cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20749204

Another positive step in the right direction for an organization rife with brokenness. There’s a lot I don’t like about the organization, but this is something a love–a scouting organization open to young women and the lgbtq community. The next step is being inclusive of nonreligious agnostic and atheist youth and leaders. As well as ending the cultural appropriation of Native American peoples.

May this organization continue to build up youth, never allow further violence against youth, and make amends for all the wrongs. There’s a lot of good that comes out of organizations like this and I won’t discount it even though it’s riddled with a dark history.

  • Null User Object@programming.dev
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    6 months ago

    The sad part about this is that The Girl Scouts has always been an amazing organization that’s done great things for girls and society, but didn’t get all of the favorable treatment that the boys did from the government. Now their playing field is going to be even more unlevel.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Girl scouts is boring and doesn’t cater to what modern girls want to do. Most girls drop out after “Brownies”. It may be better for girls that don’t want to be around boys, but it’s clearly not as popular.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      6 months ago

      Girls were welcomed in six years ago. The first group of Girl “Eagle Scouts” came about in 2021.

    • MerrySkeptic@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Girl Scouts is an amazing organization and there are some things they do that I prefer to Boy Scouts (like no religious requirement). But the mission is very different. Now there are multiple organizations that can serve girls.

    • ⓝⓞ🅞🅝🅔@lemmy.caOP
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      6 months ago

      This has already been done to some degree. Not to say that more can’t be done. I don’t think you could ever be too careful in this regard. But for all leaders, there’s enforced youth protection training and requirements now. They have a lot of rules with how scouts out leaders are able to interact. It’s light years ahead of other organizations, like the church, in this regard. For instance, none of the leaders in the group I’m involved in have ever contacted my children on- on-one. I’m always CC’d on all correspondence. At events, buddy systems and other rules take it further.

      Pragmatically speaking, the scouts have an interest in protecting children. More info here: https://www.scouting.org/training/youth-protection/

    • MerrySkeptic@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      BSA literally helped set the standard by which all modern youth organizations operate to keep kids safe. Back in the 80s/90s they began making background checks mandatory, implemented 2-deep leadership (minimum of two leaders present at all functions and never one-on-one with a scout), and mandated reporting suspected abuse to local authorities and the national office. All leaders must go through a training on these policies and recognizing signs of abuse every 2 years. No one is allowed to overnight functions who isn’t a registered leader and current on this training.

      Most of the sexual abuse from the big law suit took place before all this was implemented. At the time BSA tried to cover it all up. Since then they have changed course.

      Are there still things to improve to improve safety? Probably, but I’m honestly not sure what that would be at this point.

      • perishthethought@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        IMHO, three leaders instead of two would be an improvement. I say that, even though I know finding enough parents / leaders willing to give of their time is very difficult.

  • yokonzo@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This is great, as I understand it from my GS friends girl scouts was basically a glorified cookie sales rep position

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      They had a shitty scout leader. My mother was a scout leader for years for the Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts, and she took the positions because she wasn’t going to have her kids miss out on camping, archery, fishing, etc. that the scouts are famous for teaching young kids.

      I realize that the good scout leaders are few and far between. They have to care about the kids, or it ends up turning into arts and crafts, with a seasonal sales period for cookies or overpriced popcorn.

      • Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org
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        6 months ago

        They have to care about the kids and also have the time, capacity, and energy to put into making scouting enjoyable. If they don’t have the support of other volunteers it makes it exponentially harder too.

      • yokonzo@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        But there’s this perfectly good organization already built that the girl scouts was meant to emulate in the first place. Why not just… Allow girls?

        Also, this is the boy scouts of America’s decision to make. This is a positive change they can make in their organization. They can’t do anything to fix the girl scouts because that’s someone else

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      Yeah, sewing and cooking are traditionally masculine hobbies. /s

      A lot of the stuff they do are male focused, but they teach a lot of skills that are useful to life that aren’t masculine. That’s why I much prefer the BSA to the Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts seems to be purely feminine. It’s all about baking and crap. BSA (or the new acronym) is about developing a wide variety of skills, and it covers damn near everything. You won’t learn all of them, but you are required to earn cooking at least.

      • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        I know I did it. There are a lot more badges about camping and birdhouses and derby cars and engineering than cooking and sewing and crochet. I mean yeah there’s some there, but zi het that’s a victory from this same discussion 50 years ago.

