Camp Quest is an organisation providing

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

residential

summer camps Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...

for children in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, Switzerland and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. It was first held in 1996 in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

to provide an alternative to the traditional religiously affiliated summer camps, for the children of nontheistic, humanist or

freethinking Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...

families as well as children from a religious upbringing. Camp Quest currently consists of 13 affiliated camp groups and its current Executive Director is Kim Newton.

Formation

In 1995, at a meeting of the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH) in Amherst, New York, in response to the exclusion of non-religious children from the Boy Scouts of America and their camps, the idea for a secular summer camp for children of non-theistic and atheist families was proposed. Edwin Kagin, attending the meeting as a representative of the Free Inquiry Group of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky (FIG), brought the idea back to FIG and the group determined to actually do it, the planning committee chaired by Vern Uchtman. Kagin was selected to become the camp's first director due to his having been an Eagle Scout when younger. Kagin's wife Helen Kagin and other members of FIG also took various roles at the camp. The name Camp Quest was chosen, the letters representing "Question, Understand, Explore, Search, Test". The Morse Code for CQ (wireless call for "Seek You') also became a symbol on caps and shirts for the camp. Financial support was provided by CSH. On August 11, 1996, the first camp took place in premises owned by Bullittsburg Baptist Church in

Boone County, Kentucky Boone County is a county located in the northern part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 135,968, making it the fourth-most populous county in Kentucky. Its county seat is Burlington. The county was formed ...

, with 20 children attending from five states. In 1999 Camp Quest moved to a nearby

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams (philanthropist), Georg ...

camp in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, Camp Kern, at which 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 anti-discrimination requirements of public accommodation laws. His legislation was not successful and the bill was passed over in 2000.

Camp Quest Inc.

In 2000 Camp Quest expanded with independent camps operating across the United States with the same mission statement, becoming Camp Quest Inc., an independent educational non-profit organization, in 2007 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 and Helen Kagin continued as co-directors of the original Camp Quest based in

until their retirement in 2005. The original Camp Quest moved to

4-H 4-H is a U.S.-based network of youth organizations whose mission is "engaging youth to reach their fullest potential while advancing the field of youth development". Its name is a reference to the occurrence of the initial letter H four times i ...

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. in 2009 Camp Quest expanded outside North America with Camp Quest UK launching in the

. The current Camp Quest UK director, Samantha Stein, became a volunteer for the organisation at a camp in

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

and was prompted to start a camp in the UK with a group of volunteers. The first UK camp was supported by a grant from the

Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS or RDF) is a division of Center for Inquiry (CFI) founded by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 2006 to promote scientific literacy and secularism. Originally a non-profit based in ...

, and was held in

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. Stein fielded a considerable amount of press interest when the '' Sunday Times'' broadsheet newspaper ran a front-page article on Camp Quest UK with the headline 'Dawkins sets up kids’ camp to groom atheists'. The Times later went on to include it in their ''Best kids camps in Britain'' and ''10 best kids' adventure holidays''. CQUK also received support from the Humanists UK. Camp Quest Norway launched in 2011 followed by Camp Quest Switzerland in 2013. Camp Quest Ireland was held as a two-day gathering in Dublin in 2010.

Programs and activities

Most camps' activities include traditional summer camp events: campfires, singing, crafts, games, swimming, canoeing and archery. Other activities explore science and nature and might include meteorology, astronomy, evolution or building rockets. Campers are also encouraged to explore

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

and philosophy, including discussing

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

in a camp version of Socrates Cafe. Campers might also learn American Sign Language, do drama or learn to build a radio. All the programs aim to introduce campers between the age of 8 and 17 to critical thinking, logic and freethought. As of 2017 Camp Quest has expressed that it will not segregate activities by gender and has introduced policies to accommodate non binary gender and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

campers and staff.

Invisible unicorn challenge

During Camp Quest attendees are tasked with the invisible

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...

challenge, aimed at showing that a negative cannot be proven. The task is one of the ways used to encourage children to exercise

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...

and explore ideas about the burden of proof and challenges the children to prove that invisible unicorns do not exist. The children are told that two invisible unicorns exist at Camp Quest and that there is a valuable book proving their existence which has been passed from generation to generation but no one is allowed to read. 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). In the UK the prize is a £10 note signed by Richard Dawkins. Since first offering this challenge in August 1996, the prize remains unclaimed. International branches: * Camp Quest UK (July 2009) * Camp Quest Ireland (Held in 2010) * Camp Quest Norway (July 2011) * Camp Quest Schweiz (August 2013) in Switzerland.

References

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External links