ThomasJefferson

BSA has changed policies, programs, uniforms, handbooks, requirements, badges, and many other things over the last 102 years. My question is simple: Do you approve or disapprove of BSA? My goal is to attempt an approval rating here on scouter.com of BSA. BSA is defined as the national corporation known as Boy Scouts of America which currently has a monopoly on use of the term Boy Scouts in the United States.

That is debated amongst historians. If you are Jewish, you may use the word "holocaust" to refer specifically to a Jewish historical event, and you may view the people who were Jewish being put to death as uniquely tied to that event. Therefore, if you hold that viewpoint, and if you were not Jewish, you were not part of the holocaust. You were just killed by Nazis in an organized fashion tertiary to it. Broader definitions include approximately two to three million Soviet POWs, two million ethnic Poles, up to 1,500,000 Romani, 200,000 handicapped, political and religious dissenters, 15,000 homosexuals and 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, bringing the death toll to around 11 million. The broadest definition would include six million Soviet civilians, raising the death toll to 17 million. Under that definition, it was not an anti-semitic event unless you were Jewish and viewed it in that frame of reference. The Nazis were very organized in their extermination of many different groups of people. They started by putting the mentally disabled to death. They were still trying to deport Jews at that time while they organized the deaths of others en masse. I think someone who is Jewish saying that Jews were targeted is accurate. Gays were targeted. Communists were targeted. Jehovah's Witnesses were targeted. Someone saying it was a Jewish event to a member of one of these other groups may find themselves passionately challenged to stop ignoring the suffering of these other groups and their lost millions as well.

Jblake, I think the interpretations are pretty much these:

I stand corrected. Lecturing on history from memory often fails me.

You know, I'm just not a big fan of memorials at all. Memorials are about feelings, so when feelings get hurt, it's no surprise everyone gets overly passionate and upset. I bet that around 50% of memorials are erected in anger as a way of tells us all to go fly a kite rather than out of respect and a sense of education of the public. In this case, my question is why do we need a holocaust memorial erected in 2013? Do we need a new civil war memorial too? What about a new War of 1812 memorial? Seems like a stale topic to be erecting statues for it. How much did it cost? And the land - what did that cost? Could this money have been used for something else useful to the community other than a 3D expression of outrange and sadness? At the same time, it probably didn't cost so much that it is worth protesting. I am not a fan of we atheists trying to expunge God from all public references. Walking through a cemetary the other day, I noticed the military headstones have symbols of each religion. The symbol I use as my avatar here is the symbol on the atheist headstones. I do not care to see all religious symbols removed from that public space. I'm more worried about the NSA thing, the US giving billions to dictators and bad governments overseas, us deploying the military too much, corporate control of our politicians, our cops becoming militarized, and BSA making a really uncomfortable and badly tailored uniform. So, I'd probably just shrug and walk by it. It wouldn't be the only one-sided view of the world my kids get. They are taught in school that we won WWII, but we all know the Russians had Hitler on the run before Pearl Harbor.

You will find that the persecution of Christians involves: * Denying official school-led prayers in government schools * Pulling specifically Christian symbols from public institutions funded purely with taxpayer money where other beliefs's symbols are not allowed * Any mention that churches pay taxes on profits * Requests that we remove references to spiritual entities from money, slogans, pledges, etc. In short, Christians in the US feel persecuted any time their absolute domination of American public life is challenged in favor of a secular, non-religious approach. I am unaware of any instance in the US where a Christian's civil rights were violated ever because they were a Christian. Probably there have been instances in schools where kids were wearing t-shirts with a bloody crucifixion image, handing out pamphlets, harassing other students, or attempting to organize mass prayers in class that other non-believers were told "You don't have to participate." To me, that's justice. Our nation operates best when religion stays at home and at church.

Conservative = resisting change. As the United States has historically not offered equal rights, and has historically resisted changing to offer them, I would say that not offering equal rights to people who do not fit the mainstream is a conservative idea. In short, to offer equal rights to all was not a founding principle of the US. Slaves were accepted, blacks counted as 3/5's a person, anyone not male and owning land could not vote. Access to public areas and business was limited to those in narrow group. It is very conservative to refuse service and rights to those who are considered odd-balls in America. Conservativism continues to preach that the country will fall apart if we continue accepting people who are not part of the mainstream of society. Just go to social services, tell them you want to foster a child, and that you are gay. Good luck!

