ThomasJefferson

BSA has changed policies, programs, uniforms, handbooks, requirements, badges, and many other things over the last 102 years. My question is simple: Do you approve or disapprove of BSA? My goal is to attempt an approval rating here on scouter.com of BSA.

BSA is defined as the national corporation known as Boy Scouts of America which currently has a monopoly on use of the term Boy Scouts in the United States.

Wow. I was amazed at the article. A well meaning group is effectively white washing history. The Holocost WAS started as and continued primarily as an anti-semitic action. It WAS the "final solution" to the European Jewish problem. Nazis then used it to include the unwanted and those who opposed them including millions of Russion POWs.

 

It's insulting to even think of a Holocost memorial that does not include Jewish symbols. I'm proudly Catholic and have no offense to seeing those Jewish symbols used in such a setting.

 

It's not about the government endorsing a specific religion.

 

It's about telling the truth thru art and creating something meaningful that lasts.

The Holocost WAS started as and continued primarily as an anti-semitic action.

That is debated amongst historians. If you are Jewish, you may use the word "holocaust" to refer specifically to a Jewish historical event, and you may view the people who were Jewish being put to death as uniquely tied to that event. Therefore, if you hold that viewpoint, and if you were not Jewish, you were not part of the holocaust. You were just killed by Nazis in an organized fashion tertiary to it.

Broader definitions include approximately two to three million Soviet POWs, two million ethnic Poles, up to 1,500,000 Romani, 200,000 handicapped, political and religious dissenters, 15,000 homosexuals and 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, bringing the death toll to around 11 million. The broadest definition would include six million Soviet civilians, raising the death toll to 17 million.

Under that definition, it was not an anti-semitic event unless you were Jewish and viewed it in that frame of reference. The Nazis were very organized in their extermination of many different groups of people. They started by putting the mentally disabled to death. They were still trying to deport Jews at that time while they organized the deaths of others en masse.

I think someone who is Jewish saying that Jews were targeted is accurate. Gays were targeted. Communists were targeted. Jehovah's Witnesses were targeted. Someone saying it was a Jewish event to a member of one of these other groups may find themselves passionately challenged to stop ignoring the suffering of these other groups and their lost millions as well.

First of all, the article makes no mention of atheists. However, the use of the Star of David was objected to by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. That is a foundation that works primarily with the isssue of separation of church and state (1st Amendment violations).

In 2001, Roy Moore, then Chief Justice of Alabama, installed a monument to the Ten Commandments in the state judicial building. In 2003, he was ordered in the case of Glassroth v. Moore by a federal judge to remove the monument, but he refused to comply, ultimately leading to his removal from office. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, allowing the lower court's decision to stand.

On March 2, 2005, the Supreme Court heard arguments for two cases involving religious displays, Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky. These were the first cases directly dealing with display of the Ten Commandments the Court had heard since Stone v. Graham (1980). These cases were decided on June 27, 2005. In Van Orden, the Court upheld, by a 5-4 vote, the legality of a Ten Commandments display at the Texas state capitol due to the monument's "secular purpose." In McCreary County, however, the Court ruled 5-4 that displays of the Ten Commandments in several Kentucky county courthouses were illegal because they were not clearly integrated with a secular display, and thus were considered to have a religious purpose.

I stand corrected. Lecturing on history from memory often fails me.

You know, I'm just not a big fan of memorials at all. Memorials are about feelings, so when feelings get hurt, it's no surprise everyone gets overly passionate and upset. I bet that around 50% of memorials are erected in anger as a way of tells us all to go fly a kite rather than out of respect and a sense of education of the public.

In this case, my question is why do we need a holocaust memorial erected in 2013? Do we need a new civil war memorial too? What about a new War of 1812 memorial? Seems like a stale topic to be erecting statues for it.

How much did it cost? And the land - what did that cost? Could this money have been used for something else useful to the community other than a 3D expression of outrange and sadness?

At the same time, it probably didn't cost so much that it is worth protesting. I am not a fan of we atheists trying to expunge God from all public references. Walking through a cemetary the other day, I noticed the military headstones have symbols of each religion. The symbol I use as my avatar here is the symbol on the atheist headstones. I do not care to see all religious symbols removed from that public space.

I'm more worried about the NSA thing, the US giving billions to dictators and bad governments overseas, us deploying the military too much, corporate control of our politicians, our cops becoming militarized, and BSA making a really uncomfortable and badly tailored uniform. So, I'd probably just shrug and walk by it.

It wouldn't be the only one-sided view of the world my kids get. They are taught in school that we won WWII, but we all know the Russians had Hitler on the run before Pearl Harbor.

jblake47 writes:

Let's just for example see how far I would get with the IRS applying for a tax-exempt status for a group named NAAWP. Yeah, where's the equal rights in that?

 

If you meet the qualifications for tax-exempt status, you'd get it, and if a government official tried to deny it based on the viewpoint of your group, the ACLU would sue on your behalf, as that constitutes viewpoint discrimination which is a first amendment violation. Now, if you apply as a tax-exempt organization that performs some sort of public service, you can't refuse to perform that service based on e.g. race because the government will refuse to subsidize that, but if you want to create a racist church, have at it.

 

When David Duke left the KKK, he started the NAAWP as a non-profit.

The website is gone, but there is (or was) a non-profit NAAWP based in Florida:

http://www.nonprofitlist.org/cgi-bin/id/nonprofit.cgi?nonprofit=41216

 

Seriously, you can't just make up crap that aligns with your paranoid persecution complex and expect other people to buy it.

