moosetracker

Women developed bilateral vision in order to ward off men trying to grab her by the hair and drag her off to their caves..  Men, in order to duck when the women came at him with a big club..

Agree with NJ you will probably need to answer your own question SSScout.

Meryln - you are speaking a foreign language saying the Bible was written by man, when talking to people who believe the Bible came from God.. You will never ever see each others points of views..

Me, I fall somewhere in the middle of the two views with the Bible was written by man interpreting the word of God, and man writing down what Jesus did when he walked amongst us (think the very first newspaper men.)... Then it's been reinterpreted, and reinterpreted, and reinterpreted again... But, somewhere within all that reinterpretation, there are nuggets of God & Jesus...  But, then everyone now takes the current Bible we have and get 50 points of views by how each of us individually interpret the Bible..  So where does that leave us?.. Who knows.. One of the reasons why organized religions do nothing for me.. I can interpret for myself and I don't need anyone to do it for me, thank you..

Well if you are Jewish, you might say what God wanted from us has been unchanging (maybe, I'm not Jewish).. If your Christian there is one big event that stated in a BIG way what God wanted from us had changed.. He came in the form of Jesus Christ..

Other religions who do not follow the Judeo/Christian God may have gods that constantly change their expectations.. Who knows..

I can't see the Disability Awareness at a day event, but our camp offered it at a week long camp, to complete it you needed to work at it more then your 1 hour a day class time. Easter Seals has a cabin that houses disabled youth for camping..  The youth taking the class worked with them in various ways, I don't know all of what but my son took it and talked of helping them during their swim class and some outdoor activities, so they didn't stay cramped indoors for the entire MB course.

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.

 

Barry

Sure the Scout Oath & Scout Law help to give scouts a guideline to ethical & moral choices... That is where we as scouts find a common denominator in ethics and morality.. Otherwise it's to each his own based on his personal religion or viewpoint of what their moral perspective is...

I think besides your personal beliefs NJCubScouter, BSA has religions with similar views and they are acceptable to BSA.. Either way, BSA accepts atheists who prescribe to a religion but they have no belief in a higher power dictating moral values, and BSA accepts those who believe in a higher power but one that after creating the universe really does not get involved or care about our day to day lives.. But some religions are not acceptable and we have no idea what if there is any yardstick to gauge what religions these are.. And you can come up with your own belief system based on self reflection and that is OK too..

Eagledad - Yes the last statement about the rock religion and earthquakes was tongue in cheek.. I have no idea how someone could believe in purely a rock religion, or what it would entail.. It's a little too much for me to wrap my head around unless someday I meet up with someone with the rock religion belief and then I would be interested to hear from them.. All I know is BSA says someone can come up with a rock religion and that would be OK..  I more see if you are going to base your religion on nature, it will be more then rocks.. I can understand the Indian beliefs and wiccan beliefs that incorportate all of nature in their belief system.. 

Was anyone else not able to get into the forum for about 4 or 5 hours.. I had something about a database error.. But when I could get back in it seems like all of you have been posting away with no issue..

"Higher power" isn't sufficient to describe God since it is comparative, not superlative.

Higher power isn't something this forum came up with in order to distort the views of BSA on this.. BSA has stated this is acceptable terminology time & time again.. As in this that I pulled from

“Duty to God†lies at the foundation of Scouting’s commitment to moral, ethical, and spiritual growth. To reach our full potential and learn how to make better choices throughout our lives, each of us needs to believe in a higher power."

Eagledad - I think what Merlyn is stating is that morals differ from religious belief to religious belief.. These disagreements have caused many religious wars (Which each side of the war believes their side is morally justified).. In lesser terms are the arguments of the past about slavery and today about homosexuals and all the other reasons denominations have split and created new factions. Or people just create a totally new religion based on their beliefs that are different then the religions currently offered..

Also Eagledad I can't remember the religion, but I know in the past we have discussed the BSA acceptance of a religion where they do believe in a God or higher power, but their belief is that this higher power does not expect anything from them, so for that group their moral ethics is not born of their belief in a higher power.. But this is true of any of the atheists religions that are acceptable..

