Fear that expanded Duty To God requirement drives us out of schools ... AGAIN ...

[st0ut717]

DC this is not about my personal comfort. Or a fear that scouts within my troop will be at a disadvantage. We are a nondenominational mostly agnostic troop. with some multi faith in there, mostly Christian, islamc and Buddist.

 

My fear is that some will use this new requirement as an evangelical green light for conversion. and that this will be abused to ostracize scouts that are in a minority faith than the rest of their troop.

 

I am not complacent enough to just STFU and just follow along with this without thought or comment.

[packsaddle]

I don't know about da Vinci but I'm fairly certain that Michelangelo was a Pastafarian:

http://jcnn.com.au/international-2/i...hetti-monster/

I'm less certain about the obscure Greek gardener, Capernicus, who popularized capers as part of a well-balanced diet. He's often confused with Copernicus, an infamous Prussian who incorrectly dared to challenge the obvious truth that Earth is the center of the solar system and most significantly created the system of hand signals that in much later times was adapted for use between pitchers and catchers.

[packsaddle]

OK, to my friend Fred Johnson, I remind you that during of that famous case in front of the US Supreme Court, it was BSA which officially claimed that it is a private religious organization. The Supreme Court accepted that claim and found in favor of BSA. So as far as I'm concerned, this is a settled matter and the only way it can change is for BSA itself to 'go back' on that statement. They haven't and I doubt they will, at least probably not in my lifetime.

[TAHAWK]

DC this is not about my personal comfort. Or a fear that scouts within my troop will be at a disadvantage. We are a nondenominational mostly agnostic troop. with some multi faith in there, mostly Christian, islamc and Buddist.

 

My fear is that some will use this new requirement as an evangelical green light for conversion. and that this will be abused to ostracize scouts that are in a minority faith than the rest of their troop.

 

I am not complacent enough to just STFU and just follow along with this without thought or comment.

 

 

You are not worried personally or about your troop. You are worried about other troops?

 

Have you encountered an example of the 'some" who "will use this new requirement an an evangelical green light"?

 

I have met people from time to time since 1954 who feel that they are called to convert the Scouts in a given troop to thier religion. They did not seem to need any "green light" from BSA, having more direct source of inspiration. In Ohio and California, they were removed from leadership positions either by being replaced or by their units moving ao another sponser (to use the old word) without them.

 

 

 

 

[Torchwood]

While I personally disagree with their position, the BSA's stance in the Supreme Court case was that it is a private organization- nothing was mentioned about it being a private religious organization. National will always be hazy about religion, so we will always have to interpret these things. I don't believe that the new wording is meant to make one tenet of Scout Law more important than any other.

[CalicoPenn]

As I recall, the Boy Scouts floated that "We're a Religious Organization" idea at the appellate level but backpedaled on it as it started to get reported in the media and got negative feedback about it and didn't press it at the Supreme Court level.

[Torchwood]

Maybe- but it is nowhere in their charter with Congress either. There is nothing in any current literature that espouses the observance of any specific dogma. The requirement that a Scout believe in something outside of themselves is purposely open ended, and any conversation between a Scout and a SM or BoR should not have the slightest whiff of any behavior that is not in keeping with the 12 points of Scout Law. The easiest way to do that is to not ask particularly pointed questions.

[skeptic]

It appeared in the San Diego case when one of the lawyers used those terms; but it was later clarified as not being accurate, and the broader non sectarian position was put forward. Of course the media and others have continued to use that public comment as proof of some sort, even though it has since been repudiated a number of times. Careless language never goes away.

[walk in the woods]

My fear is that some will use this new requirement as an evangelical green light for conversion. and that this will be abused to ostracize scouts that are in a minority faith than the rest of their troop.

 

​Fear is the key word and tricky phrase here. You are projecting behaviors and assuming outcomes based on sterotypes of evangelicals that you choose to belive. I think my friends on the left call this intolerance or bigotry or some such thing like that. I agree with my friends on the left who tell me that fear of the unknown is what generates hate. It applies to the extremist on both ends of the political spectrum

[st0ut717]

dcsimmons, So since i disagree with you I am a bigot and intolerant of other faiths? How did you jump to that conclusion? (perhaps if you had quoted my full text instead of out of context) And if you do perceive that because I do not follow your train of thought or faith that my point of view is inferior; you kinda just proved my point.

 

How did you infer politics into this? Are people of faith from only one party?

[scoutergipper]

I'm not an evangelical, but I believe they are called by their faith to "witness" it to others. That you see this as something to "fear" opens the real possibility that you are a religious bigot and intolerant. Fear, by its definition, is unreasoning - the "mind killer" as Frank Herbert called it. But you're entitled to your own thoughts on this and whatever consequences might flow.

 

As young people, some are touched by a religious calling. I saw it happen to others my age when I was a teenager, although I never found myself moved in that direction. None of those kids were harmed in any way and the ones I'm still in touch with went on to happy, fulfilled lives. Some stuck with this original "conversion," others found different paths. No big deal and certainly not a learning process to "fear."