* Denying official school-led prayers in government schools

* Pulling specifically Christian symbols from public institutions funded purely with taxpayer money where other beliefs's symbols are not allowed

* Any mention that churches pay taxes on profits

* Requests that we remove references to spiritual entities from money, slogans, pledges, etc.

In short, Christians in the US feel persecuted any time their absolute domination of American public life is challenged in favor of a secular, non-religious approach.

I am unaware of any instance in the US where a Christian's civil rights were violated ever because they were a Christian. Probably there have been instances in schools where kids were wearing t-shirts with a bloody crucifixion image, handing out pamphlets, harassing other students, or attempting to organize mass prayers in class that other non-believers were told "You don't have to participate."

To me, that's justice. Our nation operates best when religion stays at home and at church.

What equal right are we talking about? If one side offends the other then it's not equal.

In short, to offer equal rights to all was not a founding principle of the US. Slaves were accepted, blacks counted as 3/5's a person, anyone not male and owning land could not vote. Access to public areas and business was limited to those in narrow group.

It is very conservative to refuse service and rights to those who are considered odd-balls in America. Conservativism continues to preach that the country will fall apart if we continue accepting people who are not part of the mainstream of society.

Just go to social services, tell them you want to foster a child, and that you are gay. Good luck!

The principles of Christianity made our country great? I would like to read the evidence for that claim. What in our history says that religion was responsible for American success? Will we even be able to agree on what American success looks like and what examples of it are? I doubt it.

 

I believe a few particular people and events are what made our country great in terms of government process: Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (the real one) were hyper-intelligent men. They were also not particularly religious people. Their input was instrumental in everything that went on in the late 1700's. The singular event in our history more important than any other was Washington stepping down after two terms and refusing power. That was truly a noble act. I doubt any of our leaders today would be so pure of heart in his position. We owe him a great deal.

 

Unfortunately, I would also say that today American government is no longer the government of the founders. We tweaked things here and there, and with the addition of technology, we've made a mess. We were advised by Washington to avoid alliances and enemies both, but we seem to have cornered the market. Our president was to be chosen by the Senate, but now he is popularly elected, as are senators who were to be selected by their states using whatever process they preferred including appointment. The states now have no voice in government. No one could have foreseen the willingness to read emails while outlawing the reading of physical mail without permission. No one could have imagined we would have this military might and that we would repeatedly, over and over, stupidly use it in a way that created more problems than it solved.

 

I imagine Ben Franklin, once he got over the shock of being here, would be quite disappointed at what happened to Camelot. We had a chance at true greatness, but we became a paranoid, superstitious, arrogant people who eschew our own geniuses of our day and rebuke those who call BS on our bad habits and hard choices. We believe we are the saviors of the world rather than its humble occupants and helpers. We can't balance a budget, but we can store every phone record.

 

I think maybe the USA is headed to totalitarianism, and it is too late to stop it. We're in the equivalent of 1933 in Germany. We're all arguing about what it means, but the dominoes are already falling and we've already cast our lot. It's done. It cannot be undone. It makes me sad.

 

I imagine the US as this awesome country dedicated to freedom and justice for all, but too many videos of cops beating people senseless, too many innocent people charged with crimes, too much spying by the government, too many laws, too many tax guys seizing property, too many bankers walking off scott free while we get laid off, and too many lobbyists able to corrupt too many weak men and women in office... I think I've lost hope in our system.

 

What makes America great? I cannot agree we are great. We are mighty. But that might doesn't seem to be used for good.

 

"founded on religious principles" is said often but unsubstantiated.

So is the idea that our country is great. Great how? Greater than what? I have lived in many different countries. I do not find the US particularly superior overall. It has some good points and some bad points.

I'm also not sure, acco40, how you can have a great country without great citizens.

The principles of Christianity made our country great? I would like to read the evidence for that claim. What in our history says that religion was responsible for American success? Will we even be able to agree on what American success looks like and what examples of it are? I doubt it.

I believe a few particular people and events are what made our country great in terms of government process: Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (the real one) were hyper-intelligent men. They were also not particularly religious people. Their input was instrumental in everything that went on in the late 1700's. The singular event in our history more important than any other was Washington stepping down after two terms and refusing power. That was truly a noble act. I doubt any of our leaders today would be so pure of heart in his position. We owe him a great deal.

Unfortunately, I would also say that today American government is no longer the government of the founders. We tweaked things here and there, and with the addition of technology, we've made a mess. We were advised by Washington to avoid alliances and enemies both, but we seem to have cornered the market. Our president was to be chosen by the Senate, but now he is popularly elected, as are senators who were to be selected by their states using whatever process they preferred including appointment. The states now have no voice in government. No one could have foreseen the willingness to read emails while outlawing the reading of physical mail without permission. No one could have imagined we would have this military might and that we would repeatedly, over and over, stupidly use it in a way that created more problems than it solved.

I imagine Ben Franklin, once he got over the shock of being here, would be quite disappointed at what happened to Camelot. We had a chance at true greatness, but we became a paranoid, superstitious, arrogant people who eschew our own geniuses of our day and rebuke those who call BS on our bad habits and hard choices. We believe we are the saviors of the world rather than its humble occupants and helpers. We can't balance a budget, but we can store every phone record.

I think maybe the USA is headed to totalitarianism, and it is too late to stop it. We're in the equivalent of 1933 in Germany. We're all arguing about what it means, but the dominoes are already falling and we've already cast our lot. It's done. It cannot be undone. It makes me sad.

