“Be Prepared” … Not to be a scout !
Posted by Big John on October 20, 2012
I see that some bright young kid has been banned from becoming a scout because he is an atheist ! In other words he is one of the few children in this world who has not been brainwashed by the priests of some religion or other. Lucky young man !
The boy says that he is “disappointed”, but judging by the news from ‘across the pond’ he may have had a narrow escape.
I was never a scout, but some young friends of mine were ‘cubs’ and I remember that they told me about some very strange goings on in the scout hut. I can’t remember all the details after such a long time, but, as I recall, it did involve a lot of “Ging Gang Goolie” singing and a game involving taking their pants down and exposing their own ’goolies’. I would have loved to have seen the badge awarded for that activity.
Although I was never a cub or a scout I was, for a brief time, a ‘Life Boy’, but as this meant taking part in church parades, attending ‘sunday school’ in a cold and damp mission hall and learning ‘texts’ from The Bible I was often ‘AWOL’. I don’t know if I ever took an oath, but if I did it would have been just another bit of meaningless ‘mumbo-jumbo’ to me: and so I would advise our young atheistic recruit to tell the local scout master to stick his woggle up his arse, and then to …
… piss on his campfire !
SilverTiger said
People are getting into a rather pointless lather over this case. I wonder whether they would make such a fuss if a boy were to be banned from the church choir for refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of God – surely not, because people recognize that belief in God is an integral part of belonging to a church organization. Well, approve or disapprove as you will, belief in God appears to be an integral part of belonging to the Boy Scout organization. The BS have every right to make whatever membership rules they wish and, equally, people who do not wish to abide by those rules have every right to refrain from joining the BS.
To me, this case has another, much more interesting dimension. When I joined the BS (longer ago than I care to tell you), many of my fellows had no particular religious leanings but they were happy to swear the oath and attend church parade. It didn’t matter to them because they saw the oath as a mere formality, which, after all, it was. The dimension of which I speak is the change in society: we didn’t bother about such things then but people do bother about them now. That says something about society far more significant than some boy’s disappointment at not becoming a Scout.
Whether people are right to bother about this question is a matter for the individual and whatever idiosyncratic opinions he espouses. There are lots of organizations whose rules I deprecate but I solve that “problem” by simply not applying to join them.
From what I see of the BS organization (which, by the way is split into factions and is not a unified movement), they are today not what they once were and I seriously question their relevance to modern life. I suggest that the boy in question should look around and find more useful and interesting clubs to join.
Maria from Silver Fox said
Mr. Silver Tiger makes some very good points, but it seems to me that the Boy Scouts should welcome all boys. I think back to how devastated my boys would have been if they had not been able to join an organization that all their friends joined.
Even the Pledge of Allegiance here in America which was first published in A Boy’s Life, the Scouting Magazine, did not have the words “under God” in it until some zealots in the 1950′s insisted on it. I believe over the years, scouting has become more and more conservative and narrow-minded.
Recently here in the States, a young Eagle Scout candidate was denied this award because he “came out “. Ironically, his Eagle Scout project was on stopping bullying and demonstrating respect for others. Guess what kind of lesson he learned!
Gabbygeezer said
With so many constructive things we humans could do, one wonders at all the time devoted to hating those who are “different.”
Ginnie said
Just one more reason why I am happy that I was married for 32 years to an atheist. (and, yes, he died as one, despite the religious folks who love to say “there are no athesists in the grave yards”) He allowed our two boys to make up their own minds about joining the BSA but they both opted not to. The hypocrisy in most religion-dominated areas is mind boggling.