Gold Winger

" We don't need it filtered and interpreted by prophets, Popes, Bishops, and self-proclaimed Reverends. I think there's a lot of sense in that." Based on that idea, everyone should ignore the writings of Paul, not to mention big chunks of the old testament. Wait, I bet those are okay because they were written long, long time ago and no one has been able to hear from God for the past 2,000 years. As for who is a Christian, let's look at the dictionary definition Christian (krschen) adjective 1. Professing belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. Doesn't say anything about the teachings of Paul. And for all you know, his father's house is on Znerflot. Core beliefs? Very few of those actually come from the words attributed to Christ. Much of those can be attributed to a tent maker with heat stroke. Humpty Dumpty was right, words only mean what we want them to mean. A classic example are the illiterate newscasters who use "begs the question" incorrectly as in, "His extravagent vacation begs the question, 'where did the money come from?'" Or the journalists who think that "penultimate" means "best of." Their "authorotative" misuse of words and phrases changes the meaning leaving those of us who can read beyond a sixth grade level of shake our heads in dismay.

"I feel they are just too young to grasp and understand everything that might be going on." Only if the parents don't shield their children from the reality that death is part of life. The first funeral that I can remember as a child was my great uncle George. We went, I said good-bye, they dropped him into the ground and then we ate. As a child I went to funerals for aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and even friends. I never had any trouble understanding what was happening and neither did any of my hundreds of cousins (literally). I know adults who were never exposed to funerals and death as a child and they can't deal with it now as an adult. Just like skiing or soccer, acceptance comes best with early exposure.

I believe that the entire den should go both to comfort their friend as well as to let them learn that death is part of life. The way that parents try to shield their children from death has bothered me for years. My mother had a large family and I grew up visiting funeral homes two or three or more times a year. An elderly relative died when my kids were small and people thought that I was horrible for taking them to "Look at a dead person." When my mother died, I told the girl that I was dating at the time and her response was, "I hope you don't mind but I'm not going to come to the funeral home. I'm not into that death thing." ?? I said, "Do you think that I'm into it?" The dating ended shortly thereafter. It isn't a matter of liking it or enjoying it. It is a matter of obligation. To show that you care about the person who just suffered a loss. It really winds up being up to the parents but I'd encourage everyone to make a visitation to the funeral home and then have the den go as a group to the funeral. It is going to be a rough day for the boy and having friends there will make life a little easier. It would be nice for the Cubmaster and Committee Chair to show up too.

No Ed, you're the one who argues that if people don't believe as you do, they cannot be Christians. That's like the silly people who don't like golf and claim that it isn't a sport. Here's the reality Ed, if I follow the teachings of Christ but believe that he's an alien who came to Earth to recruit people to populate his city on Znerflot then I am a Christian. If you believe that Christ is the son of God and belive that belief will save you in the afterworld, you're a Christian too. If you believe that Christ came to the new world to preach to the lost tribe of Jews, you're a Christian. If you believe that after Christ died, he went to Scandanavia and sang songs with Norsemen, you're a Christian. For my part, I'm looking forward to visiting Znerflot.

" I'd gladly trade the medal of valour for not ever having happened what did on a tragic day year or so ago." Most guys that I know who have been awards medals for valor feel the same way. They'd rather have not been in the situation in the first place. Many also feel that they only did what needed to be done. My father-in-law received the Silve Star in WW II for doing what he described as the only thing that made sense at the time. I don't remember all the details but a few years back an airline pilot was hailed as a hero after he landed his plane which had some serious problems. He said, "I'm not a hero, heros have a choice about being there." I've never been a hero but if ever am declared one, I don't want a medal. Maybe a Cobra but not a medal. :-)

Not long ago, I had some BSA material copied at a national copy chain. At that time, I believed that the old rules still applied so that's what I told the manager. He wasn't sure so he called their legal department who said that it was okay. I'm sure that someday the legal department will catch up with reality and when Troop 945 wants to get programs copied for their Court of Honor, the manager will say, "Sorry, can't do that" just like when you want to get your kids' school pictures put onto a coffee mug. Another thing that will happend that the local screen shop that makes a dozen or two shirts for most of the units in a district will get hammered and wind up going out of business. That will be excellent publicity for BSA, "Boy Scouts Put Shirt Shop Out of Business."

Now I get it! People are only Christians if Ed, the Ultimate Authority on Christianity, says that they are Christians. Whew! I'm glad that's resolved.

I looked at their calendar. The mention of "Youth Leadership Council" and the fact that the crew committee meets at the same time as the troop committee the leads me to believe that they are running the crew and troop as a joint unit. Not sure what sort of unit that they are running, especially since they don't seem to do much camping. "It looks like it would be very hard for a Scout in that Troop to make the 15 nights camping required for OA" Good question. Maybe they don't figure that rules matter.

OGE, that's mincing words. Adultery is adultery and if you accept the words of Christ as the ultimate moral authority, lusting is adultery.

I do remember reading that about Ford after he died but you're right, he kept his religious cards close to his vest, metaphorically speaking. Carter on the other hand, waved his cards in the air for all to see, admitted to adultery and still managed to win. It seems that admissions of adultery help the Democrats.