  • Zammy95@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Please do atheism and agnostics next. I finished all the way up to doing my eagle project, all I had left was to finish some paper work and I would have gotten my eagle. I quit right about then, because what was the point? They were just going to take it away from me later for not believing in some magic book, I wouldn’t be the first they did it too. Absolutely ridiculous.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      I just didn’t mention my beliefs. I think I was asked vaguely about it and I vaguely answered, but if you’re still able to I’d say to do it. Having the eagle scout behind you can open some doors. It can’t hurt.

    • Dojan@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      What? As a complete outsider (I’m from Sweden, scouts isn’t a thing here) what does scouting have to do with religion? Why would they discriminate against atheists?

      I thought scouting was about natural sciences, and helping out in the local community? Which to me sounds pretty nice!

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          What! That’s also so bizarre! Isn’t AA just group therapy? Why does that require a deity?

          • can@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Because it’s manipulative and they only care about helping the “right” people.

      • JaymesRS@literature.cafe
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        6 months ago

        In the US they never dropped the mandatory overtures to religiosity. In fact, there was a period in the 90s-early 2000s where one sizable religious group replaced their prior youth organization with the BSA and got pretty involved at the national level to the detriment of the program as a whole. While it’s not really required in any real sense at the troop level, you do have to affirm a belief in some “higher power” as an adult volunteer. (I’m an Eagle Scout and now atheist)

        In Sweden, the Svenska Scoutförbundet was an outgrowth from the original UK scouting movement, but I don’t know how big it was/is.

        • wjrii@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Oh, the Mormons were deep into Scouting well before the 90s, they just starting throwing their weight around as it became less popular to the general public and outside social pressures (i.e. not being dickbags) starting being voiced alongside the churchy bullshit.

          What I don’t know is when they started directly paying a negotiated rate in dues straight to BSA. I do recall when I was a little LDS kid bringing my dollar a meeting or whatever for Cub Scouts, but by the time in was in Boy Scouts in junior High they’d stopped asking for that and someone told me the church handled it.

          • JaymesRS@literature.cafe
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            6 months ago

            I know. It just seemed to me that their influence began to ramp up even more (perhaps that was just my local troop though) when the LDS Church started paying registrations and activities fees in the early 90s but it truthfully happened slowly like boiling a frog over a long time.

      • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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        6 months ago

        The three core principles of scouting are:

        • Duty to God (adherence to spiritual principles, loyalty to the religion that expresses them and acceptance of the duties resulting therefrom)
        • Duty to others
        • Duty to self

        When asked where religion came into Scouting and Guiding, Baden-Powell replied “It does not come in at all. It is already there. It is a fundamental factor underlying Scouting and Guiding”. Source

        So unfortunately removing religion from the scouting would remove one of the core principle of the movement, I don’t think it would anytime soon.

        Which is a shame because I really enjoyed my time scouting, I think it was a great balance of fun, education and learning responsibilities. But the religion aspect of it make me seriously reconsider to send my kids to do it or not.

      • Zammy95@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The Scout Law - “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and REVERANT.”

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          6 months ago

          For the scout law, reverant doesn’t have anything to do with God necessarily. It is usually used in reference to God, but it could be reverence of nature or other things.

        • dankm@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          In Canada they added a second option. Old: “On my honour; I promise that I will do my best; To do my duty to God and the King;…” New: “On my honour; I promise that I will do my best; To respect my country and my beliefs;…”

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Ooh. I suppose this is the answer I was looking for, though it still strikes me as rather strange. Was scouts established a very long time ago and did the religious bit just kind of cling on? Is there any type of push for making it secular? Because what little I knew, learning about natural sciences, and getting hands-on experience in various situations, as well as helping out the local communtiy just strikes me as a very positive thing. Squeezing in religion among all that just feels so out of place and foreign to me. It’s like one of those “find the odd one out” situations.

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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        6 months ago

        The Boy Scouts of America is a Christian organization.

        Although, as I was a scout myself that shit never came into play other than the occasional group prayer at big, national events. The individual stuff in our troop was agnostic af and my troop leader was Jewish.

