The Dark Side of the Good News Club

I remember doing a “Good News Club” when I was 12 yo during the summer one year. We didn’t go to the public schools then, at least not my church. Instead we went out to a poor neighborhood because you know those poor children have just never heard the good news! I remember thinking, even at 12 yo and always surrounded by religion and not knowing anything different, that going into peoples neighborhoods, uninvited, just did not seem right. 

In spite of this video’s gloomy music, look at the children’s faces in the videos at the beginning. Those kids are happy. And they really are because the truth is, the people that are actually out doing these “clubs” truly think they are helping these children because they have just never heard the “good news.” And all these children know is that these people say they love them and that god loves them and that’s a good thing, right? So what are WE going to do to help these poor children in place of this false love? These are the kinds of things that the secular movement needs to be putting into place. Think Camp Quest. But we have to figure out how to do these things for FREE. That means we have to figure out how to make the secular movement financially sustainable. How do we do that?

This. This is exactly why indoctrinating children in religious thinking should be a crime. And we wonder why so many of us grow up to be completely dysfunctional as adults.

Religion is a tool used by those who covet power and control over all others. ALL others.

Also please see 
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/646072-update-how-christian-fundamentalists-plan-to-teach-genocide-to-schoolchildren

The video is great, but personally, I prefer reading text that doesn’t move. 

I’m torn as to the best place to direct my energies, but this is certainly a big contender.

Watching this for me was very personal. I didn’t expect it to be; in the beginning, I was almost bored. Sure, the things this group was saying weren’t right, but, having been raised Christian, I’d grown so acclimated to this style of teaching–hell, sin, death–that I barely recognized its harmfulness–until the “shame” section. This really connected with me, because for as long as I can remember, I’ve had deep self-esteem issues, depression, anxiety disorder(s)–you name it. If I could have back every second that I’ve thought I wasn’t good enough, that I was bad and ugly and unworthy of any love…even that couldn’t make up for all those painful memories, those feelings of worthlessness. I don’t know if this particular series was ever used on me as a child, but whatever was used had a very similar message. I’m sure that what I grew up hearing every Sunday didn’t completely cause my myriad of issues, but I have no doubt that it contributed.

For anyone reading this, Christian or not, please remember to treat kids with love. A four-year-old’s feelings are no less real than those of someone ten times her age. She feels, thinks, reasons and remembers just as you do. Whatever beliefs you wish to convey to your children, please share them with love.

This makes me feel physically ill. Fortunately, they aren’t active in my part of the state, but freethinkers and atheists need to mobilize not to counter this, but to put into place a  program of critical thinking and respect for science. They’re right– kids are vulnerable to persuasive ideas. Let’s make sure they’re getting the ideas of tolerance and critical thought.

According to the late Dr. Alice Miller, author of “For Your Own Good” and other books exposing the psychological and physical abuse of children, that’s how it often works.

A young child doesn’t question these kinds of things, and learns to voice agreement with them (i.e., learns to defend their abuser), while self-protectively suppressing the reality of their own abuse.  A sort of a intellectual and emotional disconnect occurs. 

But messages like this still plant a sense of alienation, worthlessness, and shame that can emerge later in life, for reasons the child doesn’t even understand.

I was affected in similar ways.  I became a perfectionist, straight-A over-achiever, but felt worthless.  I internalized the message of “you deserve death,” and a sense of being loved only for my proper behavior and belief.  That led to a pre-teen suicide attempt, and later, to frequent struggles with depression. 

It is my own experience that drives me to, today, to expose the Good News Club in hopes of protecting at least some children from what I experienced.

This makes me sick to my stomach. This is child abuse, it’s church-sanctioned child abuse. They’re using emotional and psychological abuse to turn these kids into little Christian drones.