaking, is the personal gratification of two individuals whose union is sterile by nature. It is not entitled, therefore, to the protection the State extends to true marriage.

8. It Imposes Its Acceptance on All Society

By legalizing same-sex “marriage,” the State becomes its official and active promoter. The State calls on public officials to officiate at the new civil ceremony, orders public schools to teach its acceptability to children, and punishes any state employee who expresses disapproval.

In the private sphere, objecting parents will see their children exposed more than ever to this new “morality,” businesses offering wedding services will be forced to provide them for same-sex unions, and rental property owners will have to agree to accept same-sex couples as tenants.

In every situation where marriage affects society, the State will expect Christians and all people of good will to betray their consciences by condoning, through silence or act, an attack on the natural order and Christian morality.

9. It Is the Cutting Edge of the Sexual Revolution

In the 1960s, society was pressured to accept all kinds of immoral sexual relationships between men and women. Today we are seeing a new sexual revolution where society is being asked to accept sodomy and same-sex “marriage.”

If homosexual “marriage” is universally accepted as the present step in sexual “freedom,” what logical arguments can be used to stop the next steps of incest, pedophilia, bestiality, and other forms of unnatural behavior? Indeed, radical elements of certain “avant garde” subcultures are already advocating such aberrations.

The railroading of same-sex “marriage” on the American people makes increasingly clear what homosexual activist Paul Varnell wrote in the Chicago Free Press:

"The gay movement, whether we acknowledge it or not, is not a civil rights movement, not even a sexual liberation movement, but a moral revolution aimed at changing people's view of homosexuality."

10. It Offends God

This is the most important reason. Whenever one violates the natural moral order established by God, one sins and offends God. Same-sex “marriage” does just this. Accordingly, anyone who professes to love God must be opposed to it.

Marriage is not the creature of any State. Rather, it was established by God in Paradise for our first parents, Adam and Eve. As we read in the Book of Genesis: “God created man in His image; in the Divine image he created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’” (Gen. 1:28-29)

The same was taught by Our Savior Jesus Christ: “From the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife.” (Mark 10:6-7).

Genesis also teaches how God punished Sodom and Gomorrah for the sin of homosexuality: “The Lord rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah. He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil.” (Gen. 19:24-25)

Refuting God is Imaginary: Point #3

All credit goes to http://gii.josiahconcept.org.

The thrust of this proof is that no one worships the deities of historical Egypt, Greece, Rome, Aztec, or any other culture. We know that these deities are imaginary, GII asserts, because no one worships them anymore.
Really, that's how GII thinks it can prove that these deities never existed. If no one worships them anymore, then they must be imaginary. The actual words of the website:

• . . . we know with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. We don't build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders. 
• Yet we know with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary because no one worships Zeus any more. 
• If the Aztec gods were real, we would still be offering sacrifices to them. 

GII goes on to say that "The fact that millions of people worship a god is meaningless." However, this completely contradicts the point that they are trying to make. They connected lack of continuing worship to the existence of a deity, then proceed to say that the number of worshipers is meaningless. This is a serious contradiction.
But it just gets worse from there. GII then repeats the discredited theory that Christianity was borrowed from pagan myths. The site offers two quotations from "popular literature" that make this exact point, however there is no citation offered as to where these may have come from.
Even if the pagan copycat theory wasn't completely discredited, there is still one additional problem. This proof is completely incoherent! The argument flows like this:

1. Many, many historical gods have no worshipers today.
2. No worshipers means that the god doesn't exist, otherwise it would still command worship.
3. Millions of people worship the God of the Bible and Jesus, but number of worshipers is irrelevant to the existence of a god.
4. The story of Jesus is borrowed from pagan myths.
5. The pagan myths are untrue per (1) and (2).
6. Therefore, God is imaginary.

The problem is that (3) must be true for (6) to follow from (4) and (5), but if (3) is true then (1) and (2) are false. Either (1) and (2) are true, or (3) is true. All three points cannot be true at the same time, but all three are required to be true in order for (6) to be a logical conclusion.

Another proof atheists are idiots.

The Horrors of Communism

There are some in the atheist community that believe while communism did have some faults, it wasn't as bad as people claim and atheism certainly had nothing to do with it.
Here's what I want everyone to do: I want you to keep in mind that Karl Marx, father of communism, called religion "the opiate of the masses", look at this video and tell me with a straight face atheism had nothing to do with communism:

Refuting "God is Imaginary": Point #2

Sorry I haven't had time to post on here for some time, but I have been putting together an escape plan from the coming destruction of America thanks to Obama Care. This post is resuming my refutation of God is Imaginary. Since I don't have time for a full essay, instead I'll put together some refutations along with the original article. My comments are in brackets and italicized.
 
"The fact is, God never answers any prayers. The entire idea that "God answers prayers" is an illusion created by human imagination

[What type of prayers is he talking about? Prayers to saints? Prayers for the dead? Contemplative prayer?  If it is any of these, you're not supposed to get an answer. If he's not talking about any of these, then he's misguided, as we will soon see.]

