My name is Edwin Kagin. I am Director of Camp Quest, the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States for the children of the godless. I am honored to be an Eagle Scout. The concept of Camp Quest was inspired by the outraged awareness that the Boy Scouts of American had somehow became so un-American that its leadership had started denying admission to those "dirty little atheists," to those American boys who did not share the supernatural world view of those now making the rules. Camp Quest was founded in 1996 in response to this exclusion, and, for its seven years of continuous operation, has been a night light in a scary room for our children. Our campers and all-volunteer unpaid staff become, for 8 days, an international secular community. Camp Quest is a unique and unqualified success in the battle for the minds of our children in what I call "The American Religious Civil War."

     The American Religious Civil War, treasonously declared and waged against our Constitution by those who do not understand, or do not like, our American system of separation of government and religion, has already produced a frightening body count, and more casualties are yet to come. We must strengthen our children in their quest to live meaningful lives in a society where many wrongfully and incorrectly characterize them, marginalize them, and then reject them—where they are made taboo because they do not believe the "right" way or in the "right" things, as those traitors who would have our free land governed by their ideas of religious truth want them to believe. At Camp Quest, our children learn they are important human beings with a right to believe, or not, as they choose; that they have a right not to be defined by others. Our motto is, "Camp Quest. It’s Beyond Belief." "Quest" stands for: "Question; Understand; Explore; Search; Test."

       When asked what she had learned at Camp Quest, one little girl replied, "I have learned it is okay not to believe in god." Please note she didn’t say she had learned not to believe in god. We never teach that there is no god. She said she had learned it was okay not to believe in god. She didn’t know that before coming to Camp Quest. At Camp Quest, our children are taught the principals of reason, critical thinking, logical fallacy, ethical behavior, and the methods of science and evidence. We teach our campers there is a difference between Righteousness and Self-Righteousness. They learn that the invisible and the non-existent look much the same. At Camp Quest we have two invisible unicorns, and there is a prize, as yet unclaimed, of a godless $100 bill, for any camper who can prove that the invisible unicorns aren’t there.

       We teach them the difference between belief and proof; between faith and fact; that they are part of a great historic tradition of bringing light unto darkness; that there is a difference between that which is ethical and that which is expedient; a difference between being truly moral and being a follower of religious rules. Our children learn that science is based on facts, not on fairy tales. That evolution is a fact and that "Creationism" is a fairy tale. That there is a difference between coincidence and causation. A difference between potential and actual. That an egg is not a chicken and that an acorn is not an oak tree.

       At Camp Quest, while enjoying all of the childhood fun of any summer camp, our children who are our future learn that what happens to each of us and to our world is based on cause and effect—not on faith and miracles. They learn that behavior has consequences. If you run on a wet trail you can slip and be hurt. If you let fools be your rulers, then you will be ruled by fools. We teach them to live—not for life after death, but for life before death. They learn we all share the mystery of having been born human. We teach our children there are many races and religions and the meaning of our nation’s historic motto, "E Pluribus Unum," and that we Americans are truly, "Out of Many, One." For their own safety’s sake, we try to help them to learn to distinguish between logic and fallacy; between science and superstition; between real and pretend; between the wonder of discovery and magical thinking. We want them to grow up knowing the difference between doing and dogma; between imagination and mythology. Most importantly, we try to teach our children to be competent. They will be competent when they can survive, thrive, create, empathize, and interact justly with others, free of pain, fear, and guilt—without gods, without religion, and without us. If they can be thus brought to self-reliant adulthood, they will not need the gods or the religion, and they will not miss them. If we have done it right, they will not need us either. But they will miss us.

       All we want, and all our children want, and all we want for ourselves and for our children, is to live as Americans in an America where it is "okay not to believe in god." To do otherwise is to defile the graves of our martyrs. All we want for ourselves and for our children is to live as free people in a free America, where all Americans can join together, in the words of our patriot ancestors, in pledging our allegiance to: "One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all."