It’s the website The Blaze calls “shocking” and their commenters beg, “God help us”…it’s a new initiative from the American Humanists, Kids Without God.
I should warn you that it is full of horrific statements, telling kids to “be nice” and “take care of planet earth”, and it includes videos from Bill Nye and makes recommendations for science books. Horrifying.
Be sure to tell your kids to never ever visit that sinful site!
“Darwin [the dog] is a Humanist”.
If you’re going to anthropomorphise a puppy, be careful not to sound too speciesist:-P
All kids are kids without god. Some parents lie to their kids about this, as their own parents lied to them. Bravo to those that break the chain of lies.
The religiots should maybe save their outrage for something kids might like.
Oh noes!
OK, the kids’ part of the site is mildly ‘horrifying’, but not for any reasons suggested by The Blazing Idiots.
They do have a disclaimer “Parental Advisory Notice: The Kids Without God Teen website contains discussions of themes, issues and language that would not be appropriate for younger children.”
What? They discuss evolution, science and humanism?
I guess this is the teen “sex and sexuality” section. But then, if you let your pre-schools or pre-teens browse online without control, you do know that “Porn is just a click away“™?
And yet there’s no problem with a site dedicated to Christian teens.
I find the comments on the Blaze amusing. Once again, they demonstrate that they implicitly accept the idea that believing in god is a bad thing, when they accuse atheists of having various things as gods, usually Darwin or big government.
SallyStrange, you are not to have any gods but the Almighty Dollar. Oh, shit, I mean Jesus. Whatever, if you don’t pick one of those, we get to tell you that you have a god and who or what it is. Um, because.
I like
with a teen looking skeptically at a drawn hand of Lard.
Good on the AHA. As a parent, I’m always looking for easy-to-absorb materials to help my 10-year old attain a firm grasp on reality.
On a side note, I couldn’t help noticing the fact that the Blaze censors the word “vagina” in comments. Telling.
Of course not! When they do it, it’s good healthy child-rearing and education, but when we do it it’s PROPAGANDA AND BRAINWASHING OH NOOOO!
I love that this exists but I wish the site wasn’t so ugly. Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they don’t have taste and don’t deserve some decent damn art for once. You can make cartoons that are child-friendly AND look good and fun.
That being said, the advertisements are neat as hell.
Darwin the dog?
There probably is no dog. Now quit worrying and get on with your life.
Shame they didn’t name the site Kids Without Gods.
I think we should work harder to tell kids that they absolutely must not become atheists.
It works so well for smoking, drinking and sexing.
@10:
Do they put #*$&#*(@ in place? Or do they use the words “down there” or “naughty bits”? Argh!
So frustrating that some people think learning about your body and using correct terminology is bad.
Then it becomes pathetic given the obsession so many people have with sex.
“We want to fuck, and we think about it all the time, but we’re not going to say PENIS or VAGINA because the words are icky.”
That AHA website is pure evil, telling kids to think for themselves. I mean, that’ll likely derail the Churches attempts at social engineering, & we all know that only they’re entitled to do that.
I really find it fucked up that basic compassion and environmental protection are seen as the most wicked things you could teach kids. It is like they live in an alternate universe where up is down, good is bad and freedom is slavery. This combination of “Fuck you, I got mine” libertarianism and slavish obedience to authorities really make the american brand of fundamental Christianity particularly toxic.
I really like the idea, it just needs a little refining. I don’t know how to word it differently for a young kid, but I’m pretty sure my mother would have appreciated me telling her the truth all the time, but not strangers.
I also would change the ‘I promise’ part to ‘I will do my best to’. Getting a young kid to promise good behavior all the time is just settling them up for failure.
I don’t think “having lots of friends” is such a lofty goal. Maybe ‘have good friends’.
I don’t know why the people commenting at The Blaze have such a problem with what are basic good ideas for everyone to try to achieve. It looks a lot like any code of conduct one might find in a kindergarten.
the comments there…
sheesh
Is this a WND site?
Or “How to be smarmy, self-righteous and REALLY irritating without actually believing in a religion”.
