Scariest Film I've Ever Watched
...It's called 'Jesus Camp'. Apparently, it's available on DVD for you to burn your money for should you choose - but, really, YouTubing this one is clearly the way to go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c94b1_dx9Q8
The only consolation I can offer is that, apparently, the camp is now closed.
Thank goodness for that.
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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Absolutely hands down scariest movie ever. I agree.
It's been out for a while though. We haven't discussed it recently other than a passing reference here and there.
This was the scariest part for me:
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I saw the DVD over a year ago when my local video store received it. I borrowed it for free so they made no money on me either. I thought it was disgusting, cruel, and morally wrong. The way they terrorized the children is criminal. The children who suffer through the program will no doubt be emotionally scarred for life. If anyone ever asks why you are against religion this movie is an excellent example. The absolute torture the children are put through to save them from their sins is not for those with weak stomachs. Then of course the leader of Christian America is displayed as a full size cardboard cutout. George Bush actually, right in front of the emotional traumatized children. That's how I was reminded of Hitler Youth films I had seen a long time ago in college. This DVD should be labeled Horror, not Christian or Reality. Then again maybe Christian is appropriate since Murder, Death and Torture was a large part of Christianity in the past. Water boarding came from the time of the Inquisition and so apparently did those operating Jesus Camp.
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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
How long? I haven't even heard of this in passing mention before.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486358/
2006
It's important for you to know that there are WAYYY more of these 'camps' out there.
Not to mention that there are also countless VBS(vacation bible school) summer programs.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists.
This was probably the only film I've ever decided was too disturbing to watch the whole way through.
“It is true that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It is equally true that in the land of the blind, the two-eyed man is an enemy of the state, the people, and domestic tranquility… and necessarily so. Someone has to rearrange the furniture.”
I saw this on cable earlier this year. Emotional abuse camp is a more fitting description. Who knows if there was physical abuse, though I would expect it was likely as well.
From my own camp experience, 'detainment' is what I would use. After I uttered the blasphemous contention that perhaps there just wasn't room on the ark for the dinosaurs and laughing, I was ministered to for 12 hours by 5 'counselors' before finally screaming that they let me use the phone.
We're talking 25 1/2 years ago though.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists.
I loved the part at the end where she goes "I love America, I love American culture", and there's a great shot of the highway, McDonald's, food chains, nasty pollution, hick towns, etc.
Brilliant film! Those poor kids. It made me want to cry, it was so abusive to their minds.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
I have to absolutely disagree.
One of the scariest parts of this film, in my opinion, is the radio broadcasters providing the commentary. They continually spout No True Scotsman fallacies about how the fundamentalists are giving them a bad rep, essentially using hypocrisy to distant the practice in the camp from the practice of 'Good, Wholesome, Jesus-loving Christians' that the film presumably knew would be a large portion of it's audience.
In reality, what goes on in the camp is likely an equivalent to what goes on in the 'True Christian' moderate home; it just goes on behind closed doors, between parents and their children. The theatrics would left out, sure - but the messages would be absolutely parallel.
I find the film frightening not only because of it's content, but because it refuses to connect the dots. 'This type of brainwashing is not okay; the good and wholesome kind you do while demanding your children to say Grace (and do it properly!) before dinner is.'
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
This is a big reason why I consider myself RasTafari and hate what is called Babylon. This behavior is anti-Christ and I don't accept the argument "this is why a lot of people are atheists." The people in this video are OBVIOUSLY hateful, malicious perverts.
I see your point but think in the context of this film it goes too far. Disagree with me all you want but 'real' Christians raise their offspring in a good healthy environment. Certainly not saying it's a state of perfection, but compared to this destruction of goodness and sanity, it's infinitely better. That said I agree with you to an extent. I mean creationism is taught in some schools! Holy fucking shit people are insane.
The woman describes children as being "so usable in Christianity" then later she's being "totally cool" with some kids who spout what they've been taught to spout. I really hope you all realize there can be glorious beauty in religion and that this, this is just perverted.
"There are two people in this world: people who love Jesus, and people who don't."
DAMN watching the first two parts pissed me off. Unfortunately I'm gonna have to finish this, and why? Because I'll be all the more enlightened knowing this deviance exists in my back yard (I'm from the south) and I have the responsibility of protecting the weak from this filth.
It is said the great ones catch teardrops in their hands.
Wow...
Well, I watched the whole thing through this afternoon, and it brought back so many bad memories. I mean I didn't grow up in a pentecostal home, nor one that fanatical, but I was force-fed my share of doctrine.
It was really painful to watch at some points. Those kids were incredible, but they're being psychologically abused at such a young age and they're going to reap the negative benefits in due time.
Levi broke my heart. What a great kid.
I just don't know what else to say.
scary ppl much?
