Atheist Camp

Indoctrination is not encouraging children to explore reality, encouraging them to pay attention to experts while also not relying on someone purely on grounds of authority.I can't say for sure what these camps are like since I've barely investigated them, but from what I have heard these are quite different creatures than those we would accuse of being religious indoctrination camps. After all - how often would a Christian 'indoctrination-type' camp invite a Muslim to talk about their beliefs?I wouldn't send my kids - if I had any - to a camp to learn about humanism, or philosophy unless they asked to go there. I may point out that such camps exist if I felt my child(ren) might be interested.Any children I have will naturally learn, and be taught about thinking, different approaches to thinking - possible problems with certain modes of thinking, and be taught to keep a watchful eye on their own ideas and beliefs lest they lead to problems or errors. If they want to meet up with like minded kids at a camp then so be it.Camp Quest FAQ As far as I can tell, neither. It is a camp with an academic and philosophical slant. It looks like Scouts only without the enforced oath of allegiance to the Queen and God and one's country and instead with discussion of humanism, philosophy, epistemology and morality. It has the potential to go horribly in the wrong direction, of course, but in and of itself it isn't a big problem anymore than the Scouts is necessarily problematic (though it has certainly gone down some dodgy paths).One of the criticism thrown at atheists - a fundamental failing of their 'philosophy' is touted as being the lack of community. While creating a community can result in its own problems, I certainly celebrate these initiatives to do that very thing.If the kids are forced to stand up and declare "I promise to believe that there is no God and the Queen is merely a traditionalist figurehead relic from an outdated mode of government", then we have a problem. If they teach kids about non supernatural methods of knowing and morality - I wouldn't necessarily call that indoctrination.

I wouldn't necessarily class it as such. Though I would be surprised if kids completely mirrored the adults, but they would certainly be more inclined towards those ideas. If we consider this to be indoctrination - then any community minded activity for kids is in danger of being indoctrination. I help with a secular camp for kids (its not philosophically orientated, it is centred around music and history): all us adults share very similar views, and many of the children that attend become adult helpers. Is this indoctrination?It isn't indoctrination to simply expose kids to ideas - even though we know they will be more inclined towards accepting the ideas of the authority figures they look up to. I am willing to bet that there is more indoctrination in school classrooms than there is at Camp Quest - though I am of course open to correction.As a rough working definition, I'm using indoctrination roughly thus:

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Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology. It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.

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The spirit of Camp Quest is to (at least try) to critically examine the 'doctrine' in question.

Probably not. There are many important subjects that normal school life is woefully inadequate on, and parent's often have difficulty teaching to kids. Politics, economics, finance and philosophy amongst them.However - as originally noted - it can easily get off the beaten path and become indoctrination. It really does depend on the details. If kids find themselves socially penalised for disagreeing with the humanists or the free-marketers, then there may be a problem. If the organisers don't attempt to prevent the social penalty - the problem becomes quite serious.But teaching kids to be nice to each other, cooperate etc etc, and doing so with a referencing saints, God as inspiration is perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned (I did that in Scouts). So I don't see why we should get nervous about largely the same thing happening with a more secular view...with alternative view points being represented too.Obviously there is a line, but if we start treating kids as delicate snowflakes who cannot be exposed to one viewpoint without balancing it perfectly with others...we aren't doing them any favours.That's my view - but I appreciate that given what we have seen others do (especially, but not limited to the religious) with these kinds of camps, it is worth being careful. We don't want to be hypocrites, after all I would consider it fantastic if the kind of discussion we are having now is openly encouraged and even instigated by Camp Quest volunteers.