Good News Clubs: Psychologically abusing your children in a public elementary school near you! [View all]

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By popular request, reposting in Religion.

I'm talking about the Good News Clubs that have been springing up in public schools thanks to a 5-4 Supreme Court decision (three guesses which justices were in the majority, and the first two don't count.)

http://www.goodnewsclubs.info/

Last week, I went to see Richard Dawkins, Sean Faircloth, Eric Cernyar and Katherine Stewart discuss Good News Clubs, fundamentalist Bible clubs that are opening up in public schools across the nation, trying to convert everyone's kids to their particularly extreme flavor of Christianity.

They gave a classic example of the kinds of lessons they teach as part of the Good News: the battle of Israel versus the Amalekites.

Recap: God ordered Saul and the Israelites to attack the Amalekites and slaughter them all - man, woman, child, cattle, ALL! The Israelites didn't obey. They kept the cattle, and spared the kids. Not good enough. God was PISSED! He was only appeased after they slaughtered the prisoners, the children, the cattle, the babies, everything.

Lesson as taught to the children in Good News Clubs: OBEY! When Abraham was ordered by God to bring his son to the mountain and barbecue him, he was required to OBEY. When the Israelites were ordered to slaughter all the Amalekites. Not just some of them, ALL OF THEM, they were required to OBEY! If you, child, are ordered by God or your friendly religious authority figures to shoot a baby in the face, OBEY!

Yep, that's what the Good News Clubs consider to be an appropriate lesson to teach to six-year-old children. Isn't that cute?

Oh, and on top of that, they teach the classic Christian doctrines of original sin, the sinful nature of man, and the salvation of Christ.

Let me translate that into how the Good News Clubs teach it.

Because a man 6,000 years ago was goaded by his woman, who in turn was goaded by a talking snake, into eating a forbidden Apple of Smartness from a magic tree, YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON! YOU ARE EVIL! YOU DESERVE DEATH! YOU DESERVE TO BE TORTURED AND LEFT SCREAMING IN FIRE FOREVER AND EVER UNLESS YOU REPENT, GIVE YOURSELF TO JESUS AND (all together now...) [font size=5]OBEY!!![/font]

Yeah, that's also appropriate to teach to impressionable and emotionally vulnerable kindergartners! If I had kids, I'd sign them right up!

Worse yet, their tactics are to get into public schools, and pretend as much as possible that they're just another class for the kids. One club, when told to take their toxic theology out of the local elementary school, and in return, being offered more space in the Baptist church across the street, refused. They want to be in the school. When possible, they try to get a fundamentalist teacher or teacher's aid or volunteer in the school to also lead the Good News Club. To the kids, they don't know the difference, they think it's just another class - English, Math, Science, Bible! Taught by authoritatively speaking adults, often school staff - what better way to force the Jesus-Aid down their little throats? To the kids, it's another class. To the courts, it's an after-school club that of course doesn't violate separation of church and state by sticking itself remora-like to a public school.

A little video on Good News Clubs: