Dawkins Supports First UK Atheist Kids' Camp | The Institute for Creation Research

Dawkins Supports First UK Atheist Kids' Camp

The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins has sponsored a week-long summer camp geared towards making atheists out of children. The camp is a UK arm of Camp Quest, and its 24 slots had been booked even before the BBC and The Sunday Times ran brief stories about it back in June.

Camp Quest’s motto is “It’s beyond belief” and the camp targets children between the ages of eight and seventeen. It started in North America in 1996, and now has locations in Ohio, the Smoky Mountains, Minnesota, Ontario, Michigan, and California.1 Camp Quest UK, located in Bath, England, is the first branch to operate outside of North America.

“CQUK is the first residential summer camp for the children of atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers and all those who embrace a naturalistic rather than supernatural world view,” according to the camp’s website.2

The 2009 summer theme focuses on evolution, with this being “Darwin year” in honor of the British naturalist’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On the Origin of Species.

The CQUK website posted a response to The Sunday Times article on June 28 depicting it as an atheist camp,3 stating that “Camp Quest is often labeled as an ‘atheist camp’ as we have a non-religious ethos, but we are open to the children from parents of all belief systems and none.”2

But with morning activities like “Philosophy for Children (P4C), pseudoscience…[and] evolution,” as well as financial support from Dawkins’ foundation and the British Humanist Association—which posted anti-God ads on buses last year4—it certainly seems like a camp aimed at turning children against their peers of faith.

The camp will also feature archery, zip wires, climbing, canoeing, as well as an “assault course.”

While people of faith may frown upon Camp Quest and its agenda, camps like this are the proper venues for parents who hold secular views to teach their children the same values they have.

Our taxpayer-funded public schools, which remain firmly entrenched in a Darwin-only, anti-faith philosophy, are not.

References

  1. Camp Quest: The Secular Summer Camp website.
  2. Camp Quest UK website.
  3. Rogers, L. Dawkins sets up kids’ camp to groom atheists. The Sunday Times. Posted on timesonline.co.uk June 28, 2009.
  4. Dao, C. Dawkins Supports ‘No God’ Ads. ICR News. Posted on icr.org October 23, 2008, accessed July 14, 2009.

* Ms. Dao is Assistant Editor at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on July 27, 2009.

The Latest
NEWS
Slowing Plates Support High Flood Boundary
Flood geologists have predicted that plate motion slowed at the end of the Flood year, and now conventional scientists are finding it to be true. A...

NEWS
Microscopic Ingenuity: Stentor and the Case for Intelligent Design
What if the smallest creatures held the biggest clues to life’s design? A 2025 study in Nature Physics investigates the remarkable behaviors of...

CREATION PODCAST
Dr. Jeff Tomkins | A Scientist's Journey to Creationism | The...
ICR’s science staff have spent more than 50 years researching scientific evidence that refutes evolutionary philosophy...

NEWS
Early Fish Evolution?
The discovery of a new species of a plant or animal would probably not spark much excitement to the non-scientist. But in this case, the conditions...

NEWS
Make Plans to Attend Our Estate Planning Workshop at the Discovery...
Did you know that up to 75% of Americans over 18 have no retirement or estate plans? Don’t wait to prepare for the future. Join us on Saturday, October...

NEWS
Fossil Confusion in Ethiopia: Are Evolutionary Trees Built on...
A new study published in Nature describes the discovery of 13 fossilized teeth from the Ledi-Geraru site in Ethiopia. They have been dated to between...

NEWS
The Only Mesozoic Dragonfly in Canada—Is a Dragonfly
In 2023, an undergraduate student from McGill University discovered a new dragonfly species in Alberta, Canada. In fact, “This is the first ever...

CREATION PODCAST
Dr. Jake Hebert | Journey to ICR | The Creation Podcast: Episode...
ICR’s science staff have spent more than 50 years researching scientific evidence that refutes evolutionary philosophy...

NEWS
Oldest Evidence of Butterflies
Insects such as the ubiquitous butterfly belong to the huge phylum Arthropoda (creatures having paired, jointed appendages and a chitinous exoskeleton)....

NEWS
Another Big Mistake in Evolution
The strange and wonderful coelacanth1 has long been a challenge to evolutionists. The coelacanth has long been hailed as an ancestor...