I imagine the US as this awesome country dedicated to freedom and justice for all, but too many videos of cops beating people senseless, too many innocent people charged with crimes, too much spying by the government, too many laws, too many tax guys seizing property, too many bankers walking off scott free while we get laid off, and too many lobbyists able to corrupt too many weak men and women in office... I think I've lost hope in our system.

What makes America great? I cannot agree we are great. We are mighty. But that might doesn't seem to be used for good.

MattR, first there's no way you can possibly know for sure what drives T.J. to write what he writes or to react the way he seems to react. What you can know for sure is how you react to him. If he seems to you to be just as absolutely certain about his 'beliefs' as a fundamentalist Christian is of the literal truth of the Bible, then that hardly makes him anything more than 'human' doesn't it? You too? All of us?

TJ, Science is infinitely deep and always changing. What is true today will not be true tomorrow. But science has little guidance on how people should interact. One of the most important holidays in my religion deals with atonement and forgiveness. Spread throughout my bible is the concept of human dignity and how it can trump all of the harsh rules you complain about. Science does not give any hint on how to balance our selfish and selfless nature (high adventure and service?), my religion does. My religion encourages prayer and that creates calmness and other healthy benefits (scientifically proven, by the way). My religion also recognizes that character is a skill and it requires constant practice (Scout Slogan?). Science doesn't talk much about these things.

 

That's not to say that any religion doesn't have its problems. Where it falls down, and it appears to me that this is where you're unhappy with it, is when the religious take it upon themselves to, let's say, encourage others to follow them. This can be extreme, such as at gun point, or passive aggressive, as in complaining that you don't pray correctly, or even among the Boy Scouts that require you to have some faith. I stay away from the guns and ignore the rest. What's left is a vast collection of wonderful ideas and stories that I can learn from. I don't read them as history or science. Just one example: The number 7 in the Bible means something is good. So, the universe was not created in 7 days, but it was a good thing. One thing about my religion that I am absolutely, positively clear about, is that I will never have all the answers.

 

To be honest, TJ, you've insulted the vast majority of the population with what you wrote. I doubt that was your intent. As you said, you quietly suck it up and maybe you're tired of doing that. I suck it up every time someone asks me to remove my hat to pray, I don't, and they glare at me like I'm some sort of hideous atheist (just joking). Someone on this forum once said that religion and spiritual insight is a journey and it's different for a lot of people. Wise words. I wish you the best in your journey. At the same time, I hope you can respect mine.

I state my opinion, and it is looking for a fight.

See how that works?

One day, in the future, I believe people will recognize what they were doing was wrong, and will stop attempting to silence atheist belief and expression as an attack when they realize that religious expression and belief are just as much an attack as it is.

Either that, or they will silence all on either side for the sake of silence. That would be sad.

TJ, Science is infinitely deep and always changing. What is true today will not be true tomorrow. But science has little guidance on how people should interact. One of the most important holidays in my religion deals with atonement and forgiveness. Spread throughout my bible is the concept of human dignity and how it can trump all of the harsh rules you complain about. Science does not give any hint on how to balance our selfish and selfless nature (high adventure and service?), my religion does. My religion encourages prayer and that creates calmness and other healthy benefits (scientifically proven, by the way). My religion also recognizes that character is a skill and it requires constant practice (Scout Slogan?). Science doesn't talk much about these things.

 

That's not to say that any religion doesn't have its problems. Where it falls down, and it appears to me that this is where you're unhappy with it, is when the religious take it upon themselves to, let's say, encourage others to follow them. This can be extreme, such as at gun point, or passive aggressive, as in complaining that you don't pray correctly, or even among the Boy Scouts that require you to have some faith. I stay away from the guns and ignore the rest. What's left is a vast collection of wonderful ideas and stories that I can learn from. I don't read them as history or science. Just one example: The number 7 in the Bible means something is good. So, the universe was not created in 7 days, but it was a good thing. One thing about my religion that I am absolutely, positively clear about, is that I will never have all the answers.

 

To be honest, TJ, you've insulted the vast majority of the population with what you wrote. I doubt that was your intent. As you said, you quietly suck it up and maybe you're tired of doing that. I suck it up every time someone asks me to remove my hat to pray, I don't, and they glare at me like I'm some sort of hideous atheist (just joking). Someone on this forum once said that religion and spiritual insight is a journey and it's different for a lot of people. Wise words. I wish you the best in your journey. At the same time, I hope you can respect mine.

But science has little guidance on how people should interact.

Sure it does. Science reveals to us what happens in the world. We come to understand that when we do X, Y will happen. We test it repeatedly, and we know. What happens when you steal something? What happens when you help someone?

Simple physics: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you help someone, that's what you get back. Call it karma or whatever.

You don't need stories of ancient days and gods and demons and sins and crucifixions to be nice to people. You're just raised to believe that because you happened to be born into a society that believes that. If you were born in Japan or China, you would not think that.

To be honest, TJ, you've insulted the vast majority of the population with what you wrote.

The last refuge of the religious. "You have offended me!" Yet the religious expect atheists to not be offended when you pray or otherwise tell us that you believe there is a God when we clearly see it is just a story like Santa Claus.

People always get most offended when they are afraid what they are hearing is true and they don't like it.

I however, feel no offense at the claims that I am wrong. I do not rely on faith for my beliefs. I can see my computer monitor working. I know the scientists that designed it are correct. They proved it.

If my stating that religion is nonsense is offensive, it is no more offensive that someone saying that religion is true.

