Merlyn_LeRoy

No matter how you slice it, the SA is doing way, way better than the BSA in terms of membership over the last 10 years.

Boy Scouts of Canada went co-ed and opened membership to, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, atheists, and agnostics. Their membership crashed - down 63% If you argue it's not cause and effect, at least there was no increase in membership. And the UK Scout Association has done much the same thing, and membership has been increasing since 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_grassland_whiptail_lizard Plus, they're even fertile. Lots of other examples, but most don't produce offspring.

He's quoting (I can't tell if it's intentional or not) the Firesign Theatre "Papoon for President" slogan, "Not Insane!" http://www.cafepress.com/firesign/5836867

That's actually Emo Philip's joke: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion

Well, in answer to AZMike, "How is that relevant?", I'd say it's about as relevant as what you've said about atheists.

And if you like dueling Pew survey citing, this shows that out of the 5% of respondents who said they do NOT believe in "god or a universal spirit", 14% of them said they were some flavor of Christian: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/04/02/n...lves-atheists/ And if you think it's unlikely that 10% wouldn't know the definitions of words, how about 26% of Americans not knowing that the earth goes around the sun? http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says

Under the terms of service for this thread, I have to avoid insulting other groups, and am obliged to say that I can't agree with your contention that over a tenth of people who identify as atheists are ignorant of basic English vocabulary. If they actually call themselves atheists yet believe one or more gods exist, then they simply do not know what words mean. However, I've pointed out other problems with such surveys so this isn't necessarily what's going on. Happy to give you the cite, Merlyn. You may have been looking at a different Pew survey than this one, Nope, it says exactly what I mentioned -- here's a direct quote from your link: Indeed, one-in-five people who identify themselves as atheist (21%) and a majority of those who identify themselves as agnostic (55%) express a belief in God or a universal spirit. I was incorrect when I said about 10% of Atheists believe in God. It's actually about twice that, or 1/5 of all atheists. Wow. No, you can't change the response from "belief in God or a universal spirit" to "belief in God". That isn't what it says. It could be that there are a lot of people who are very unsure of what they believe, Or what words mean. Or a combination. Or other factors, like being asked about "God or a universal spirit" instead of just "god".

If you were a SM for a troop with all manner of beliefs and you wanted to start or end a meeting with some sort of way for all the scouts to dig a bit deeper and be a little more selfless, what would you want to do? To somewhat paraphrase 1 Thessalonians 5:21, never stop testing your own opinions; hold on to what is good.

Don't forget Light Yagami, though in his case it would be keikaku.

Topic drift happens; this part can be spun off in a new thread.

Over a tenth of the people who self-identify as atheists even say they believe in God and an afterlife. That's screwy, I know, but there it is. There is a natural human pull towards religion. I'd say there's a natural human pull to not know what words mean. Someone could, I guess, say they were an atheist, but that they still believe in God (again, about a tenth of atheists do). I have never seen an actual cite for that; what I HAVE seen are surveys that either don't use just the word "god" (Pew used "god or a universal spirit", which is NOT the same as just asking if a person believes in "god"), or even worse, a survey that assumes lack of religion = atheism. They could get in, even if they don't fit your puritanical, judgmental, uptight definition of "atheist." (It's just, like, a label, man.) It's an incorrect label in that case. Words actually mean things. And, not every atheist is a materialist reductionist I, of course, know that. and there are real atheists (that is, people who don't believe in God) who nevertheless believe in reincarnation and crystal energy and ghosts and angels and all sorts of spiritual things. I've said so before in this forum myself. I've seen the reincarnation and ghost types on the internet. Personally, if such a New Age atheist decided that his idiosyncratic belief in the Vibratory Energy of the Fifth Integral was equivalent to a belief in God, and he was willing to join the BSA on that basis...I would probably be okay with that. A local person being OK with it is not the criterion the national BSA uses. But if an atheist honestly can't say that he has some conception of a Higher Power, or even a Transcendent Moral System (a la Karma) that they feel is a conception of "God"...then you don't fit the membership requirements. I'll go further than that -- if you don't believe in whatever the BSA considers a "god" this week, you don't meet the requirements. Nothing against you, and we appreciate your honesty and integrity. I disagree. This is one reason why public schools had to be removed as chartering organizations. I don't want to speak for them, but Buddhists involved in scouting seem to feel that their conception of a Higher Power (such as Karma or the 8-fold path) is sufficiently close to the "God" in the Statement of Religious Principle that they are comfortable being in Scouts. In my opinion, the BSA is too pig-ignorant about religion to really know there's a conflict. I do not believe that every, or even any, Buddhist involved in Scouting is a liar. I doubt you think that either. No, but some actual Buddhists in the BSA seem to know there's a problem -- here's a bit I posted in this forum back in 2008, about this correspondence with the National Buddhist Committee on Scouting from 2006: Victor Iwamura, the chair of the National Buddhist Committee on Scouting, is still trying to "influence the powers that be" on the issue of Buddhists omitting 'god': http://groups.google.com/group/rec.s...ed2e62c872ccad Moderator comment: If anyone follows the above link, you will find more infractions to the rules for this thread than I can count. I will leave the link in case anyone wants to read on but be advised, it is going to take you into a whole different realm of discussion and not one that is appropriate to follow in this thread.