Who knows the religion of the rock may have a lot of moral ethics.. At least I could see it being big into environmental science and saving the planet as with any religion that is based in nature.. But it may have more.. Rocks can be very angry gods, if you see earthquakes and volcanos as the gods having a terrible temper if you don't do right.

Eagledad - we have already discussed and have proof BSA allows in atheist religions, Buddah and as Merlyn stated Taoism and others..  You seem to be belittling personal reflection for coming up with your beliefs?  Why?  What is wrong with sleeping out under the stars and looking around and coming to the realization that something great must have had a hand in organizing everything, or that the sum of nature is greater then ourselves or whatever..  Who are you to say that coming to a belief in a higher power this way is not as good as being dragged off to Sunday school to have your beliefs drummed into your head from a young age.

And we are on the 11th page of this topic (we are still on this topic, yes?)

 Ummmm... Well we have taking little side trips, but we seem to get back to the topic eventually...  We have been pretty good.. So do we get to go out for ice cream? Huh, Huh?.. We have been pretty good..

11 pages and as clear as mud.. All religions including atheist religions (except for a few BSA personally dislikes but no list of them)..  Virtually any belief that is personal and has no organized religion including believing a rock or tree has some sort of higher power..

SM in sons troop monitored how many opem MB's a scout had open, had to have a good reason to open more if you already had 6 open.. SM also monitored who the MBC was, had to be a good reason to have a parent as your MBC.. Most people scouts & parents had no issue with it..

I know of a Cub Scout pack that is sponsored by a pizza place.  I don't think the pizza place promotes religion in any sense of the word, so they must be atheistic.  They corporately they don't have a duty to god, unless maybe some pizza god someplace.

Did you miss the whole who-ha about the pizza joint in Indiana? Not to take a turn down another road.. But, people defending them and cake bakers were stating they weren't discriminating against the gays, but they were Christian pizzerias & bakeries and so it was a Christian pizza and/or a Christian cake that couldn't attend an event that went against their religion.. Ok this came from defenders of this new Indiana bill.. I know Hobby Lobby supreme court verdict has them stating corporations are religious.. I don't know if the Supreme court would back the cakes & pizzas coming from these religious businesses can also be religious and that a pizza/cake can have a "duty to god" which incorporates the pizza/cake not attending a gay wedding.

Any way back on track..

Just because a troop is sponsored by a Lutheran church does not make it a Lutheran troop.

If this is in reference to the Scientology troops, I would say perhaps they are open to the community and so are not strictly a Scientology troop, but I do not think a church would sponsor a BSA troop if members of their church defiantly were banned from being BSA members due to their religious beliefs. 

Must have ran out of my 15 minute edit, I added to last post but it didn't take.

I also thought the aluminum cookware had to have some thickness.. Those cook mess kits from what I saw are paper thin..  My club aluminum cookware has about 3/4 inch thick walls, the cute aluminum Do wasn't that thick but had some thickness too it, enough that it did not look like you could change it's form with dents and mushing from normal ware and tear and packing into a backpack.. I could see where you could have burn problems others referenced where you burn at every place the charcoal touched, if your aluminum cookware is paper thin..

I have always listed myself as MBC to anyone (not troop only).. Even with required MB's I got few outside of my troop asking me.. Now that I have been away from the troop for over 8 years, I get few at all as those in the troop no longer know me either..

Of course that could be location also, I live about half an hour outside of the very bottom half of my district.. Therefore to most any scout in my district I would be 1/2 hour or longer commute.. I know with my son, when looking at the list of MBC's outside the troop the city they lived in was an important factor for who to try to call 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc until he found one to work with him.. For his Physical fitness the guy was over an hour away and we met up with him every other week for the 3 months so that he could work with my son on improving his exercise regiment..  The drive was a killer for me, considering I would drive 45 minutes from work to pick up son to drive 1 hour to the MBC (passing close by my work and keep on going)..  Still met a lot of nice scouts & scouters as we usually met the man during when his troop met weekly..