I hope you can respect my side of the argument as well. If not, then what exactly are you asking for? Me to respect you while you disdain my position?

I do not believe that ideas should be "respected." They should be treated as nonsense and tested, kicked, and debated until proven or disproven. That's what ideas are for.

That's how science works.

If someone has a strong argument that I am wrong, make it. I may change my mind. Because my beliefs are not a religion.

 

There are only 4 options in life:

 

1) I believe and there is a God. - Well in that case I have it made in the shade.

2) I believe and there is no God - In that case I've wasted a lot of time and energy in this life, except maybe I was a bit more "moral/ethical" than I would not normally have been.

3) I don't believe and there is no God - It's a wash, life was good/bad or indifferent, but that's all there is to it.

4) I don't believe and there is a God - I'm screwed.

 

Everyone takes their chances. How's it working out for you?

 

Take all the scientific knowledge we possess and lump it all together and still the human mind has no idea of how this masterfully intricate existence has coincidentally came into being. There is far more we don't know than what we do, scientifically. Our high-tech medical knowledge/practices will be barbaric 200 years from now just as it was 200 years ago.

Science is not the journey, it is only a wayside along the route.

 

If I have a balloon in my hand, one can never scientifically tell if it will rise up, float away or fall to the ground until AFTER they have analyzed, probed, and tested it. Well we have not yet been able to analyze, probe and test everything everywhere. Until then one has to place their faith in what I say the balloon will do.

 

 

1) I believe and there is a God. - Well in that case I have it made in the shade.

Not really. Tell, me what is this shade you think you have it made in? It will not lengthen your life. It will not protect you from illness. It will not protect you from violence. It will not protect your family. It will not reveal to you anything you can use in today's world that a simple kindergarten lesson in ethics is not superior to. It will cost you money. It will cost you time.

I have been told that if I believe and there is a God, I will go to Heaven. I do not want to go to that Heaven. It does not sound appealing. It is filled with all of the unintelligent, closed-minded people of the world who were self-righteous, judgmental, and attempted to oppress others out of fear of offending their supreme being.

The supreme being, as far as I can tell, is a highly flawed, petulant, inconsistent super creature that stopped doing interesting things as soon as the motion picture was invented. It destroys worlds, cities, people, curses them, gives them diseases, and capriciously treats them like filth while resenting them for reflecting back to it its own flaws.

I do not wish to be "close" to something like that. Going into nothingness is preferable, even if I believed the stories.

Now, to turn this the other way around, if I were SATAN, I would at once construct a biblical story, get it published, get the people who followed it into power, and make them worship me and only me while telling them I was their God.

It's nice that religious people want to focus on the Golden Rule, a great idea, btw, but unfortunately the baggage and stories that go along with it are absolute rubbish.

I am happy that I do not believe anything that is in the Bible. All of the stories in the bible are just recycled stories with different names and slight twists from earlier cultures. Very little of the Bible to me is good advice or comforting. I find most of it brutal' date=' horrific, and scary.[/quote']

Actually, that is how I became an atheist. Around age 12, about a year after having been baptized, I decided that I needed to get serious about this religion business. So I started to read the Bible. Pretty soon, I realized that I quite literally could not believe what I was reading. Well, since I couldn't believe what I was supposed to as a Christian, then it was time for me to leave.

 

That was half a century ago. I'm not sure how far I had gotten, but I'm pretty sure that I had not gotten to the part where Lot's daughters got him drunk so that they could rape him, because a pre-adolescent boy would not have forgotten that! And, of course, I had proceeded from a very possibly false premise, that my church would have required a literal interpretation of the Bible. That particular element came nearly a century later, when the "Jesus Freak Movement" suddenly swelled the ranks of fundamentalist Christianity circa 1970. By that time, as a "fellow traveller" (like McCarthyism's "fellow travellers" of Communism that they sought to ferret out), I learned a lot about fundamentalist Christian beliefs and realized to my very great relief what a wonderfully correct decision I had made to be an atheist.

 

The entire bible makes no sense. I read it to my kids to see if they were interested. We got through two books' date=' and they were sitting there mouths open. "Poeple believe this nonsense?" I told them, "People do not read this nonsense. People say they read it, but really they only listen to surgically plucked phrases and quotes while never actually reading it."[/quote']

I have heard an explanation for this and it brings us right back around to the "Jesus Freak Movement". Traditionally -- and I mean back to the turn of the last century, around 1900 -- , Fundamentalists and Baptists (not necessarily the same thing back then; that changed circa the late 1970's) pretty much kept to themselves. You were pretty much born into the faith and studied the Bible your entire life. That meant that there was a study plan for each individual that spanned multiple decades. Then circa 1970, there came the "Jesus Freak Movement." 1960's hippies burned out on drugs suddenly "got hooked on Jesus" (a catch-phrase of the time). Suddenly, small fundamentalist churches saw their numbers soar overnight and they became mega-churches; our local example in Orange County, Calif, was Chuck Smith's small Calvary Chapel on the corner of Greenville and Sunflower in Santa Ana, which grew to a circus tent in a vacant field at Fairview and Sunflower, which became buildings and a Christian high school built in that vacant field.

 

The problem is that this religion called for many years of Bible study, but now you had most of the congregation unschooled in the Bible and needing to be brought up-to-speed very fast. Which is what happened. So instead of careful methodical Bible study, everybody had to be given a crash course. What replaced the normal course of Bible study was a system of telling them what the beliefs were and here are the isolated verses to support that.

