Camp Quest seems to have attracted a large amount of media (our media section) coverage as the first ‘atheist summer camp’ in the UK. Many were quick to judge and wrote inaccurate stories of exactly what we would do and how we were set out to indoctrinate. A donation from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science was misreported with headlines such as ‘Camp Dawkins’ multiple times until journalists thought that he/his foundation set the whole camp up and were funding places!

The media had found their angle, Camp Quest was to be the example that ‘militant atheism’ had started to convert children. Most articles before camp carried the charge that ‘children would be taught that religion can harm moral developement’, while others printed after (and after listening to radio and tv interviews) had grasped a more accurate impression of what Camp Quest aims to achieve.

Channel More 4 News Coverage

Comments

Apart from the many debates that were started on the existence of god(s) and other things, some common comments found are;

Fairy1973
29 Jul 09, 4:02pm

So happy, there is an alternative. I was beginning to feel excluded and alienated, for not being Christian, Muslim or any other such religious observer.

JacobH
29 Jul 09, 10:10pm

“We try to teach them how to think and not what to think. We’re encouraging them to leave camp with 101 questions for their parents and teachers. And that’s got to be a good thing.”

Hoorah! This is exactly what schools should be doing. Ironically, RE - when done well - is probably one of the only subject at present that can achieve such aims. Fostering freethinking - this is true education.