I didn't realize those old aluminum mess kits were that airtight as to be used that way.. Does anyone still sell them new? Most the time the ones I see are so beat up and grungy I couldn't see anyone eating or cooking with them anymore, if they had an airtight seal at one time, they don't anymore due to the dents and mushing they received..

Can't burn the handles on mine unless you are really not being attentive, since the one handle shared by all comes off, and you have to take it off since the way it's made it is very secure when lifting the pot with it, but if you leave it on without holding on to it, it will fall off due to gravity..  I debated getting a single pot with lid & handle for the extra handle that I saw being sold on ebay, just because I fear if I loose the handles, the pots will be useless..

I guess because I grew up with them always being semi-shiny I feel like that is the way they should be and I am not taking good care of the family pots if I let them go black.. When my father broke up his house when moving into assisted living, he asked what I wanted.. All I wanted were these triangle pots and the old Camping box my Uncle Paul made for our family.. So you could call them my family heirlooms. Others have diamond necklaces and ruby rings.. I have old camping gear.

I went looking for a cute aluminum DO I noted a fellow scouter having once, but I couldn't find it.. Wasn't round as normal, but was like a small single layer rectangular cake pan with bottom & lid.. The owner rattled off all they could do with it and I was impressed.. But I have no clue where or when they got it, and now I can't remember all he could do with it aside from the cornbread that he was baking in it when I saw it..

I just came back after being away for quite a while.. I am sticking around for a while as the new forum is very nice and it is now easy to track stuff you are interested in keeping tabs on, unlike the old forum which never recovered from the upgrade that was buggy and lost features that were in the one it replaced..

I too am not as involved in scouting, some trainings I still officially am a UC but should officially resign since my going on night shift has made it impossible to meet with them to visit or help out.  But, hey I still find I am opinionated..

Enjoyed reading everyone's responses, since I don't work with troops anymore I stayed away from answering, because the answers would have been what our troop use to do about 8 years back when I was involved..  I do use the DO's for training in IOLS, OWLS and BALOO, but my answers would now be about my own personal cookware..

I have an older cast iron skillet for my kitchen.. I always thought with long use my other cast iron would someday look as well seasoned as it is (very smooth on the inside, and the outside is not smooth at all, sort of like it had slowly built up some sort of hard protective coating from sitting in the coals or something).. But then I read it was the difference of the older way they use to cast the cast iron compared to how they cast them today.. 

Show me a Club Aluminum or Revere Ware or any Circulon, or whatever they sell in stores today that has seen a campfire and I'll show you an abused piece of cookware. 

Hopefully you are talking about newer Club Aluminum.. I have old Club Aluminum  maybe 1930 or 40's, I don't know if early in life it had any other use, but it's been in my family for over 50 years and is our camping pots.. More used on camp stove, but on occasion put over the fire (I've learned with an open fire to put soap on the outside bottom or the soot is hard to clean off after use..  They are those triangular style ones come in a set of 3 but only one lid and one wooden handle in the set, they were designed so they could share a single burner..

My husband had someone in his family lost part of his arm that way.. I never met him, but to be sure, no one in his family stuck their arm out the window too far when driving on tight single lane roads.

TAHAWK - Sorry if you felt I was doubting you by my comment.. More I was just questioning why the list didn't mention them.

AZMike - very true that religion has become taboo, unless you know you are with people of your own faith. Just something hit by the polarization of the times on several topics.

Well, perhaps I opened a can of worms.. After all, the article simply shows a fight between the humanist and BSA...  Perhaps it is not BSA the denied the humanist, but the humanist who rejected BSA unless it opened it's doors to all.. Who knows..

After all if all these are considered religious groups and BSA has made the statement that virtually every religion is represented in the BSA. It doesn't say virtually every religion with a theistic belief..

Like TAHAWK says if a Buddist can have no belief in any Gods and be ok... What I do find strange was that Buddist didn't seem to be on the list of religions who are atheist in nature. I wonder why, especially when they included the Deism that has a belief that a higher power created the universe, but then left and they have no duty to them..

