You posted a link to a small "documentary" movie. It appears to have been made by two "progressive" filmmakers, apparently with the willing cooperation of the woman who supposedly ran the camp. She invited them in to film and apparently has never criticised their finished product. My guess is that some of what's shown was likely staged.
Might have been. But for what?
It's easy for outsiders to ridicule Pentecostals. Their emphasis on receiving their "holy spirit" lends itself to ridicule. "Holy rollers" have always been the butt of jokes, even from more Biblically oriented fundies. They are an easy target.
Which suggests a few things about how correct they might be.
The Pentecostals' religious ecstacies already create the presumption of fanaticism in many minds and it isn't very difficult for unsympathetic individuals to emphasize that visible passion for dramatic effect and to then to construct their own "American jihad" narrative around it.
I posed no such narrative. American jihad is not my phrase either. I can completely ignore the soul saving and born again, etc. kind of things that adults do to adults. This is indoctrination of kids into angry, unyielding soldiers of misinformation, or worse. This is not acceptable behaviour by any sane guardian of a child.
I'm an American. I'm not a Christian. I don't for a moment feel any danger from my Christian friends and neighbors. I certainly don't fear them nor believe that they are engaged in some holy war against me. I've never heard of them killing anyone like myself for religious motives. When I see people being intolerant of other religions, it's atheists being intolerant of Christianity as often as it's Christians being intolerant of atheists. This thread is a good illustration of that.
The weapon of christian fundamentalism is not actual projectiles or explosives, but misinformation, ignorance and plain stupidity. Those are things all should rightly be intolerant of. They are free to think or believe what they want, but they are not free to spread misinformation which leads to a setback in the scientific literacy of the masses. Such populations are more likely to put religious zealots in charge of the sole superpower on earth.
What's more, the thread title's suggestion that an imaginary Christian jihad is somehow is an American thing, an expression of the essence of the country that I love, is something that I find deeply insulting.
And you should. The fact that there are such people in this great country who are subjecting their children to such things should be insulting in itelf. As I said before -
"These are children just a couple of generations after the nation claimed the biggest moment in history - the first time a member of our species every set foot on another celestial body - the crowing glory of the modern sciences and from that point on, instead to driving towards greater progress and achievement, the country is plunging into a abyss of ignorance and stupidity, lead by the religious radicals - creationists, fundamentalists, evangelicals and such tools of indoctrinations as these camps. Religion is good, fanaticism is not. This is not the future the founding fathers of this nation would have intended."
I understand you feel the same hurt that many muslims feel when people talk of muslim jihad, I supathise. But such behaviour simply isn't becoming of the sole superpower in the world, especially when it spends as much on its military as the rest of the world combined and the guys in charge are, and are voted by, religious people, who might be such fanatics. I think we should put the blame, shame and responsibility squarely were it rests and also on those who are affected by it. This/such religiousity IS an American thing [in the western/christian world] and when it reaches such levels, it not something to be loved or sympathised with, it is something to be stopped or corrected.