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I believe we have Christian led organisations here in Sweden as well, but they don’t necessarily push religion as part of their operations. It really depends though. I recall an after-school thing being held at a local church when I was a kid. Other than it taking place in a church from the 1200s, there wasn’t really anything religious about it.

          Are the girl scouts also religious? All I’ve ever really heard about the girl scouts is that they sell biscuits, but I assume they engage in the same activities?

        • Zammy95@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          This exactly. When going up ranks, it was the smallest topic. “Yeah, god, great guy”, the leaders chuckled, we moved on.

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I love that they’re called Speider’n over there. I can see how that can be read as scouts, but in my head, “spejarna” sounds more like some sort of spy school organisation. I’m also baffled there’d be religious parts of it even in Norway. Wonder if the Swedish organisation has it too, their website at least highlights that they really value diversity, it’d be strange if they were anal about religion.

          Even then, religion seems like such a strange and unrelated thing to chuck in there.

        • Delusional@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Yeah religion is shoehorned into a lot of things here. Alcoholics anonymous is religion based which makes absolutely no sense to me. Going to AA and being force fed religious bullshit would make me want to drink more.

          • Zammy95@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            It was also forced into some kind of rehab my buddy had to go to (court ordered after being caught with weed years ago). He took WAY longer than he should’ve because he’s very stubborn, and said he doesn’t need god to not need vices. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

      • StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk
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        6 months ago

        What? Sweden don’t have scouts? My daughter was on a scout camp there last year and I believe there were swedish scouts also.

        Regardless, in Denmark we have a few scout organizations. One of them KFUM (which would translate to the same as YMCA) which is the christian boy’s scouting org, that also allows girls, and the similar one for girls that don’t allow boys. Both of them has Christianity as a pretty foundational thing and most of the clubhouses are in or near churches and they have church services on camps and shit. Then there’s DDS (dark blue uniforms) and they’re not connected to any faith, but are still committed to the “spiritual development” of the scout. However this can be done in other ways than inflicting religion on children. In 1973 they merged the boy and girl scouts, so it’s just one thing now. The yellow scouts branched from DDS in the 80’s, with a mission to go back to more traditional scouting values. Not sure what that means, but they’re a also non-religious and non-political organization.

        Finally there’s some Danish Baptist scouts but I don’t know much about them other than they’re likely a more religious variant of KFUM, attached to another christian flavor.

      • Droechai@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Vi har eller har haft (jag är inte uppdaterad) PMU Scout, KFUM/KFUK-Scouter, NSF-scouter och Svenska Scoutförbundet på rak arm, så scouterna har ganska många förbund i Sverige dock

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Är religion en stor del av våra scoutförbund också? Måste medge att jag är lite paff att jag har lyckats missa att scouterna finns i sverige, så tack för korrigeringen. Vi svenskar är verkligen tokiga i att grunda förbund, föreningar, och folkrörelser så det känns ju rätt rimligt att scouterna skulle finnas här också.

          • Droechai@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            Väldigt många har kristen grund men som så många andra sammanhang är det väldigt bredd på hur fundamentalistiska de olika patrullerna är.

            Har mött scouter som ser kristendom som centralt i scoutandet medans andra ser det som survival training för ungar eller förberedande inför FBU, lump eller liknande

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I was in a Mormon troop, and went through with it, though only by the skin of my teeth and my dad’s incessant badgering. 17.75 years old would have been right about the time I was muscling up the courage to go openly agnostic. They don’t exactly follow up.

      Glad to hear about this change. I’m now somewhat less ashamed to mention it. I did the most cliche “picnic tables for the elementary school” project ever. I really didn’t give a shit about advancing, but a certain ex-marine father got a bug up his ass and decided he would be the troop leader until I finished the damn thing.

    • hostops@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      TLDR: Scouts are about nature AND religion. Not just nature. There are many organisations that are just about nature. Feel free to join them.

      Why should they not discriminate against atheists?

      For real. Just because you believe it is about nature? Scout organizations are clearly about nature AND religion.

      Join an organization that is just about nature.

      In my country we have two strong scout organisations. One religious and one not. Religious one focused more on a personal growth and the other one more on nature skills. (Well some of my friends in religious one were atheists they just had to practice the same activities)

      Churches do not accept atheists. Chess clubs discriminate against non chess players.

      But if they would include non chess players, chess clubs would have no meaning.