Not having a good list of district MBC's sounds like a real hindrance to your district..Perhaps you can ask around at a round table.. You may find one that isn't known because of the poor list, or one that usually works with a troop, but when asked will come to your aid.. Or perhaps someone still in the Cub Scout program, who has yet to think about being an MBC but one of the ones you are asking about it aligns with their occupation..  When we were about to leave the troop (son aged out) they found someone who wasn't in Scouting but was willing to do all 3 Citizens... Some one in our troop was a lawyer and she approached a state judge to see if he would offer them..

"He is reverent toward God." ... how does that apply to those who have no monotheistic "God" ?  Wiccans and Buddhists come to mind. (forgive my ignorance)

I was just looking into atheists religions.. This may be a little more complicated (I will get back to that.)

Wiccans although do not have a God, seems they have gods

Wicca is typically duotheistic, worshipping a god and goddess traditionally viewed as a mother goddess and horned god. These two deities are sometimes viewed as facets of a greater pantheistic godhead.

 

Buddist also give a nod to god or gods.

Some Buddhist schools have many Gods, others have none. But it would be wrong to say that Buddhism itself teaches atheism, pantheism, or any other position on gods and deities. Gods are the conception of a particular time and culture, and may be used more or less wisely in the development of one’s spiritual practice

 

So anyway, I went looking for a list of non-theist beliefs and I found that one on the list BSA I guess has said "No" to and consider them to be atheists.. The Humanists, the belief is summarized as follows.

a philosophy which in most cases embraces Agnosticism or Atheistic belief about the non-existence of a deity. But it goes further to create moral and ethical systems based upon reason and logic. It regards humanity as the measure of all things. Humanists emphasize the importance of doing good in society.

 

But this article sort of shows that BSA rejected humanist and they had a legal tussle similar to atheists.. http://americanhumanist.org/news/details/2010-06-humanists-dismayed-with-philadelphia-boy-scouts-Verdi  ... Perhaps the rejection is because they decided to go up against BSA and argue for inclusion of all atheists and also homosexuals??

Here is the page with a list on non-theist beliefs..  I don't know if anyone else can pick out which ones 'are OK' or 'are not ok' per BSA..  And it opens up the question of if you belong to the religion of the rock.. What will make your rock approved or not approved per BSA???

http://www.religioustolerance.org/at_ag_hu.htm

"And that is why BSA can state that you can not just be an atheist who respects the religious beliefs of others."

 

But you can be an adherent to an atheistic religion that respects the religious beliefs of others.

That is very confusing BUT very true...  Because you follow a religious practice (just guessing)???...

It's interesting... the verbiage used by the BSA.

 

"On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my Country."  Okay, where's the statement of faith there?  The scout states that his understanding of God is what other people have told him.  That means doing a good turn daily falls into what those people are saying.  Servant Leadership falls into that scope, respecting other peoples' religious beliefs is part of it, being morally straight is part as well.  

 

Where does the wording state the scout has to believe anything?   As long as he is reverent towards other and does the beneficial, helping things wile being moral, he has it covered.

 

Maybe all this is the BSA trying to get out ahead of any atheists meddling in the policies of the BSA, kinda like the pro-homosexual factions.

When we were in Cub Scouts being reverent of others beliefs was all I thought someone needed to meet reverent.. Somewhere when my son was in BS I read the BSA expectation for reverent..

A Scout is Reverent.

He is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion.

Then also duty to God - means expecting you to do your duty to God..

And that is why BSA can state that you can not just be an atheist who respects the religious beliefs of others..

But you are right - If you are following the other 11 points of the scout law, chances are you are probably doing your duty to God (or what you decide is your higher power).. I have posted time & time again, the scouts can easily skirt around getting into the nitty gritty of their religious belief by simply stating what he believes is expected of him in his religion and address some of his actions to prove he has tried hard to do his duty to God.. 

