AwakeEnergyScouter

It's a difficult calculus for parents for sure. After all, the absolute vast majority of kids weren't sexually abused, but it's so horrific that it can be hard to take the gamble for your own child. I mean, it's so hard to even think about because it's so uncomfortable and angering. No statistics are going to calm that feeling of parental fury. One of the things that struck me when we sold popcorn for the first time this past fall was how many old scout's faces softened when they saw us and expressed surprise and gratitude for that cub scouts still exists. One said outright that he loved scouting but was made to leave by his mom after... and then he realized there's a child present and said something like "the events". I'm glad that you got to join after all, and that (presumably) nothing happened to you.

I thought about this. This exact point is the painful point, isn't it? I don't think anyone ever thought about whether you could trust the scout leaders when I was a scout. If my parents had concerns, I never picked up on it. But my parents didn't have an abuse scandal to think about. How do you thread this trust needle? There's no nice quick answer. One possible help that I don't think I've seen mentioned is leaning into building an organizational culture in which the youth feel unconditionally heard when they voice concerns. You never know how you're going to react if it happens to you, and freezing is very common, but afterwards telling another scout can be an additional avenue support. The friend can't be responsible for dealing with it of course, but might be in a better state of mind to remind the victim to tell a trusted adult etc to make sure the larger world finds out and can take action. I never felt alone with a scout leader because there were lots of us scouts around. Perhaps I was naive, but that was my perception. I have spent a fair bit of mental energy trying to figure out whether unwanted touch is objectively sexual enough to ask someone to stop. I've now realized that it doesn't matter; one is also perfectly within one's rights to decline non-sexual touch as well. Nobody has a right to touch you against your will regardless of whether it's sexual or not. This could be an idea we could reflect more actively as we go about our activities. It could save kids from having to sort ok touch from abusive touch on very little life experience. We could also talk about how to support a friend who's been harassed, assaulted, or abused. When a friend told me she was gangraped I didn't really know how I could help best. I tried to tell her she shouldn't be ashamed, but she was, so much so that she didn't want to report like so many others. I wasn't able to give her the mental giant hug that I wanted to, and the perpetrators of course remain unpunished. No idea how to make that age-appropriate but somebody out there knows. Trust still rebuilds slowly, but actually being trustworthy in the first place is the foundation for it ever succeeding. For the new parents - perhaps getting to know the leaders at an adults-only meeting specifically to address the trust issue?

If there is no consensus, then it seems that the only way to show kindness and compassion for the whole painful situation is to steer clear of incorporating all Indian heritage. It might be more than necessary, but it is clear. And it might well be necessary. Either way, it seems like a situation where the action needed is clear without the details of the situation having to be. If we are kind, then we don't twist an old dagger that's still in a wound.

"The Spanish Inquisition would never have worked with the Church of England" (from Eddie Izzard's bit Dress to Kill) Thank you for flying Church of England, cake or death?

Yes, one could take the narrow view that the resolution talks about schools and OA isn't a school so it doesn't apply, but that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of being friendly, courteous, kind, brave, and reverent. Shouldn't we reach out to the Lenni-Lenape government to confirm? If they do indeed say "please stop guys", then... I think we are bound by our own values to do so, and muster the energy to meet that emotional difficulty with bravery and cheerfulness.

It makes perfect sense to me that BP wouldn't have meant the Christian God exclusively and/or hyperspecifically, at least not for long, given the general context of the times and his life's work and speeches. It's also kind of how I intuitively interpreted all the miscellaneous mentions of God in old songs and such as a child, including for example the Swedish Scout Song. "(Till Gud, kung och fosterland...") Just like singing that line is not an oath of personal fealty to the current king, having a duty to God isn't so tightly or literally defined in practice. The phrase is historical but is pointing at something more universal, like you say. The vagueness is actually an advantage IMO - you have to really think about it. That makes the end result really yours. I checked on my perception that God with a capital G refers specifically to the Christian God as opposed to god without one meaning any and/or an unspecified god, and while at least some online sources seem to share this division it still doesn't make sense to use that to say BP was only talking the Christian God or at widest the Abrahamic God. (The top hit was https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/God) I will, however, not invite the Jehovah's Witnesses in to ask, although I have to admit I'm curious about not just that but that I guess they don't see themselves as Christian? I have all kinds of questions about them I will take to my grave. One shouldn't take the phrasing "duty to God" too seriously in my personal opinion, but it's evident that it has caused confusion all the same. I and most other Europeans also have the luxury of no longer needing to worry about losing our rights and freedoms because of the Church, so it's easy to give a generous, inclusive reading when you have nothing to fear. I might not have felt the same when I would have faced torture for not believing in the Christian God, and I am definitely more sensitive to it in the US. But be that as it may, the wind in the scouting movement's sail is the power behind discovering how those universal human values feel when you proclaim them and live by them. 🙇🏼‍♀️🙏