How do we know that "answered prayers" are illusions? We simply perform scientific experiments. We ask a group of believers to pray for something and then we watch what happens.

[In theory, that might make sense but in practice, atheists often dismiss confirmed studies or facts that don't agree with them. Why? Mostly, because they claim the study was biased somehow. Let's ignore how you're supposed to refute what they're saying and not attacking the person making them and let's move on.]

 What we find, whenever we test the efficacy of prayer scientifically, is that prayer has zero effect: 

• It does not matter who prays.
• It does not matter if we pray to God, Allah, Vishnu, Zeus, Ra or any other human god.
• It does not matter what we pray about.

If we perform scientific, double-blind tests on prayer, and if the prayers involve something concrete and measurable (for example, healing people with cancer), we know that there is zero effect from prayer."

[That is a complete lie. Studies have shown prayer does help people recover faster after surgery, help them have less mental and physical problems, and have better life outlook.] 

 "Every single "answered prayer" is nothing more than a coincidence."

[This depends what is meant by coincidence. Is it coincidence that a bell rings and you hear a sound or you eat and you get less hungry with each bite? While those might be more cause and affect then coincidence, consider the mathematical improbabilities to alternative explanations. This will come into play a little later.]

Both scientific experiments and your everyday observations of the world show this to be the case every single time.

For example, this article says:

One of the most scientifically rigorous studies yet, published earlier this month, found that the prayers of a distant congregation did not reduce the major complications or death rate in patients hospitalized for heart treatments.

And:

A review of 17 past studies of ''distant healing," published in 2003 by a British researcher, found no significant effect for prayer or other healing methods.

This article from March, 2006 discusses the fact that the same conclusion was reached in another study:

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications. 

 

[Interesting but suffers from one major problem: if he is so quick to dismiss prayer because it's "just a coincidence", couldn't an equal and better case be made that prayer not working is just a coincidence or would that be too biased for atheist's taste?]

In this article we find an amazing quote where theologians and religious leaders declare that prayer has no actual effect:

Religious leaders will breathe a sigh of relief at the news that so-called intercessory prayer is medically ineffective. In a large and much touted scientific study, one group of patients was told that strangers would pray for them, a second group was told strangers might or might not pray for them, and a third group was not prayed for at all. The $2.4 million study found that the strangers' prayers did not help patients' recovery. 

[A very misleading statement from an ill informed article. The only people they mention are Paul Tillich and Karl Barth. Both were theologians but neither were ever considered religious leaders. The quote is from the article's author, not from a religious leader. I like the part where it claims the Lord's Prayer doesn't ask God to intervene in human affairs....except for that whole "lead us not into temptation" thing.]

This is a remarkable example of "positive spin" -- religious leaders are "breathing a sigh of relief" because prayer has been shown to be meaningless. The fact that prayer is a total waste of time does not matter to them. 

[ If anything, his article is total waste of time. While the jury overall is still out as to whether prayer's effects can be proven by strict science, here's what we do so far:

1. A study in British Medical Journal in 2001 showed by praying a rosary,  baroreflex sensitivity increased significantly in cardiovascular patients. 

2. Another 2008 study showed higher levels of prayer were associated with better mental health as measured by lower psychoticism scores.

3. A 2001 study by Meisenhelder and Chandler analyzed data obtained from 1,421 Presbyterian pastors surveyed by mail and found that their self-reported frequency of prayer was well-correlated with their self-perception of health and vitality. 

Do these sound like a waste of time to you?]

It does not matter that all of Jesus' promises about prayer in the Bible have been proven completely false. 

[More about this to come]

 A peer-reviewed scientific study published in 2001 did indicate that prayer works. According to this article:

"On October 2, 2001, the New York Times reported that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had discovered something quite extraordinary. Using virtually foolproof scientific methods the researchers had demonstrated that infertile women who were prayed for by Christian prayer groups became pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people praying for them. The study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Even the researchers were shocked. The study's results could only be described as miraculous."

This study was later proven to be completely fraudulent. However, everyone who cut out the original article in the NYTimes and posted it on their refrigerators still has that article as "proof" that prayer works. This article entitled A prayer before dying uncovers another case where a "scientific study" of prayer is unmasked as fraudulent.

[So what about the ones that were not fraudulent?]
The dictionary defines the word "superstition" in this way:

An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome. [ref] 

[Prayer has never been considered superstition]

 

The belief in prayer is a superstition. It has been proven scientifically over and over again.

[Except it hasn't as several verified studies have shown.]

Another proof that atheists are idiots.

The fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, are dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom”—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome.  Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action will emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty. Dioceses and parishes around the country have scheduled special events that support a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty. 

Prayer for the Protection of Religious Liberty

O God our Creator,

Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,
you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,
bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel
to every corner of society.
We ask you to bless us
in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.
Give us the strength of mind and heart
to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;
give us courage in making our voices heard
on behalf of the rights of your Church
and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.
Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,
a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters
gathered in your Church
in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,
so that, with every trial withstood
and every danger overcome—
for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,
and all who come after us—
this great land will always be "one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/fortnight-for-freedom/index.cfm