Religious Organization?

[evmori]

Did so!

Did not!

 

Don't worry, FScouter, I'm just waiting to see where this goes!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[packsaddle]

I have a great idea..ok, I may be the only one who thinks that...but here it is:

If they don't resolve these questions soon - we produce a farcical version of it ourselves, you know, to help Gern through this and maybe have a little lighthearted fun.

I volunteer to play Bob's role and answer the questions that Merlyn asked. Ed, you up for Merlyn?

yuk,yuk,yuk,yuk,yuk,yuk,yuk,yuk.

[Bob White]

Look guys I did not ask for Merlyn to get his undies in a knot. I just asked a couple questions to get some facts straight. I wasn't looking for anyone in particular to answer, and I shouldn't have to rush to a conclusion without facts just because Merlyn lacks patience.

 

Trevorm says many thousand religions do not have monothisitic beiefs. I wonder how many people in the US that represets?

 

BW

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I of course realize that you're only angling to make your usual sort of irrelevant majortarian argument, but why are you acting like a child who needs to be spoon-fed information? Are you completely unable to find the CIA factbook information online? Did you manage to miss adherents.com with a simple google search?

[evmori]

I'm game packsaddle! Let me know when you're ready to start! Think it should be a new thread?

 

And mods, if we do start this, please give us some leeway!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Bob White]

Hey Gern, not sure that you are right about the three religions. It appears Hindu qualifies as well according to this source. http://www.bnaiyer.com/vidya/basic-hindu-primer.html

 

As does Bahai http://www.bahai.org/faq/facts/bahai_faith

 

As does Zoroanstrianism which is a pre-christian faith. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

 

Then again, Scouting also has as members who are followers of Taoism and the Tao religion/philosophy has a scouting religious award that meets the BSA faith requirements, as does as Buddhism as well.

 

So, as I add them up it would appear that the BSA program is open to the religious beliefs of about 86.5% of the population of the U.S., is that correct?

 

Because, I look at Trevorum's statement that "many devoutly religious people do not believe in a supreme being." And statisticall as well as quantitatively it really isn't many people, in fact by comparison it is very few.

 

He then says "Belief in the western notion of monotheistic god is not an element of many faiths." first the notion of a monothiestic God did not originate in the West. Zoroatrinism which predates Christianity and is a monotheistic faith began in the East.

 

And while he is correct that there are many, many, faiths that practice polytheism they have few followers per religion, accounting for only .02 percent of the the U.S. Population.

 

The balance of the population claim to have no no belief in a God or Gods (atheists), or believe their is no way to know if there is a God or Gods (agnostics)http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-text/Russell/agnostic.htm,

and as such are unable to perform a "Duty to God" if they do not believe in a God.

 

So we are speaking about approx 13.5% of the population, that are unable to meet the program requirements of the BSA.

 

So because the BSA only accepts the beliefs of 86.5% of the people Trevorum says " I think this whole situation is a result of BSA policy makers - none of whom evidently knew much about religious diversity"

 

The BSA recognizes and accepts all the varied faiths mentioned above and others except for the religions of .02 of U.S. population and they have little knowledge of diversity? There is no logic to his conclusion.

 

That argument lacks statistical foundation. Even if you counted atheists and agnostics as religions it would be impossible to show evidence that the abundance of beliefs that scouting is open to are not diverse, as well as plentiful.

 

Trevorum's final conclusion was that the BSA is a white elephant. As I understood a white elephant, it is an object whose upkeep costs more than its value. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/410050.html apparently that view is only held by those few people who are unable to embrace the religious faiths of nearly 90% of the U.S.

 

You cannot be all things to all people. But you cannot say that the BSA has not continually tried to be something for most people.

 

 

[GernBlansten]

Good response Bob. Now I can relax this weekend at OKPIK.

Riddle me this though Bob,

How can Buddhists meet the Duty to God and an agnostic not?

