cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20749204
Another positive step in the right direction for an organization rife with brokenness. There’s a lot I don’t like about the organization, but this is something a love–a scouting organization open to young women and the lgbtq community. The next step is being inclusive of nonreligious agnostic and atheist youth and leaders. As well as ending the cultural appropriation of Native American peoples.
May this organization continue to build up youth, never allow further violence against youth, and make amends for all the wrongs. There’s a lot of good that comes out of organizations like this and I won’t discount it even though it’s riddled with a dark history.
Please do atheism and agnostics next. I finished all the way up to doing my eagle project, all I had left was to finish some paper work and I would have gotten my eagle. I quit right about then, because what was the point? They were just going to take it away from me later for not believing in some magic book, I wouldn’t be the first they did it too. Absolutely ridiculous.
Edit: Any magic book** they don’t even discriminate against other religions is the part that drives me even crazier. You just NEED to believe in one.
What? As a complete outsider (I’m from Sweden,
scouts isn’t a thing here) what does scouting have to do with religion? Why would they discriminate against atheists?I thought scouting was about natural sciences, and helping out in the local community? Which to me sounds pretty nice!
Edit: Scouts are a thing here in Sweden. Thank you for the corrections, I’m quite baffled I’ve managed to miss that.
The Boy Scouts of America is a Christian organization.
Although, as I was a scout myself that shit never came into play other than the occasional group prayer at big, national events. The individual stuff in our troop was agnostic af and my troop leader was Jewish.
This exactly. When going up ranks, it was the smallest topic. “Yeah, god, great guy”, the leaders chuckled, we moved on.
It’s not exclusively Christian though, a scout can get recognition from what looks like most popular religions:
https://www.scouting.org/awards/religious-awards/chart/
And no religion at all. I just said I was spiritual and meditated and it sufficed.
Gonna have to get Satan on that list if they want my kid pledging in it.
I believe we have Christian led organisations here in Sweden as well, but they don’t necessarily push religion as part of their operations. It really depends though. I recall an after-school thing being held at a local church when I was a kid. Other than it taking place in a church from the 1200s, there wasn’t really anything religious about it.
Are the girl scouts also religious? All I’ve ever really heard about the girl scouts is that they sell biscuits, but I assume they engage in the same activities?
Girl Scouts are secular. They’re completely different organizations rather than two branches of the same organization.
BSA has everything to do with religion. It’s a part of their oath, and advancement requirements (duty to God).
The Scout Law - “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and REVERANT.”
Also the scout oath: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;…”
In Canada they added a second option. Old: “On my honour; I promise that I will do my best; To do my duty to God and the King;…” New: “On my honour; I promise that I will do my best; To respect my country and my beliefs;…”
At my eagle interview, they asked me which point I would take out of the scout oath, and I said, Reverent
You should have tried to sneak in “revenant” to see if it gave you the ability to raise the dead.
you know, Im not gonna fix that lol
You didn’t mess it up. It just made me laugh thinking of it happening. I may have been reading too many bad horror books lately.
For the scout law, reverant doesn’t have anything to do with God necessarily. It is usually used in reference to God, but it could be reverence of nature or other things.
Exactly what I did to get Eagle.
Ooh. I suppose this is the answer I was looking for, though it still strikes me as rather strange. Was scouts established a very long time ago and did the religious bit just kind of cling on? Is there any type of push for making it secular? Because what little I knew, learning about natural sciences, and getting hands-on experience in various situations, as well as helping out the local communtiy just strikes me as a very positive thing. Squeezing in religion among all that just feels so out of place and foreign to me. It’s like one of those “find the odd one out” situations.
A lot of people have mentioned that the reverence can be loosely defined and doesn’t necessarily specify a certain god, but also a lot of it depends, I’m sure, on which part of the country you are in, which organization charters for you, and the volunteers that are actually part of the organization. Many people have barely had to say what they are reverent to and move on.