>.<
I finally found in my memory, who was Becky Fischer resembling all the time. (from historical view)
As it seems, christianic misuse of children is nothing new. During medieval ages, Europe had often problems
with raiders from east, like Tatars, Turks, Saracens, and so on. Dunno how much it's their own fault, but Church always wanted to conquer the holy land - Jeruzalem, holy grave, Golgotha, all these nice places described in Bible, they're kinda out of reach, in hands of christkillers (Jews) and Mohamedans.
Crusaders were not only holy warriors, in these times any barbarian could hang a cross on his neck and go ravage the east.
Not always it was going well, though. Some christianic zealots and mad preachers wanted to break the Saracen's resistence by a power of God, reflected in children's innocence.
"By hands of little crusaders we shall liberate the Holy land!!!"
They gathered young children among villages, maybe gave them some uniforms, armor or a sword they barely could carry, and took them right to east. Of course, everyone, even some priests, who still had some intelligence and no fear of Church, tried to stop them, but not always succesfully, many people was fooled by this idea. It didn't end well. As you may expect, a lot of these children died on the way, of hunger, diseases or killed, and the rest was enslaved by Saracens. So much for little crusaders. Becky Fischer should learn from the history.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Ah, then you missed the best part! At the end, the little-boy preacher meets with Ted Haggert, who gives him encouragement. (The movie came out before ol' Ted's predilections for young male prostitutes came out.)
For me, the worst part was in one of the cut scenes. (At least, I recall it was a cut scene.) The young girl featured throughout the movie approaches two old black guys playing chess in a park, and asks them if they have been saved, going on in her cute scary little way. One of the men turns to her and says, "Girl, I've known Jesus since before you were born."
She mumbles something like, "God bless," and walks away. She says to her friend, "I think they might be Muslim."
My heart just about broke. And I'm a manly-man. It don't break easy.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Jesus Camp was played on A&E a few months ago as part of some free preview promotion for the A&E Documentary channel on digital cable. Wow.
I went to a Catholic camp when I was 10 due to the enthusiastic recommendation of my two cousins who promised me I'd have the most fun in my life. It was dreadful! We woke up @ 5:30 for an hour long mass, then we'd have prayer at the breakfast table before we were allowed to eat. We weren't allowed to touch our drinks until we were finished eating, and if they didn't think we ate enough we weren't allowed to drink at all. At 9 PM we had a 1.5 hour long mass, after which we went to bed, but we weren't allowed to sleep! No, we had to say the rosary and one of the counselors would come in every 10 minutes or so to make sure no one had fallen asleep during prayer and swat those who had with a metre stick. The boy sleeping in the bed next to mine had such severe panic attacks that he was sent home after the second night.
Our daily activities weren't all that bad, I must admit, but still...
As an aspiring artists I was drawing constantly, and since at the time I had pet scorpions, I mostly drew scorpions. One of the "poor nuns" had apparently never seen a scorpion (???) and accused me of drawing devils. She didn't hit me, but yelled at me, a mere couple inches from my face. Later I broke into the kitchen where the only available phone was located, called home, and begged my parents to pick me up. They spoke to one of the counselors who convinced them that I should stay the remainder...
To add a bit of humor to this tale, after the phone call both the "poor nun" and myself were taken in to the Head Counselor's office where it was explained to the nun that I was not drawing demons and her actions were unwarranted and that I was drawing pictures of my pets. However I was still remanded as if I'd intentionally scared her. I was told not to draw any more scorpions, instead I was appointed to help paint a mural which, thankfully, exempted me from taking part in an Easter play.
After viewing Jesus Camp I consider myself very lucky to have avoided the mind rape portrayed in that film. Physical bruises heal, mental ones... not so easily.
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"'My dear,' Madame Delbene replied, 'the universe runs itself, and the eternal laws inherent in Nature suffice, without any first cause or prime mover, to produce all that is and all that we know; the perpetual movement of matter explains everything: why need we supply a motor to that which is ever in motion? The universe is an assemblage of unlike entities which act and react mutually and successively with and against each other; I discern no start, no finish, no fixed boundaries, this universe I see only as an incessant passing from one state into another, and within it only particular beings which forever change shape and form, but I acknowledge no universal cause behind and distinct from the universe and which gives it existence and which procures the modifications in the particular beings composing it... the absolute contrary holds... We need not fret if we find nothing to substitute for chimeras, and above all let us never accept as cause for what we do not comprehend something else we comprehend even less." - Marquis de Sade, Juliette, pg. 43.
The worst was when that little boy gets up on stage and expresses doubt in some of the beliefs he's supposed to have. He actually sees his thoughts as something to cry about! And I dunno if it was edited or what but it looked like the crowd thought he was diseased or something...
"We are the star things harvesting the star energy"
-Carl Sagan
I've seen a part of this movie, where the women brings a cardboard cutt out of President Bush and brown noses him and says something like he's been sent from god. Pretty discusting though.