Merlyn_LeRoy

 NOTHING, except that in 2013 National BSA was still a discriminatory organization.

And still is.

In this day and age it would appear that people can redefine themselves at the drop of a hat.  Why would agnostics and atheists be any different?  It used to be male and female, now the list of options has gone into the realm of sublime.  Maybe this has something to do with some ancient tower called Babel.

People can redefine themselves all they want -- but if you genuinely want to understand what another person means by "atheist" or "agnostic", you need to ask them what they mean.  If you just want to slap labels on people, you don't even need to ask first.

Slight correction here.  Agnostic - A = not or without gnostic = knowledge.  Without knowledge.  You were correct when you indicated "Some agnosticism says that God is unknowable"  This is a process of knowing or knowledge, not belief.  Belief is the acceptance of an idea that IS unknowable.  Apples and oranges operating here.  Unless one knows they aren't going to accept anything, meaning if it can be sensed with any of the 5 senses it is not real.

 

An A-theists = A = not or without theism = God/god.  Without G/god.  They actually do believe, but their belief is there is no G/god.  They have a belief system the opposite of the Theist.

 

Now there may be a few that will argue those definitions, but those are the etymology of the two words.

 

I'm sure the Agnostic has put a bit of thought into the process, but has concluded there is no way of knowing.  They just leave it at that.

Better correction here: ask people who call themselves "atheist" and/or "agnostic" (and plenty are both, like me) what they mean by the terms, not other people.

I did some research on Scouts-L and found that the unit in question does indeed run a clandestine co-ed program. It works in Cambridge...

 

More info and an article on the unit can be found at:

 

http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/08/07/girls_not_allowed/

 

The Pack/Troop/Crew are combined using LFL to add the females.

 

It's only a matter of time. Money and lawyers will determine the outcome.

And since LFL allows atheists, either atheist boys can join via LFL, or it's lawsuit time again.  And the BSA can't argue that excluding atheists is somehow a vital part of the program since they would already allow atheist girls.

As others have also mentioned STEM scouting, I've seen conflicting statements on whether that uses LFL; here's one that says it does:

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/04/15/stem-scouts/

Plus concerning the recent "atheists can be part of a Unitarian-Universalist" troop, maybe adding a "Public Lip Service" merit badge could be added.

 "legality" matters naught to the Court of the Aggrieved Social Justice Warrior.

It does to fulfill stosh's imaginary governmental repression.  It's the difference between being arrested for being a jerk vs. being treated as a jerk for being a jerk.

The clergy in our area have already been warned that saying homosexuality is a sin constitutes hate speech.

By whom?  Hate speech is perfectly legal in the US.

 

Only the membership policy is out of the news (as it should be), so it's going to take a while.

There's still the ban on atheists, and yes, atheist organizations do and will object to recruitment in public schools.

 

The emphasis is my addition to point out that no one's been dragged out of the pulpit....yet.  It's a sad day in America when we see the slow train wreck coming from a long way away.  It's even sadder to think that this possibility even exists in America. 

 

I won't hold my breath waiting for such a rightwing fantasy to happen, just like those imaginary FEMA death camps.

 

I understand that it is far more convenient to demonize someone's language on the path to do dismissing his/her observations.

Or to just dismissing people as "the permissive".

Christian pastor reading from scripture about such things as sin, will soon be held accountable for promoting hate speech and be arrested.

Hate speech isn't a crime in the US, and can't be as long as the first amendment means anything.

There is nothing hypocritical about finding non-incendiary terms for broad movements.

YOU don't get to decide what OTHER people find "incendiary".  Your terminology was clearly used as an insult.

Thanks for making my point, Merl.

It's not the legal action itself. But, the potential rhetoric promised to all who step outside "the line."

That's what certain CO's have limited stomach for.

Sticks and stones, no problem.

Names, they hurt.

There IS no legal action.  Names hurt?  When hasn't there been namecalling for the last three decades in this BSA nonsense, hypocrite? (cf. your reference to "the permissive")

Not necessarily.  Those with an intolerant political agenda will sue.  Those who are tolerant will just consider the source and just walk away.

Only if the BSA violates the law.  Simple, isn't it?  The BSA is still a private, discriminatory organization; just act like one.

Strictly speaking, voting isn't a right in the US.  States vary widely on whether/which ex-felons can vote; if it was a right, I don't think states (IA, KY, FL) could prohibit ex-felons from voting even after completing their sentences.