In the US they never dropped the mandatory overtures to religiosity. In fact, there was a period in the 90s-early 2000s where one sizable religious group who had replaced their prior youth organization with the BSA got pretty involved at the national level to the detriment of the program as a whole. While it’s not really required in any real sense at the troop level, you do have to affirm a belief in some “higher power” as an adult volunteer. (I’m an Eagle Scout and now atheist)
In Sweden, the Svenska Scoutförbundet was an outgrowth from the original UK scouting movement, but I don’t know how big it was/is.
Oh, the Mormons were deep into Scouting well before the 90s, they just starting throwing their weight around as it became less popular to the general public and outside social pressures (i.e. not being dickbags) starting being voiced alongside the churchy bullshit.
What I don’t know is when they started directly paying a negotiated rate in dues straight to BSA. I do recall when I was a little LDS kid bringing my dollar a meeting or whatever for Cub Scouts, but by the time in was in Boy Scouts in junior High they’d stopped asking for that and someone told me the church handled it.
I know. It just seemed to me that their influence began to ramp up even more (perhaps that was just my local troop though) when the LDS Church started paying registrations and activities fees in the early 90s but it truthfully happened slowly like boiling a frog over a long time.
I read it as “a little LSD kid”.
You know, we were subject to a lot of hallucinations…
What? Sweden don’t have scouts? My daughter was on a scout camp there last year and I believe there were swedish scouts also.
Regardless, in Denmark we have a few scout organizations. One of them KFUM (which would translate to the same as YMCA) which is the christian boy’s scouting org, that also allows girls, and the similar one for girls that don’t allow boys. Both of them has Christianity as a pretty foundational thing and most of the clubhouses are in or near churches and they have church services on camps and shit. Then there’s DDS (dark blue uniforms) and they’re not connected to any faith, but are still committed to the “spiritual development” of the scout. However this can be done in other ways than inflicting religion on children. In 1973 they merged the boy and girl scouts, so it’s just one thing now. The yellow scouts branched from DDS in the 80’s, with a mission to go back to more traditional scouting values. Not sure what that means, but they’re a also non-religious and non-political organization.
Finally there’s some Danish Baptist scouts but I don’t know much about them other than they’re likely a more religious variant of KFUM, attached to another christian flavor.
Actually we do! I was corrected on this by @[email protected], and looking it up myself they’re actually quite prolific. Going by their website they exist in 220 out of the 290 municipalities here in Sweden. Honestly I’m surprised I’ve never heard of them before. They even have a folk high school.
Because the US is never more than a couple of steps from a Christian fascist theocracy.
Same reason Alcoholics Anonymous requires you to put faith in a higher power.
What! That’s also so bizarre! Isn’t AA just group therapy? Why does that require a deity?
Because it’s manipulative and they only care about helping the “right” people.
Norwegian who was in “Speider’n”. Nobody here cared about the religious parts of it.
I love that they’re called Speider’n over there. I can see how that can be read as scouts, but in my head, “spejarna” sounds more like some sort of spy school organisation. I’m also baffled there’d be religious parts of it even in Norway. Wonder if the Swedish organisation has it too, their website at least highlights that they really value diversity, it’d be strange if they were anal about religion.
Even then, religion seems like such a strange and unrelated thing to chuck in there.
Vi har eller har haft (jag är inte uppdaterad) PMU Scout, KFUM/KFUK-Scouter, NSF-scouter och Svenska Scoutförbundet på rak arm, så scouterna har ganska många förbund i Sverige dock
Är religion en stor del av våra scoutförbund också? Måste medge att jag är lite paff att jag har lyckats missa att scouterna finns i sverige, så tack för korrigeringen. Vi svenskar är verkligen tokiga i att grunda förbund, föreningar, och folkrörelser så det känns ju rätt rimligt att scouterna skulle finnas här också.
