Jesus Camp.

[hongkongfooey]

Did anyone else catch this statement in the front page of the official website:



Not to mention that the background music is downright creepy.

I also watched the videoclips. I'm leery about the way Becky Fischer appeals more to the children's emotions, rather than their hearts. And there is a certain...cultness...about it.

After being a part of an ultra-conservative Christian church with many cult-like practices for over 12 years, I could smell this stuff a mile away...

Theocracy = civil war

 

[hongkongfooey]

Anyone else besides me, think that this borders on child abuse?

 

[heretic888]

The woman who is the centerpiece of the documentary likes it. She sees it as a positive film showcasing what she believes.

She, at least, doesn't see a bias.

Steve,

I am suddenly reminded of Carol Gilligan's "feminist" critique of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning. In essence, Kohlberg's theory (which describes that an individual's sociomoral perspective develops from preconventional to conventional to postconventional stages) was seen as unduly privileging "male values" (such as agency and "rights") to Gilligan, and she therefore concluded that his theory was biased against women.

Well, guess what?? Over the years, Kohlberg's methodology has been reproduced time and time again. Meta-analyses have consistently found no significant difference between men and women in the context of Kohlbergian moral reasoning. In other words, Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg's theory being "biased" has essentially been disproven by raw data.

So, then, we have to ask ourselves: if Gilligan didn't have the data to back up her assertions, why did she make them in the first place?? What was the rationale for her accusations of "bias"?? This is precisely the crux of the matter, in my opinion.

What seems to have happened here --- and happens too often in American academia --- is that the critic makes an a priori rejection of a certain position without really going through the work of diffusing the claimant's arguments or analyzing the claimant's data. In essence, "I disagree with the conclusion, therefore it is wrong". The most common tactic underlying these rejections is the accusation of "bias".

If the claimant asserts a position you find uncomfortable, simply accuse him or her of being "biased" and all is well. Of course, actually proving there is bias there is another thing altogether.

This is why, unless we're talking about statistics, I take any and all accusations of "bias" with a grain of salt. You wouldn't want to be trapped on Gilligan's island now, would you??

Have a good one.

 

[heretic888]

Anyone else besides me, think that this borders on child abuse?

I don't know about child abuse, but this definately falls under the purview of bad teaching.

These children are young adolescents. They are just around the age where Piaget's formal operations should be starting to emerge in their cognitive repertoire. What should be happening here is that these childen would be exposed to environments and education that encourage rational thought, third-person analyzing, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, and good ol' critical thinking. Ask any teacher or educational psychologist in America and they will tell you are children are in short supply of genuine critical thinking (that is, rationally analyzing various options to choose the most "correct" or appropriate one). This is the cause for much of the changes in educational structure over the last two to three years (at least in Florida).

What this camp does is advocate the opposite of critical thinking. It teaches the children that there is one way and only one way of seeing the world. They are not taught to think for themselves or use hypothetic-deductive reasoning to come to an answer themselves. Instead, they are simply told to conform to the authority structure (the Bible and the Church). These children are just at the age where critically thinking should be encouraged, and these camp leaders are effectively sabotaging their cognitive and moral development.

Y'know, maybe it is child abuse, after all.

Laterz.

 

[Brian King]

Heretic888 wrote

With all due respect, I couldn't helped but be amused when I read that. The entire notion of "personal objectivity" is nothing short of a popular fantasy. An opinion, by its very nature, is anything but "objective" --- no matter how well-grounded it is in facts and evidence. A point-of-view cannot be objective or else it is not a point-of-view.

I for one am surprised and happy that you are so easily amused. Humor is such an essential and needed product of a healthy psyche. I admit freely my own biases, the critic I quoted also admits his own biases, and you appear to admit to also having biases. So the only people saying repeatedly that they have no biases, no agenda, and no motive are the two producers…huh huh. I listened to them on two different radio shows (both coming from different political slants) and have to call B.S. on them. The way they communicated on the shows, with the clips shown (heard) and the way it (the movie) is being promoted, in my opinion shows where they are coming from quite clearly. I am sure that you will agree, that producers can take things out of context, can edit, can add sound bites, music, and backgrounds and voice-overs to propagandize their views.

Hardheadjarhead wrote

I'll go see it.

Regardless of the film maker's bias, the actions and the words of the characters in the film may well be worth seeing.

and

As for the reviewer saving you money...how would you know?

Good on you. I encourage you to see it two or three times. I am a strong supporter of supporting theaters and live music. If you think that this movie is worth your time and money then by all means go and be blessed and enjoy yourself. Take your family and your neighbors. For me I have too little time and far too little money to spend on this movie but would not deny you your pleasure in viewing the show. I hope that you post a review of the film as well; I always enjoy hearing/reading people’s reviews and hearing their opinions.