"Kids do better on tests... thank you to the hard-working teachers, and to parents who spend their time readin' to their kids and makin' sure they do their homework." That's actually because the teachers spend their time teaching the kids EXACTLY what they need to know to pass the silly tests instead of teaching them to solve problems. I'v heard more than a few of my kids' teachers say, "that's not needed for the test so we won't cover it." It's not the teachers' fault, its the administrators. Also, they make the tests easier. Look at the SATs. Analogies were and still are an excellent way to test language, vocabluary and reasoning. However, students were doing badly with them. So rather than say, "Hey there's a problem in the schools, we need to fix it" they eliminated analogies. Just my observations. Every administration since Eisenhower has said that education was a priority but they we seem to keep falling behind. Like in Scouting, education needs return to the fundamentals and until the fundamentals are mastered, you don't get to do advanced work. Real world case, a friend's daughter whos was taking AP English as a Junior was talking about another teacher and said, "I like Mr. Smith because he teached us good." Sounds like instead of AP she needs remedial.

"George W. Bush is our first (I think) true "born again" US President." Jame Earl Carter comes to mind.

Actually Ed, it is very logical. You assert that because something is or isn't in the bible it must or must not be. Hence, since the bible refers to the ends of the Earth, they must exist in your universe. I've known Mormons. I had a close friend in college who was a Mormon, probably still is and I spent a fair amount of time with his Mormon friends. His feet weren't hooves and he didn't have horns. He didn't drink or smoke but was pretty much a regular guy. He knew the old and new testaments backwards and forwards and would use them to bolster his points of view during religious discussions. Rarely did he ever mention the Book of Mormon. My brother-in-law lives in Salt Lake City and his wife hate mormons. She claims that mormon men believe that in the afterlife you'll be given a planet with an unlimited supply of virgin and spend eternity de-flowering them. I don't buy that because if that was the case, my friend would have put that on the table as a sure fire way to convert me. :-)

We do have it nailed and haven't seen the need to change. So? What's so special about the bible? Just because the guys who wrote the new testament didn't know about the golden tablets, does that mean that they don't exist? Can you prove that Christ did not come to the new world? The bible makes many references to "the ends of the earth." Does that mean that the world is flat? Shouldn't the holy scribes have been told that the Earth is round and has no end?

You really have to wonder how mankind survived all those years without soap.

The Orthodox declare their church to be the one true church, since that is my church of record, I guess that I'm right and the rest of you are wrong. Protestants blow with the wind. The Roman Catholics seek relevancy in today's world. The Orthodox haven't changed anything significant in about 1,000 years. We have it nailed!

"Christians have a few books more in their holy scripture than Jews, eh?" Catholics have more than protestants, so I guess that they aren't Christians either. A Christian isn't defined by the book he reads. Christians are people who have accepted Christ as the Messiah. Jews haven't and neither have Muslims. Mormons have.

Since UK Scouting doesn't have a subsidiary in the united states, the ax in log is up for grabs. To me it makes sense to protect those trademarks or it might wind up that the KKK could be calling their advanced training "KKK Wood Badge." However, protecting their trademarks doesn't mean that they have to make money off the deal.

Different books are different books. What is the Bible? The Old Testament? The New Testament? Wait! There are different versions of those. So the Mormons use yet a different version. The Mormons that I know use the old and new testaments, they just have a few more books to thump than you do.

"Ya missed my point GW! Mormon's have the Book of Mormon." Which they use in conjunction with the bible, which essentially means that they have some scripture that you don't have. The Roman Catholics and the Orthodox have books in their bible that don't exist for Protestants. Do you hold that since they have different scriptures that they aren't Christians? Maybe since the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches are the two halves of the original church, you aren't a christian since you don't use all of the real bible.

Jeeze, that's a depressing read on that web site. As the man once said, "the times they are a changing" 7.5% royalty charge? That means a $10 t-shirt would suddenly be an $11 shirt. They want to bury us with paperwork. A mom doing free embroidery has to apply for a waiver? That will encourage moms to do stuff. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! I suppose that if a unit goes to Kinko's to get the programs printed up for it's court of honor, Kinko's will have to get a license. I used to think that the Girl Scouts were pretty bad. Looks like things are changing.

"gold winger the depth of your ignorance never ceases to amaze me. You seem to know so little about so much." Coming from you, I take that as a compliment. Thank you. "who was a self-proclaimed prophet not the Bible. " It seems like most prophets are self-proclaimed. We only have the "prophet's" word that God has spoken to him.

"Scientology" . . . looking at it very hard and I don't see the word "Science" anywhere in it. Must be double secret invisible writing. One could argue that Scientology and Science come from the same root, Latin for knowledge (according to Funk and Wagnalls) so Scientology would be the study of knowledge.

"The gold tablets that their are no scriptural references to unlike the 10 Commandments or the writings of Paul are connoctions of the mind of a great con man named Joseph Smith. " Huh! How could there be scriptural references to the gold tablets when the Jews didn't even know that the new world existed? Gotta love your logic, the stone tablets exist because an old book says that they do but the gold tablets don't exist because the old book doesn't say that they do. There's no proof for either. Paul? Other than on his writings, where are his writings mentioned? Did David say that a tent maker is going to be the great interpreter of the Messiah? Nah, Paul was just as much a nut job as Mohammed, Jos. Smith, Oral Roberts, Bahullh, or even David Koresh.

ETs have been here as evidenced by the pyramids which are attempts to replicate the Goa'uld mother ships.