Väldigt många har kristen grund men som så många andra sammanhang är det väldigt bredd på hur fundamentalistiska de olika patrullerna är.
Har mött scouter som ser kristendom som centralt i scoutandet medans andra ser det som survival training för ungar eller förberedande inför FBU, lump eller liknande
The three core principles of scouting are:
So unfortunately removing religion from the scouting would remove one of the core principle of the movement, I don’t think it would anytime soon.
Which is a shame because I really enjoyed my time scouting, I think it was a great balance of fun, education and learning responsibilities. But the religion aspect of it make me seriously reconsider to send my kids to do it or not.
Because 'Merica!
Yeah religion is shoehorned into a lot of things here. Alcoholics anonymous is religion based which makes absolutely no sense to me. Going to AA and being force fed religious bullshit would make me want to drink more.
It was also forced into some kind of rehab my buddy had to go to (court ordered after being caught with weed years ago). He took WAY longer than he should’ve because he’s very stubborn, and said he doesn’t need god to not need vices. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was in a similar boat. Luckily they didn’t ask me if I believed in god during the actual board of review, so I got my eagle in the end.
Still a super shitty aspect of scouts.
I’m really sorry to hear this. One shouldn’t have to lie about this, but should be allowed to not practice any particular faith. It’s honestly one of the most frustrating elements for myself among the scouts.
This is one of the reasons why I have embraced my own magical book about my own magical being of my own making. When conversations inevitably go towards religion, I sometimes like to express my lack of faith by describing my mystical faith in the Cabra Cosmica. Yep, I’ve got mythos down and everything. Ironically, I really enjoy this form of make-believe faith. 😁
Please allow me to introduce you with a fantastic stained glass depiction:
if you dont want to DIY it the Satanic Temple, Discordianism, Secular Paganism and The Flying Spaghetti monster all “exist.”
Ramen to all.
Forgot the Jedi Order
Is that a nativity scene with spaghetti in the manger?
Don’t forget the Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU)!
Where can I read lore?
What are the tenets of Cabra? How do you know its real? (I know its not but I love invented faiths)
The tenants are very much in kind with those of secular humanism. And the Cabra Cosmica is as real as I wish it to be, which is both simultaneously very real and very not.
I often give thanks for my good fortune to the Cabra Cosmica as I do the Cosmos itself. I just wish to be thankful towards a thing at times and it can help to personify it. I mean, I did it most of my life to another false deity. Why not any other.
I know the Cosmos. I exist within it. Science describes it and defines its laws. Sometimes I give it a face. And sometimes that is the Cabra Cosmica.
I love it! Thanks for sharing :^)
That aspect reminds me of the Shinto belief that everyday objects have little spirits in them. I don’t believe in spirits, but I can see how this could be an interesting or useful mental exercise.
Best of luck with your religion. Have you fought any holy wars yet?
The only holy wars fought thus far involve conflicts over the correct installation of toilet paper rolls. And there is a right way.
Some things are worth dying for.
There definitely is a right way. I hope your faith is on the right side…
ANY religion will do? As a ordained dudeist priest, I say you should give it a go. Just be chill about it.
I just didn’t mention my beliefs. I think I was asked vaguely about it and I vaguely answered, but if you’re still able to I’d say to do it. Having the eagle scout behind you can open some doors. It can’t hurt.
Would they have accepted The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Probably. Scouting America has been openly Deist for a long time and there is an official “Event” for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. So at least at the national level they don’t seem to care what Deity you jam too as long as you have one.
I think I read freemasons were like that. Didn’t care what you believed in as long as it was something bigger than yourself.
Yes, I did this for my Eagle.
I was in a Mormon troop, and went through with it, though only by the skin of my teeth and my dad’s incessant badgering. 17.75 years old would have been right about the time I was muscling up the courage to go openly agnostic. They don’t exactly follow up.
