Merlyn_LeRoy

Scoutfish writes: That's just it...I'm NOT DANCING! I stated VERY CLEARLY AND PLAINLY that Taoists would be welcome. No spin, no twisting of words, no dancing. Taoists who are atheists do not meet the membership requirements. You..you, not me - not anybody else ...but you = qouted LIBob words about "then no entity in the Western sense of God can possibly exist." Because he was pointing out that not all Taoists believe in a god, and wanted to know if this might be a problem. The answer is yes. And please tell me how you came to the conclusion that Taoists are athiests. Wow, you really CAN'T read, can you? Taoists WHO ARE ALSO ATHEISTS are not welcome. I am not saying that ALL TAOISTS ARE ATHEISTS. SOME TAOISTS ARE ATHEISTS. If you read LIBob's original post, you'd realize that. If you googled for "taoist atheist" you'd find some. Now, you claim they are athiests, but only you. No, I'm claiming that TAOISTS ****CAN BE**** ATHEISTS. LEARN TO READ. Hmmmm, you wouldn't be lying. misleading or slandering just to try to prove something now would you? Cause if you have to lie to prove it...then you only prove yourself as untrustworthy and a fool. You just can't read. SOME Taoists are atheists. SOME Taoists are NOT atheists. The Taoists who are atheists don't meet the BSA membership requirements.

Scoutfish writes: Everybody who has answered LIBob - and coincidentaly happen to be active scouters or parents of active scouts or religious - have stated that Taoists are welcome and have taken the time to explain that to LIBob with open welcoming arms. And since I pay attention to what the national BSA does, I can also explain to him that every atheist known to the national BSA gets kicked out. Then you step in. The athiest ( which I respect, mine you) - the only person who is saying that Toaists ( as well as others) are not welcome. Stop misrepresenting my position. Taoists WHO ARE ALSO ATHEISTS are not welcome. Got that? Here it is again, because you can't appear to read. Taoists WHO ARE ALSO ATHEISTS are not welcome. LIBob's original post clearly spelled out that NOT ALL TAOISTS BELIEVE IN GOD. Keep dancing around the BSA's exclusion of atheists if you like. The BSA, officially, does not allow atheists to be members. Atheists who are also Taoists do not meet the membership requirements.

The rest of the DRP doesn't remove the requirement given in the first line. Why are you trying to dance around this, anyway? Don't you want the BSA to keep out Taoists who are atheists?

Seriously, Scoutfish. If the BSA says you have to believe in a god, and a member of a religion does NOT believe in a god, that pretty much means the BSA membership requirements exclude them. Lots of people like to try and dance around this, which I find pointless.

LIBob writes: Your input is also welcome here but as I am relatively new to scouter.com it might help me if you could pin your advice to your own experiences in scouting. I was only in scouting in the 1960s; in my area (central MN), religion wasn't an issue. My mom was a den mother and I was a cub scout and we were both atheists. My own opinion is that since BSA includes Zoroastriansim and Meher Barbar(ism) among its religious awards, but excludes Taoism among its religious awards, then perhaps some powerful guy in Texas has made certain, unsophisticated provincialish judgements about Taoism and God. Religious awards are created by members of that religion, not the BSA; the BSA only recognizes awards. However, the BSA changed their rules some years back in order to keep a Wiccan award from being created (which met all their old requirements, but could not meet their new requirements since they would have to charter at least 25 units, and the BSA flatly refused to allow Wiccan organizations to charter units). So it could be due to animus, or just no Taoist group has tried to create an award. As far as proof, I don't know of any case where a person known to the national BSA to be an atheist was allowed to continue being a member, and I can give you lots of links to court cases where BSA officials have stated that atheists can't be members, and news stories where atheists have been kicked out or refused membership. Being a Taoist might help, because lots of people can't understand that not all religions require a belief in god(s), but like I say, it's a crapshoot.

ScoutNut writes: >>"The reason I started the thread is because I read somewhere that BSA is less inclusive than world scouting, and specifically disallows any boy who does not profess belief in a single monotheistic God."

The judge could be an idiot; he was in Boy Scouts and didn't recuse himself.

Looks like the city will appeal, citing the recent Martinez decision by the supreme court, and claiming the jury verdict is inconsistent: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202463341027&Philadelphia_Cites_Recent_US_Supreme_Court_Case_in_Bid_to_Overturn_Scouts_Verdict

Ed writes: Sounds like spin time! If a belief and opinion are the same thing then believing there is no God is an opinion. You're the only one spinning, Ed. If belief and opinion aren't the same thing, what's the distinction between them? Also note that arguments over whether "I believe that not-X" is the same as "I do not believe X" is not relevant to whether belief and opinion are synonyms or not.