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

As I figured, Bob uses a majortarian argument. Of course, the BSA could exclude, say, Jews, and that would be fine, since there also aren't many Jews in the US. Or Muslims, or even Mormons (if you're going by percent of the general population, and not percent of current BSA membership). He also uses the BSA's admission of Buddhists as if that means all Buddhists are monotheists, which is absurd. And he also oversimplifies Hinduism as if all Hindus are monotheists. You can't even depend on Christians being monotheists; a 2003 Harris poll found that 1% of Christians didn't believe in god.

 

What is his point? Apparently, none at all. It has nothing to do with whether the BSA is a religious organization or not.

 

So Bob, do you agree that the BSA is a religious organization?

[Bob White]

I share you wonderment at that Gern,

I was at Philmont Training Center one summer and had a Buddhist Scoutmaster in the same seminar. He and I were discussing this one day because he could not understand it either. It did not seem to him that Buddhism qualified and yet he had a troop chartered by a Buddist Temple and had earned the Buddhist "religious" award for Scouting from his faith.

 

He asked me if who I thought he should talk to about it, I smiled and suggested he could talk to God. We both smiled and shook hands. A passing Rabbi who was on faculty as a Chaplain stopped and said he thought that was the best response I could have given. (that was quite a sight a Buddhist and a Catholic disussing the diversity of BSA religious views with a Rabbi.)

 

The next day I gave him a name and phone # for the Relationships Division at the BSA National Office and suggested he could call them for clarification on the relationship between the BSA and the Buddhist philosophy. That is still the best suggestion I can offer.

 

 

 

 

[GernBlansten]

Merlyn, I'm not so sure you can paint BSA as a religious organization. As Bob stated, Buddhists are allowed to join. Therefore, atheists are allowed to join as long as they are right kind of atheist. Now why BSA allows this is a matter of debate. Where they ignorant that Buddhists are atheists and its too late now or did they just see a demographic group they wanted to reach and quietly ignore it? At best, I think you could call the BSA a schizophrenic organization.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

So Bob, since you're still commenting in this thread, how about your opinion on the subject of this thread? Do you think the BSA is a religious organization?

 

By the way, I thought Trevorum's "white elephant in the room" wasn't a misuse of the white elephant metaphor, but a clever portmanteau of both "white elephant" and "elephant in the room," signifying that the BSA's status as a religious organization is both a truth that some people are trying to ignore, and expensive in terms of upkeep by way of e.g. losing public school charters.

[Bob White]

Is the BSA a religious organization? Are you speaking legally or in my personal view of Scouting? Legal stuff I leave to lawyers and courts.

 

Personally I view the BSA as being religious in much the same way as I view our country's founding, our government, and our prevailing culture as religious in nature.

 

But I think there is a huge difference between being religious, being a religion, or being in support of a particular religion. Differences that I feel you at times try to purposely confuse.

 

In researching my post I found a fairly recent survey that showed that over 82% of Americans feel their religious beliefs are important to them, a figure that has barely waivered in many years. By that very statistic one would have to admit that we are a religious nation.

 

If something is important to me then it plays a role in many things I do in all aspects of my life. With the vast majority of Americans who see relious beliefs as a part of their every day activities and decision making based on those beliefs, I do not see how you rationally believe that you can ever separate the American people from something they obviously feel is important to them.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

*I* try to purposely confuse being religious, being a religion, or being in support of a particular religion? Where?

 

This is especially confusing with what you say right after that:

...over 82% of Americans feel their religious beliefs are important to them, a figure that has barely waivered in many years. By that very statistic one would have to admit that we are a religious nation.

 

Hey Bob, I'm an atheist, and I would say that yes, MY religious beliefs are important to me, too. You can't assume that everyone answering "yes" to that question believes in gods, but you apparently are making such an assumption.

 

I do not see how you rationally believe that you can ever separate the American people from something they obviously feel is important to them.

 

I do not see where I have ever suggested such a thing. What on earth are you talking about?

[evmori]

Is anyone keeping score? packsaddle, we gonna put on our play?

[packsaddle]

Nope, they're doing fine on their own.