@@Stosh, with the current anti-religious environment this country is in, we may be moving in that direction.

 

For better or worse, the School District here doesn't technically have the those holidays because they are religious, they have them because the lack of student attendance at school on those days is/will be significant enough to disrupt the teaching plans, so they give in to it.  Thus, our winter break, days that correspond to many other christian and Jewish holidays, etc.  While I don't think it happened yet, there was discussion about Halloween (as many of the Hispanic students in our schools do not attend on that day), and the Chinese New Year as well.

 

I don't claim the process is fair, or would truly pass constitutional muster, just that it is practical.

The best way I've ever heard of (and it's pretty clearly constitutionally OK) is to actually find out what days students and teachers are planning to stay out of school, whether it's for a religious holiday or family gathering or whatever, and plan to have the school closed on days with the most absences and try to avoid things like important tests on remaining days with high absence rates.

As Christian I don't expect to get paid extra on a Jewish holiday.  I don't expect to get paid extra on a Hindu holiday,   As an atheist, why would I expect to get paid extra on any religious holiday?

 

Keep it in mind that when I was in the ministry, I worked ALL Christian holidays and didn't get paid extra for any of them.  Why would I expect overtime pay for working Christmas?  It just boils down to how one wishes to justify their ethical stance.  If one doesn't have any ethical stance on the issue, just take the money and don't ask questions.

So, you're saying all non-Christians who get paid extra for working on xmas are unethical.

By the way, I consider being paid to dole out "religion" unethical.

An atheist working religious holidays for over-time pay is just a perk to be taken advantage of.  If they were truly sincere in their beliefs, they would turn down the over-time and work it as just another day, which they claim is the case in the first place.  It's call self-gain hypocrisy.

Stosh, it's obvious over many years that you have no idea what an atheist would think or do.

Then we should have the Athiests work on Christmas Day since it means nothing to them.

Plenty do, but they usually get overtime pay.

Unless they don't:

http://www.dontsaythepledge.com

And if public schools try to punish them, the Freedom From Religion Foundation makes them stop.

https://ffrf.org/faq/state-church/item/14030-pledge-of-allegiance

https://ffrf.org/legal/other-legal-successes/item/19878-ffrf-stops-school-from-forcing-students-to-recite-pledge-of-allegiance-november-20-2013

"let boys be atheists" in the sense that they will be required to recite a god-oath and proselytized to become Christians, and can't be adult leaders.

what can't be debated is that the State has the right to do those things necessary to fulfill its duties.

Sorry, I still say that's 100% wrong.  States have powers to fulfill their duties, not rights.

Apparently, the UUA considers this to allow atheists into their BSA units:

http://thehumanist.com/commentary/boy-scouts-unitarian-universalists-agreement-mean-humanists

[Peter Morales, the president of the UUA, in reply to the Unitarian Universalist Humanist Association]

...

I believe that UU congregations that choose to host scouting units have an opportunity to model what an inclusive and welcoming unit can look like—including those who do not believe in God.

...

We have heard from many UU Scouts and Scouting families who don’t believe in God that they were accepted despite BSA national policies.

...

I believe so, as well as the one followed by WOSM.

This is the same WOSM that is apparently OK with the Scouting Association in the UK admitting atheists.

Could you elaborate on the distinction between the two as it pertains to State governments?

 

But succinctly: State governments as well as municipal governments have duties; therefore they have rights. For example, a State has the duty to protect its citizens; therefore it has the right to do so as well.

Wrong.  They have powers to do that, but not rights.  The constitution refers to rights of people, and powers of government.  You can't just arbitrarily slap the label of "right" on anything -- under US law, there isn't even a right to vote.

And DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989) & Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005) would suggest to me that states do not actually have a duty to protect its citizens, at least not in general (they apparently do for situations like a person being in state custody).

Yep, since the Southern States lost their states rights, ALL the states lost them as well.  Instead of a collection of individual states with a limited federal government, the Civil War was the second American Revolution where we now have exponentially increasing bureaucratic bloated central government with continually degraded states' rights.

 

States don't HAVE rights (and never have); they have powers, not rights.  And governmental powers are limited by the constitution, which states and your local sheriff (not matter how corrupt) have to respect now.

I think Massachusetts shouldn't have the power any more to hang Quakers for having "unacceptable" religious views.