As for how he saved me money LOL I have to admit to being drawn in by big name big budget movies and trailers with actors whose past work I enjoyed and what I thought we interesting or exciting subject matter, ready and eagerly waiting the opening weekend, only to be warned that this movie was going to be a bust, or that it had excessive and needless violence or crude behavior. Deciding to wait and see how the movie performed and what my friends who did go thought of it, found that the warnings were legit and that I saved my hard earned dollars and even more important my time while my friends wasted theirs. I have learned that this critic and I have the same tastes in movies and I trust his reviews, and even if I do go to a movie that he dislikes I am now not surprised by movies that turn out different than their trailers, or by the treatment of subject matter. On his reviews I have seen good movies that I would not have seen otherwise. Thanks for asking my friend and enjoy your movie experience…and go see a live band this weekend as well!!

Anybody seen the movie yet?

See you on the floor soon
Friends
Brian King

 

[Blotan Hunka]

This camp is no more an example of "evangelical Christianity" than the "terror school" madrasses (sp?) in Pakistan are an example of Islam as a whole. Much like we wouldnt want the "chi ball" screwballs held up as an example of all martial artisits. Those guys are free to do whatever they want as long as no laws are broken and nobody is hurt or prompted to hurt someone else. Yes we share common roots and beliefs but are taking different paths.

 

[exile]

Over the years, Kohlberg's methodology has been reproduced time and time again. Meta-analyses have consistently found no significant difference between men and women in the context of Kohlbergian moral reasoning. In other words, Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg's theory being "biased" has essentially been disproven by raw data.

So, then, we have to ask ourselves: if Gilligan didn't have the data to back up her assertions, why did she make them in the first place?? What was the rationale for her accusations of "bias"?? This is precisely the crux of the matter, in my opinion.

Well said, Heretic. But the problem is, your critique here is based on the assumption that quantifiable prediction, observation and verification (or rejection)---the bread-and-butter of the scientific method---should be the basis for empirical claims. You clearly haven't been paying attention to the last two decades of `critical theory' emenating from folks like Derrida and his inheritors, including Gilligan, whose response to you would no doubt be that nomological-deductive reasoning (the reasoning that tells us that the earth is round and revolves around the sun, as vs. the earth being flat and having the sun revolve around it---the reasoning we use to make sure, for example, that the bridges we drive our cars over are meet design specification ensuring that we get to the other side alive) is male/Eurocentric and skewed in terms of gender/sexuality assumptions. Conservation of momentum reflects colonialist ideology, and your attempts to shore it up by showing that it actually captures the facts in 100% of physical interactions also reflections a colonialist ideology. You can't win, pal.

The humanities in certain quarters have, over the past two decades, become so farcical that they embarass all of academia. CP Snow didn't know the half of it when he wrote The Two Cultures.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Well said, Heretic. But the problem is, your critique here is based on the assumption that quantifiable prediction, observation and verification (or rejection)---the bread-and-butter of the scientific method---should be the basis for empirical claims. You clearly haven't been paying attention to the last two decades of `critical theory' emenating from folks like Derrida and his inheritors, including Gilligan, whose response to you would no doubt be that nomological-deductive reasoning (the reasoning that tells us that the earth is round and revolves around the sun, as vs. the earth being flat and having the sun revolve around it---the reasoning we use to make sure, for example, that the bridges we drive our cars over are meet design specification ensuring that we get to the other side alive) is male/Eurocentric and skewed in terms of gender/sexuality assumptions. Conservation of momentum reflects colonialist ideology, and your attempts to shore it up by showing that it actually captures the facts in 100% of physical interactions also reflections a colonialist ideology. You can't win, pal.

The humanities in certain quarters have, over the past two decades, become so farcical that they embarass all of academia. CP Snow didn't know the half of it when he wrote The Two Cultures.

Uhhh...yeah, what he said. :erg:

 

[heretic888]

Uhhh...yeah, what he said. :erg:

He's making a satirical commentary about some of the more extreme wings of postmodern philosophy.

Don't get me wrong, I am sympathetic to many aspects of postmodern thought --- particularly the insight that knowledge is both contextual in nature as well as a construction. However, the problem emerges when postmodernism devolves into relativism, nihilism, and sheer subjectivism.

It's really a reactionary movement, and reactionary movements rarely see things in as sober a light as they should.

Laterz.

 

[exile]

]the problem emerges when postmodernism devolves into relativism, nihilism, and sheer subjectivism.

It's really a reactionary movement, and reactionary movements rarely see things in as sober a light as they should.

