Nontheism in BSA

Great Debates
21

Dangerosa said, "You can’t accomplish what you can accomplish in the BSA without being a member of the BSA. Eagle Scout does carry weight on college applications - hell, it carries weight fifteen years after college, I’ve watched people drop their “Eagle Scout” status in job interviews to positive effect. "

Well, I was referring more to the personal accomplishment rather than the social/financial gains that can be made. I still think you can find things that are equally, if not more, impressive. Not everything is about a job.

S/he also said, “Yeah, Dad could try to organize something independant of the BSA, but most parents will just wonder why the kid doesn’t just join Scouts.”

Who cares what most parents think? The reason the kid doesn’t join the scouts is because it teaches a divisive, exclusive, “wrong” message. I would hope that most parents would find that more important than padding a resume.

22

I dunno, Kalhoun. Raising 3 kids, I have found that different things are important at different stages.

When my kids were very young and asked if they could go to a neighborhood summer bible school, I said sure - but quickly pulled them out when they were told that they would go to hell if they did not accept Jesus.

I had the best of intentions to conduct my own little comparative religions course for my kids. Yet, I found myself unwilling and/or unable to commit sufficiently to the task. Fortunately, I found the UU church offered such a curriculum. But we seperated from one UU church as they became less Humanist and more spiritualistic.

We have to weigh invites from kids to participate in their church youth group activities on a case-by-case basis. Not that we fear for our kids, but because we feel it would be inappropriate if our kids’ participation would detract from the believers’ enjoyment of their activities.

And we respect our family members’ practice of religious beliefs we expressly reject.

Also importantly, we have found that it is generally the best option to be silent about our beliefs, which can be very frustrating when the majority around us feel no compunction against widely proclaiming their beliefs, and expect no negative repercussions from doing so.

To answer your question, any responsible parent who wishes to help their kid’s healthy social development.

IME, you are unnecessarily causing yourself and your family considerable unpleasantness if you don’t at least try to figure out what your community standards might be. No, you do not need to conform in all respects, but making a point of emphasizing your differences should not be done lightly. While you might consider yourself strong enough to withstand any backlash, that can be quite a burden to impose on a child.

That’s a long lead up to my comment that I agree with Dangerosa’s (a she) point. A challenging task for a parent is identifying individual or group activities/interests that a kid wants to participate in on an ongoing basis. In some ways it is like voting for a candidate. You’ll never find a candidate that you agree with on EVERY issue - often times it comes down to choosing who you disagree with the least!

Given BSA’s position on these 2 issues, we would never have chosen it or pushed our kid to it. But, my kid likes a lot of the things involved - the various badge activites as well as the camping. And the BSA has a really well set up organization to provide access to that. Plus, a couple of his best friends are in his troop. And from our perspective, we know and respect several of the adults active in the troop.

So, like most things in life, we had to weigh the costs and benefits. It was his choice, and we chose not to prevent him from doing it.

Another person raising their kid might well reach a different decision. And that could well be as correct for them as ours is for us.

BTW - Dang - he’s 13, and seems to be past the “Will I like it” phase. 2 of his best friends are still in it, and they really enjoy that they are growing into more senior roles in the troop. This summer he is going on 2 camping trips, 1 a high adventure trip to Isle Royale. And with his most recent promotion, I think he sees Eagle as a desireable and achievable goal.

23

quote:

Who cares what most parents think?

Dinsmore said, “To answer your question, any responsible parent who wishes to help their kid’s healthy social development.”

My point is that if you raise your kids according to what the neighbors think, rather than by your gut or your strongly held beliefs, you are doing yourself and your children a huge disservice. It might be uncomfortable in the short term, but your children will remember that you stood up for your convictions.

When I was a kid, my dad’s boss (North Shore Rich Guy) had the company picnic at his place, which was across the street from his club. All the employees and their kids were invited to go swimming at the club. My dad wouldn’t let us go because the club refused to admit Jews or blacks. I remember being so pissed that I actually HATED my dad over that decision. But I also remember it being the most influential thing he ever did in pointing me in the right direction regarding matters of race and religion. I’m forever indebted to him.

He stood up for his principles to his boss, and in front of his co-workers, which I can only imagine was beyond uncomfortable. I suppose it could have negatively affected his level of success with the company. But he was there for 31 years and retired as an officer of the company. Maybe that one incident WAS influential (positive influence) in his future with the company!

Then Dins said, “While you might consider yourself strong enough to withstand any backlash, that can be quite a burden to impose on a child.”

Read above.

24

Well, I don’t really have any advice about the BSA, but wanted to second the thoughts about the burden of revealing your non beliefs.

I moved recently and the kids are small, but I lived in my other place for 23 years. I was at various times contacted, cajoled, baited, leafleted, and even stalked by the some local folks who wanted to save my soul. It is not a pleasant experience and one I hope to spare my family from for a time, anyway.

I agree that speaking up for your non belief can be a good idea, but not everyone wants to be a spokesperson (or target or novelty) all the time.

25

If there’s no God, you are of course free to create any arbitrary set of “moral” rules by which you constrain your life. Those constraints can include not lying, or can limit the situations in which one is allowed to lie. Does your arbitrary personal system let you lie to save a person’s life? …to protect a friend? …to protect a stranger? …to protect a criminal? …to avoid embarassing someone or hurting their feelings?

I’d love to hear your “sound arguments regarding the immorality of lying that do not depend on god.” In particular, explain to me why I shouldn’t lie if will help me, won’t hurt anyone whatsoever, and there’s no chance that anyone but me will know I lied.

One can follow God’s laws for reasons other than fear of punishments. Some include love for God, love for God’s laws (because they’re from God), the understanding that because God is omnibenevolent, following his laws are in our own best interest even when we cannot comprehend the reasons for the laws.