This is an interesting take, but I'm not sure that this is generally how the words 'morals' and 'ethics' are used. I checked my own understanding, and it seems that while your argument is coherent from its own definitions, 'morals' is commonly used without any implication of being commanded or of a godhead and 'ethics' is actually the more universal synonym of the two according to Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moral Sīla, for example, is often translated 'morality'. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/sila-Buddhism) But I imagine this didn't come out of nowhere. Is this usage of morals and ethics common in your social circles? May you be well 🙏

How wonderful. 🙏

The reason I asked for clarification is that this is a topic for which precision in word usage is very important, and also because I am unaware of any recent movement to remove spirituality from scouting. In other words, I'm not entirely sure what you see from your POV. You see a change of some kind but I want to be sure I understand what you're talking about. If by religious you mean any and all forms of organized and unorganized personally held spirituality, then I have never heard such a pitch to make scouting un-religious and need some catch-up. If by religious you mean theist, then there is no new movement, it's been un-religious almost since the beginning. The originator of scouting, BP, explicitly conceived of scouting as not being a Christian thing, and was the one to direct the movement in a explicitly unreligious direction once scouting spread outside traditionally Christian countries. The Boys' Brigade was the explicitly Christian alternative and is also still around, but never took off like the scouting movement exactly because it's not nearly as inclusive and therefore not inspiring. BP invited nontheists to practice at Gilwell Park, nontheists formed unreligious NSOs merely a few years after the founding of the movement, and more locally nontheists have been part of BSA for almost it's entire history. If your definition of atheist overlaps with nontheist, then the above is already true of atheists. Theism isn't the only form of spirituality, and the WOSM constitution defines Duty to God without reference to theism exactly to clarify this point. If by religious you mean formally belonging to a well-recognized religion only - then I think it is in keeping with scouting spirit to not start drilling prospective scouts on whether they're religious enough to join. I think we let whoever wants to join do so and stay out of policing people's spiritual beliefs. Being out in nature is a way to experience the sparkle for oneself, regardless of whether one sees it coming in. Further, the WOSM constitution uses spirituality, not religion, for the red thread that runs through scouting, although this is more recent so perhaps this is the change that you see? I do think that BSA should drop the religious declaration. I do not see why one needs to solemnly swear that one is spiritual but not kind or clean, for example, and this kind of entrance requirement feels like some purity or goodness test - entirely contrary to the inclusive and warm spirit of the movement. But what I'm really trying to do here is to strengthen the scouting spirit of that all are welcome. ♥️ We (the scouting movement) are so strong because we stand for universal values. We will only weaken with excluding this group and that group. We are all needed to build a better world. During the work of doing so, even strict materialists have the opportunity to notice the sparkle ✨

Quick clarification question - what do you mean by "un-religious" here? We may be talking about different things.

What interesting responses. I wasn't sure if I had perceived clearly, but it seems I had. Now I really understand some comments I've heard in our pack. Thank you to all who answered. This was tremendously illuminating for me. Going back to the previous question of whether scouting and/or Scouts BSA is built on a Christian or at least a theist foundation without which the scouting method will turn into chaos, then; the conversation has conflated the scouting movement with BSA. If BSA isn't necessarily a part of the official scouting movement in people's minds, then there are two cases. My answers are only for the case of the BSA being part of the scout movement (together with GSUSA but not the other non-aligned scout-like organizations) that has two worldwide governing bodies that co-lead the movement. So, for this case, my argument is that since nontheist scouting has been done for literally decades by many millions of scouts in many NSOs already, the empirical answer is in: no chaos, has never been, will never be. We're nothing if not cheerfully organized! The national Scout Laws and Promises aren't identical but reflect a core ethic that binds the movement together into a coherent entity with unity in diversity, and theism is part of what's optional. The unity remains without it. Question empirically answered. Now, if BSA is a Christian/theist organization and is merely inspired by the scouting movement at this point, then I can see the argument that there will be chaos in a Christian/theist organization if you remove the Christianity/Gods and that other similar organizations may or may not be good examples to follow. That I have no comment on other than to note that since requiring being of a specific religion(s) is contrary to scouting's core values, to me that case falls outside discussion about scouting. I'm not actually that interested in this case. People can start whatever scouting-like organizations they want, it's a solid movement to copy, but it's not scouting and scouting is what I'm interested in. This might be more of a heart issue for those who scouted in the BSA, I suspect.

