Sing for Supreme Leader Obama

Question of the day: Which of these videos is more disturbing, and why?







(UPDATE 4 hours later) Some friendly commentary:

you're a complete fucking idiot if you dont see the difference.

The people in those videos are praying to God. Not singing praise to political candidate who is just a mere mortal human being.

Nice try but not even close to the same thing. The two videos you post are wacky, yes. But they are both praying to God. Not in a way that I would, but whatever. The Obama video is sick because they are singing to him as if HE were God. So basically I agree about the contents of your skull.

Okay people, try to think about it this way:

Some of us are part of a religious group that prays to a God, some of us aren't.
Some of us are inspired by a particular presidential candidate, some of us aren't.
Some of us are part of a personality cult, some of us aren't.

I could go on of course. We could argue about what's worse:

A) "praising" an inspirational leader with song
B) praying over the cardboard cut-out of a head of government who "is here" and basically praising him and his advisers for being "spirit-filled"
C) any of those weirder Jesus Camp things....

Of those things, some may be more disturbing to some of us than others, depending on our worldviews and backgrounds (I went to a Jesus Camp as a kid, so I have my own perspective on that)

But the overarching issue with these 3 clips is how the kids are being taught, not the particulars of what they're being taught. And this is what I'm pondering with my question...

Too often, people on one side of an issue point to faults in others without realizing that they may be guilty of the same generic fault.

Obviously there are people who support Jesus camp-like stuff and obviously there are people who support having their kids sing songs about political leaders.

My view is that while people can reasonably disagree on the content of what's being taught, it may be more interesting to look at the method. It's a matter of informed critical thinking.

How much did those "Sing for Change" kids actually know about Barack Obama or the U.S. presidency? And how much did those Jesus campers know about different beliefs or the concept of belief vs. certainty?

My guess is not very much, and to me this is more disturbing than the particulars of what's being taught. (Maybe Barack Obama will be a great leader, or maybe he won't. Maybe Jesus Christ is Lord, or maybe he isn't)

Point is, I don't think kids should be taught false confidence of any kind. Religions with a supernatural component like belief in God are not more laudable _per se_ than the glorification of the accomplishments of a non-supernatural person. I don't think we should force either thing on children who are incapable of knowing better.

I could be wrong of course, but it seems to me people who excuse the one but not the other -- because it better fits their worldview/background -- are being inconsistent.