User:Allecher/campquest

Camp Quest, founded in 1996, is the first residential summer camp in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Norway specifically for the children of nontheistic or freethinking parents (including atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, skeptics, rationalists, and others who hold a naturalistic worldview).

Purpose and identity

Camp Quest's mission statement declares that the camp is "dedicated to improving the human condition through rational inquiry, critical and creative thinking, scientific method, self-respect, ethics, competency, democracy, free speech, and the separation of religion and government guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States". The overall purpose is to provide interested children, regardless of their personal beliefs, with a residential summer camp free of religious dogma. The camp is dedicated to fostering in children an appreciation for the natural world and stressing individual dignity, self-worth, and a capacity for self-realization through reason and naturalistic principles. It promotes tolerance, empathy, self-respect, self-expression, critical and creative thinking, cooperation, and ethics. The camp intended goal is to offer a space where children who are already nonreligious can feel comfortable and accepted. The UK branch of Camp Quest stated in 2009 that the point of their camp was "not a case of being told what to think about concepts such as God, just how to think about God".

The camp's logo is based on an idea of Edwin Kagin and the original artwork of his daughter, Kathryn. The letters "C" and "Q" are combined into a sort of infinity symbol. The letters "CQ" are usually accompanied by the Morse Code for those letters, CQ being code shorthand for "Does anybody want to talk?". The name Quest is actually an acronym for Question, Understand, Explore, Search, Test. The camp's slogan is, "Camp Quest. It's beyond belief!"

Programs and activities

The camp's programs introduce campers to the history and ideas of freethought. Campers also learn about science—including information on the stars, the weather, plants, animals, evolution, and the scientific method—as well as critical thinking, philosophy (including ethics), world religions, and mythology. Civics is considered important in programs that include civil liberties such as free speech and the church-state separation.

Most of the camp's activities, however, include what is usual for summer camps: campfires, singing, crafts, games, swimming, canoeing, nature hikes, woods lore, and ropes courses. Other activities have been more unique: drama, rocketry, code breaking, crop circle design and construction, and history outings. Sometimes the camp's unique programs are combined with traditional activities, such as telling mythological tales around the campfire, teaching cooperation through non-competitive games, comparing creationism and evolution as part of a fossil hunt, or collecting specimens on a nature hike for analyzing under a microscope.

The centerpiece of the camp's approach is encouragement of critical thinking and an introduction to logical fallacies. One tradition along these lines involves making the claim that two invisible unicorns inhabit Camp Quest. Campers are told that these beings cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasted, and that they cannot do harm, do not eat, and leave no mark. An ancient book handed down for untold generations offers proof that the unicorns exist, though no one is allowed to see this book. Any camper who can prove that the unicorns do not exist will win a godless one-hundred dollar bill (issued before 1957, the year the U.S. Congress mandated that "In God We Trust" be printed on American fiat currency.) Since first offering this challenge in August 1996, the prize remains unclaimed.

History

In November 1995, a meeting was hosted by the Council For Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH, now the Council for Secular Humanism), focusing on ways to promote secular humanism. A member of the Free Inquiry Group of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky (FIG), attorney and Eagle Scout Edwin Kagin, presented the idea for a secular summer camp to counter the exclusion of nontheists from the Boy Scouts of America. Though many participants were skeptical of the feasibility, and a few opposed it in principle, Paul Kurtz encouraged Kagin and FIG to create the camp.

The first camp began August 11, 1996, as a project of FIG, with Kagin as camp director. For the first two years the camp was held at a facility owned by the Bullitsburg Baptist Assembly in Boone County, Kentucky. Despite minor complaints from both Camp Quest and the Baptist group, the sessions went smoothly.

For the camp's third year, FIG had decided to relocate to a nearby YMCA camp in Ohio, Camp Kern. The Northern Kentucky Baptist Association then sought the legal right to restrict the use of their campgrounds based on religious beliefs. At their request, then-Kentucky Representative Tom Kerr sponsored legislation (House Bill 70) exempting religious organizations from the common anti-discrimination requirements of public accommodation laws. That bill passed over the governor's veto in 2000.

In 2002, Camp Quest moved to its third location, another YMCA-owned facility, Camp Campbell Gard, which is located in Hamilton, Ohio, approximately 40 miles north of Cincinnati. That same year, the organization incorporated under the name Camp Quest, Inc., an independent educational non-profit organization, with Fred Edwords as its first president.