Here’s a dispatch from secularised Sweden that the Pharyngulites may find interesting. My kid’s non-denominational school takes all the pupils on a festive procession to a church to celebrate Advent.
http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2012/11/18/my-kids-school-takes-all-pupils-on-festive-procession-to-church/
The comments on the Blaze article are amusing. The first one I saw was “Where are all those people who rave about the rights of Muslim and Native American religions now? It appears that Christians are not deserving of “progressive” protection.” Why do Christians always think atheists are specifically against them and not other religions?
We are right here.
We are waiting for the xians to get down to somewhere around 0.1-1% of the population. Then we will feel sorry for them.
pascale68,
From their point of view, it’s the part where being an atheist means you don’t believe in MY god. The others may be wrong, but at least they have a god. They’re okay because they use a crutch too, even if it has a different shape or colour from mine.
Atheists are the ones challenging me to walk without any support but my own morals and judgement.
Besides most of the atheists a Christian knows are ex-Christians. They rejected Jebus.
Looks like the Answers in Genesis* people are freaking out too:
*Not a direct link to their site
Raven,
I feel sorry for them, & all the other superstitious folk, anyway.
I was trying to read those Blaze comments on a wonky laptop that kept freezing up, and, while waiting for it to unfreeze, looking at a Sudoku puzzle that has me thoroughly stumped. Frustration and lurches in and out of immobility are the perfect accompaniment for those comments.
I did like how the Christians are full of hate, ignorance, confusion and conflict, and how they start arguing with each other about their oh-so-obvious religion.
The Kids website, on the other hand, was a bit boring. Some graphics in there might make atheism look something other than old-fashioned and lame. Still, a good effort and a worthy cause.
Actually, I was kind of impressed. The word “brainwashing” wasn’t used in the story or any of the comments I saw. That’s a mature, reasoned response for Blaze folks.
I just love the extreme levels of projection exhibited in the comments over there on The Blaze.
but…if atheism is just another religion too, then isn’t it ok for us to proselytize? be consistent, christians!
I’m just coming to appreciate how weird it is when a religious person feels that calling atheism a religion is an insult.
Yeah, so much projection, so much straw man. I thought I was watching The Wizard of Oz.
I’m just coming to appreciate how weird it is when a religious person feels that calling atheism a religion is an insult.
it’s inevitable that authoritarians shoot themselves in the foot.
inevitable.
@16:
Instead of the word “vagina” they censored it with ********. At least I *think* it was vagina from the context of the post. Hard to tell. There was a somewhat enlightened comment about women with XY chromosomes and the commenter was talking about female body parts using other appropriate terms.
btw, that Blaze site has some ads in rotation that are infected with a trojan.
make sure you have your virus scanner active when visiting.
Hey, the Blaze article actually included this tidbit, which was informative; I went to the press release they quoted, where it says this (bolding mine):
Really? What part of Disney and NGKids’ ad policies permit them to turn down this advertising without being discriminatory, I wonder? And do they turn down advertising from church websites too? (I’ll stake a stand and say that if they’ve turned down ads from the Creation Museum I’ll shut up about them turning down this bunch…) Their media kit says that NG “reserves the right to decline advertisement(s) whose subject matter is inconsistent with the mission of the National Geographic Society.” Getting kids to focus on the real world seems in that line, really… clicking around, I see mostly ads for NGKids stuff itself, but also one for Paolini’s _Inheritance_, so I don’t know.
What part of Disney and NGKids’ ad policies permit them to turn down this advertising without being discriminatory, I wonder?
the part where they are private companies.
do they turn down advertising from church websites too?
a much more interesting question!
Also, the part where Disney is 99% pure evil.
Considering Disney IIRC owns ABC Family, which due to contract agreements runs the 700 Club (With distancing disclaimer), I too am interested in seeing how this content is unacceptable to them
Sometimes 2+2 must equal 5 or 3 or 4 or all at the same time
Shocking, like the slap in the face that shocks you back to reality when you’re panicking, or the cold water in the face when you’ve just had a nightmare. Sometimes a little shock can be just what you need.
All together now…the Christian battle cry:
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”
Seriously. What a bunch of whiny brats. They’ve got entire radio and television stations dedicated to their bs, they’ve probably got hundreds of camps in that state alone, but the moment a non-Christian group tries to do the same thing they turn into six-year-olds being denied Captain Crunch.
It’s not that it’s an insult, it’s a device. If they can declare it a religion they can use the handy indicator as to which of the two religions is right and supperior: X or theirs (guess which one it always is).