As NJCubScouter alluded to, the rules were changed deliberately to prevent a Wiccan award from getting approval; yes, it's totally contrary to the BSA's supposed non-sectarianism. Looks like this requirement also scuttled a Navajo religious award, it doesn't look like this effort from 2007 succeeded: http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/main.asp?SectionID=35&SubSectionID=47&ArticleID=6039

I haven't seen any official BSA pronouncement that requires belief in a "transcendent objective moral system" or anything similar, but I have seen where belief in a god has often been stated as a requirement. The BSA's religious requirements simply aren't coherent.

Scientology charters (or chartered) at least a couple of troops, 313 in Clearwater, FL, and Troop 8 in La Canada, CA. I consider it to also be a criminal organization.

Just come right out and say slavery is moral. And it's OK to beat your slave as long as they don't die for a couple of days. Nope, he told them they could take slaves from the countries around them, and sell the children of slaves as slaves. See, this is why I think god-based morals are about the worst kind of morals -- people will rationalize anything away. Killing everyone in Jericho, including children and infants? Hey, it's moral as long as your god wants you to kill them.

What are you talking about, God never professed slavery as a standard of moral behavior? He commanded slaves to “not rebel against their masterâ€Â, which is consistent with his commands for all people to not rebel against their leaders or governments. How isn't that supporting slavery? However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT) See, it's OK to sell the children of slaves, as slaves, as long as they aren't israelites. Like I said, I consider that immoral.

So what's that got to do with anything being legal? My remark about slavery had to do with Eagledad's statement, which was explicitly about "standards of moral behavior": "God is principled, reasoned, consistent, and never changing."

Call me crazy, but I consider slavery immoral.

At the core, the biggest difference between the atheist and God believer is the willingness to let go of a part of themselves in understanding or Faith that there IS a power beyond themselves and their understanding. Your statement is assuming your metaphysics is actually true, which atheists don't grant. It also doesn't appear to relate to former believers who later became atheists.

Whenever anyone tells me what I think before I've given my opinion on a subject, or tells me what I would do in some situation that I likewise haven't referred to, and get it wrong, I tell them that they're lying. Because that's exactly what they're doing. I've done it before in this forum.

I disagree that that is ALL it means. It certainly can be due to hatred.

What would we do without equivocation? Hey, there's no reason to protest whites-only clubs anymore, all discrimination is interchangeable. Your equivocation fails you here. The way you've stated it, anyone who buys local and only products "Made in America" cannot be a member of any hate group against foreigners. I say it's possible for someone who buys local and only products "Made in America" to be a member of a hate group against foreigners, as these acts are not mutually exclusive. But what's wrong with being a member of a hate group against foreigners? Isn't all discrimination interchangeable?