 

There are definitely weak people who can be swayed by strong personalities, but most kids Scouting age are either following their parents or their friends. There won't be many Scoutmasters who can try to shoehorn kids into a religion that's not their family's without having the kids quit or the parents pull them. And if neither of those things happen, maybe the kid will be happier.

[st0ut717]

I'm not an evangelical' date=' but I believe they are called by their faith to "witness" it to others. That you see this as something to "fear" opens the real possibility that you are a religious bigot and intolerant. Fear, by its definition, is unreasoning - the "mind killer" as Frank Herbert called it. But you're entitled to your own thoughts on this and whatever consequences might flow.[/quote']

For the record you are quoteing from Dune as Frank Herbert is a science fiction writer.

 

Labeling me as a bigot is insulting at best. I would be intolerant of a SM or ASM witnessing to a scout. To me that SM or ASM is placing their faith above that of their scouts and abusing their positional authority.

 

As young people, some are touched by a religious calling. I saw it happen to others my age when I was a teenager, although I never found myself moved in that direction. None of those kids were harmed in any way and the ones I'm still in touch with went on to happy, fulfilled lives. Some stuck with this original "conversion," others found different paths. No big deal and certainly not a learning process to "fear."

 

This is not a learning process. This is a checkpoint per rank that say's before you advance lets talk about God. This can place the subordinate into duress as promotion may be withheld if the scout does not agree with the SM or ASM.

You went from what is your duty to god to now we can witness to scouts. And this is done during a SM review for advancement.

 

Persuading a scout to your faith with the threat of non-advancement is not education that is coercion.

 

 

There are definitely weak people who can be swayed by strong personalities, but most kids Scouting age are either following their parents or their friends. There won't be many Scoutmasters who can try to shoehorn kids into a religion that's not their family's without having the kids quit or the parents pull them. And if neither of those things happen, maybe the kid will be happier.

So if you dont have you faith you have a weak personality?

Or maybe the kid will just do as you hope and not make waves just to get by and take it to get what they can out of scouting?

Perhaps that SM or ASM should be open to other faiths.

[Stosh]

As SM I guess I'll not be able to mention the 12 Laws during the SMC because they all apply to my faith. That's too bad.

 

Stosh

[walk in the woods]

dcsimmons, So since i disagree with you I am a bigot and intolerant of other faiths? How did you jump to that conclusion? (perhaps if you had quoted my full text instead of out of context) And if you do perceive that because I do not follow your train of thought or faith that my point of view is inferior; you kinda just proved my point.

 

How did you infer politics into this? Are people of faith from only one party?

 

The post I quoted from initially had two paragraphs. To summarize my take on it, the first paragraph said it wasn't going to be an issue in your unit. The second paragraph said you feared it being an issue in other units. I addressed the second point. I don't know if you are a bigot or intolerant or not. Frankly that information is immaterial to the discussion. I do believe that fear is the emotion that leads to bigotry and intolerance.

 

I'm not a logician but let me try to explain how I'm reading/hearing your comments with an exercise. First, I'm going to assert and ask you to stipulate that the following logical arguments are false:

 

1. That person committed a violent crime AND that person is a young black man THEREFORE all young black men are violent criminals.

2. That person committed an act of terrorism AND that person is a Muslim THEREFORE all Muslims are terrorists.

3. That person is a white supremacist AND that person is a bald white man THEREFORE all bald white men are white supremacists.

 

These arguments all fail because they use a sample size of one in order to make a generalization about an entire population. They also fail because they assume correlation where none exists. I'm sure there's a fancy academic name for it but basically it's sterotyping or profiling or just plain prejudiced thinking.

 

When I read your arguments st0ut717 I read/hear:

 

That scoutmaster applied an inappropriate religious test AND that scoutmaster is an evangelical THEREFORE all evangelical scoutmasters will apply inappropriate religious tests.

 

This statement is equally as false as the first three examples for exactly the same reason.

 

You are arguing against a requirement out of fear (your word, not mine). Fear that scouts will be unfairly judged, fear that scouting will be driven out of the schools. That is a standard political strategy no? Tell people what to fear and why? It's all politics.

 

[st0ut717]

dcsimmons

 

I have never stated that all scoutmasters or arms will do this. On the contrary i have stated that this can be an issue for some. how about we stick to what i actually said and stop making things up as you go along.

 

Did you forget the part where my troop is mixed religuosly or in your wild attempt to politicize this did you selectively forget some facts.

 

Being happy in a mixed religuos troop (Christain, Muslim buddist, agnostic) is the exact oppisite of bigotry and intolerence. but please proceed to redifine words to make them fit your what you want to say.

 

 

Actually it is you that are sterotyping. you feel as if you know my entire world view based on my insistence that this is a bad idea.

I was asked a few posts ago do i have an example of if this has happened in the past. Well no since this is a requiremnt that is not enforced yet its difficult to come up with past instances.

 

Based on the the viciousness directed at me in the past few post is there any doubt that a scout that had the same point of view as me would be denyed rank based on these post from scouters?