Do tell what are those basic religious principles and what laws have we that are based on them? "founded on religious principles" is said often but unsubstantiated. So is the idea that our country is great. Great how? Greater than what? I have lived in many different countries. I do not find the US particularly superior overall. It has some good points and some bad points. I'm also not sure, acco40, how you can have a great country without great citizens.

The principles of Christianity made our country great? I would like to read the evidence for that claim. What in our history says that religion was responsible for American success? Will we even be able to agree on what American success looks like and what examples of it are? I doubt it. I believe a few particular people and events are what made our country great in terms of government process: Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (the real one) were hyper-intelligent men. They were also not particularly religious people. Their input was instrumental in everything that went on in the late 1700's. The singular event in our history more important than any other was Washington stepping down after two terms and refusing power. That was truly a noble act. I doubt any of our leaders today would be so pure of heart in his position. We owe him a great deal. Unfortunately, I would also say that today American government is no longer the government of the founders. We tweaked things here and there, and with the addition of technology, we've made a mess. We were advised by Washington to avoid alliances and enemies both, but we seem to have cornered the market. Our president was to be chosen by the Senate, but now he is popularly elected, as are senators who were to be selected by their states using whatever process they preferred including appointment. The states now have no voice in government. No one could have foreseen the willingness to read emails while outlawing the reading of physical mail without permission. No one could have imagined we would have this military might and that we would repeatedly, over and over, stupidly use it in a way that created more problems than it solved. I imagine Ben Franklin, once he got over the shock of being here, would be quite disappointed at what happened to Camelot. We had a chance at true greatness, but we became a paranoid, superstitious, arrogant people who eschew our own geniuses of our day and rebuke those who call BS on our bad habits and hard choices. We believe we are the saviors of the world rather than its humble occupants and helpers. We can't balance a budget, but we can store every phone record. I think maybe the USA is headed to totalitarianism, and it is too late to stop it. We're in the equivalent of 1933 in Germany. We're all arguing about what it means, but the dominoes are already falling and we've already cast our lot. It's done. It cannot be undone. It makes me sad. I imagine the US as this awesome country dedicated to freedom and justice for all, but too many videos of cops beating people senseless, too many innocent people charged with crimes, too much spying by the government, too many laws, too many tax guys seizing property, too many bankers walking off scott free while we get laid off, and too many lobbyists able to corrupt too many weak men and women in office... I think I've lost hope in our system. What makes America great? I cannot agree we are great. We are mighty. But that might doesn't seem to be used for good.

The road is already paved: Do scouting as they do it in the UK.

You state your opinion, and it is looking for consensus. I state my opinion, and it is looking for a fight. See how that works? One day, in the future, I believe people will recognize what they were doing was wrong, and will stop attempting to silence atheist belief and expression as an attack when they realize that religious expression and belief are just as much an attack as it is. Either that, or they will silence all on either side for the sake of silence. That would be sad.

Sure it does. Science reveals to us what happens in the world. We come to understand that when we do X, Y will happen. We test it repeatedly, and we know. What happens when you steal something? What happens when you help someone? Simple physics: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you help someone, that's what you get back. Call it karma or whatever. You don't need stories of ancient days and gods and demons and sins and crucifixions to be nice to people. You're just raised to believe that because you happened to be born into a society that believes that. If you were born in Japan or China, you would not think that. The last refuge of the religious. "You have offended me!" Yet the religious expect atheists to not be offended when you pray or otherwise tell us that you believe there is a God when we clearly see it is just a story like Santa Claus. People always get most offended when they are afraid what they are hearing is true and they don't like it. I however, feel no offense at the claims that I am wrong. I do not rely on faith for my beliefs. I can see my computer monitor working. I know the scientists that designed it are correct. They proved it. If my stating that religion is nonsense is offensive, it is no more offensive that someone saying that religion is true. I hope you can respect my side of the argument as well. If not, then what exactly are you asking for? Me to respect you while you disdain my position? I do not believe that ideas should be "respected." They should be treated as nonsense and tested, kicked, and debated until proven or disproven. That's what ideas are for. That's how science works. If someone has a strong argument that I am wrong, make it. I may change my mind. Because my beliefs are not a religion.

