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If BSA conducted a truly anonymous poll of their membership, at least 10% would declare themselves atheist, and at least another 10% non-practicing religion. The Declaration of Religious Principles needs to be dropped. BSA knows they can't afford to lose another 20% of their membership. It is "don't ask, don't tell" at this point.

On the flip side, I have friends and relatives who fretted over my kids’ involvement in a program as secular as scouting. (Sending them to public school probably added to that drama.) I guess one of the reasons I am a scouter is to breath some air outside of the American Evanjellyfish bubble. I insisted to my kids that their Christianity didn’t mean squat if they couldn’t live it out among non-Christians. Such friends were welcome at our table. Now adults, they are in many ways less secular than I am. Their friendship groups have narrowed into predominantly Christian circles. That bothers

Others addressed this already, but the basic tip that I would provide to a beginner is to just sit silently during the prayer and continue with the meeting as though nothing happened. For a one-off situation I'd recommend just leaving it at that. Choose your battles. If it's a regular meeting that you'll be exposed to often, you can have a conversation with the leaders involved where you express your concern about the inclusivity of a Christian prayer being delivered to a group of mixed faith. This conversation could go one of two ways: the person might say "gosh you're right I didn't rea

Our pack is participating in a community event with our council. We chose to do bottle rockets. This was a fun event for our scouts so I would like to share with others. How I made our bottle rockets: 2-liter soda bottle, 3 Tbsp Baking Soda, 2 Cups Vinegar, Duct Tape, 3 Pencils, Construction paper to decorate, One cork, and Paper Towels 1. Assemble and decorate your rocket, using the pencils as feet. 2. Secure them to the bottle using duct tape. 3. Add vinegar to the bottle. 4. Add 3 Tbsp baking soda onto a small square of paper towel. 5. Roll the paper towel tightly e

As it always has been in the scouting movement, the scout law. That's the whole purpose of having the law, that's our shared values foundation. That's also why WOSM and WAGGS approves NSO scout laws. They're all variants on a theme. https://www.scout.org/who-we-are/scout-movement/scout-promise-and-law "Scout Promise and Law Scouting celebrates inclusion and is open to everyone regardless of gender, age, background, faith, or beliefs. Every Scout is unique, but they find common ground in their shared Scout values. These values are upheld in the Scout Promise and Law, which are ad

Yes, but through out recorded history, credit to morality is given to god. Even the Greek gods had followers. That is how cultural behavior is defined. And thank goodness. Otherwise, the definition of behavior comes from the person with the biggest stick. Look a Russia and China. China has the fastest growing underground religions in the world. Why do you think that is. And how can a youth association define itself as a character development program without a generally agreed source? Of course you think you are moral without god, but that is a lot of responsibility for 100 scouts under yo

Any bets on how long before @SSScout asks for a sub forum? 😀

@KublaiKen, to build off of @qwazse's distinction, Here are Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's words about theism in volumes 1 and 3 of The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, composed of talks he gave while alive: Vol 1 P 11: “KEY HINAYANA TEACHINGS: A non-theistic path In order to study the hinayana teachings and the buddhadharma, or the “teachings of the Buddha” altogether, you need to let go of theism. You might think that nontheism amounts to a reaction against spirituality and that there is no hope in such an approach. However, people who have g

@KublaiKen non-theists and atheists do have different theologies. Non theism asserts that there are spiritual practices that benefit a person in some intangible sense without necessarily involving a deity. Atheists vary in this, but many assert that if the benefit is intangible, then the asserted effect does not exist. I.e., a person would be just as well off without it. This is why, in the first centuries, Christians were labeled atheists. They asserted that sacrifices to the pantheon (especially burning incense to Caesar) had no tangible benefit, and people were better off abandoning all s

Is a non-theist the same as an atheist? (I mean theologically, not linguistically.)

Scouts Own Service. Scout Sunday,. etc. I handle it this way.... Smile and wave... Smile and wave.... Our Unit had Scout Sunday a couple of weekends ago at our former CO, a FUMC. It was the first Sunday of the month and therefore it was the Sunday they did Communion. It was awkward for our family sitting there in Uniform while everyone else in the building got up and went down to the front, even some of our Scout families. I havent had anyone made an issue of anything before. So...

WELLLLL, Old compooter died, new compooter finally up and humming. Had to sign in "new". AES: Some folks are just that way. Please find the grace to forgive them, and learn from whatever lesson they teach. Maybe it applies, maybe it doesn't in your case. So be it. Did you hear about the agnostic, dyslexic, insomniac ? Poor fellow lay awake all night wondering if there is a dog..... Bada bum bum.... As our District's resident Chaplain , I discuss (I try to not say "teach") "Reverent" at our IOLS sessions. It is sometimes hard to get thru to some folks. Is there

I won't lie, participating in BSA events as a non-Christian can be uncomfortable at times. I remember as a youth being taken with the rest of my unit to Sunday-morning "non-denominational" (but still Christian / Protestant) services at camporees and also at Philmont. Though that was more than 20 years ago now, I imagine there are still districts and councils that put on similar programming today. I didn't get the impression from my unit leaders at the time that attending such things was optional. You would do well as a leader to make sure the non-Christian youth in your unit feel empowered to

I agree that it would be unscoutlike, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen, so it's helpful to hear at least one American scouter affirm that basic view. The wall of Christianity is intimidating sometimes, especially in view of US society as a whole, even though I know very well that the scouting movement explicitly isn't a Christian movement. There clearly are a lot of people who want to make it one, and it's hard to tell how well they've succeeded. Had a lot of them systematically not left the BSA already I don't think I would have dared pick Cub Scouts over Brownies or whatever the youn

Unfortunately, another major issue is how people have embraced theidea of suing one another. If I went on a Scout trip and fell down and broke my arm I went home, explained what happened, got fussed at for doing something stupid and went back with a cast on my arm. Unfortunatly today the supervising adults could face a law suit, not just to pay the repair bills, but to make the unfortunate youth who was subjected to needless danger and negligent supervision in an environment that should have been known was dangerous and was devoid of any warning labels or cautions that should have been clear