**FYI - God’s laws do not include a complete absolute prohibition against lying. There is a difference of opinion among the classical sages Hillel and Shamai as to when one is permitted to lie.

26

MHand - the issue of a nontheistic source of morality has been debated many times on these boards, and elsewhere.
I would appreciate it if you would not make that debate the focus of this thread.
Thanks.

27

As an Eagle Scout who is also a Theist (Christian in particular) I would advise that you not worry too much about the “religious” aspect of the BSA. As long as I was in Scouts we didn’t really have any talk about religion in the meetings aside from a prayer at the beginning.

It certainly didn’t come up in my BoR.

I don’t care much about the prohibitions of atheistic or homosexual involvements in the BSA. It is a private organization and can do as it pleases. It teaches good values to young boys and goes a long way towards keeping them out of trouble, providing father figures, etc. I was in it for the camping and fellowship with other guys. It was a good time and I still keep ties with most of those guys.

So the company line is that they don’t like athiests, so what? I think that it is a bad line, but I’m not in charge. They should see it as a way to bring more people to God if they want to be a Christian organization.

As for homosexuality, I don’t know that I would have known that someone was gay when I was 11-15. That was a decade or so ago, and I probably wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t want my child to have a homosexual scoutmaster, but who cares if his friends are gay? (reasoning for the scoutmaster/scout differance is that there have been a few too many instances in which pedophiles are drawn to scouting to pick up boys<shudder>. This is a worry that I don’t have with other children. )

Bottom line: Upholding the scout code does not have to mean that you have to be a practicing Christian. I think it has more to do with being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, etc… And who will argue that these are bad traits?

28

Snake Legs - as far as gay leaders are concerned, I don’t believe that homosexual pedophilia is any more common that hetero. And, predators - whatever their orientation - can do their damage in various contexts. Such as sports teams.

Heck, should I question whether any of my kids’ teachers are gay? Of course, why should I feel they are safe from the hetero ones?

I think it is especially unfortunate to teach young boys that homosexuality and homosexuals are bad. Statistically, it is very likely that a pecentage of their troopmates, or classmates, are already aware of their orientation or will soon realise that they are.

Kids that age are going through so much social confusion and turmoil as it is. It just seems so darned unnecessary to go looking for irrelevant reasons to make judgments about someone.

Fortunately (IMO), whatever its strong points and weaknesses, scouting is far less of an influence over my kids than our family.

29

… and yet another Eagle Scout chimes in:

The funny thing about Scouts when I was in was that in an odd way, it was much more religiously tolerant than a lot of other organizations- intolerance was not tolerated at all- if other Scouts were Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, etc… that was just fine and we were expected(strongly) to be tolerant of that.

And, like several others have said, your religion doesn’t come up in a board of review, for probably the reason I mentioned above. How likely is a Baptist BOR person going to be able to interpret someone’s adherence to Islam? Not very, so they don’t even ask.

30

Dinsdale said, "Kids that age are going through so much social confusion and turmoil as it is. It just seems so darned unnecessary to go looking for irrelevant reasons to make judgments about someone. "

I don’t think religious beliefs (or the lack thereof) is irrelevant. The intolerance of a person’s lack of religion is also very relevant. If the group that claims to do so much good can fall so short of the mark when it comes to basic human tolerance, what does that say about them? And doesn’t it add to the confusion of adolescents when society is sending one message while the club is sending another?

Bump said, “And, like several others have said, your religion doesn’t come up in a board of review, for probably the reason I mentioned above. How likely is a Baptist BOR person going to be able to interpret someone’s adherence to Islam? Not very, so they don’t even ask.”

The fact that you’re not accepted (nor do you qualify) if you don’t believe in god DOES come up, as we know from various media reports. Yes, it’s their right as a private organization, but it doesn’t send a good message. In my opinion, the message is harmful enough that I wouldn’t want my kid associated with the organization. The issues of religion and homosexuality are traits that each person on earth identifies with very personally. To be excluded for either reason is wrong.

31

Kalhoun - in that comment, and the majority of that post, I was referring to homosexuality.
Sorry I didn’t make that clear.

32

Thanks, Dinsdale. But I think my statement would apply in either the religious or homosexual context. From what I gather from the gay posters around here, their sexuality is very much a part of their entire being. To deny your religion or sexual orientation is to deny yourself. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that if it is irrelevant, the subject would never come up. These things are very relevant to the people involved.

33

You can believe whatever you want based on “media reports” but what us Eagle Scouts are trying to tell you is that it typically doesn’t come up in the BOR, and if it does it is an isolated incident dependent on who’s sitting on the board.

The national policy regarding religion waffles this way and that, but the basic thrust is that outright atheists are not upholding the “reverent” bit of the Scout Law. Exactly what this means as far as who does and doesn’t get to participate is typically left up to the local troop, or at the highest level, the local Council. The national office rarely gets involved in these sorts of issues except to issue vague “position statements.”

Whether or not this will come up at the BOR of the OP’s son is anyone’s guess, but from the description of the boy’s troop it sounds like it won’t at all. It would be helpful if I knew what organization is sponsoring his troop: these sorts of questions are more likely to come up if the boy’s troop is sponsored by a Baptist church than it is if it’s sponsored by a Unitarian or even Methodist church, or some secular organization.

Are the policies (re. religion and homosexuality) bad ones? I sure think so, I think they’re hideous, but that’s not really what’s being asked here. What is being asked is how to handle the situation within the givens of the situation, and IMO as an Eagle Scout I think there’s only one answer consistent with the whole point of the Scouting movement: honesty.