Yes Ed, like packsaddle said, belief and opinion mean about the same thing. And if my lack of a belief in a god wasn't an opinion (or lack of opinion), I really don't know what you'd classify it as.

scoutfish, I'm always ready to consider new evidence and ideas; I've never come across one for gods that was at all convincing. If you want to find terms similar to your beliefs, you can try belief-o-matic http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx

What's the problem with that, Eagle92? The agreement with the BSA always had a 1-year cancellation clause.

Yes Ed; like I just pointed out, Philadelphia was in violation of their own regulations.

Opinion has everything to do with this, Ed. Belief (or not) in a god is a person's opinion, and it's quite possible for a scout to be a theist for years and only become an atheist late in scouting, so he wouldn't have been "living a lie" in that case.

I'm not saying that you invented "Deists," but you do seem at once comfortable with manipulating the construct of your "Deist" to serve your intellectual arguments and utterly unable to apply that construct to a living, breathing "Deist." So what? Are you claiming such people don't exist? You say that a "Deist" could have no duty to God and still be acceptable under BSA policy (note that I did say COULD) but you cannot cite a living, breathing example of this. And why is that relevant? If a public school had a policy that no Australian aboriginals could be admitted, that would be racial discrimination even if no aboriginals lived in the school district. I'm talking about the implications of the policy, not whether or not there happen to be any real-life examples right this minute. So while you may attempt to use rhetorical devices to portray me as the one twisting your arguments, I would only say that your arguments seem to have twisted themselves! No, I don't use "rhetorical devices" to portray you as twisting my arguments, I show, directly, how your description of my statements are not the same as the statements I actually made.

By misrepresentation, do you mean outlining the twists and turns of our hypothetical "Deist" that you claimed to be acceptable in Scouting, even though he was really an intellectual construct onto which you projected your perceptions of BSA policy? No, by misrepresentation, I mean the way you wrote you described a particular type of religion called "Deism" with the implication that a "Deist" would feel no duty to God when I clearly described deism as a religion where a deist CAN feel no duty to god. And deists aren't intellectual constructs, they really exist. You seem to think I made up the term or something.

The amount of faith that our hypothetical "Deist" might have is not nearly as important as its mere presence or absence. Where is that written? What is important is that you described a particular type of religion called "Deism" with the implication that a "Deist" would feel no duty to God No, what I wrote was this: "Deists can believe in a god that doesn't know or care about humans at all, and have zero duties to such a god, and they're acceptable." See that "can"? That means it's possible, but not mandatory. Your phrasing that a '"Deist" would' is not accurate, since I never said a deist would believe in such a god, only that a deist can believe in such a god. but would still be okay to be in Scouts, then changed the hypothetical belief system of this "Deist" to cover pretty much anything, No, I didn't change anything. There's no set belief system. You didn't appear to understand that. then followed it up by admitting that you knew of no such "Deists." I don't know any people who describes themselves as deists, no. So? Why is any of that important? All I see is your misrepresentation of what I've said.

If Philly found the scouts violated their City Charter, what difference does it make if they pay rent or not. The violation of the charter remains No, Philly was violating the charter by leasing land to the BSA at less than market rates; there's no problem if the BSA leases land from Philadelphia at market rates.

I don't know anyone who is a deist, but there's nothing in the BSA's requirements that would suggest that a member be rejected for believing that they owe no duties to their god. And what does the "amount of faith" required to believe that relevant?

Pretty much anything, from nothing at all to whatever they believe their god wants. Do you disagree?

Uh, no, you still didn't understand mine. Deists can believe in a god that doesn't know or care about humans at all, and have zero duties to such a god, and they're acceptable. Like I said before, it's duties to something that can never be described because members have irreconcilable beliefs. My particular opinion doesn't even enter into it.

Uh, no. You don't understand my point. The BSA's belief in a 'supreme being' requirement allows anything, even gods with mutually exclusive traits, among its members. There is no trait that all these gods must have in common. The BSA isn't even clear if polytheism is OK or not. For any issue X, you could have one member whose god approves of X, and another whose god disapproves of X, for any X you can think of. Yet the BSA requires such a belief. A belief in something which has no particular properties. There's no point to that. It may as well be a requirement to believe in "bleem", and then refusing to define "bleem" in any meaningful way.

I will never understand why an organization would talk about duties to something which is never described, and due to irreconcilable differences between members, can never BE described.

So, people never, ever, change their religious opinions in your world, Ed?

skeptic writes: And if the last ML post happened, I would wager the building would sit vacant and become run down, as the economy is so bad, and the city has no money to keep it up. I would wager that the city would, like any other landlord, reduce the rent until a buyer was found. In fact, they essentially did this because they had recently re-evaluated it at $160,000/year, even though the $200,000 figure is what is still used in most newspaper stories.