More like donating to the University instead of tithing. That’s what they do in several European countries with an established church. Everybody has to give SOMETHING, and the University is, it seems, the “church” for atheists.
I was an atheist Eagle Scout. The biggest hurdles are the “Duty to God” bit in the Oath, and the “Reverent” clause in the Pledge. In both cases, I wrote a paper outlining how I showed reverence and respect to other religions, even if I do not believe in them, and how I followed my duty to believe in the truth as I saw it. My closer was that if there was a God, he made me doubtful, and I would be untrue to myself and to him if I professed false belief.
They accepted that, although the Mormon member of the board was visibly unhappy about it.
This. Unless you have an especially evangelical or militant scoutmaster most scouts might be expected to go along quietly with group prayers at assemblies etc., but they are not typically going to be called on to personally demonstrate or testify to their faith, however, at the very end of the Eagle process there is a regional review board where the prospective Eagle is questioned, and if one review board member or more decides to use the “do you believe in God” question as a metric for approving or not approving the candidate they are fully entitled to do this. My son was asked this question at the end of his Eagle review. He answered honestly and there was no issue. If he had answered that he was an atheist I’m not sure how it would have gone down.
You have to realize that it was* a religious organization. The original intent was not to encourage atheists to lie, but to keep them out. The lying thing is a loophole to get around old rules that many scoutleaders don’t like, but the higher ups do.
*If you go by the people in high positions, it still is a religious organization. It’s essentially Mormon.
I was “asked” to leave the Cub Scouts in 5th grade because I refused to say the Scout Oath without omited the “duty to God” part. That pissed my mother off for several different reasons. This troop was based out of my (public) elementary school and we usually met in a room at the school.
Quoth beagledave:
Wow, I’m almost certain that I got the Catholic one, but I don’t remember it being anywhere near that involved.
I’ve been my son’s cub scout den leader for 5 years. I will be taking over for the den my wife leads because she doesn’t want to do the training.
As far as the cub scout promise to “do my duty to God and my country”, I figure that since there is no God, there is no duty. Thus by doing nothing in that regard, the obligation is met.
After that, I may just be an involved parent. Because, as I’ve told a few close friends, I’m tired of being a “closeted” atheist. Once my youngest graduates into Boy Scouts, I will stop being a leader.
I’m not the type to impose my beliefs on my kids. I don’t jump all over them or anything if they mention God. I just don’t say anything. That’s kind of what I do as a leader in scouts too.
I was a believer until I was about 17 or 18 as well. So if they make it that long, they won’t have to lie. Though if their faith has wavered by that point, I could not encourage them to lie. I may encourage them to offer some other beliefs or thoughts, but not to outright lie.
Actually if I remember the Bullshit episode correctly, it’s only recently (i.e., the last twenty-odd years) that it’s become more outright religious and under control of Mormons.
Eagle Scout here.
“Religion” isn’t a requirement, but belief in some kind of god or gods is and acknowledgement of duty to said god(s) is. That said, my belief isn’t mainstream Christian. Essentially, I believe there’s some kind of unknowable entity. Our duty is to understand it. Kinda paradoxical, and it doesn’t play a significant part of my day-to-day life, but it meets the requirements.
That said, my troop was not especially religious. In fact, I was asked to perform the opening and closing prayer at an Eagle Scout Court of Honor because some of the Scouts weren’t Christian and didn’t want the prayer to be Christian but to be respectful of the Scouts who were.
Not quite. You aren’t moral enough unless you can state the oath honestly. If not, then they don’t want you as a member, at all. You are not lying because they require a lie, rather you are lying to them. If that is acceptable to your conscience, they aren’t going to investigate too hard, so you will get away with it. But if you inform them that you are lying, you will find yourself an ex-member pretty quickly. They want truth, but they aren’t going to grill you very hard to determine it.
FTR, I was a Scout for 1 year when I was 14 or 15. Lost interest because our Scoutmaster was pretty dull, and we never did much of any real interest.
I know there are lots of Mormon scouts but I had not heard they now run scouting in the entire country. I was really surprised when I found out the scouts started in England, I thought it was a US invention.
60 years ago my father was Scoutmaster of the United Nations troop. I’ve seen the material - there is no “Scout is Reverent” law but rather “A Scout Supports the UN Charter” law. Had to keep the Russians happy.