 

Now, there was a very long Baptist tradition leading up to this point. Actually, it goes back to the Reformation. In the Catholic Church, the priest told you what the Bible said. For the first millennium, lay-persons weren't even allowed to try to read the Bible for themselves (literacy disregarded) and there are stories, possibly true or not, of punishments meted out to those Catholics who dared to try to read the Bible for themselves. But with the Protestant Reformation, it now became the duty of Protestants to read the Bible for themselves. When BBC TV journalist James Burke treated this issue in his Connections series, he pointed to the art work in the churches. Catholic churches had very vivid artwork depicting the stories from the Bible. But that wasn't artwork, but rather learning. You had all the lessons memorized, so the artwork would remind you of a particular Bible story and that would trigger your memory of the actual story. In contrast, the Protestant Reformation was coincident with Guttenberg's printing press -- for that matter, it has been argued that Martin Luther's 99 Theses would have remained local had someone not have used a Guttenberg press to run off immense copies to distribute throughout Europe. The primary difference in the Protestant Reformation was that everybody was expected to read the Bible for themselves. Certainly, this marked the start of the modern German language, since it was based on Martin Luther's translation of the Bibel into German -- instead of just using Latin terms, he translated the Latin stems into their German equivalents -- (eg, express became Ausdruck and impress became Eindruck, words that are still used in German today). But you also saw it in the "artwork" in the Protestant churches, in that there was no longer any artwork. You didn't need to be reminded of the stories of the Bible, since all you had to do was to read them for yourself. In another note, the first Sunday Schools were intended mainly to teach members of the congregation of all ages how to read so that they could read the Bible.

 

I've read the entire book cover to cover - unlike any other Christian I am aware of. Reading it as if reading a novel left me with my eyes bugging out at the goofy things I was reading and horrible advice I received.

And I trust that you also could see where the same stories were being told over and over again.

 

Admittedly, I have not made it through the Old Testament, nor at the age of 61 do I feel inclined to (not when I have so much to write about BSA and about network programming). But I did read through the New Testament a couple times through. I have also read thePirke Avoth ("Sayings of the Fathers", part of the Talmudic tradition). I found the teachings of Jesus himself rather good, especially when he agreed with the Pharisees (spirit of the law vs the letter of the law, especially regarding the Golden Rule), but Paul's reinterpretation of Jesus into The Christ was very troubling and, most unfortunately, that is what Christianity is based on.

 

People saw scary things' date=' attributed thunder, lightning, comets, etc to Gods. Then a smart guy in the tribe saw opportunity and became the "priest" as a way of taking power without being chosen. If the chief was uncooperative, the medicine man said "The Gods have spoken. He is evil!" It's still done today by people claiming that God wants this and that when really it is just them who wants it.[/quote']

Tja! (please pardon my German -- there is an almost completely horrid movie, "Iron Sky", about Nazis on the far side of the moon, but then so much of the dialog is in German, though in one scene where all kinds of weird stuff is happening and a black astronaut from earth whom the Nazis had "albinocized" (Ich vergesse wie man das auf Deutch ausdruckte) could do nothing more than to say, "Na ja!")

 

An opportunist priest could make sense, but in reality there was a very real social purpose served by the priest. In our modern society where we have some scientific knowledge, a opportunistic priest would be such a charlatan. But in the ancient societies, he would have served a very real purpose. But let us move ahead a couple/few millennia to the mystery religions. These had a secret teaching in their "Inner Temple" that was known only to those initiated into the mystery, while most of the celebrants were part of the "Outer Temple" where all the religion's teachings were presented to them in the form of obstruse symbols and [parables whose meanings were not known to the masses, but rather only to the initiates "who had eyes to see and ears to hear." Does that sound at all familiar from Mark? Where Jesus taught in parables so that the multitude could hear but comprehend not. And then he drew the disciplines off to the side to explain to them the "mysteries of heaven". Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

 

I was raised with religion. I am happier and my children are happier in a home with no ghosts' date=' no alien abductions, no bigfoot, no lochness monster, and no God.[/quote']

About a decade ago, I had a lunch with a friend from church. He had been a fundamentalist Christian for many years. He described how he had to live each day of his life, surrounded by so many things that directly contradicted his fundamentalist Christian beliefs. He described how he had to every day turn a blind eye to all those things, to try in vain to deny that they existed. That sheer amount of denial is a very heavy burden to have to carry and eventually it became too much. One day, he decided to apply the Matthew 7:20 Test to Christianity -- "by their fruits, you will know them". Yes, there were some things that Christianity did right, but then there were also so many things that it did completely wrong. As a result, my friend became "a complete atheist and a thorough humanist" and as a result he says that he is now so much happier and so much spiritually fulfilled than he ever was before as a Christian.

 

I believe religion is something that humans still feel they need' date=' but eventually will just outgrow. No earth-bound religion will survive the arrival of a superior alien species or man's spreading out through space to other worlds. Once all of the events in the bible are easily explained with technology we possess ourselves, it's no longer going to interest anyone. It's all just a matter of time. [/quote']

So many think that religion is about finding answers, but that is not true.

 

Religions is about seeking answers. More specifically, religion is about finding the right questions to ask.

 

Os as our minister preached, the ultimate religious question is, "How, then, am I to live my life?"

"How, then, am I to live my life?"

 

Kill Homosexuals

"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

 

Kill Witches

You should not let a sorceress live. (Exodus 22:17 NAB)

 

Death for Hitting Dad

Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)

 

Kill the Entire Town if One Person Worships Another God

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

 

Apparently that is how you are to live your life.

