Oh good... everyone shut up for a couple of hours.
The religious fanatics are soooooooo scared that one little atheist will be the death of their whole organization. They're entire religious premise is soooooooo shakey that one little atheist asking the right questions might cause their whole stack of cards to crumble.
Better not let that one atheist in or all h*ll will break loose and the sh*t will hit the fan.
And as for the BSA policy regarding respect for others religious beliefs and the sharing of those beliefs...
I guess that earlier posting was a complete lie. All the posts here prove that. These posts are the proof of their intolerance. Now you know why I kept my mouth shut on this subject when I was in the scouts 30 years ago.
If you say the wrong thing to the wrong person in the BSA it's the highway for you. Many of these people are leaders that have let power go to their head. You can also be threatened by the leaders sons or personal pets. There is a pecking order in the BSA.
We had an entire patrol dedicated to beating up all the other patrols in the troop. The leaders ignored it for two years and multiple assaults on other scouts. They thought it was just a case of boys being boys. I had gotten punched a few times and seen others seriously hurt. Finally I had enough and one of these clowns tried another attack, I bent over, picked up a rock, and smashed the side of his head opening it wide ready for seven stitches to close.
I had to outrun the whole gang of thugs up a mountainside to keep from being badly beaten. I then had to get one of my friends to wear my red Boy Scout jacket to decoy the gang away from me to chase him for another mile in the wrong direction. After being able to get to a more responsible leader and with the help of many witnesses we were able to put a stop to this crap.
The kids that were attacking us were God fearing Catholic boys from upper-middle-class private country club community of Packanack Lake, Wayne Township, Passaic County, New Jersey, Troop 104. Check out the community at Packanacklake.com. Our community was sooooo intolerant of others... forget about it... Blacks... forget about it, Italians... forget about it. WASPs only!
You said the wrong thing about your views on religion versus the gang of Catholics, and you're a Protestant...
forget about it... you got punched.
That's your BSA tolerance of religion. Pardon if I don't accept your peoples views on religion and tolerance in the BSA. All of us just wanted to have a good time and learn some skills. We didn't need your religious rejects thrown at us. They all eventually left. Most of them became pot smokers and low achievers. Some of the goons became high school dropouts.
Once the religious rejects left the troop things got much better and religion was no longer a tool for terror within our troop.
Hey, that's great analysis. You had a rotten experience in a crummy troop, and so you generalize it to all of Scouting. Yeah, and everyone who served in the U.S. Army is a sniper who shoots at innocents.
By the way, your assumption that everyone who disagrees with you is a religious fanatic is indicative of your own closed mind. My brother is an Eagle Scout who has since become an atheist, and he'd be the first to argue that there's nothing wrong with the BSA booting out someone who disagrees with its views on religion.
The self-absorbtion is amazing. You've got a private organization that has belief in God as one of its basic tenets and membership criteria. You don't agree with their view on religion. But instead of going to another organization, you demand that the organization change its principles to accommodate you. "It is morally wrong for an organization to have belief in God as one of its principles. I have the right to force my way in and make them change that policy." The arrogance is beyond belief.
MM, I am truly sorry that you had a poor experience in Scouting. Yes, some kids are bullies and some adults don't handle it properly. Evil exists, but just because one troop was bad doesn't mean that the whole organization is bad. If things were so bad and you still liked the program, why didn't you try another troop? I can see that you could be turned off to religion because of the poor example of some people who are supposedly "religious." Religion has the capacity to point us in the right direction. That doesn't mean that we will be faithful to it. For myself, it is a constant struggle to keep on a good path. Lord knows, I often fail, sometimes miserably, but I keep picking myself up and trying again. My Sunday church attendance reminds me on a weekly basis that I need to keep trying. And I know, without a doubt, that I am happier when I come closer to doing what I should be doing with my life. I've seen it all around me that sin makes people desperately unhappy in so many different ways. < /soapbox >
Unfortunately, nothing can be done about your truly wretched experience in scouts at this late date.
If you will kindly indulge me, I am a little curious about the dynamics of your troop. You said:
The kids that were attacking us were God fearing Catholic boys from upper-middle-class private country club community of Packanack Lake, Wayne Township, Passaic County, New Jersey, Troop 104.
Then you said:
Our community was sooooo intolerant of others... forget about it... Blacks... forget about it, Italians... forget about it. WASPs only!
If the kids who were doing the attacking were Catholics, how is it that the community only allowed WASPS, aka White Anglo Saxon Protestants?
You said that Italians were not allowed, but Italians are traditionally Catholic.
This is not an attack. I'm just curious. Perhaps you just misspoke.