Do you like the Boy Scouts of America?

[DWise1]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

 

[packsaddle]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

Just curious....what brought on that footnote? Are you responding to something that was posted earlier? Thanks

[DWise1]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

The footnote was to expand on that gross misconception of Christians about atheists and how Christians are instead projecting their own desires.

[qwazse]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

DW, I saw in another thread that you gave up at the part about the incest between Lot and his daughters. Not sure how that's unbelievable, but then again I'm jaded. One of the database hangups when I first started working on a genetic research project involved a program that didn't know how to handle when a subject and her bio-mother had the same father. That was 1 in a sample of about 400 families -- just north of the Mason Dixon line.

 

Pity you didn't stick with it for the part about Tamar and Judah!

 

Yep. Most of these folks don't take their Bible seriously if it doesn't suit them. St. Paul makes it very clear in his opening chapter of Romans that the irreligious are just as accountable for any lack of morality as the religious -- the latter being worse off because they claim to have a standard from which they fall woefully short. Flying in the face of their great commission, too many Christians spend too much time around Christians ... makes for some pretty insipid salt -- generating immoral atheist bogeymen, etc....

 

A pastor of mine re-cast the ten commandments in terms of a series of do's. It built off of a kid's teaching tool "Ten Best Ways to Live", but framed clearly for us adults. It came off sounding very much like the Scout Law with Reverent, Brave, and Clean in the beginning and Helpful, Loyal, and Trustworthy towards the end.

[DWise1]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

Who's "DLW"? Am I to assume that you are talking to me? If so, then where did you get that "L" from?

 

Actually, I figure I must have given up before getting to the part where Lot's daughters raped him, since I would think that I would have remembered that part when I encountered it many years later. And my problem was that I was taking the Bible very seriously indeed. Even though I now don't think that my church required it, I approached the Bible in a biblical literalist manner. And taking that approach, I found that I simply could not believe what I was reading. And since I couldn't believe what I was supposed to (or rather what I thought I was supposed to) in order to be a Christian, then there wasn't any point sticking around, was there? It turned out to be the right decision as has been demonstrated to me countless times over the subsequent five decades, just for the wrong reason.

 

I've read the New Testament since then, twice through. The teachings of Jesus were mostly good, but then it went weird when Paul invented the religion of the Christ. Interesting how the parables in Mark echoed Christianity's origins as a mystery religion. We obviously still have a form of its Outer Temple and I always wonder whether any part of the Inner Temple has been able to survive.

 

St. Paul makes it very clear in his opening chapter of Romans that the irreligious are just as accountable for any lack of morality as the religious -- the latter being worse off because they claim to have a standard from which they fall woefully short.

I don't understand what you are trying to say there. Could you please be a bit more explicit?

 

-- generating immoral atheist bogeymen' date=' etc..... [/quote']

By which I assume you mean that that's a false image that they dream up.

[qwazse]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

Salutation edited.

 

Reading the NT without the OT is like trying to breath in a vacuum! Paul for his part made it very clear that his doctrine was not about handing down a moral code. Half of his audience thought they were the bee's knees because they had their moral coded handed down on stone tablets. For those folks he used the Old Testament in debunking that world view. The other half were tempted to believe they could do anything they wanted now that Christ (or, indirectly Paul, Apollos, or several other highly reputed messengers) was their champion, and he used mostly common sense (and a few "God forbids!") to debunk that world view. His premise was that anyone could come up with a moral code -- it's innate for humans to do so. But, regardless of the code, everyone falls short to dire effect. But, deliverance from those failures requires the miraculous intervention: enter the doctrine of salvation.

 

Now obviously an atheist is not buying that last part. But, any Christian that takes Paul with any level of seriousness ought to know that the world's highest moral standards are not inherently part of the Good News. So, not only is the image of an immoral atheist false, it is contrary to Scripture to imagine someone without knowledge of the Bible as somehow unfettered from moral obligations.

[st0ut717]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

Why do christians claim to have the sole authority on morals?

 

Qwaze : While your pastor may have had the ten best ways to live and wow that looks like the scout code. the scout code also reflects well with Bushido which is an offshoot of Buddism. (kinda it a little more complecated than that really)

 

What I object to is those of you that want to force christainity on scouting. Christanity is not the only means to god. Scouting is not about the bible scouting is about scouting an ensureing that the scouts have a moral code that is outside of scouting to support the scout laws.