Are you saying that the BSA and most members thereof see themselves as their own, separate scouting-like movement that shouldn't align with any other scouting-like organization?

That's true, the charter organization thing isn't done everywhere. I don't know what the influence of the YMCA was, but assuming in this context that it was an explicitly pro-Christian influence. I'm not quite sure I understand how these differences make comparing BSA scouting to other aligned NSOs invalid or unhelpful, though. Would you be willing to explain?

Why is American scouting different?

Unfortunately, it wasn't even grooming, because random guys threw all these requests at you seemingly without any consideration of why we would agree. I have no idea what they were thinking. It just formed a constant stream of chatter to shut down. Real grooming would have been much worse - I've heard of some pretty horrendous sextortion cases that started with catfishing. I don't bother with sites that aren't heavily moderated for this reason myself, and don't want to let my child onto the open internet until they're confident enough and tech savvy enough to reject men regularly. But even then, more trusted adults would be good. I understand wanting to shut down potential avenues for actual grooming, but you're also shutting down avenues for helping like you say. We obviously need to keep looking for pedophiles, but tacitly making the assumption that all men who want to work with and advise children and youth are displaying suspicious behavior isn't helpful. We need better discrimination than that. Especially on the internet, where pedophilia is far from the only problem! The vast majority of scouts in Scouts BSA fared no harm. Everyone who's been on the internet has met harmful people. The cost/benefit calculus is completely different online.

It's probably me. I never feel as foreign as in conversations about Christianity, all the Americans including the non-Christians all share a vocabulary and know so much about Christianity that you all seem like Bible scholars to me. I have met Jews that know more about Christianity than I do and I got top marks in religion class in school. A scout's own what, for what purpose? Own expression of spirituality, traditional forms of practice? What is the scout's own ______ supposed to achieve? Are we building community, pointing to reverence for... The natural world? Some and/or all deities from miscellaneous places? The buddhadharma? Studying comparative religions? And what is the connection to scouting - learning about diversity? Practicing patience? I looked at the resources you provided and couldn't quite guess beyond what I already knew, something to do with spirituality. That format was helpful to see for my own understanding, though, thank you for sending that. Gives me a better understanding of what we're talking about.

As it always has been in the scouting movement, the scout law. That's the whole purpose of having the law, that's our shared values foundation. That's also why WOSM and WAGGS approves NSO scout laws. They're all variants on a theme. https://www.scout.org/who-we-are/scout-movement/scout-promise-and-law "Scout Promise and Law Scouting celebrates inclusion and is open to everyone regardless of gender, age, background, faith, or beliefs. Every Scout is unique, but they find common ground in their shared Scout values. These values are upheld in the Scout Promise and Law, which are adapted to fit the unique culture, traditions, and diversity of each National Scout Organization. All adaptions of the Scout Promise and Law by National Scout Organizations and National Scout Associations must be approved by the World Organization of the Scout Movement. Scout Promise The Scout Promise is a personal and social commitment that a young person makes at the beginning of their Scouting journey. As every Scout around the world makes a similar promise, it promotes a sense of unity and marks the first step towards self-education and discovery of the Scout Method. A Global Pledge Reflecting the diversity and inclusive nature of Scouting, National Scout Organization often create own version of the Scout Promise but that can be said together and at the same time as a show of strength and unity. Here are just a few examples: Scout Law The Scout Law describes the values that every Scout should try to live up to in order to become an upstanding member of the Movement and their community. While the wording of the Scout Law has changed over time and among different National Scout Organizations, its key principals and objectives remain the same." https://www.wagggs.org/en/about-us/our-history/original-promise-and-law/ "THE ORIGINAL PROMISE AND LAW Learn about the Original Promise and Law of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting IN THIS SECTION Lord Robert Baden-Powell encouraged the development of the whole person, including spiritual, moral, physical, mental, social, intellectual and emotional aspects. All of these aspects all were instrumental in the creation of the Fundamental Principles of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting, outlined in the Original Promise and Law. ORIGINAL PROMISE On my honour, I promise that I will do my best: To do my duty to God and the King (Or God and my country); To help other people at all times; To obey the Guide Law ORIGINAL LAW A Guide’s honour is to be trusted. A Guide is loyal. A Guide's duty is to be useful and to help others. A Guide is a friend to all and a sister to every other Guide. A Guide is courteous. A Guide is a friend to animals. A Guide obeys orders. A Guide smiles and sings under all difficulties. A Guide is thrifty. A Guide is pure in thought, in word and in deed" What I scouted under was this https://www.scouterna.se/scout-ledare-kar/jag-ar-scout/scoutlag-och-lofte/ "To be a good friend The scout law is a way for us to make sure that we are kind to each other, nature, and ourselves. We don't promise to always follow the scout law, but we promise to try. The Scout Law A scout seeks their beliefs and respects those of others. A scout is honest and dependable. A scout is kind and helpful. A scout shows consideration and is a good friend. A scout meets difficulties cheerfully. A scout makes themselves familiar with and takes care of nature. A scout feels responsibility for themselves and others. The Scout Promise 'I promise to follow the scout law as well as I can.'"

