- cross-posted to:
- usnews@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- usnews@beehaw.org
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.
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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.
Edit: Any magic book** they don’t even discriminate against other religions is the part that drives me even crazier. You just NEED to believe in one.
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!
Edit: Scouts are a thing here in Sweden. Thank you for the corrections, I’m quite baffled I’ve managed to miss that.
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.
This exactly. When going up ranks, it was the smallest topic. “Yeah, god, great guy”, the leaders chuckled, we moved on.
It’s not exclusively Christian though, a scout can get recognition from what looks like most popular religions:
And no religion at all. I just said I was spiritual and meditated and it sufficed.
Gonna have to get Satan on that list if they want my kid pledging in it.
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?
Girl Scouts are secular. They’re completely different organizations rather than two branches of the same organization.
BSA has everything to do with religion. It’s a part of their oath, and advancement requirements (duty to God).
The Scout Law - “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and REVERANT.”
Also the scout oath: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;…”
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;…”
At my eagle interview, they asked me which point I would take out of the scout oath, and I said, Reverent
You should have tried to sneak in “revenant” to see if it gave you the ability to raise the dead.
you know, Im not gonna fix that lol
You didn’t mess it up. It just made me laugh thinking of it happening. I may have been reading too many bad horror books lately.
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.
Exactly what I did to get Eagle.
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.
A lot of people have mentioned that the reverence can be loosely defined and doesn’t necessarily specify a certain god, but also a lot of it depends, I’m sure, on which part of the country you are in, which organization charters for you, and the volunteers that are actually part of the organization. Many people have barely had to say what they are reverent to and move on.
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 who had replaced their prior youth organization with the BSA 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.
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.
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.
I read it as “a little LSD kid”.
You know, we were subject to a lot of hallucinations…
Because the US is never more than a couple of steps from a Christian fascist theocracy.
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.
What? Sweden don’t have scouts?
Actually we do! I was corrected on this by @Droechai@lemm.ee, and looking it up myself they’re actually quite prolific. Going by their website they exist in 220 out of the 290 municipalities here in Sweden. Honestly I’m surprised I’ve never heard of them before. They even have a folk high school.
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
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.
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
Same reason Alcoholics Anonymous requires you to put faith in a higher power.
What! That’s also so bizarre! Isn’t AA just group therapy? Why does that require a deity?
Because it’s manipulative and they only care about helping the “right” people.
Norwegian who was in “Speider’n”. Nobody here cared about the religious parts of it.
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.
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.
Because 'Merica!
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.
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)_/¯
I was in a similar boat. Luckily they didn’t ask me if I believed in god during the actual board of review, so I got my eagle in the end.
Still a super shitty aspect of scouts.
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:
if you dont want to DIY it the Satanic Temple, Discordianism, Secular Paganism and The Flying Spaghetti monster all “exist.”
Ramen to all.
Forgot the Jedi Order
Is that a nativity scene with spaghetti in the manger?
Where can I read lore?
What are the tenets of Cabra? How do you know its real? (I know its not but I love invented faiths)
The tenants are very much in kind with those of secular humanism. And the Cabra Cosmica is as real as I wish it to be, which is both simultaneously very real and very not.
I often give thanks for my good fortune to the Cabra Cosmica as I do the Cosmos itself. I just wish to be thankful towards a thing at times and it can help to personify it. I mean, I did it most of my life to another false deity. Why not any other.
I know the Cosmos. I exist within it. Science describes it and defines its laws. Sometimes I give it a face. And sometimes that is the Cabra Cosmica.
I love it! Thanks for sharing :^)
I just wish to be thankful towards a thing at times and it can help to personify it.
That aspect reminds me of the Shinto belief that everyday objects have little spirits in them. I don’t believe in spirits, but I can see how this could be an interesting or useful mental exercise.
Best of luck with your religion. Have you fought any holy wars yet?
The only holy wars fought thus far involve conflicts over the correct installation of toilet paper rolls. And there is a right way.
Some things are worth dying for.
There definitely is a right way. I hope your faith is on the right side…
Would they have accepted The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
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.
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.
Sorry you didn’t get there, but you didn’t miss a once in a lifetime event either. Religion has no place in society or scouts. One day it will be gone and kids like you won’t have to deal with that.
No. I did mine and said I wasn’t religious, but I was spiritual and meditated. That’s all was needed.
Spiritual and meditated would fall into that some kind of belief thing for me. Saying I was spiritual in any facet would still be me lying to them, and I was just as stubborn then as I am now haha
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.
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?
What? Weird! This is against what this organization is supposed to represent. Sad.
Can’t wait for the “the scouts are failing due to being woke” crowd instead of the real reason, all the sexual abuse cases.
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 their goal was to train a small military unit out of a Lutheran church on Thursdays.
I have met so many Eagle Scouts who were encouraged and taught outdoor skills… actually taught survival skills! Not verbally threatened by some 55 year old polish dude suffering narcissistic injuries…
not gay, not trans… not even vegetarian.
how unfortunate
Ha right? Call me boring… but that was not the scoutmaster’s problem.