Not really. Tell, me what is this shade you think you have it made in? It will not lengthen your life. It will not protect you from illness. It will not protect you from violence. It will not protect your family. It will not reveal to you anything you can use in today's world that a simple kindergarten lesson in ethics is not superior to. It will cost you money. It will cost you time. I have been told that if I believe and there is a God, I will go to Heaven. I do not want to go to that Heaven. It does not sound appealing. It is filled with all of the unintelligent, closed-minded people of the world who were self-righteous, judgmental, and attempted to oppress others out of fear of offending their supreme being. The supreme being, as far as I can tell, is a highly flawed, petulant, inconsistent super creature that stopped doing interesting things as soon as the motion picture was invented. It destroys worlds, cities, people, curses them, gives them diseases, and capriciously treats them like filth while resenting them for reflecting back to it its own flaws. I do not wish to be "close" to something like that. Going into nothingness is preferable, even if I believed the stories. Now, to turn this the other way around, if I were SATAN, I would at once construct a biblical story, get it published, get the people who followed it into power, and make them worship me and only me while telling them I was their God. It's nice that religious people want to focus on the Golden Rule, a great idea, btw, but unfortunately the baggage and stories that go along with it are absolute rubbish.

And I trust that you also could see where the same stories were being told over and over again. Admittedly, I have not made it through the Old Testament, nor at the age of 61 do I feel inclined to (not when I have so much to write about BSA and about network programming). But I did read through the New Testament a couple times through. I have also read thePirke Avoth ("Sayings of the Fathers", part of the Talmudic tradition). I found the teachings of Jesus himself rather good, especially when he agreed with the Pharisees (spirit of the law vs the letter of the law, especially regarding the Golden Rule), but Paul's reinterpretation of Jesus into The Christ was very troubling and, most unfortunately, that is what Christianity is based on. "How, then, am I to live my life?" Kill Homosexuals "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB) Kill Witches You should not let a sorceress live. (Exodus 22:17 NAB) Death for Hitting Dad Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB) Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT) Apparently that is how you are to live your life. Science is not an answer to how to live your life. It is the method through which we explore the universe and try to understand how it works and why. However, science does explain why people want to life a "good life." Because of evolution. We evolved into social animals. And social animals all have interdependencies, that when violated, lead to the death of the tribe. You don't need religion to tell you it is wrong to steal. You know it is wrong to steal. Because when you steal, the pack/tribe/troop/herd attacks you and punishes you for it. If you got rid of all of the religions of the world, and wiped everyone's memories, a new religion would be crafted up. I believe that. Would that religion look anything like religion today? No. That's all I need to know that religion is just a story. Religions are invented by people.

That's factually incorrect - what you see as a flaw is in reality its strength!!! Science was always wrong before and will be wrong again? Not exactly. Scientific ideas are proposed, tested, observed, experimented with. As we learn more, we expand our knowledge, and the idea is clarified, additional detail is added, and the explanations improve over time. Example: We once thought the Universe was 7 billion years old. We now have better technology and analysis and know it is at least 13.7 billion years old. We weren't wrong before. We knew it was AT LEAST 7 billion years old. We now have a new, bigger number that we know is AT LEAST the age of the universe. We could learn next year through some new means that it is AT LEAST 70 billion years old. But, that is probably not going to happen, as in recent years we've uncovered the remains of background radiation of the universe reaching it's outer edges - we think. But we only think that. We don't say we know it. We say "It looks that way - we need more information." Religious "knowledge" never says that. It is never questioned, changed, refined, improved, tested. Rather, religion just keeps on keeping on being nothing. Look around you. What do you see? Electronic devices? Cars? Roads? Houses? Bridges? Lights? Cameras? Phones? All produced by science? What has religion produced that shows it works and that we know how it works? Nothing. What evidence is there that any religion has any facts in it? None. There are no facts in religion. While I congratulate anyone who seeks to morally better themselves, I would point out that morals are largely cultural constructs, and that they change with the times. The first commandment tells you to not make any image of anything ever. You are using a computer. You are breaking that commandment. If you are female, you are violating Timothy 2:11. "Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)" Are you going to put me to death? God commands it. Oh wait, no, your morals don't come from the Bible? Or do they? This statement is right alongside others you find comforting. I submit to you that scientists are comfortable with their ideas being reviewed, corrected, found wrong, and going back to the drawing board. But what religious leaders do is pick and choose what they like and ignore the rest.