[Eagledad]

Who else saw that the discussion leave the reservation after my first point. Qwazse, I enjoy your post, but I think you're half of the discussion is so deep with slavation that DWise's adolescent view of God can't understand value of religious morality, much less Christain morality. Before I try to contribute on a more pragmatic level, I would like to suggest DWise to do a search on "Fruits of the Spirit" and compare them with the Scout Law. Now on the basis of morality, all folks live by a moral code of some kind. For the sake of this dicussion, moral code is the code we use to define acts of right and wrong. Where mankind struggles is having to follow a moral code with parts they may not agree. Usually folks are willing to take the good with the bad, but when the masses of a society decide to follow only those parts of the code they pick and choose, chaos eventually follows.And then one way or another order will be forced by what I call the person with the biggest stick. Except for the civil war, the United States has had a relativlye peaceful history because the guy with the biggest stick has been the Judeo Christian God. Peace is easy when the majority of society follow one set of rules. Well easy within the context of peace versus chaos. But times are changing, people today or more self centered, which doesn't fit well in a religiously concieved moral code. The main difference between moral code defined by man and code defined by God is that God's moral code is pretty consistant through time, man's code changes fast and often. When man grabs (is given) the big stick, it is usually by political will and that never last long. If a person is truely willing to read the whole bible and understand it from a practical stand point, they will see that man at the core is corrupt, narcissitic and ambitious. The moral code they create is one of convenience that not only helps further their ambitions, but also typically ignores the meek. God has none of those self-centered traits, so the meek are the high priority because the actions of His moral code are selfless actions to enhanse lives of everyone toward a peaceful existance. I believe Dwise is truely an antheist because he appears repulsed by a living God, That he couldn't get half way through the first book of 39 in the Old Testeament or Pauls New Testament guidance of a living God proves it. Dwise does Jesus's simple rules of conduct beause they are obvious actions of peace, he just doesn't like them coming from from an invisible omnipotent source. The God in Genesis doesn't have his fatherly image. Ironic that Jesus is God in both the Old and New Testament. Still Dwise believes in a peaceful coexistance and understands following rules of right and wrong are how we get there. I agree with him about the virtues of Scout Law and Oath. I am curious to see how his moral code can stand up the man who takes the big stick. Barry

[skeptic]

One of the best quotes from the Old Testament supporting the ambiguous nature of faith is, "I AM, therefore I AM". Really does not have to apply to any particular religious belief; simply says there is something, and it is simply a fact.

[Kudu]

The EDGE method is good for teachers' date=' business, military, etc... its a tested and proven learning tool.[/quote'] Well then, that "learning tool" explains the 7.7 trillion-dollar business bailout, and why so many people hate the public schools

 

But "tested and proven"?

 

If you "tested" EDGE objectively you would "prove" that even the BSA's top national EDGE experts can not use EDGE to explain something as basic to Scouting as the Patrol Method, without leaving out the Patrol Leader and any description of a working Patrol.

 

What is worse, not a single Wood Badge Staffer or other EDGE trainer in the United States would notice them missing from, say, the Patrol Method presentation of Scoutmaster Specific Training.

 

Um, oh yeah. The BSA's top EDGE trainers did do that, didn't they?

 

Did anyone in any "local program" anywhere in the United States notice them missing?

 

The requirements for each rank are . . . pretty close to those 100 years ago.

 

If that was true, then why do the "leadership skills" types go nuclear when we suggest that the Boy Scouts of America (in exchange for our lucrative monopoly on Scouting) be "trustworthy" enough to "obey" the statute that we include all those requirements from June 15, 1916?

 

For the same reason that we pay the morbidly obese a million dollars a year to mock that law, to promote Wood Badge, and to explain why it is wrong for the Boy Scouts of America to expect a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout to sleep in a tent away from his mommy and daddy:

 

Not a ten (10) or eleven (11) year-old Boy Scout, mind you, but a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout!

 

http://inquiry.net/leadership/sittin...ith_adults.htm

[qwazse]

I did not respond to the poll. I very rarely respond to polls, since the choices offered almost never reflect my thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.

 

I love Scouting. I truly believe that it is a great program that can prepare a boy for the rest of his life. I especially agree with what Lord Baden-Powell said about the Scout Law, as quoted by Scouting ("Worth Retelling: Baden-Powell on the Scout Law", Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Scouting Digest published by the Boy Scouts of South Africa):

The Scout Law is our binding disciplinary force. The boy is not governed by don't, but led on by do. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults.

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that?

 

BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout.

 

OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place.

 

{ * FOOTNOTE:

Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one.

}

Why? 'cause they like it! And the 10c's isn't even theirs!!! The believers are just thoroughly wowed by the 3 millennium track record, I guess.

 

Don't come down to hard on the pastor. If he was hawking "10 rather mediocre ways to live", he'd lose his paycheck.

 

Agreed with trying to foist Christianity on every scout. I only go into any detail about any of the few religions I admire (or the one I adhere to) if a youth asks. Generally, I'm more interested in getting a scout to open up about his religion. It's more fun that way, and I actually learn a thing or two in the process!

