alright, already!

My first experience with Scouts-L has certainly been a wild one! I
just wanted to generate an intelligent, informative discussion of the
differences between BSA and GSUSA regarding belief in God, and instead
I seem to have issued an invitation to battle by encyclopedia, or "my
source is superior to your source". So how about if I admit that you
are all correct in the details you have been haggling over?

YES, according to my encyclopedia, my dictionary of world religions
and the Buddhist recognitions offered to both Boy and Girl Scouts,
Buddhism does recognize "a supreme being". (However, what am I then to
do with the Buddhist family who prompted all this by claiming to be
atheists? Get them on Scouts-L so they can be corrected, too?)

YES, the actual wording of the recent GSUSA proposal was "to allow
those with differing spiritual beliefs to substitute wording
appropriate to their beliefs for the word God when saying the
Promise". It did not literally "make God optional". Mea culpa.

The atheists in my troop are substituting SILENCE while the
rest of us say "God" and there are no plans, at the troop level or
above to drum them out of Girl Scouting. I would be happy to discuss
what this is like for me as a NON-atheist leader, its implications in
recruiting children from the same family into Boy Scouting and Girl
Scouting (since it presents a rather obvious difference very early in
the scouting experience), and any other topics that naturally arise
from this issue. But can we please cease the semantic quibbling and
quoting of documents for the sheer purpose of putting someone else
down?
Jo Paoletti jpaolett@arhu.umd.edu
"It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught"-- A.N. Whitehead

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