      One can see you do not hold religions in high regard, but please allow people with the same interests and believes to meet and express themselves together in a peaceful manner.

      • Zammy95@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        That might work in your country, but there isn’t some non-religious version here that’s popular. They also don’t advertise as religious at all, just the nature aspects. Religion wasn’t mentioned in the organization a single time until I was already in for… 6 or 7 years maybe?

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      6 months ago

      That’s not true. You do not have to believe in a magic book. The BSA requires a belief in God, but does not define god. It requires religion, but does not define religion.

      Why is the sky blue?

      If you answer “because God wanted it to be blue”, you’re good.

      If you mention something about physics and Rayleigh Scattering, you’re good.

      If you answer “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it”, you’re good.

      Even If you answer “who cares?”, you’re good.

      The only surefire way to answer this question “wrong” is something like “it’s not blue because of God, because there is no god.” While that statement is true (at least for any supernatural definition of “god”), you’re not being asked what you don’t believe, but what you do. You’re not being asked to rebut someone else’s belief; you’re being asked about your own.

      Do you hold anything to be “true”? Are the laws of thermodynamics obeyed in your household? Maybe Descartes’s First Principle is more to your philosophical liking: “I think, therefore I am”. 1+1=2?

      The sum of everything you hold to be true, BSA refers to as your “god”.

      • Zammy95@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I know people who have been kicked out for being an atheist, they didn’t really care to ask any of the questions you’re suggesting at the time. All they asked was if he believed in any higher powers and he said no. I wouldn’t say he was wrong, I don’t think science is a “higher power”.

    • neidu2@feddit.nl
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      6 months ago

      ANY religion will do? As a ordained dudeist priest, I say you should give it a go. Just be chill about it.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        6 months ago

        Would they have accepted The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

        Probably. Scouting America has been openly Deist for a long time and there is an official “Event” for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. So at least at the national level they don’t seem to care what Deity you jam too as long as you have one.

        • stanleytweedle@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I think I read freemasons were like that. Didn’t care what you believed in as long as it was something bigger than yourself.

    • ⓝⓞ🅞🅝🅔@lemmy.caOP
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      I’m really sorry to hear this. One shouldn’t have to lie about this, but should be allowed to not practice any particular faith. It’s honestly one of the most frustrating elements for myself among the scouts.

      This is one of the reasons why I have embraced my own magical book about my own magical being of my own making. When conversations inevitably go towards religion, I sometimes like to express my lack of faith by describing my mystical faith in the Cabra Cosmica. Yep, I’ve got mythos down and everything. Ironically, I really enjoy this form of make-believe faith. 😁

      Please allow me to introduce you with a fantastic stained glass depiction: Stained glass depicting the face of the Cabra Cosmica.

  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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    6 months ago

    The next step is being inclusive of nonreligious agnostic and atheist youth and leaders.

    Technically, they already are, with the possible exception of nihilists.

    The scout oath does include a “duty to god”, but they do not define what they mean by “god” or “religion”. Instead, they explicitly leave those definitions to the scout.

    The only requirements they actually have on the subject of religion is 1. tolerance for the beliefs of others, and 2. “reverence” for your own creed.

    Under their policy, “the laws of thermodynamics” is a perfectly acceptable “god”, and “In this house, we respect the laws of thermodynamics” is a perfectly acceptable “religious” creed.

    “The environment” is a perfectly acceptable god, and “we must preserve and protect our environment” is another perfectly acceptable “religious” creed.

    I readily concede that their policy is needlessly complex. It would be easier to just drop the “duty to god” and “reverent” requirements entirely.

    • wanderer@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Treating the oath as something that can be worked around using wordplay does nothing but make a complete mockery of the oath. We had this debate a over century ago when trial witnesses were required to swear an oath to god and atheists were prevented from being witnesses. The solution wasn’t to allow atheists to use god as a metaphor for reality, but to remove the requirement for a belief in a god.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        6 months ago

        The members of the organization decide how changes will be implemented. The members (citizens) of the US decided to remove the references. The members of scouting decided to keep the vague concept of religion, and leave it to the individual to determine specifics.

        It is not “mockery” to understand that the religious aspects of scouting are defined by the scout and the scout’s family, rather than BSA or a church.

        • wanderer@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          You are suggesting that it is acceptable to for scouts that do not believe in any god to lie and say that they do. Dishonesty goes against the scout principles.