I don't think a public figure like Einstein or Carl Sagan were stupid enough to publicly come out and speak ardently against religion. They carefully phrased their disagreement the same way I do in public around scout buddies to prevent myself from being identified. Christians react very, very negatively to opposing viewpoints. To say, "There was no Jesus. There is no God." to a Christian is tantamount to asking your family be ostracized in a community. They knew this. Atheism vs. Agnosticism: There truly is no difference. Atheism is the lack of belief. Agnosticism is the indifference to the existence of God. One says they do not believe there is one. The other says they don't care if there is one because it doesn't matter if there is. Really you're just splitting hairs when you go down that road. That's the sort of nonsense a table filled with astro-physics majors will argue about for three hours. The same way scouters will argue about knots on their shirts or should gays be allowed.

Your quotes actually work against you, I'm afraid. We can exactly explain how the planets were set in motion. And we have known that for a long, long time. As gravity begins working to pull matter together to form a star system, rotation naturally begins occurring because of the laws of momentum. The matter around the new star begins to move as gravity pulls it, and this is what sets that matter, which becomes planets, in motion. Perhaps if Newton had not been religious, he would have easily seen this, and humanity would be more advance today than it was then. Newton's religion was in fact a huge block to his furthering scientific research, and it stopped him from considering all possibilities. Newton's statement is cited by atheists as a case against religious belief because it closes the mind. Anytime God is the explanation, you've given up trying to find out the truth. This common religious claim that Religion and Science coexist nicely used to drive Carl Sagan crazy. He was so diplomatic, but considered these superstitions as blunting the minds of American youth to scientific inquiry, curiosity, and the advancement of the human race.

Science is the collection of evidence, observations, experiments, and testing your ideas to see if they prove out under stress. Religion is just a story someone wrote. There is no comparison. One is a fiction book. The other is the real world. I am happy that I do not believe anything that is in the Bible. All of the stories in the bible are just recycled stories with different names and slight twists from earlier cultures. Very little of the Bible to me is good advice or comforting. I find most of it brutal, horrific, and scary. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, but two thousand years prior was so pissed off that he nuked two cities and the surrounding areas because his creation had run amok. This speaks to an angry, flawed God with a temper who apparently cannot control man or create beings he is satisfied with. I can't remember if this is before or after this apparently non-innovative and highly flawed super being flooded the world to rid it of sin but somehow stupidly could not see that the people he saved would breed out randomly and result in there being sin again. The entire bible makes no sense. I read it to my kids to see if they were interested. We got through two books, and they were sitting there mouths open. "Poeple believe this nonsense?" I told them, "People do not read this nonsense. People say they read it, but really they only listen to surgically plucked phrases and quotes while never actually reading it." I've read the entire book cover to cover - unlike any other Christian I am aware of. Reading it as if reading a novel left me with my eyes bugging out at the goofy things I was reading and horrible advice I received. It's not extremism on both sides. Only religion is extreme. The rejection of it is simply to not believe it. It isn't anything. It's just a state of not purchasing the idea of a God. You are not an extremist if you don't watch TV. You are simply choosing to not watch it. Perhaps extremism on the other side would be calling for burning of churches and the banning of religion. Atheists don't really do that. We mostly ignore it and quietly tolerate religious behaviors around us without outing ourselves for fear of being judged and preached at by confused believers. The science of God is simple. People saw scary things, attributed thunder, lightning, comets, etc to Gods. Then a smart guy in the tribe saw opportunity and became the "priest" as a way of taking power without being chosen. If the chief was uncooperative, the medicine man said "The Gods have spoken. He is evil!" It's still done today by people claiming that God wants this and that when really it is just them who wants it. I was raised with religion. I am happier and my children are happier in a home with no ghosts, no alien abductions, no bigfoot, no lochness monster, and no God. This chart shows that the US is alone except for the third world in its religious fervor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gallup_Religiosity_Index_2009.png Here's a study showing that as a nation's average IQ goes up, the tendency toward atheism in the population also increases: http://davesource.com/Fringe/Fringe/Religion/Average-intelligence-predicts-atheism-rates-across-137-nations-Lynn-et-al.pdf The chart from that study: http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm There are well-studied links between growing up conservative and growing up with lower intelligence and fewer resources: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/13/1131220/-Religious-and-Conservative-people-have-lower-IQs-than-their-counterparts I believe religion is something that humans still feel they need, but eventually will just outgrow. No earth-bound religion will survive the arrival of a superior alien species or man's spreading out through space to other worlds. Once all of the events in the bible are easily explained with technology we possess ourselves, it's no longer going to interest anyone. It's all just a matter of time.