 

Science is not an answer to how to live your life. It is the method through which we explore the universe and try to understand how it works and why.

 

However, science does explain why people want to life a "good life." Because of evolution. We evolved into social animals. And social animals all have interdependencies, that when violated, lead to the death of the tribe. You don't need religion to tell you it is wrong to steal. You know it is wrong to steal. Because when you steal, the pack/tribe/troop/herd attacks you and punishes you for it.

 

If you got rid of all of the religions of the world, and wiped everyone's memories, a new religion would be crafted up. I believe that. Would that religion look anything like religion today?

 

No. That's all I need to know that religion is just a story. Religions are invented by people.

Science is the collection of evidence, observations, experiments, and testing your ideas to see if they prove out under stress.

 

Religion is just a story someone wrote.

 

There is no comparison. One is a fiction book. The other is the real world.

 

I am happy that I do not believe anything that is in the Bible. All of the stories in the bible are just recycled stories with different names and slight twists from earlier cultures. Very little of the Bible to me is good advice or comforting. I find most of it brutal, horrific, and scary.

 

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, but two thousand years prior was so pissed off that he nuked two cities and the surrounding areas because his creation had run amok. This speaks to an angry, flawed God with a temper who apparently cannot control man or create beings he is satisfied with. I can't remember if this is before or after this apparently non-innovative and highly flawed super being flooded the world to rid it of sin but somehow stupidly could not see that the people he saved would breed out randomly and result in there being sin again.

 

The entire bible makes no sense. I read it to my kids to see if they were interested. We got through two books, and they were sitting there mouths open. "Poeple believe this nonsense?" I told them, "People do not read this nonsense. People say they read it, but really they only listen to surgically plucked phrases and quotes while never actually reading it."

 

I've read the entire book cover to cover - unlike any other Christian I am aware of. Reading it as if reading a novel left me with my eyes bugging out at the goofy things I was reading and horrible advice I received.

 

It's not extremism on both sides. Only religion is extreme. The rejection of it is simply to not believe it. It isn't anything. It's just a state of not purchasing the idea of a God. You are not an extremist if you don't watch TV. You are simply choosing to not watch it. Perhaps extremism on the other side would be calling for burning of churches and the banning of religion. Atheists don't really do that. We mostly ignore it and quietly tolerate religious behaviors around us without outing ourselves for fear of being judged and preached at by confused believers.

 

The science of God is simple. People saw scary things, attributed thunder, lightning, comets, etc to Gods. Then a smart guy in the tribe saw opportunity and became the "priest" as a way of taking power without being chosen. If the chief was uncooperative, the medicine man said "The Gods have spoken. He is evil!" It's still done today by people claiming that God wants this and that when really it is just them who wants it.

 

I was raised with religion. I am happier and my children are happier in a home with no ghosts, no alien abductions, no bigfoot, no lochness monster, and no God.

 

This chart shows that the US is alone except for the third world in its religious fervor:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gallup_Religiosity_Index_2009.png

 

Here's a study showing that as a nation's average IQ goes up, the tendency toward atheism in the population also increases:

 

http://davesource.com/Fringe/Fringe/Religion/Average-intelligence-predicts-atheism-rates-across-137-nations-Lynn-et-al.pdf

 

The chart from that study:

 

http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm

 

There are well-studied links between growing up conservative and growing up with lower intelligence and fewer resources:

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/13/1131220/-Religious-and-Conservative-people-have-lower-IQs-than-their-counterparts

 

I believe religion is something that humans still feel they need, but eventually will just outgrow. No earth-bound religion will survive the arrival of a superior alien species or man's spreading out through space to other worlds. Once all of the events in the bible are easily explained with technology we possess ourselves, it's no longer going to interest anyone. It's all just a matter of time.

the majority of 'good' ideas that scientists have had over the centuries have turned out to be wrong.

That's factually incorrect - what you see as a flaw is in reality its strength!!! Science was always wrong before and will be wrong again? Not exactly. Scientific ideas are proposed, tested, observed, experimented with. As we learn more, we expand our knowledge, and the idea is clarified, additional detail is added, and the explanations improve over time.

Example: We once thought the Universe was 7 billion years old. We now have better technology and analysis and know it is at least 13.7 billion years old. We weren't wrong before. We knew it was AT LEAST 7 billion years old. We now have a new, bigger number that we know is AT LEAST the age of the universe. We could learn next year through some new means that it is AT LEAST 70 billion years old.

But, that is probably not going to happen, as in recent years we've uncovered the remains of background radiation of the universe reaching it's outer edges - we think. But we only think that. We don't say we know it. We say "It looks that way - we need more information."

Religious "knowledge" never says that. It is never questioned, changed, refined, improved, tested. Rather, religion just keeps on keeping on being nothing.

Look around you. What do you see? Electronic devices? Cars? Roads? Houses? Bridges? Lights? Cameras? Phones? All produced by science? What has religion produced that shows it works and that we know how it works?

Nothing. What evidence is there that any religion has any facts in it? None. There are no facts in religion.

While I congratulate anyone who seeks to morally better themselves, I would point out that morals are largely cultural constructs, and that they change with the times. The first commandment tells you to not make any image of anything ever. You are using a computer. You are breaking that commandment.

If you are female, you are violating Timothy 2:11.

"Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)"

Are you going to put me to death? God commands it. Oh wait, no, your morals don't come from the Bible? Or do they?

This statement is right alongside others you find comforting.

I submit to you that scientists are comfortable with their ideas being reviewed, corrected, found wrong, and going back to the drawing board.

