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Religious Fundamentalists Set Sights on Portland

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by CometsWin, Jul 22, 2014.

  1. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    When I read this article I was reminded of this thread, Are Atheists just Hatas?

    Evangelical group sets sights on secular Portland

    http://news.yahoo.com/evangelical-group-sets-sights-secular-portland-065955466.html

    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An evangelical Christian group plans to try to convert children as young as 5 at Portland apartment pools, public parks and dozens of other gathering spots this summer — a campaign that's got some residents upset.

    They've banded together in recent weeks to warn parents about the Child Evangelism Fellowship's Good News Club, buying a full-page ad in the local alternative weekly to highlight the group's tactics.

    "They pretend to be a mainstream Christian Bible study when in fact they're a very old school fundamentalist sect," said Kaye Schmitt, an organizer with Protect Portland Children, which takes issue with the group's message and the way it's delivering it.

    CEF says Protect Portland Children is a shadow group run by atheists who seek to dismantle Christian outreach. The group said its methods are above reproach.

    "Children are easy to manipulate, we all know that," said CEF's vice president Moises Esteves. "We don't use any of the schemes and high-pressure tactics that we're accused of. Nothing could be further from the truth."

    Esteves' group decided to hold its annual summer mission program in Portland because of the area's irreligious leanings.

    Trying to reach young people in Oregon presents the group with two strongly secular demographics.

    Gallup polls in 2008 and 2012 have consistently indicated that Oregon is among the least religious states in the country, with one of the fewest populations identifying themselves as "very religious."

    Furthermore, focusing on young people opens the group up to an increasingly irreligious demographic. Millennials, or those born in or after the early 1980s, are the least religious generation in U.S. history, according to Pew Research.

    CEF has encountered controversy before.

    It won a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court case that decided they could hold chapter meetings on school grounds.

    The organization was also the subject of a critical book that asserts the group advances a fundamentalist agenda and uses public spaces like schools to make children believe such views are endorsed by authority figures.

    In schools, the group obtains permission slips to speak with children, but it is not required to do so in public spaces.

    CEF spent last week training its volunteers, Esteves said, and will span out through the area this week trying to reach children.

    "We do teach that children are sinners, but we're not nasty about it," Esteves said. "If we were nasty about it, the kids wouldn't come back." He said that they don't try to coerce the children, as "coercion leads to false conversion."

    At a park on Monday, the group laid out a tarp for children and chairs for their parents. A pair of volunteers led about 12 kids through Bible verses and songs that praised a Christian god.

    "My heart was dark with sin," they sang, "until the savior came in."

    Mia Marceau, a mother of two in the Portland suburb of Vancouver, Washington, said she was intrigued when the group approached her apartment complex pool last week. She said she, too, believes in Jesus Christ.

    Within a few hours, however, she didn't like what the group was telling her 8-year-old son and his friends: They were headed to hell, needed to convert their friends and were duty-bound to raise money for the organization.

    "I raised a free thinker," she said. "He didn't buy in. All of a sudden, he's having arguments with his friends over salvation."
     
  2. NotInMyHouse

    NotInMyHouse Contributing Member

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    Keep it in the church, buddy.
     
  3. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    Sounds like a good reason to not leave your kids unsupervised in public places, just like once the homeless figured out the library had free internet.
     
  4. Jayzers_100

    Jayzers_100 Member

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    Lol at the desperation these religious groups are resorting too. The intellectual Stone Age refuses to completely go away.
     
  5. Haymitch

    Haymitch Custom Title
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    Xians gonna recruit. It happens. Just let them make their pitch and move on. In their eyes, they're trying to save you. So it's actually a nice gesture. Targeting 5 year olds though? That's rude and trashy.
     
  6. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    I don't get what the problem is. So, Christians are doing what they've done for centuries and teaching doctrine they've been teaching for centuries?

    Athiests don't have to like it, I guess, and can take out all the full-page ads they want. But, I don't know why their butthurt is newsworthy.
     
  7. pirc1

    pirc1 Contributing Member

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    What if Muslims starts to setup shops on street corners(I saw that on Michigan avenue in Chicago recently) or go to play ground to convert young children? Would there be much stronger reactions?
     
  8. g1184

    g1184 Member

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    I think either they're targeting kids without parental consent or they pulled a bait and switch, saying they'll teach one version of Christianity then actually taught hellfire brimstone.

    I skimmed the article ... tl;dr ... and Portland who cares.
     
  9. HamJam

    HamJam Contributing Member

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    I hope you call the game the same both ways -- because the Christian's paranoid fantasies that they are the subject of persecution is much louder on television and in print than any "butthurt" I hear from non-Christians.
     
  10. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    So, you'd have no problem with athiests telling your children there is no god and trying to convert them to their line of thinking.
     
  11. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Whoah, I hit a nerve.

    There would be stronger reactions. And, I'd be as dismissive. First amendment and all that. I have no problem with Muslims proslytizing to children, even my own children (but I'll tell my kids those guys are wrong later).

    I can understand parents getting upset if they felt like they didn't consent to someone talking to their kids or didn't like what was said. I think it's overprotective but I know a lot of parents, so I know people are like that. Not clear from the article that they've actually done anything like either of those.

    Generally, christians and atheists seem engaged in a game of one-upsmanship on who can be the more persecuted. The persecution of either in the US today is pretty laughable because they both enjoy considerable freedom and safety.

    No, I have no problem with that because I'm an athiest. I think athiest prosyletization is dumb, but I fully intend to give my children as full an education I can in Christian and in secular thought.
     
  12. pirc1

    pirc1 Contributing Member

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    I would not call non Christians persecuted in the US today, but there are many disadvantages to not being one. Holding most elected government offices is one primary example.
     
  13. Rocketman95

    Rocketman95 Hangout Boy

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    I'm sure you are: a) you seem like that kind of guy and b) isn't your wife pretty devout? The key is you're giving your children that education or determining who is. I don't want a random stranger talking to my child without my consent. Like you said, it's not clear they are doing that, but that would be my fear.
     
  14. Baba Booey

    Baba Booey Contributing Member

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    Any group that wants to proselytize to 5-year-olds should be investigated for pedophilia.
     
  15. Baba Booey

    Baba Booey Contributing Member

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    It is not a nice gesture. It's an arrogant and insulting gesture.
     
  16. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Eh, I'm more liberal than that. If the Muslims or the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever want to give them their version, that's fine. I'll probably also be telling my kids they're wrong, but I don't want to shield my kids from ideas, I want to teach them how to process them. Now, a 5 year old can't do much in the way of processing, but they also can't do much with whatever false information they accumulate. They'll get their chances when they are older to think about everything and decide.

    It's probably all moot because it's not often that any adult gets to talk with my kids without me knowing about it anyway. They aren't at the playground without supervision. The only times we're not watching is when they are at school or church or friends -- and I already know what they'll say. (Actually, I've had some quibble with doctrinal teachings of the christian preschool (that you have to be good to go to heaven), but we address it as it comes up.)
     
  17. Nook

    Nook Member

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    That isn't going to happen with evangelist fundamentalist Christians. They believe that they have a burning obligation to attempt to convert the masses directly from the lips of Jesus Christ.
     
  18. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    A group that targets children while admitting this

    It's completely scummy.
     
  19. Jayzers_100

    Jayzers_100 Member

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    Children should be presented with options and choose based on their own inclination. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, tooth fairy, etc. are all fine and dandy because it's harmless fun. Religious belief is a different ball game.
     
  20. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    Selective quotation? He's saying they don't use the high-pressure tactics they are accused of because they know that kids are easy to manipulate. Here's the quote:

     

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