Camp Quest, Inc. now serves as an umbrella group for all Camp Quest affiliates in North America. Edwin Kagin, with his wife Helen, continued as co-directors of the original Camp Quest, now known as Camp Quest Ohio or Camp Quest Classic, at its Ohio location until their retirement after the summer of 2005. August Brunsman IV assumed the position of Camp Director at that time; he is also Executive Director of the Secular Student Alliance. That same year, Amanda Metskas became president of Camp Quest, Inc. In 2007, Camp Quest Ohio moved to 4-H Camp Graham in Clarksville, Ohio, its current location.

The first affiliated group to begin operating a second Camp Quest summer camp session was the Rationalists of East Tennessee, which hosted its first camp session in Tennessee under the name Camp Quest of the Smoky Mountains in 2002. Other Camp Quest affiliates in North America, and dates of their inaugural camp sessions, include: Camp Quest of Michigan in 2003, Camp Quest Minnesota in 2004, Camp Quest Ontario in 2005, Camp Quest West (located in California) in 2006, Camp Quest Texas in 2010, and Camp Quest Chesapeake (located in Virginia), Camp Quest Montana, and Camp Quest South Carolina in 2011, and Camp Quest NorthWest (in Washington State) in 2012.

Camp Quest has also expanded outside North America. Camp Quest UK launched in the United Kingdom in 2009, set up by Samantha Stein. The 2009 camp received a £495 donation from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. CQUK also received support from the British Humanist Association and many private donators. The prize for the 'Invisible Unicorn Challenge' was changed to a £10 note (all Bank of England £10 notes bear the image of Charles Darwin), which is autographed by Richard Dawkins. This prize also remains unclaimed. In 2010 Camp Quest Ireland held a two-day day session to kick off their program. And Camp Quest Norway launched in 2011.

Criticism

The program has been accused of the same fundamentalism as religious groups and attempting to indoctrinate children to atheism. However, Camp Quest claims that they do not make a point to label children, or their parents with any specific worldview, or dictate any specific worldview to them. They also claim that many religious campers have attended, enjoyed and been welcomed at Camp Quest, and some staff are religious but find Camp Quest's mission worth supporting.

Branches

• Camp Quest of the Smoky Mountains, a project of the Rationalists of East Tennessee, held its first camp in 2002.
• Camp Quest of Minnesota held its first session in July 2004.
• Camp Quest Ontario, a project of the Society of Ontario Freethinkers (SOFREE), held its first session in August 2004.
• Camp Quest West, a project of the Atheist Alliance International, held its first session near Sacramento, California, in July 2006.
• Camp Quest of Michigan was incorporated in 2003 and, after several setbacks, held its first camp in August 2006.
• Camp Quest UK held its first session in July 2009 [2].
• Camp Quest Texas held its first session in August 2010.
• Camp Quest Ireland, associated with the Humanist Association of Ireland, held a day camp in the summer of 2010.
• Camp Quest Chesapeake has scheduled its inaugural camp session for July 2011.
• Camp Quest Montana has scheduled its inaugural family camp for July 30 to August 6, 2011.
• Camp Quest South Carolina has scheduled its inaugural family camp for October 2011.
• Camp Quest NorthWest held its first session in August 2012.

In popular culture

Comedy Central's The Colbert Report made a satirical reference to Camp Quest as a threat to America's security and moral identity in the "Threat Down" section of the show:

I'm talking about Camp Quest, a network of summer camps dedicated to sunny day fun from a strict atheist and agnostic perspective. As their catch phrase says, "It's beyond belief!" Though Camp Quest provides regular camp activities like hiking and horseback riding, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, children also "learn about the canons of rational thought, critical thinking and scientific inquiry." And in one activity, "[Campers] must try to prove that invisible unicorns, as a metaphor for God, don’t exist." The campers are also given other untenable philosophical challenges, like proving tetherball is fun. Well Camp Quest, here's another activity. How about canoeing on a lake of hellfire for all eternity!

External links

• Camp Quest
• Free Inquiry Group
• The best kids camps in Britain. TIMES Travel Section, 17 January 2009.
• "Camps sign up freethinkers". USA Today, July 27, 2006.
• Summer Camp That's a Piece of Heaven for the Children, but Please, No Worshipping, Susan Hansen. New York Times, June 29, 2005. (Requires login)
• Atheist Summer Camp Is Heaven on Earth for Nonbelievers, Linsey Davis and Elizabeth Stuart. ABC News, August 23, 2012.

Quest Category:Humanism Category:1996 establishments in the United States