[qwazse]

Who else saw that the discussion leave the reservation after my first point. Qwazse, I enjoy your post, but I think you're half of the discussion is so deep with slavation that DWise's adolescent view of God can't understand value of religious morality, much less Christain morality. Before I try to contribute on a more pragmatic level, I would like to suggest DWise to do a search on "Fruits of the Spirit" and compare them with the Scout Law. Now on the basis of morality, all folks live by a moral code of some kind. For the sake of this dicussion, moral code is the code we use to define acts of right and wrong. Where mankind struggles is having to follow a moral code with parts they may not agree. Usually folks are willing to take the good with the bad, but when the masses of a society decide to follow only those parts of the code they pick and choose, chaos eventually follows.And then one way or another order will be forced by what I call the person with the biggest stick. Except for the civil war, the United States has had a relativlye peaceful history because the guy with the biggest stick has been the Judeo Christian God. Peace is easy when the majority of society follow one set of rules. Well easy within the context of peace versus chaos. But times are changing, people today or more self centered, which doesn't fit well in a religiously concieved moral code. The main difference between moral code defined by man and code defined by God is that God's moral code is pretty consistant through time, man's code changes fast and often. When man grabs (is given) the big stick, it is usually by political will and that never last long. If a person is truely willing to read the whole bible and understand it from a practical stand point, they will see that man at the core is corrupt, narcissitic and ambitious. The moral code they create is one of convenience that not only helps further their ambitions, but also typically ignores the meek. God has none of those self-centered traits, so the meek are the high priority because the actions of His moral code are selfless actions to enhanse lives of everyone toward a peaceful existance. I believe Dwise is truely an antheist because he appears repulsed by a living God, That he couldn't get half way through the first book of 39 in the Old Testeament or Pauls New Testament guidance of a living God proves it. Dwise does Jesus's simple rules of conduct beause they are obvious actions of peace, he just doesn't like them coming from from an invisible omnipotent source. The God in Genesis doesn't have his fatherly image. Ironic that Jesus is God in both the Old and New Testament. Still Dwise believes in a peaceful coexistance and understands following rules of right and wrong are how we get there. I agree with him about the virtues of Scout Law and Oath. I am curious to see how his moral code can stand up the man who takes the big stick. Barry

Yeah, what he said ^_^. Except for the "adolescent view" thing.

 

But, I guess that's one more reason I like the BSA. It's not a perfect compromise, but one that keeps a lot of houses of worship in the game. The alternative could be very much like what we have with the school system: fiefdoms of public works that alienate all manner of folks ... leading to them build their own highly coveted schools.

[Scouter99]

I like some of them.

[Kristian]

There is BSA and then there is scouting. These are 2 distinct philosophies yet that doesn't seem to be accurately reflected in how this poll is written.

 

I certainly think that bsa needs to stop believing that leadership skills are more important than outdoor skills.

[qwazse]

The EDGE method is good for teachers' date=' business, military, etc... its a tested and proven learning tool.[/quote'] Well then, that "learning tool" explains the 7.7 trillion-dollar business bailout, and why so many people hate the public schools

 

But "tested and proven"?

 

If you "tested" EDGE objectively you would "prove" that even the BSA's top national EDGE experts can not use EDGE to explain something as basic to Scouting as the Patrol Method, without leaving out the Patrol Leader and any description of a working Patrol.

 

What is worse, not a single Wood Badge Staffer or other EDGE trainer in the United States would notice them missing from, say, the Patrol Method presentation of Scoutmaster Specific Training.

 

Um, oh yeah. The BSA's top EDGE trainers did do that, didn't they?

 

Did anyone in any "local program" anywhere in the United States notice them missing?

 

The requirements for each rank are . . . pretty close to those 100 years ago.

 

If that was true, then why do the "leadership skills" types go nuclear when we suggest that the Boy Scouts of America (in exchange for our lucrative monopoly on Scouting) be "trustworthy" enough to "obey" the statute that we include all those requirements from June 15, 1916?

 

For the same reason that we pay the morbidly obese a million dollars a year to mock that law, to promote Wood Badge, and to explain why it is wrong for the Boy Scouts of America to expect a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout to sleep in a tent away from his mommy and daddy:

 

Not a ten (10) or eleven (11) year-old Boy Scout, mind you, but a twelve (12) year-old Boy Scout!

 

http://inquiry.net/leadership/sittin...ith_adults.htm

EDGE haters unite, or untie, or something ....

 

Funny thing about those computer games. The ones my kids (now ages 16-22) like the best, are the ones where the protagonist hast to start fires, gather gear, assemble a patrol, traverse terrain, sleep out, etc ...

 

Every now and then they'll play the soccer or football simulations.