Proud to be a Canadian...

Still here at school with nothing to do so I'm gonna talk about that movie "Jesus Camp" I mentioned in my previous post.

Here's what I learned from the film.

1/4 of Americans say they are "Evangelical Christians," hereon referred to as EC's.

EC's are Protestants, not Catholics.

A good example of an EC would be people of the Pentecostal faith. I don't want to offend any Pentecostal people, but these EC's usually do things like speaking in tongues to god.

To become an EC, you have to be "born-again." I guess this means the same thing as being "saved," but I'm not sure.

Here's the write-up from the movies website:

A growing number of EC's believe there is a revival underway in America that requires Christian youth to assume leadership roles in advocating the causes of their religious movement. Jesus Camp follows a group of young children to Pastor Becky Fischer's "Kids on Fire Summer Camp", where kids are taught to become dedicated Christian soldier's in God's army and are schooled in how to take back America for Christ. This film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future.

The film was creepy because what you are watching is essentially a lot of children being brainwashed. They are told evolution and global warming are not real. They believe that if you follow god everything that happens here on Earth is not a problem you. But it's a problem for the non-believers because god will take care of the believers when they leave this Earth anyway.

Many of these kids are home-schooled so their EC parents teach them EC science that is simply wrong. One of the kids is watching a video that says Earth is 6000 years old. Really? What about all those friggin' dinosaur bones we've discovered?

There's also a scene where one of the preachers starts talking about abortion, he praises Bush (I ain't a big Bush hater either, don't get me wrong here), and by the end of the "sermon" he has the children chanting "Righteous judges!" The EC "righteuos" judges will do things like ban abortion, even if the majority of Americans believe in the choice of abortion.

This movie was heavy and I'm doubt that most EC's in America are as extreme in their beliefs as the ones depicted in Jesus Camp, but it was a little scary to watch. A few days ago I saw some Fox of CNN show about Islam and it was showing samples of popular cartoons in certain Muslim countries. The cartoons were pure propaganda with the intent of making suicide bombers look like heroes and portraying America as the major evil in the world.

They showed children saying very extreme religious beliefs and even saying that they want to die for Islam and be a martyr.

Two of the kids in Jesus Camp said very similar things. They thought it was "cool" how people in the Muslim world are willing to die for god and they said they would do the same thing.

The worry is that these children will growing up and be very active politically and eventually run most of the political institutions that are supposed to be completely seperated from religion. If this were to happen, would there be a seperation of chuch and state? I doubt it. President Bush has already slowly started this transition by appointing Alito dude as judge and he also mentions god in his speeches more than any other President.

I got nothing else to say about this besides if things keep going in this direction it's hard to know where it will end. Will they ban abortion? Start putting gay people in prison? Who knows?

I just know I'm glad to be a Canadian... And a Catholic...