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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            Dishonesty does, indeed, go against scouting principles, but I am in no way being dishonest.

            What I am doing is explicitly following BSA policy, both the letter of the policy, and the intent of the policy. That policy was specifically established to be inclusive on the basis of religion. Scouting follows it’s own law: it is “Reverent”, which includes a requirement to respect the beliefs of others.

            Buddhism does not include a concept of a deity, yet Buddhist youths are welcomed within the BSA. The “God” that BSA refers to can be found within a religion that does not include the concepts of a god.

            Unitarian Universalism does not require congregants to have a belief in a supernatural entity. While some UU members are theistic, there are many atheists and agnostics among them.

            I mention UU specifically, because the BSA entered into an MOU with the UUA on the subject. UU organizations are welcomed to charter Scouting programs, without requiring their atheist members to abstain. The “God” that BSA refers to can be found within an atheistic Unitarian.

            If I were asked how I, personally, perform my “duty to god” I would say that within my worldview, the concept that BSA refers to as “god” is usually thought of as “consciousness”. My duty is to utilize that consciousness in my daily life, to experience, to learn, to discover, to teach. I would recount one of my memorable experiences to my inquisitor, and thank them not just for asking, but for giving me an opportunity to perform that duty.

            BSA policy charges me with defining “god” for myself, and nothing in BSA policy prohibits me from appointing “consciousness” to that role. I am, indeed, an atheist as the term is normally used, but my belief system is compatible with Scouting.

            • wanderer@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              The UU memorandum of understanding is irrelevant. I am not a member, and I think most atheists are not either. People should not be required to join a church or a religion to join the scouts.

              I don’t believe in any gods, and would never say that something was a god if I did not think it was a god. Consciousness is not a god, nature is not a god, the laws of thermodynamics are not gods. Labeling these things gods only serves to imply some sort of mystery thing about it when there is none, I would consider it lying to do so. Do you think they would accept me? I don’t.

              If the religious aspects were truly left to the scouts and their families, outright atheists would simply be accepted, and there would not need to be a memorandum of understanding so that a specific organization could participate, because they would have simply been accept beforehand.

              • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                6 months ago

                The UU MOU demonstrates that “atheism” is not inherently incompatible with scouting. The memorandum does not mean that if you want to be an atheist and a scout, you must also be a Unitarian. It means that the duty required of the oath can be fulfilled by an atheist. How is it possible to fulfill a duty to “god” without believing in “god”? That MOU serves to clarify the distinction between what the BSA refers to as “god” and what other entities refer to as “god”. It demonstrates that the BSA uses a non-standard definition of “god”, and that we need to understand what they mean by that term before we can make a meaningful judgment of their policies.

                I don’t believe in any gods, and would never say that something was a god if I did not think it was a god. Consciousness is not a god, nature is not a god, the laws of thermodynamics are not gods. Labeling these things gods only serves to imply some sort of mystery thing about it when there is none, I would consider it lying to do so.

                I consider it lying for me to deliberately substitute my meaning of a word for the meaning intended by another. What you (and I) would and would not call “god” is completely irrelevant to how BSA uses the word. BSA does not hold to the idea that “thermodynamics cannot be god”. Quite the contrary. If a scout wishes to define god as thermodynamics, BSA accepts it.

                BSA does not hold to the idea that “consciousness cannot be god.” If a scout wishes to claim consciousness as god, BSA accepts it.

                BSA does not hold to the idea that “God can only be a supernatural entity” or that “God refers to a sense of mystery”. If a scout does not wish to declare God to be a supernatural entity, BSA does not force them. If a scout determines that a sense of mystery is not necessary, BSA does not require it.

                BSA developed their policies using one definition. You are using a completely different, contradictory definition. Your conclusions do not at all reflect their actual intent. It is intellectually dishonest for you to impose your meaning in place of their intended meaning.

                • wanderer@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  The UU MOU demonstrates that they still discriminate. Any Christian denomination is automatically acceptable, for atheists they have to pick and choose saying “you’re one of the good ones”.

                  If a scout wishes to define god as thermodynamics, BSA accepts it.

                  OK, that’s irrelevant. Those were clearly MY opinions, a demonstration of how I refuse to label things with the term ‘god’, followed by the rationale for me doing so.

