Camp Quest on Nightline

ABC's Nightline reported (August 23, 2012) on Camp Quest. The kids said some smart things, and a psychologist said some really stupid things (but that's not surprising, we've met this psychologist before).

Camp Quest is a summer camp for children who are (or who are children of) non-believers. It was founded in 1996 by Edwin Kagin. Nightline, 2012-08-23, reported on it. The report was by Linsey Davis. (I should perhaps mention that I'm not involved in Camp Quest, nor do I really know that much about it.)

The Good

Here are some quotes from some of the children (the ages of the quoted children are from 9 through 12):

• There's no proof that god exists.
• I don't believe in him but if he were to come down and do something really amazing I would be able to accept that he exists.
• I don't need somebody to pray to; I can just find a way myself.
• [In response to the question of why people believe in a god]: I think that they're scared of the unknown. What if something very very terrible happens and they don't have someone to come in and help things out and make things better and I think they're scared of not having that. [Followup question: So what do you hold onto if something bad happens?] Well really, I don't know.
• [Don't you have to be exposed to it to decide you don't want it?] Some of my family is catholic… I understand how they might want to believe in something like that but I really don't understand it.

Clearly, these children have put some thought into this; they know that there's no a priori reason to believe in a god; they know that atheism isn't some disease you inherit from your parents; they are able to evaluate evidence (or the lack thereof); they can hypothesize about causation; and they are willing to answer a question with an honest, and perfectly valid, “I don't know”.

Here are a few more quotes:

• I don't have any atheist friends or anything so I'd like to maybe make a couple of friends that live near me or whatever that I can actually go to their house and have dinner and not have to pray before eating.
• All my friends are Christian and sometimes I do get bullied because of that because I'm an atheist.
• This is really super-nice to be here and not have to limit yourself and know that you won't be bullied or hurt.

These (and, probably, many other) atheist children are made to feel like they don't belong because of what they don't believe and, worse, atheist children are being bullied by their religious friends.

Ms. Davis asked a counselor this question: “Some people might say that you're brainwashing these kids and they need to decide for themselves.” Here's his response: “We would definitely encourage them to go to church.” I wonder how often religious parents or religious camp counselors encourage children to question the existence of a god.

The Bad

Then there was this. They interviewed Lisa Miller, a psychologist at Columbia University. If you've been reading my blog, you may recognize that name: Lisa Miller is a quack woo-meister who believes that there are children with psychic abilities. Let's ignore that, though, and look at what she said:

The best we can do as mentors is to encourage each child to identify their own direct spiritual experience.

No, we shouldn't. That's beyond stupid. If you're looking for something, you'll find it, even if it's not there; or if it is there, it's not appearing significantly more often than expected. There are several variations of this, including confirmation bias, pareidolia, apophenia, and Littlewood's law. Children, being rather trusting (and, therefore, gullible) are probably more susceptible to this, and, if an adult authority figure tells them to go out and find something, there's probably a good chance they'll lie and say they found it even if they didn't.

We should not be teaching children to explain perfectly natural random phenomena with superstitious nonsense; we should be teaching children (preferably by example) to gather and analyze evidence; to seek rational explanations for things; and to appreciate the remarkable things in the world (and the larger universe) for their remarkability and for the complexity that emerges from simple laws of nature, not to interpret them as proof that there is a god. I don't know what the best thing is that we as mentors can do, but suppressing rational thought in children and encouraging their belief in superstition, magic, fairies, and unicorns certainly isn't it.

Wait, there's more! Lisa Miller also said this:

Consistently it's been shown that spirituality is associated with health, greater academic achievement, and, of great importance to teens, more meaning and purpose.

There are three glaring errors in this single sentence.

First, it hasn't been shown consistently. For example, the abstract of Sloan and Bagiella's article [SB] states this:

About half of the articles cited in the comprehensive reviews were irrelevant to these claims [of health benefits associated with religious involvement]. Of those that actually were relevant, many either had significant methodological flaws or were misrepresented, leaving only a few articles that could truly be described as beneficial effects of religious involvement. We conclude that there is little empirical basis for assertions that religious involvement or activity is associated with beneficial health outcomes.

“There is little empirical basis” is not the same as “consistently it's been shown”.

Second, let's suppose that there is a real (even if small) correlation between spirituality and health. It would be important to understand the causality underlying such a correlation. For that, we need go no further than the children's quotes (above). Atheist children (at least some of them) are being bullied because of their lack of belief, they are forced to make friends with their bullies because there aren't enough other atheists, and they don't feel like they belong. This all leads to depression, anxiety, stress, etc.; and what are the effects of those? “A common symptom of childhood depression is academic decline.” (Some) spiritual children are bullying non-believers and causing their academic decline. Encouraging spirituality in children will make this worse.

Third, assigning “meaning and purpose” to one's life is a lie. We are not warriors for jesus, we are not untapped conduits to spiritual planes in higher dimensions, we are not playthings of the gods. We are biological blobs. Somewhat complicated biological blobs, but biological blobs nonetheless. But what about studies that show that spirituality is associated with meaning and purpose? Well, one hypothesis might be that, in these studies, the questions about “do you believe you have meaning and purpose” might be phrased in a manner so as to bias the results. However, that hypothesis is unnecessary: “Many people, in fact, define spirituality as the search for meaning and purpose.” In other words, spirituality is correlated with spirituality. Shocking!

Conclusion

Yay Camp Quest!

Bibliography
• [SB] Richard P. Sloan and Emilia Bagiella, “Claims About Religious Involvement and Health Outcomes”, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Vol. 24 No. 1 (2002), 14-21. DOI: 10.1207/S15324796ABM2401_03