But what religious leaders do is pick and choose what they like and ignore the rest.

I do not think Herr Einstein "identified himself as an agnostic" :::.:

":Ich glaube an Spinozas Gott, der sich in der gesetzlichen Harmonie des Seienden offenbart, nicht an einen Gott, der sich mit Schicksalen und Handlungen der Menschen abgibt.".

• Translation: I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.
  
• And....."Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice."
  

Atheism vs. Agnosticism: There truly is no difference. Atheism is the lack of belief. Agnosticism is the indifference to the existence of God. One says they do not believe there is one. The other says they don't care if there is one because it doesn't matter if there is. Really you're just splitting hairs when you go down that road.

That's the sort of nonsense a table filled with astro-physics majors will argue about for three hours. The same way scouters will argue about knots on their shirts or should gays be allowed.

This is my take as a conservative Christian. The Bible is not a science textbook. It's about the relationship between God and man.

 

I compare it to the way I answer my preschooler when he asks "Where did I come from?" I tell him, your Dad and I love each other very much, and we wanted a son to love, too. Is it a full scientific explanation of how my son was conceived and born? No. Is it true? Yes. It is appropriate to his age and level of understanding.

 

The first books of the Bible were written pre-Bronze age. It makes no sense to me to expect writing for that audience to fully explain 21st century science and technology. The Bible wasn't written to give a scientific explanation of our world. It was given to explain how we got here, how to live in peace with each other, and to let us know that we are God's beloved children.

 

I do not expect to ever fully understand God's creation from a scientific standpoint. I enjoy learning about it, but ultimately, I don't think I'm capable of ever wrapping my human mind around all the things God can do. I would make more sense to me to expect an ant to understand how and why I do things as a human. The gulf of understanding and capability between me and God is far greater than the gulf between the ant and me.

 

Isaac Newton was a faithful Christian, and had many good quotes about the relationship between science and God, including this:

 

"Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."

 

Newton often said that the purpose of science is to begin to understand God's creation. I agree with him.

 

I often wonder that modern science has room to believe in 11 dimensions, membrane universes, and life on other planets, but no room to believe in God. I find the more I understand about science, the more support I find for God's existence.

 

Faith is something that has to be experienced with an open mind. I see evidence all around for God's existence and his love for me: in my husband, my children, my friends, and my life. It does require a willingness to believe.

 

I compare it to my relationship with my husband. I believe my husband loves me. I see all kinds of evidence that he loves me. I choose to accept that belief. Can I ever definitively, scientifically prove that he loves me? No.

 

If I chose to nitpick, I could come up with all kinds of "evidence" that my husband is a jerk who never loved me at all. He makes mistakes just like I do. If I chose to try to disprove God's existence, I could nitpick it to death and come up with plausible evidence for that theory.

 

There will never be a definitive way to prove or disprove God's existence. That's why it's called "faith".

 

Thanks for asking,

 

Georgia Mom

Perhaps if Newton had not been religious, he would have easily seen this, and humanity would be more advance today than it was then. Newton's religion was in fact a huge block to his furthering scientific research, and it stopped him from considering all possibilities.

Newton's statement is cited by atheists as a case against religious belief because it closes the mind. Anytime God is the explanation, you've given up trying to find out the truth.

This common religious claim that Religion and Science coexist nicely used to drive Carl Sagan crazy. He was so diplomatic, but considered these superstitions as blunting the minds of American youth to scientific inquiry, curiosity, and the advancement of the human race.

Science is the collection of evidence, observations, experiments, and testing your ideas to see if they prove out under stress.

Religion is just a story someone wrote.

There is no comparison. One is a fiction book. The other is the real world.

I am happy that I do not believe anything that is in the Bible. All of the stories in the bible are just recycled stories with different names and slight twists from earlier cultures. Very little of the Bible to me is good advice or comforting. I find most of it brutal, horrific, and scary.

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, but two thousand years prior was so pissed off that he nuked two cities and the surrounding areas because his creation had run amok. This speaks to an angry, flawed God with a temper who apparently cannot control man or create beings he is satisfied with. I can't remember if this is before or after this apparently non-innovative and highly flawed super being flooded the world to rid it of sin but somehow stupidly could not see that the people he saved would breed out randomly and result in there being sin again.

The entire bible makes no sense. I read it to my kids to see if they were interested. We got through two books, and they were sitting there mouths open. "Poeple believe this nonsense?" I told them, "People do not read this nonsense. People say they read it, but really they only listen to surgically plucked phrases and quotes while never actually reading it."

I've read the entire book cover to cover - unlike any other Christian I am aware of. Reading it as if reading a novel left me with my eyes bugging out at the goofy things I was reading and horrible advice I received.

It's not extremism on both sides. Only religion is extreme. The rejection of it is simply to not believe it. It isn't anything. It's just a state of not purchasing the idea of a God. You are not an extremist if you don't watch TV. You are simply choosing to not watch it. Perhaps extremism on the other side would be calling for burning of churches and the banning of religion. Atheists don't really do that. We mostly ignore it and quietly tolerate religious behaviors around us without outing ourselves for fear of being judged and preached at by confused believers.

The science of God is simple. People saw scary things, attributed thunder, lightning, comets, etc to Gods. Then a smart guy in the tribe saw opportunity and became the "priest" as a way of taking power without being chosen. If the chief was uncooperative, the medicine man said "The Gods have spoken. He is evil!" It's still done today by people claiming that God wants this and that when really it is just them who wants it.

