NJCubScouter

I guess I haven't been in this thread in awhile. I guess it's too late to discuss this for this year, I know our sale ended Oct. 15. (Our pack share will be over $2,000 for the second year in a row, yay! We had one kid sell over $1,000 which I don't think we ever had before.) But when I went to the Trails End site to look at the tracking system, it doesn't look like the council really has to do much to set it up. It looks like the council is provided with user names and passwords (or the ability to make them) by the company, and all the unit has to do is ask the council. Did you ask?

ScoutParent says: I can say, in good conscience that Evolution is an engine of evil because I see that God tells us anything taking the glory for his creations is evil. Let's see if we can take this idea a few steps down the road and, at the same time, try to relate this thread back to what this forum is supposed to be about. Scouting, remember? So ScoutParent, let me ask you this: If evolution is "an engine of evil," is a person who believes that evolution takes place, an evil person? And if a person who believes that evolution take place is an evil person, should Scouti

Ed, unless I misinterpreted SCOUTER-Terry's post in the other thread, nobody "rid" us of anybody, except possibly for yaworski himself, and maybe not even him. Terry said: I'd rather not enter into a childish and time consuming game of blocking IP addresses from participating in the forums, so I'll leave it up to the forum members to understand the source of the message when reading. So it does not seem like anyone was "banned." Terry has simply informed us that 2 "people" who have drawn a great deal of attention to themselves appear to be violating the forum's policy against "hone

Rooster, I see what it says for the first day. But I also see what it says for the fourth day: God made two great lights-the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. Isn't the "greater light to govern the day" the Sun? It couldn't be anything else. So what did God do, create the Sun twice? I don't think that's what it means. But the only way it could not mean that is if "light" is being

And by the way, while we're at it. Genesis 1 also says that God created the Earth, and plant life on Earth, before the Sun was created. Do you really believe that? And if so, what scientific evidence is there for that?

DeMann says: The above quoted verses are to show (when you take them in the context in which they are written) that time is irrelevant to God. OK, if time is irrelevant to God, then why can't the "days" in Genesis 1 be a million years? Or a billion years? Or, I suppose, a second or a split-second? Point is, once you accept (as most people do) that the "days" are representational rather than literal, you are then free to look at the actual evidence, which suggests to most scientists that the Earth is somewhere between 4 and 4.6 billion years old.

DeMann, I just love that term, "evolutionist." There's no such thing. There are people who refuse to see what's in front of them because it does not conform to a literal reading of a particular book, and there are the rest of us. It reminds me of when I used to participate in a politics forum where there were a couple of people advocating the complete ablition of all government, and because I didn't agree with them, I was called a "statist." As young people used to say about 5 years ago, "As if."

It's been real. Well, from what I just read in the other thread, no, apparently it hasn't been real. Toodle oo.

If you are talking about the Cub Scouter Leader Book, chances are that you will not find the text online, and if you do, it probably should not be there. Like many (if not all) other BSA books it is a copyrighted publication, and the BSA requires that you buy it. I think that particular book is about $7 at your Scout Shop, and it may also be sold at your local Scout distributor. As for by-laws, I have seen a lot of discussion about this subject pro and con. Technically they are not required, and some people believe they are a bad idea. I am a moderate on the subject as with most other

For that matter, Billy Joel once sang, "I am an innocent man." It's been about 15 years since that album, and he's not dead yet either -- though his career has been reborn a few times.

You know, I hate to agree with Zorn about something, but if saying "I am God" or "I Am" is punishable by death from the Lord himself, then shouldn't the Beltway sniper be dead also? I think he left a message somewhere saying "I am God." Unfortunately, the sniper apparently is still alive. (At least, I think it was the sniper who left that message. It could be that I am mixing up my recent news stories.)

DeMann says: if man wrote them both,then how can we possibly know what God has to say? Excellent question. That's what I often wonder when I read these discussions. I don't think any of us actually knows what God has to say, or indeed whether he has anything to say at all. All I think we really know is that he (since most of us choose to call God a "he") created us and everything around us, though a lot of people (including me) think he actually created something that led to us and everything around us, through some unknown number of intermediate steps. And there's not a shre

Yes Bob, $3 for insurance, and it's council-wide, not something from my pack. Council will not accept a new scout application, new leader application or recharter package without the $7 fee plus the $3 insurance fee. For new applications other than at recharter time, the $3 is pro-rated just like the registration fee. For boys signing up in September, for example, the parents pay $6.30 -- $4.20 for registration and $2.10 for insurance. (That's the month I know by heart, since I end up being impromptu registrar at School Night for Scouting when we get our new Tigers.) Then add $5.25 if you

Zorn says: The fact is that some kids aren't worth the effort. Our society thinks that children are precious but they really aren't. There are children that cannot be saved and will never become a useful member of society. I find that a very interesting attitude for a Scout leader to have. Do you put those ideas into practice in your troop? Are the parents of the boys in the troop aware of your attitude toward children?

