Uniform Not Required

[evmori]

I always find it amusing, and very presumptuous, when persons of one one religion or no religion trying telling us what persons of another faith believe in.

 

I think OGE was on the money. When it comes to driving do you ingore the Rules of the Road or the owners manual for your car?

 

When you need to know how to program a remote control to you ignore the instructions?

 

When you are given a food dish to make do you ignore the recipe before you learn how to make the dish?

 

Before you played a board game did you not take time to learn how it is played?

 

There are instructions for many of the the things we do in order to insure the correct results. Scouting is no different.

 

How do you know when its all together if you never learn what "all together" is? If you put as much energy as some evidently do to NOT follow the program, then how can they ever expect to get the results that the program can get?

 

I love it when we compare stuff! Especially stuff that really can't be compared. Some people love to do that all the time! Makes for interesting reading but really has no practical application.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[FScouter]

Thank you Ed, for your thoughtful contribution to the discussion.

[Gold Winger]

Rules of the road? I think we all ignore them from time to time.

 

I'd say that the closest analogy is the game. If you decided to form a soccer team but decide that your goalie can't use his hands, you're handicapped when playing other teams but that's all because there's no rule requiring the hands to be used. However, if you decide that your players can pick up the ball and run with it, you're not even playing soccer any more even if you claim that you are.

 

 

[Oak Tree]

OGE, yeah, sorry, I may have taken your point and run with it to an extreme you never intended. Just a little reductio ad absurdam argument on my part. But I agree you didn't say that.

 

Although, your second argument seems a little different, more like #R5, "If you agreed to follow the rules, you are obligated to follow them." Your argument has a slight nuance to it, though. I may add it to the list.

 

And Bob's going with "R2. Rules are set by persons with greater knowledge and experience and thus should be followed."

 

Gold Winger, a game isn't a bad analogy, but I think the game analogy breaks down in that games have referees. If you pick up the ball and run with it, they blow their whistle and stop you. BSA pretty explicitly doesn't have any referees. I guess it's more like sandlot baseball, where the two teams can agree on some variations in the rules (e.g. ghost runners, or fly balls to right field are outs, or other ways to adapt the game to fewer players). But they're still playing baseball.

 

Likewise, I agree with the point that it's good to know the rules for a board game before you play it. But it's also true that people play all kinds of variations on Monopoly, and still call it Monopoly. Money in Free Parking? (http://www.playagaingames.com/games/monopoly_home_rules) I don't think anyone complains that all these people "aren't really playing Monopoly"

[Gold Winger]

"Gold Winger, a game isn't a bad analogy, but I think the game analogy breaks down in that games have referees. If you pick up the ball and run with it, they blow their whistle and stop you. BSA pretty explicitly doesn't have any referees."

 

I view the Scoutmasters as coaches and the committee as referees. Unfortunately, in this game, too many of the refs don't know and don't care about the rules because they have kids in the game.