Jesus Camp

[dustykaster]

Today I watched the documentary Jesus Camp, about evangelical Christians in America and a female pastor in one of the western states who runs a summer camp every year for children to learn about God and the bible and stuff. It was shot in 2005, between the time of Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation and the approval of Samuel Alito to the supreme

Comments

[louder_than_moz]

Hillary is horrible, and she will be very bad news for America. Here is an article that discusses a few reasons why:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html

When she's President, she will believe that God put her there. She will have unprecedented executive power at her disposal, and do you think she's going to make any attempt to give that power back to the people? As this article says, she combines the paternalism of conservatism with the paternalism of liberalism. The worst of both worlds.

President Hillary will waste time on crap like videogame censorship and other "Won't someone think of the children??"-related political points. She will expand government spying powers even further, as she voted to renew the patriot act in 2006. Obama is also guilty of this. I think these people (meaning all of the 'electable' candidates) are all playing a game, and playing the American people. They don't care about you, they care about their power, and they've got plenty of that now. Not that plenty is ever enough for them.

[dustykaster]

I haven't read the article yet, but I don't think I believe all that. Hillary doesn't come across nearly as religious as Bush and I'm sure if she makes statements like "God put me here." it's just something she's saying to apes the Evangelicals, like 90% of the stuff that comes out of Bush's mouth. (which I also still not sure he believes everything he says about religion. I think also "just says things" but I may be wrong. )

I do believe Hillary is in it just for the power, as was Bush. The reason Obama is running is because of his popularity but I feel he feels he can make a difference. If he becomes president, hopefully he will give back some of the illegal powers. If not, and he abuses power like Bush, we will have to vote him out of office in 2012.

[avant_garden_]

I don't think she is part of the religious right. There are a lot of conspiracy theories flying around about this and they don't fit with her voting record.

[louder_than_moz]

It's not an issue of religion and politics in my mind, but an issue of her personal religious beliefs. As the article says, she is a member of a private congressional prayer group for very serious religious individuals. Her faith is respected among many of the religious right congressmen. These statements have not been made publicly, but in the private setting of this group.

As a person who has no religious beliefs, and as someone who believes our elected officials are accountable to the people, and not to any god, these beliefs trouble me. I understand they won't have the same effect on every observer, but I'm just speaking from my unique perspective. In my mind, a belief that a supernatural deity has some special plan for you can lead to harmful delusions. Delusions that you have the ability to censor, the arrogance to decide what's best for the people of a country. Whether it's video game censorship, or political censorship doesn't matter much in my mind. Neither lead to anything positive.

[avant_garden_]

"As a person who has no religious beliefs, and as someone who believes our elected officials are accountable to the people, and not to any god, these beliefs trouble me. I understand they won't have the same effect on every observer, but I'm just speaking from my unique perspective. In my mind, a belief that a supernatural deity has some special plan for you can lead to harmful delusions. Delusions that you have the ability to censor, the arrogance to decide what's best for the people of a country. Whether it's video game censorship, or political censorship doesn't matter much in my mind. Neither lead to anything positive."

I agree with this 100 percent. I'll look into this further.