If atheism is a different thing than religion this doesn’t work, and to rank the two would take examination, and work. That just won’t do. Besides, then there’s the risk that they won’t like the answer they arrive at. That risk isn’t there when both are religions, because they already know the answer to that question.
The reaction of the religious people towards this advertising campaign made by the American Humanists shows what they,deep down, really think and know: God or gods are imaginary friends (more imaginary bullies, in my opinion).
Humanism and his friend, the rationalistic and honest, Atheism are, slowly and thankfully, gaining ground.
anthrosciguy@44,
Good point – I hadn’t thought of it like that.
When a religious person tells me that atheism is “just” a religion too, what they’re usually getting at in my experience is that belief in atheism is predicated on the same level of faith as their belief in God.
There’s usually intended to be a followup along theological lines about why their religion of choice is the only one it makes sense to have faith in, but since I object at the level of considering evidence to be on the same level as faith, the conversation doesn’t usually progress that far.
For people in possession of universal truth and the one true religion, they seem remarkably lacking in confidence that they will prevail in an open marketplace of ideas.
Blobulon @19:
actually, I think your suggestions are very sound ones. I especially liked “have good friends” as opposed to “have many friends”. I am always a bit amused when I hear someone state with some pride that they have 234 ‘friends’ on Facebook.
Of course, there is a wonderful antidote to the “atheism is (just/also) a religion” thing. The moment we start claiming tax exempt status for our activities, as in “churches don’t pay taxes, so if we’re a religion…” watch out for the skid marks.
Thank you. I’ve been trying to introduce my daughter to Bill Nye for a while now and this site looked interesting enough that she took over my computer last night to watch his evolution episode.
My 8-year-old was over the moon and tried to take over my computer too.
Children fascinated by Nye and evolution?
That is some damned good news to hear on my birthday!
60 minutes had a neat segment last night on the awareness of young children towards ethics. Three month old children show awareness and preferences between good and bad. Must see.
The comments section is fucking hilarious.
Here’s a taster, from a post by ‘Oilfield_Trash’;
““Evolution” is actually based on “Faith”, misplaced faith to be sure. The only truism of evolution is that it always evolving. If evolution is true, how can we ever have an endangered species? Wouldn’t they have just “evolved”?”
Then there’s this, by PCDOCTORS4U2;
“I do not know how a society or “Global, Family, Village” can succeed without a code to live by that incorporates the truths that are the Virtues outlined in the Holy Bible? There is no middle ground here. It is not my job to convince you, The choice is yours and always has been.You are For Jesus Christ or you are ANTICHRIST.”
BONESIII (they love their BLOCK CAPS names) chipped in with this gem;
“wow, talk about atheism being a religion. Have you ever wondered why, given that almost everything he taught has now been disproven, evolutionists still idolize Darwin, and not some more modern evolutionist like Gould?”
But it’s not all atheist-bashing, there’s also a bit of climate-change denial and a whole lot of bollocks quoted as historical fact, such as this, from a full-on ‘I live in JESUS and y’all are going to Hell’ dipshit calling himself ‘EASTINFECTION’ (that B.C’s thing again);
“..the US has the longest running active form of government on the planet”
Oh, and that EASTINFECTION idiot, when telling how he told his kids that there was no Santa, left this, a paragraph so deliciously ironic it had me wondering for a second or two whether he’s a genuine comedy genius rather than a complete waste of a brain*;
“It’s OK to let children be children and let them cultivate their imaginations through fantasy.. Adults sometimes spend their entire lives attempting to reacquire that beautiful innocence.”
*I double checked his other posts. He’s a waste of a brain.
AoS
If you are gonna hang out here, try this:
If you type
<blockquote>paste quoted text here</blockquote>
this will result.
It will make your comments easier to read.
Yeah, sorry about that, Chigau. I usually would use blockquotes but I just copied that comment from a post I left elsewhere, on a site that doesn’t use the html codes, and I simply couldn’t be arsed to edit it all.
The Blaze. Wow.
Glenn Beck has produced a series of ads for the Blaze that have old people saying, essentially, they’ve lived long enough, and they need to be pushed out of the way, to control population, or something.
They are hoax ads. He puts a “United Nations” label on them.
And they’ve got the gall to complain about a website that offers facts to kids?
I wonder how long before the Mormons excommunicate him.