Of course this is if the Board has been given the correct training on how to approach the question.. At which point you get down to the current argument of how much trust do you put in your fellow scouter to approach the question on a sliding scale of 1 to 10.. with 1 being absolutely no trust at all  and with 10 being having total trust in your fellow scouter..  I probably come in at a 7 ..  EagleDad is somewhere higher on the scale then me, and Packsaddle & Mozart are definitely lower on the scale then me.

There have been child molesters in BSA in the past.. I am sure there are child molesters in BSA now, I still don't look at every scouter in BSA with the presumption that they are a child molester.. Same thing with this.. You can not presume everyone is doing it wrong, because of a few examples that some are doing it wrong..  I will give you a nod that if I lived in the Bible belt, rather then in the Northeast, my view would probably be more fearing a 50/50 mix of those doing it wrong to those working hard to do it right.. I do not know where you live, but that may be where the difference of our perception comes from.

My retest was on something that IS a retest, asking a boy to tie a knot, or  to explain how to do CPR is retesting and a no-no.. Asking the scout to discuss their best camping trip, How they are fulfilling their position of Responsibility, Why do they think physical fitness is important in BSA, or if they have done anything recently to fulfill his Duty to God, are all questions that are not a retest... YOU took my bringing up retesting for something that is a retest (knot tying) , and moved it to the question about fulfilling the 12 pts of the law calling that question a retest, when it is not a retest and I never said it was..

I started out in a troop that taught us to give BOR's that were very tough and full of retesting.. And the more the adults thought the scout unworthy the tougher they would be with him on the board.. It was not uncommon to fail a scout 3 or 4 times before the board would pass them... When I went to training about the right way to perform a BOR I had a hard time excepting it, I saw ALL the questions as pretty thin in content and it took me a long time to accept that a BOR was not a pass/fail.. That ALL questions asked were ones that they could not possibly fail..  The one on religion (short of professing atheism, just fits equally in with all other questions a BOR can ask.)...  

Once we moved to a troop who did Boards right I only saw two boys (not told they failed, but rather told it would be better to put the board off until next week.)  Once when the boy came without uniform and was wearing his baseball uniform instead, and once when the boy was so flustered he couldn't answer anything, and he was spiraling downward every time he stumbled over himself, he got more self-conscious and more uptight, and no matter how the adults tried to put him at ease it was just a lost cause.. Both came back the next week and did a terrific job..

You see the whole point of the question as being a "test" to eliminate the atheists.. But you fail to acknowledge the real reason for the question, which is to push the scout to take the time to do some self reflection...  If they are not hit with the question for the first time at the EBOR, they will have had time to reflect on it..  If you regularly ask at a BOR "If you could change anything in the troop, what would it be?"   would you expect much from a tenderfoot more then "I don't know.."  but you would expect the answers to become better as the scout climbs up in rank and is not surprised by the question..

This is not retesting, it is not a requirement they got checked off on.. This is getting the scout to start thinking about a response when they get asked this question..

Yes, I too have the fear of the Adult leader not doing it correctly.. But, I don't start with the presumption it will be done wrong.. I will assume the best but simply keep my ears open for abuse, and figure out a way to nip it in the bud.. Depending on the circumstance how to do it would depend..  Never in front of a scout, and if I am hearing it 3rd party and it is not a unit I work with, then simply taking it to the DE for him to handle.  It is sort of like staying alert to child abuse, you don't go around assuming everyone is a child molester or child abuser, but you don't ignore the signs if you see them.. 

Moosetracker is right. We are a country driven by fear. Letting your kids walk around without adult supervision can now get you arested in some places ("it's not safe!").

Yeah just in the news this week is something about parents who allowed their 6 yo & 10 yo walk alone to the neighborhood park and they got a visit by the police and a warning.. They did it a second time and are now in real hot water (I forget what they are now facing)..  Luckily, I was happy to see comments after the news article siding with the parents and thinking authorities were over-reaching.. But, still.. Reminded me of when I ended up with my sisters 5 yo child for 2 or 3 months.. My mother brought him to us as we were out of state.. Child welfare wanted to take the child away from her because she dared to let the child play outside in his own backyard without constant supervision..  My sister had to sell her house and move out of the neighborhood before she could come and get her child back from us..