They’ve been letting girls join for a while, but that won’t stop the reactionary crowd from freaking out. Also, they put a huge emphasis these days on preventing bad touch, for obvious reasons.
They have but the stigma sticks. For good reasons.
Good on them for cutting down on the pedophilia, it’s always hard to kick a habit
As a former boy scout, hell yeah.
I have the Scouts to thank for turning me into first an atheist, then through their example of militant protheism, I became a militant antitheist and a secular prohumanist.
I didn’t find my spirituality because of them, I found it in spite of them.
Is it still spirituality if you don’t believe in spirits?
Yes. I do not see any contradiction. My view of spirituality is a broad and subjective concept that relates to my search for meaning, purpose, and connection to something greater than myself—my role in the universe, and the universe’s role in my existence. Religion has nothing to do with that.
I practice meditation, mindfulness, and self-reflection in a way that does not require attachment to belief of supernatural phenomena.
Can an atheist be “spiritual” ?
I think probably yes.
Who doesn’t believe in liquor (spirits)? Liquor provably exists.
Why “Scouting America” and not “Scouts of America” without the gender prefix? 🤨
Well there are several forms of scouting housed within the former “BSA”, now Scouting America?
Varsity scouts, Venture scouts, (formerly) Explorer scouts, and even Sea scouts.
The Scouts formerly know as Boy Scouts of America
they might not have been able to work that out with the Girl Scouts of America, which is a separate organization
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.
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.
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.
Just to be clear, the Boy Scouts actively protected abusers to protect their reputation, and went out of their way to NOT PREVENT ABUSERS FROM JUST BECOMING SCOUT MASTERS AGAIN SOMEWHERE ELSE.
This wasn’t just a ‘bad luck’ sort of thing, the Boy Scouts were actively HELPING abusers because they didn’t want the bad publicity.
New policies do as much as they can to protect the kids at least. Not an excuse for the past, but something.
Scouting has a dark history, but I also made lifelong friendships and learned a lot of cool stuff through Scouting. I only learned of the history more recently… No abuse locally or in any of the troops we associated with when I was younger.
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).
“More Inclusive Scouting America” is a bit wordy but I guess has a nice ring to it.
“M’ISA like it.” - Jar-Jar
This is great, as I understand it from my GS friends girl scouts was basically a glorified cookie sales rep position
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.
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.
Then fix the Girl Scouts…
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
This is good. Scouting (in developed countries) in Europe is one and same for boys, nonbinaries and girls, mainly non-theistic (apart from the obvious theistic groups) and focused on making sure health, hygiene, happiness and life skills are taught and practiced. Girls, nonbinaries and boys coexist, do the same tasks, chores and sleep in the same tents.
Uhm… Why not just Souts of America?
Not all of us live in the Sout. Many youts live in duh Nort, too.
Did you say Nort?
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With the abbreviation of SA. Idk how they overlooked this.
and yet my trans brother still isn’t allowed to join
Afaik, BSA has accepted trans boys since 2017.
The organization as a whole, yes. But some individual troops are still run by bigots that haven’t gotten the message yet.
I’d say fight it, because it can be won. Then again, I’d rather my child be a part of a troop that’s welcoming and safe. It’s hard to be a trailblazer.
There’s a lot of reasons to shop around with different troops. This reason is particularly important.
As we know though, trans youth have it particularly bad from every direction right now. 😖
Yeah, if you are looking for a troop for your kid, avoid the Mormon ones. And the boring ones who don’t go anywhere fun. And the “tough” ones with strict parents.
Remember that you can always just go to another one. And when you first get there, they will be on their best behavior. So if you don’t like what you see at the first meeting it will probably get worse.
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The most effective (though slightly petty) move would be to fight it until they are forced to accept you and then leave immediately.
why would you fight for someone that hates you? you don’t want to be in that group anyway.
I would absolutely report it. They can more than likely lose their affiliation entirely for not following rules
K
yes
So they are opening the predator buffet to new items? The Scouts is now the Golden Corral of molestation.
the downvotes remind me of why the clergy is still held in high esteem even though they’ve literally diddled so many children that they’ve had to file bankruptcy in multiple countries to protect themselves from the staggering number of law suites coming from those abused children who have grown into damaged adults.
probably a lot of Drake fans IYKYK
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.
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.
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.
Also, the GSA is pretty open about the fact that it’s just a thinly-veiled business program anymore. They exist to sell cookies and merch and that’s about it - anything that’s actually FURTHER than that is at the discretion of the troop, but not encourages.
Will the Girl Scouts do the same thing?
Probably not. they are to busy getting little girls to sell cookies for their own corporate profit.
They are different organizations with different purposes and missions. Throughout all the changes within the boy scouts, I have yet to hear of any changes within the girl scouts.
Im just glad its no longer Scouting BSA its like saying ATM machine and reads like “Scouting Boy Scouts of America”
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.
The scoutingest scout scouts who ever scoutingly scouted.