                  You are using a completely different, contradictory definition.

                  I am not using any definition of ‘god’, I am just saying that it has a definition, not any specific one just some definition, otherwise the term would be meaningless. And if I were to label anything ‘god’ it would be because that thing fulfilled the requirements for this unspecified definition. If I were to label something as ‘red’ it would be because it fulfills the requirements to be called ‘red’. If it did not fit the definition of ‘red’ I would not apply the label ‘red’. In the same way, I would not label something as ‘god’ unless I thought the label fit. If I were to label something as ‘god’ it would imply that there was something different about it when compared to something that I would refuse to apply the term ‘god’ to. And there is nothing that I would be willing to label ‘god’.

    • zarkony@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      I agree with most of your points, but I don’t know, I think I would keep the reverent in the scout law, even if the oath changed.

      As a (nonreligious) scout, I always interpreted the reverent more as being respectful than actually religious. More like respecting the beliefs of others, or being respectful and solemn in a cemetery or a war memorial.

      There’s nothing else in the scout law that conveys that feeling, and I feel like the law would be missing it if it were dropped.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This post is a cesspool of hateful comments from anti-establishment people with zero actual experience with scouting. Scouts is a wonderful organization, full of volunteers, who give children - especially disadvantaged children - knowledge, life experience, and a general sense of accomplishment and competence. My involvement with scouting was the best thing about my entire childhood.

    • ⓝⓞ🅞🅝🅔@lemmy.caOP
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      6 months ago

      There is a lot great about this article, but it’s hard to keep completely positive in light of the many horrific abuses that have taken place within the Scouts. Youth organizations and religious organizations are highly susceptible to this. Scouting America has gone to great lengths to reform and protect youth today, but the stain will be there for a long time especially since abuse still happens (this just reported on days ago).

      To be frank, it’s a tense thing for me. Scouts was great for me in my youth and today as I’m involved with my children. However, I’m always on guard and paying attention. Whether it’s scouts or some other youth organization, they are vulnerable. I teach my kids to pay attention and remain ever vigilant. As great as such organisations can be, they are very very susceptible to predators.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        There is a risk of abuse in life. Most children are abused by family or family friends. Unfortunately we can’t stop all of the monsters, but at least Scouts tries, and has some of the most proactive child protection policies in the country. I had abusive teachers when I was a kid that physically assaulted me, that doesn’t mean we condemn all elementary schools. School was still a vibrant part of my childhood. I’m not trying to diminish the suffering of children who suffered abuse in a place that was supposed to provide them safety, but we don’t need to bring it up literally every single time scouting is mentioned. Most of the people on this comment chain are doing it because they get some sort of sadistic pleasure from diminishing the merits of helpful institutions like this, not because they have any sort of real concern for the children.

    • seth@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You can’t possibly know if people who don’t support the BSA have experience with it or not if they don’t mention it, what a wild assumption. I was in scouts and enjoyed the outdoor activities and merit badge system, but it was definitely not an inclusive troop by any means. I didn’t notice until my teens, but anyone who was even a little bit different was bullied not just by the other scouts but also the adult leaders. It made me not want to continue past Star. And it’s so weird that they taught the concept of exclusive secret societies for the elite (Order of the Arrow).

  • wetsoggybread@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Im just glad its no longer Scouting BSA its like saying ATM machine and reads like “Scouting Boy Scouts of America”

    • zarkony@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      Yeah, that always seemed like a transitional name to me. The BSA branding has been so prominent historically, they kinda had to keep it for a while.

  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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    6 months ago

    Devils advocate speaking…do you want a culture war? Because this is how you get a culture war: cis white males, once again, get the short end of the stick when it comes to divvying up inclusivity.

  • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 months ago

    Can’t wait for the “the scouts are failing due to being woke” crowd instead of the real reason, all the sexual abuse cases.

    • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I mean I had, and have met plenty of others who also had, the opposite experience.

      I say this as a pretty vanilla person, not gay not trans not even vegetarian…

      The Boy Scouts absolutely failed me as child interested in the outdoors because the troop was led by a bunch of adult men pretending the goal was to train a small military unit in a Lutheran church on Thursdays.

      I have met so many Eagle Scouts who were encouraged and taught skills… not verbally threatened by some 55 year old polish dude suffering narcissistic injuries…