@KublaiKen, to build off of @qwazse's distinction, Here are Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's words about theism in volumes 1 and 3 of The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, composed of talks he gave while alive: Vol 1 P 11: “KEY HINAYANA TEACHINGS: A non-theistic path In order to study the hinayana teachings and the buddhadharma, or the “teachings of the Buddha” altogether, you need to let go of theism. You might think that nontheism amounts to a reaction against spirituality and that there is no hope in such an approach. However, people who have given up the theistic approach to religion and spirituality still feel a quality of magical power. They feel that it is possible to practice and study very hard, and to develop strength or power over their situation. When you see that such nontheistic practicioners are becoming more sane, solid, and calm, you may begin to suspect that, in fact, something good is going on. As a reasonable person who is perturbed by your relationship with the so-called bread-and-butter world and uninspired by the prospects presented by this ordinary version of reality, you may begin to think of the possibility of getting into a different and higher realm of discipline and experience. If you do not want to do so within a theistic framework, you might decide to follow the nontheistic Buddhist path. The way to begin is with the hinayana, so it is important to understand how the hinayana teachings are structured.” P 48: “What Buddha said at the very beginning was that it is very necessary for you to be intelligent about what you are doing. Lack of intelligence is one of the most significant problems in spirituality and religion. Buddha's statement that you have to be intelligent about what you are doing and about your commitment to spirituality automatically brings up the notion of nontheism. If you are getting into true dharma, you have to check out your own psychological setup, first of all. You cannot simply trust somebody's blessing or magical power. You have to understand that your wretched setup is not so great, not so fantastic. That approach automatically eliminates the possibility of worshiping God, Brahma, or any other deity. All of that must go. You no longer worship your own emotionalized anything-at-all. You simply relate to your immediate psychological surroundings. You have to make that important point. You no longer worship anybody or try to gain magical powers, so you are stuck with what you are - your existence, your livelihood, your everything.” Vol 3 p 433: “39 The Importance of a Nontheistic View It is timely to review the difference between theism and nontheism, at this point, for we will continue to speak of the divine principle or devata throughout our discussion of vajrayana, so it is important to understand the nontheistic idea of divinity. The view of deity in tantra is often thought of as the same as in the theistic traditions. The simple fact of having all kinds of deities, gods and goddesses, devas and devis, is completely misunderstood. However, in the vajrayana teachings, the concept of deity has nothing to do with messengers or representations of some kind of external existence. We do not talk in terms of God, Godhead, or God-ness. There is no reference in vajrayana to celestial beings. Rather, we are talking about a higher level of energy, a higher level of wakefulness. (…) Buddhist tantric deities are simply expressions of our mind. So although the word divinity, or devata in Sanskrit, is used quite widely in the Hindu tradition as well as in the Buddhist tradition, there is no mutual understanding of divinity between the two traditions.” p 435: "The vajrayana approach to deity is very simple and basic: it is that there is no external salvation. Although in vajrayana we speak a great deal about the experience of blessing, or adhishthana, and we invoke all kinds of power and energy, those things do not come from entity existing either within us or outside of us. We do not invoke blessings from any entity at all. The whole experience of invoking the deity is on a nonentity level. That is a very basic point.” p 436: “The nontheistic view is crucial to the vajrayana. In hinayana, the question of nontheism is not particularly important. You do your little practice and you have your particular discipline. Everything is based on morality and discipline, on monastic rules and individual salvation. On the mahayana level, the theory of God or gods still does not play a very important part. You engage in compassionate action, and there is the inspiration from within concerning your buddha nature and so forth. But in the vajrayana, knowing the real differences between theism and nontheism is absolutely crucial. It is very tricky. It has been said in many of the tantras that whatever the deity, if you visualize the deity on the basis of blind faith or one-pointed belief, you are cultivating egohood. So nontheism is a very important point." This book has prefaces by (among others) the head of the Karma Kagyü lineage (the Karmapa), by the ninth Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, the seventh Shechen Ramjam (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's grandson), Tulku Throndup Rinpoche. This is, in other words, the establishment view of Karma Kagyü Tibetan Buddhism. So we are a deliberately nontheist lineage, part of a nontheist religion represented for decades in the BSA. Whether we are also atheist depends on the definition of atheist, and what you think the overlap between atheist and materialist is. I think there are effectively multiple definitions of atheist, since different authors use different working definitions in their texts. I usually call myself an atheist as well as a non-theist because, as in qwazse's example, I don't find the Christian God concept useful. (Or the Muslim Allah concept, or the Jewish Jahweh concept, the next most common theists I might meet.) Some might think I'm not an atheist but I think that's more linguistics. I'm definitely a non-theist as defined above by Trungpa.