No. That is not how America works. Everyone gets a say in how things work in this country, and lobbying, handshaking, baby kissing, and speech giving to convince people of your position is a time-honored tradition. I reject the approach suggested because it is "Why can't we just stick our heads in the sand and not get involved and stand up for what we believe in." Scouts, more than others, should be passionate advocates of their beliefs.

Really? That would be news to a whole bunch of Buddhist (and a bunch of people of quite a few other faiths). Though I guess you could be one of those people that don't believe Buddhism is a real religion. The idea of the superhuman controlling power is a feature of an Abrahamic religion and the split off groups that emanate from those religions. That is the "Western" version of religion. The two major divisions of Eastern religious tradition tend more toward the totality of everything being connected and us understanding the true nature of that reality. That is to say, Buddhists do not necessarily but can believe in supernatural things. However, the achievement of enlightenment is the realization of what is actually going on - that is that none of this is real. Your goal as a Buddhist is to have this realization and transcend your connection to your own individuality. There are definitely atheist Buddhists out there. I know quite a few. I do not practice Buddhism. But as an atheist, I see myself as a very, very small, minute part of the massive existence of the Universe in its vast variety. As such, when I die, I will be recycled and my atoms will become the atoms of something else. What energy I exerted for good and bad will flow out from me like waves on the ocean and wash up on shores unknown for who knows how long in a chain reaction. Or I could have no impact at all. When I die, I will no longer exist as a consciousness. It will be the same as it was before I was born: nothing. It will not be a state of suffering. It will simply be a non-existence no worse than the 13.7 billion years prior where I did not exist. I do have beliefs in things I cannot prove, however, because like all people, I draw conclusions from my observations which make sense to me. For example, there are 200 billion stars in this smallish galaxy. A trillion stars in Andromeda Galaxy. And there are trillions of trillions of galaxies. I believe, without any evidence other than my own assumptions, that there are probably a trillion civilizations out there in the Universe. Some of them are far beyond us. Some of them are far behind us. But I cannot believe in a human-personified God because such myths and stories only make sense on a planet that exists alone in the universe. These myths were all conceived on a world that most believed to be the only world, with hell (lava) below and heaven (stars) above. In a galaxy with 200 billion stars and perhaps 1 billion habitable worlds, such a belief system is silly to me. Because a God in charge of a Universe this size where another planet may be controlled by trisexual octopus like creatures with the ability to be spacecraft that go faster than light - that being isn't going to care about human homosexuality or humans worshipping images of other gods. Nor is it going to make ten commandments about mothers and fathers. I wouldn't believe in a supreme being even if I saw it for myself. I would assume it was a superior life form but not a God, and that it was using technology and psychic ability beyond mine to amaze me.

Fraud has been proven and even resulted in investigations. It's not "unfair." It's a fact. Until BSA has independent auditors review all membership counts, I'm betting BSA's numbers are a complete and total forgery. All of those counts, even as seen on the anti-BSA sites, are invalid and overblown. I bet the only reason the girl scouts numbers are smaller is that they are honest about them. Really - is BSA is corporation that deserves government charters, trademarks, patents, and control over the boy scouting movement in this country? That monopoly hold needs to be broken.

OK, lots of writing, but no one addressing the issue: The First Commandment specifically bans making images of anything at all - that would include all statues, all paintings, all drawings. It also bans you in a separate statement from "bowing down" to them. Saluting them and pledging your loyalty to them seems to violate all parts of this commandment. Nothing quazse writes addresses why it is OK. It's just a history of rationalizations. If I were a Christian, and I believed wholly in the Ten Commandments, I would have no pictures in my home of any kind, no statues, no images of anything. No computer with images on it of any kind, and I would never salute or bow down to anyone or anything other than God. I don't see any way to argue that it is OK to do that. God says it isn't. Directly. Quoted, written words of law from God, those Ten Commandments.

None of these numerical counts are accurate. BSA was caught red-handed forging memberships to artificially inflate membership numbers in the 1990's. They lied about the entire increase throughout the 1980's. Auditors came in and scrubbed the numbers council by council and removed the false increase in members.

You forgot what you learned in science classes. Your definitions are not scientific. They are colloquial usage where hypothesis, theory, and speculation are equal. Not so in the lab. When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use. It all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn't believe in evolution because it was "just a theory", they'd probably be a bit puzzled. In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations. It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be. Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law. This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain. Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.