I had a similar experience as others upthread – I was teetering between agnostic and atheist when I became an Eagle scout. One of my board members (not of my troop, regional board) asked if I believed in a supreme being – he was not interested in what particular flavor of god(s), only whether I believed at all (at the time, I sort of did, and he didn’t want any long explanations, so I just answered yes). After the board was over he told me he’d have trouble approving the award to an atheist – they’d have to be completely kickass in all other areas and even then he’d struggle with the decision and likely end up in the negative. He believed that a scout had to be ultimately accountable to some higher power in order to truly lead a moral life. This was in the early 90s, so atheism may well be more accepted now.
[QUOTE=Headrush042;13632534He believed that a scout had to be ultimately accountable to some higher power in order to truly lead a moral life.[/QUOTE]
So something like Shinto where the man-god relationship is surface, temporary, beneficial, and liberated wouldn’t work? In Shinto, unless you’re a priest you really have little to no accountability or duty, 99% of all the interactions with kami are saying “if I give an offering/prayer/whatever, I’ll get stuff” with no actual obligation to the deity other than fulfilling a short term contract (i.e. “I offer you lettuce, you help me find my dog”). Granted I doubt this rarely if ever comes up, but in those sorts of cases do they start wavering again?
Someone pointed out previously on the SDMB that the original handbook written by Lord Baden Powell stated that a man cannot be moral unless he believes in a god. I’m writing from my phone, so it’d be a hassle for me to find the quote.
I was an Eagle Scout. I don’t recall any religion requirement at that time, but it was almost 30 years ago, and all the religious stuff for us was pretty rote anyway. The oath was just words. It’s possible I was asked some religious questions. My troop was sponsored by a Lutheran church, so they probably just rubber stamped any religious endorsements if they were needed. I’m almost positive there wasn’t any merit badge, but couldn’t swear to it. I tended to buzz through earning those things at a pretty good clip and then completely forget about them.
The religious stuff back then (at least in my experience) was pretty much just lip service that we barely paid any attention to.
Well, they would prefer that you don’t be a friggin’ atheist.
I earned my Eagle rank. At the time, I was religious - not strongly devout, but sincere. I did have questions, and have since become atheist. I do not recall explicitly what was in the religious questions on the Eagle review board.
The Scout Oath pledges “do my duty to God and my country”. The Scout Law says that a scout is “reverent”, which is intented to convey religious belief.
My own troop was fairly laid back. We were situated out of a Presbyterian church (not my church, but a convenient troop). We had prayers with the meetings and prayers on the camping trips and such. Nothing particularly grim, but definitely christian in tone.
I recall one time we had a boy attend for a couple meetings. I was told by my dad that he was an atheist. At the time I didn’t see what the problem was, but now I can thoroughly sympathize.
My dad is involved in Scout leadership. When I was in college, he convinced me to attend a few meetings, but ultimately I was uncomfortable because of the dichotomy over the stated intent of the organization vs my own beliefs. Sure, I could go and pay lip service or just keep my mouth shut, but the hipocracy bothered me.
Checking the link, I recall the award my brother earned was called “God and Country” (I considered but ultimately didn’t go for it). Which is weird, because they only awards from beagledave’s link by that name have nothing to do with our religion at the time or the church through which our troop was organized. 
I was a very active Scout in the mid-'80’s. Senior Patrol Leader, sash full of badges, Order of the Arrow, worked a few years at the big camp in northern CO, went to Philmont, two Jamborees (U.S. and Australia). I was told by our Scoutmaster to hold off on stepping up from Life for a year or so, due to a couple of men at the council level’s beliefs.
Never became an Eagle.
Huh. That bit notes “The BSA recognizes religious awards for over 38 faith groups including Baha’i, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, and 28 varieties of Christianity”. I wonder if any of the six unnamed faith groups is Islam? Seems odd to name Baha’i and Zoroastrianism and leave out Islam.
Islam is mentioned, as are numerous beliefs that either may actually involve atheism, or whose concept of God, or Gods are spectacularly incompatible with Christianity.
Are candidates from these backgrounds allowed to modify their oath?
I presume the reason for this is that it’s much less politically viable in the US to ban Muslims or Buddhists (or even Wiccans?) from the Scouts than it is atheists or agnostics.