Laterz.

Exactly right, Heretic---particularly your identification of the nihilistic element of postmodernism. If you really believe that everything is constructed, then the horrors of all those deaths in Auschwitz, in the Stalinist gulag, in Cambodia and so on become nothing more than objects of `theorizing'. The problem is that this sort of thing cuts both ways---an awful lot of people who subscribe to this sort of thinking are indeed passionate critics of colonialism and the oppression of cultural and ethnic minorities (at least in principle). But if you reframe such moral judgments as nothing more than individual texts constructed on behalf of certain subjective preferences, then nothing that has happened in history, no matter how horrible, has any particular meaning or moral impact....

 

[exile]

He's making a satirical commentary about some of the more extreme wings of postmodern philosophy.

Actually, I'm not sure that what I was saying was really satiric. I've actually read allegedly serious attacks on science, the scientific method on on specific scientific disciplines which took exactly that line, written by critical theory types who typically confuse the sociology of science with the status of its results.

 

[heretic888]

I would really like to continue this discussion, but I'm afraid we're getting a bit off-topic here.

 

[exile]

I would really like to continue this discussion, but I'm afraid we're getting a bit off-topic here.

You're probably right... never quite sure how that happens---one thing just leads to another...

But it's interesting that we've now covered two polar opposite positions in this thread---absolute, total conviction about division of the world into black/white, no gradation whatever (the Jesus camp), on the one hand, and an almost completely relativist position with its contempt for moral judgment (postmodernist nothing-good-or-bad-but-thinking-makes-it-so subjectivism)... and both of them are pretty scary.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

So what is the middle ground between absolutism and relativism?

 

[heretic888]

So what is the middle ground between absolutism and relativism?

Well, relativism is absolutism --- just in veiled form --- so it's kind of a moot point.

I would argue for contextualism, personally.

Laterz.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

But then were right back to relativism arent we? Wikipedia says this about contextualism...

Some philosophers hold that context-dependence may lead to relativism; nevertheless, contextualist views are increasingly popular within philosophy.

"In ethics, "contextualist" views are most closely associated with situational ethics, or with moral relativism."

Personally, I think moral relativism is a philosophical excuse to avoid putting your *** on the line for something you believe in, by having nothing to believe in.

 

[heretic888]

But then were right back to relativism arent we? Wikipedia says this about contextualism...

No. Wikipedia is wrong (surprise surprise), at least in the way that I am using the term.

Contextualism states that knowledge is inevitably bound up within certain biological, psychological, and cultural contexts. It means that there is no context-free "bottom line" that we can judge all existence by (which is the claim of both absolutism and relativism). That knowledge is contextually-bound does not mean knowledge is relative.

For example, the meaning of the word "bark" in a sentence varies depending on the context that it is used in. This does not mean you can use "bark" however you so wish, at least not without running into epistemological anarchy.

Knowledge is built into contexts. But, these contexts themselves are not arbitrary or relative in nature.

Laterz.

 

[heretic888]

Personally, I think moral relativism is a philosophical excuse to avoid putting your *** on the line for something you believe in, by having nothing to believe in.

No, relativism is a philosophical point-of-view. It tells us nothing about the psychology of the person that subscribes to it.

The argument "well, you only believe Y because you are X" is a common fallacy in logical discourse. Especially in politics.

Laterz.

 

[exile]

No. Wikipedia is wrong (surprise surprise), at least in the way that I am using the term.

Contextualism states that knowledge is inevitably bound up within certain biological, psychological, and cultural contexts. It means that there is no context-free "bottom line" that we can judge all existence by (which is the claim of both absolutism and relativism). That knowledge is contextually-bound does not mean knowledge is relative.

For example, the meaning of the word "bark" in a sentence varies depending on the context that it is used in. This does not mean you can use "bark" however you so wish, at least not without running into epistemological anarchy.

Knowledge is built into contexts. But, these contexts themselves are not arbitrary or relative in nature.

Laterz.

Yes, I think you're kind of forced into this sort of stance, simply to avoid the twin bottomless pits of moral absolutism and moral nihilism. Far from being opposed, the two are perfectly complementary:

Complete Absolustist: I know how it must be and you must do it this way, because that is the only right way to do it

Complete Relativist: Well, who am I to judge your vision of things? Relative to your community of practice, my view of things is unacceptable; but, of course, on the other hand blah blah blah[In background, Complete Absolutist can be heard setting up Courts of Inquisition...

The contextualist view you're arguinng for actually does pick out what I think is the safe middle ground between the CA's views and CR's, but it sure as hell has some steep drops on either side...

 

[Blotan Hunka]

So...where the rubber meets the road, how does a person live his life?