God help them.

Yesterday I watched a documentary called 'Jesus Camp'. It absolutely shocked me and aside from making me shake with anger, it made really quite sad.  All I've been able to think about for the past 24 hours is how can people let children so young become victims of an all fearing god?

The documentary explores the ever growing evangelical christian community in America's south, more notably it explores the teachings of one particular woman Becky Fischer and her summer camp for young children.
The camp teaches the children that they must fear God, teaching them to speak in tongues and preach to others in the world in the hope that they may 'save' them. The film is FULL of images of children as young as 5 or 6 sobbing their eyes out, convulsing and shaking, absolutely petrified of what may happen to them if they do wrong by god.
One particular child brought me to tears, as he stood in front of the crow and told them how he couldn't forgive himself for all the sinning he had done, and the others looked at him with shame.

These children are innocent people, they do not go around murdering or raping people. They do not commit 'sin' even if we were to go to the OH MIGHTY HOLY BIBLE and go through the 10 commandments I highly doubt that any of these children had done anything wrong. WHY then are they spending their entire summer apologising and crying and being made to feel worthless?

It is a complete and utter manipulation and pollution of children's lives. Even Fischer herself said that children are the best people to preach to and teach because they are innocent and will believe it more.
A child is not born a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist, they are born to parents of a particular religion. I myself went to catholic school, I was baptised and raised as a christian. But I am NOT a christian. I was born into a religious family and I have now chosen to live my life free of any religion. I don't think that if I had the chance I would have taken back my faith as a child, because it allowed me to get a decent education, not only at school but a better understanding of religion as a whole.
The difference with these children is that they are being made to FEAR. They constrict themselves of a childhood because they aren't allowed to ready Harry Potter, or listen to Britney Spears or hang out with the other kids because they are sinners. They don't even go to school with the other children. And 30% of the USA is made up of these bible bashing freaks?

I don't want to get into the political side of all of this because I would end up going on forever. I respect that some people have faith in whatever religion that they choose. But I do not condone the polluting of children's minds, creating a life full of fear and shame because of what some guy said 2000 years ago.
A child is a child- that's all there is to it, they do not understand the fundamental aspects of religion and the purpose that it (supposedly) serves.