Glad to hear about this change. I’m now somewhat less ashamed to mention it. I did the most cliche “picnic tables for the elementary school” project ever. I really didn’t give a shit about advancing, but a certain ex-marine father got a bug up his ass and decided he would be the troop leader until I finished the damn thing.
Sorry you didn’t get there, but you didn’t miss a once in a lifetime event either. Religion has no place in society or scouts. One day it will be gone and kids like you won’t have to deal with that.
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Eh, millions of people also believe(d) that:
…were real and divine. And would have sworn on their life that it was true.
But your minority religion is the one that’s finally real, right?
You missed a bunch of good ones:
In all likelyhood, just as real as the ones you listed :)
THE GREAT WHITE HANDKERCHIEF WILL COME
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We have some really weak records that some dude existed.
That doesn’t mean anything about why your mythology is true. We also have records of lots of people who millions believed were divine.
But heres another thing: You are not a Christian because it’s Truth.
You’re a Christian because your parents were. That’s it. That’s the main reason you believe what you do and swear it is real. You happened to be born into it.
Same as how 99.9999% of Hindus are only Hindu because their parents were, or Muslims, or etc. They also believe what they do not because it’s the Real Truth. But because of where they were born. Which is a really, really weak reason.
…And anyway - there’s a whole lot more people alive today who believe in other religions; why should I believe yours over theirs?
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If he’s going to be judging the dead when he comes back, why are Christians always talking about people currently being in heaven or hell? Shouldn’t they all be chilling in purgatory until Jesus gets around to judging them?
I’m sure it’s going to get right on that.
No. I did mine and said I wasn’t religious, but I was spiritual and meditated. That’s all was needed.
Spiritual and meditated would fall into that some kind of belief thing for me. Saying I was spiritual in any facet would still be me lying to them, and I was just as stubborn then as I am now haha
That’s not true. You do not have to believe in a magic book. The BSA requires a belief in God, but does not define god. It requires religion, but does not define religion.
Why is the sky blue?
If you answer “because God wanted it to be blue”, you’re good.
If you mention something about physics and Rayleigh Scattering, you’re good.
If you answer “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it”, you’re good.
Even If you answer “who cares?”, you’re good.
The only surefire way to answer this question “wrong” is something like “it’s not blue because of God, because there is no god.” While that statement is true (at least for any supernatural definition of “god”), you’re not being asked what you don’t believe, but what you do. You’re not being asked to rebut someone else’s belief; you’re being asked about your own.
Do you hold anything to be “true”? Are the laws of thermodynamics obeyed in your household? Maybe Descartes’s First Principle is more to your philosophical liking: “I think, therefore I am”. 1+1=2?
The sum of everything you hold to be true, BSA refers to as your “god”.
I know people who have been kicked out for being an atheist, they didn’t really care to ask any of the questions you’re suggesting at the time. All they asked was if he believed in any higher powers and he said no. I wouldn’t say he was wrong, I don’t think science is a “higher power”.
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Lol care to elaborate
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Hahaha okay buddy
TLDR: Scouts are about nature AND religion. Not just nature. There are many organisations that are just about nature. Feel free to join them.
Why should they not discriminate against atheists?
For real. Just because you believe it is about nature? Scout organizations are clearly about nature AND religion.
Join an organization that is just about nature.
In my country we have two strong scout organisations. One religious and one not. Religious one focused more on a personal growth and the other one more on nature skills. (Well some of my friends in religious one were atheists they just had to practice the same activities)
Churches do not accept atheists. Chess clubs discriminate against non chess players.
But if they would include non chess players, chess clubs would have no meaning.
One can see you do not hold religions in high regard, but please allow people with the same interests and believes to meet and express themselves together in a peaceful manner.
That might work in your country, but there isn’t some non-religious version here that’s popular. They also don’t advertise as religious at all, just the nature aspects. Religion wasn’t mentioned in the organization a single time until I was already in for… 6 or 7 years maybe?
What? Weird! This is against what this organization is supposed to represent. Sad.