🤯

Yeah, open internet is a no-no in our house, and will be for a long time. I agree completely that dangers of all kinds lurk on the internet. I had a long talk with another xennial mom who's a lot more worried about internet dangers than kidnapper dangers. We came of age right when the internet became ubiquitous, and we remember from our own adolescence the constant sexual harassment and/or prodding to send nude pictures and sex chat requests. I don't want to derail the thread with how dangerous the internet can be, but I do think that scouts might have a role to play as a place that attracts other parents that want to let their kid have some physical freedom to be unsupervised, or at least only lightly supervised. (Unfortunately, parents still need to fit scouts into the time puzzle that is daily life.) Some of the previous two words right at the start include that aspect though, IMO.

@SSScout Thank you for your reply. I'm glad to hear that your new computer is running! That's always a chore. It's interesting to hear your perspective as someone who actively works with this issue. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find passion, aggression and ignorance in samsara 😂 Round and round the wheel spins! So vows would be relevant here then, I suppose. Seeing if perhaps someone needs a ride to the other shore. It also sounds like adults aren't supposed to be running religious ceremonies at camporees in the first place, did I understand that correctly? It did sound funny that Scout's Own be done by not a current scout. Might I ask, what is the point of a Scout's Own?

Maybe it's as traumatic for them as it is for me if they have seizures! 😂 I'm a bit worried about the explaining aspect in a BSA context also, because of the very strong anti-atheist vibe. One can mean slightly different things by 'atheist', of course, but when the answer to "are you a theist" is "no" even in a scholarly, not just personal, sense, I can see that going south based on what I've seen on the Internet. If someone asks point-blank if my scout believes in any creator deity, they're going to have to say no, and then I think all hell will break loose and my scout may well get kicked out. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.

I hate to say this, but it's not a given that enough kids would be allowed to walk to a park unsupervised to play unsupervised, let alone this happening without neighbors getting involved. I tried to teach my child independence by letting the walk to friend's houses to ask if they wanted to play. In the 200 m from our house to a friends', they were stopped by a neighbor who asked if they were lost and only started walking again when the friend's dad came out to wave the neighbor off. No friends ever ring our doorbell without a parent. My husband shoots daggers at me every time I tell our child that they can go see if so and so is home. I don't know if I'm correct, but I think someone might call the cops and/or CPS if there were a bunch of kids playing without a gaggle of adults in the park. Not to mention all the kids are signed up for a million things that most of the time, the kids aren't home. Little League, just like cub scouts, assures you other kids who are into the same thing will be there. Childhood has definitely lost a lot of freedom. Not sure why everyone is so scared of kidnappers, but they definitely are. Although in the case of why my child's school now has security and checks ID against tickets only available through the school for elementary school soccer games, I do know - bomb threats against elementary students. Statistically, crime rates are way down, but emotionally everyone is very scared. The result is a lot of things, but includes that kids in the neighborhood playing outside spontaneously seems almost taboo.

I hadn't considered this. I cannot fathom starting a business meeting with a prayer. Unfortunately for my child perhaps, I don't have very much experience navigating these situations with grace myself. It isn't a needed skill in Sweden, and in the US I hadn't experienced any until I moved to the South, and my method for dealing with it is avoidance. It probably helps that I work with people from all over the Earth and so it is plainly never a good assumption that most people present are Christian. The few times when it's happened I am so taken by surprise that this is really happening that I feel like a deer in headlights. Once I can run away I do. But that obviously isn't handling it with grace. Any tips?

Thank you for sharing your experience. This obviously isn't what I was hoping to hear (I was of course hoping that my concern was overblown or that times had changed), but one does after all need to be prepared ⚜️☺️ Now I know we do need to have talk about this in a few years, or - quelle horreur! - next month before day camp. I will call the council to ask about religion at day camp so I know. If I end up continuing as a Scouts BSA leader if/when my scout crosses over, I absolutely will emphasize that any and all religious expression and practice at scouting events is 100% optional.