I heard about this a few months ago, I am not sure whether it was online or from one of the handouts at Roundtable. Personally I think $10 a year ($13 counting the insurance fee, I don't know if that is increasing also, and I'm not sure whether that fee is council or national, I just know it gets added on for new registrants and at re-charter time) is quite reasonable to be a member of a national organization that provides the services, structure and national facilities that the BSA does. What I also had heard is that the Boys Life subscription fee was increasing, but I have not seen any

BobWhite says: The BSA is not for all children. it never has been. It is for any child that meets the joining requirements and not every child does. There are millions of children whose parents are heterosexual who do not meet the joining requirements. This is absolutely correct. Note the use of the words "child" and "children." Also note the use of the present tense. To my knowledge, all "children" will at some point meet the joining requirements, but at any given time there are millions who do not. They are girls below the age of 14, and boys below the age of 7 or who have

ScoutParent says: OGE's response on an earlier thread concerning another Scouting issue: "I think an excellent solution would be for all the people who think Boy Scouts should radically change its founding principles is form a group of their own." I submit that this logic applies here. Well, even if it did, you seem to be making an assumption about who would have to form the new organization, and I don't agree with that assumption. We've been through this a few hundred times on this forum already, but I'll say it again: There is nothing in Scouting's founding principl

OGE: Excellent point. (I don't usually do "dittos," but I think you said it all.) Scomman: I agree that polls should always be viewed with great caution. Sometimes the question determines the answer, and in some circumstances respondents tend to give the answer they think the poll-taker wants to hear, or the answer that reflects what they think they should think, or what their neighbors think, as opposed to what they actually do think. Having said that, this particular poll would seem to be less prone to that type of distortion. In this poll, at least the result that was reported, t

I'm not getting involved in the discussion between ScoutParent and Firstpusk, but I couldn't let this one go by: We'll meet at a neutral location with a Biologist and a Theologian, and Psychologist. Isn't there a joke in there somewhere? Do they walk into a bar?

Maybe it's cynicism born of thousands of debates (formal and informal) I have participated in over the years, maybe it's my legal training, but any time I see someone say that something is the "undeniable truth," I immediately question whether there is any proof or even any evidence to support it. That is certainly true with "intelligent design," which is just Genesis creationism under a fancy pseudo-scientific name. I've seen it hundreds of times. Use the word "undeniable" in a legal brief, for example, and the smart judge or law clerk will scrutinize your submissions very closely to

ScoutParent, I found your quotations about pedophilia to be interesting and rather surprising, based on my own knowledge of the field. (I am an attorney who has had occasion to read numerous psychological reports regarding pedophiles, prepared for purposes of evaluating whether they are ready to be released from custody. It turns out that they almost never are, so from that point of view it would seem that the "acceptance" of pedophilia by society is extremely limited.) So I did a little research on the Internet and found that your citation is out-of-date. See http://www.narth.com/docs

ScoutParent says: I really don't know why you find my statement absurd or offensive. Then let me explain why. It's because you are using the Holocaust to support your religious beliefs, and to attack a scientific theory you don't like. And you're not even using the real basis for the Holocaust, but rather a theory that has been fabricated to suit your argument. Of course it had a great deal to do with evolution and with creating a "master race". You still have not explained the connection between trying to create a "master race" through selective breeding, and evolution.

ScoutParent says: In the name of preserving the myth of evolution, people have committed huge atrocities against each other such as the 10,000+ australian aboriginals that were beheaded so they could be displayed as "living fossils" in museums in this country and throughtout the world; such as 6 million Jews being killed in an effort to bring about "a master race", I'll leave aside the part about the aboriginals since I know little about it, but I do know something about the 6 million Jews (and millions of others) murdered in the Holocaust. ScoutParent, I find your statement to be a

Hmm, OGE, you must indeed be "Old" to remember that song. (As am I.) Amazing to think that the same guy who did that song had his other big hit with "The Streak." (Don't look, Ethel!)

Slontwovvy, ASM and especially Rooster: Please do go on talking about Clinton, you are just proving the point I made originally.