I was raised with religion. I am happier and my children are happier in a home with no ghosts, no alien abductions, no bigfoot, no lochness monster, and no God.

This chart shows that the US is alone except for the third world in its religious fervor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gallup_Religiosity_Index_2009.png

Here's a study showing that as a nation's average IQ goes up, the tendency toward atheism in the population also increases:

http://davesource.com/Fringe/Fringe/Religion/Average-intelligence-predicts-atheism-rates-across-137-nations-Lynn-et-al.pdf

The chart from that study:

http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm

There are well-studied links between growing up conservative and growing up with lower intelligence and fewer resources:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/13/1131220/-Religious-and-Conservative-people-have-lower-IQs-than-their-counterparts

I believe religion is something that humans still feel they need, but eventually will just outgrow. No earth-bound religion will survive the arrival of a superior alien species or man's spreading out through space to other worlds. Once all of the events in the bible are easily explained with technology we possess ourselves, it's no longer going to interest anyone. It's all just a matter of time.

No. That is not how America works.

Everyone gets a say in how things work in this country, and lobbying, handshaking, baby kissing, and speech giving to convince people of your position is a time-honored tradition.

I reject the approach suggested because it is "Why can't we just stick our heads in the sand and not get involved and stand up for what we believe in."

Scouts, more than others, should be passionate advocates of their beliefs.

Earlier I asked about how an atheist can have religious beliefs since religion implies the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power.

 

Really? That would be news to a whole bunch of Buddhist (and a bunch of people of quite a few other faiths). Though I guess you could be one of those people that don't believe Buddhism is a real religion.

That is to say, Buddhists do not necessarily but can believe in supernatural things. However, the achievement of enlightenment is the realization of what is actually going on - that is that none of this is real. Your goal as a Buddhist is to have this realization and transcend your connection to your own individuality.

There are definitely atheist Buddhists out there. I know quite a few.

I do not practice Buddhism. But as an atheist, I see myself as a very, very small, minute part of the massive existence of the Universe in its vast variety. As such, when I die, I will be recycled and my atoms will become the atoms of something else. What energy I exerted for good and bad will flow out from me like waves on the ocean and wash up on shores unknown for who knows how long in a chain reaction. Or I could have no impact at all.

When I die, I will no longer exist as a consciousness. It will be the same as it was before I was born: nothing. It will not be a state of suffering. It will simply be a non-existence no worse than the 13.7 billion years prior where I did not exist.

I do have beliefs in things I cannot prove, however, because like all people, I draw conclusions from my observations which make sense to me. For example, there are 200 billion stars in this smallish galaxy. A trillion stars in Andromeda Galaxy. And there are trillions of trillions of galaxies. I believe, without any evidence other than my own assumptions, that there are probably a trillion civilizations out there in the Universe. Some of them are far beyond us. Some of them are far behind us.

But I cannot believe in a human-personified God because such myths and stories only make sense on a planet that exists alone in the universe. These myths were all conceived on a world that most believed to be the only world, with hell (lava) below and heaven (stars) above. In a galaxy with 200 billion stars and perhaps 1 billion habitable worlds, such a belief system is silly to me. Because a God in charge of a Universe this size where another planet may be controlled by trisexual octopus like creatures with the ability to be spacecraft that go faster than light - that being isn't going to care about human homosexuality or humans worshipping images of other gods. Nor is it going to make ten commandments about mothers and fathers.

I wouldn't believe in a supreme being even if I saw it for myself. I would assume it was a superior life form but not a God, and that it was using technology and psychic ability beyond mine to amaze me.

In fairness, given the antiquated systems the BSA has for adding youth (and no ability to remove them), I'm not sure that fraud is fair... I think that any membership number you get out of the BSA is practically a random number generator.

Until BSA has independent auditors review all membership counts, I'm betting BSA's numbers are a complete and total forgery. All of those counts, even as seen on the anti-BSA sites, are invalid and overblown.

I bet the only reason the girl scouts numbers are smaller is that they are honest about them.

Really - is BSA is corporation that deserves government charters, trademarks, patents, and control over the boy scouting movement in this country? That monopoly hold needs to be broken.

OK, lots of writing, but no one addressing the issue: The First Commandment specifically bans making images of anything at all - that would include all statues, all paintings, all drawings. It also bans you in a separate statement from "bowing down" to them. Saluting them and pledging your loyalty to them seems to violate all parts of this commandment. Nothing quazse writes addresses why it is OK. It's just a history of rationalizations.

If I were a Christian, and I believed wholly in the Ten Commandments, I would have no pictures in my home of any kind, no statues, no images of anything. No computer with images on it of any kind, and I would never salute or bow down to anyone or anything other than God.

I don't see any way to argue that it is OK to do that. God says it isn't. Directly. Quoted, written words of law from God, those Ten Commandments.

None of these numerical counts are accurate. BSA was caught red-handed forging memberships to artificially inflate membership numbers in the 1990's. They lied about the entire increase throughout the 1980's. Auditors came in and scrubbed the numbers council by council and removed the false increase in members.

4–6 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image' date=' or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord our God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.[/quote']

 

Does the Pledge to the Flag not violate this commandment entirely? Seems that all statues and monuments to the ten commandments and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel do as well.

Personally I don't think its about outdoors or adventure, my scouts do and did a lot more high adventure stuff than I did as a scout. But I definitely think that scouting is more prissy. I think it's there is less freedom for boys to express themselves as boys. Adults are A LOT more guarded today about what boys can say, do or even meet. We put limits on knives and other woods tools. It was no big deal for my patrol to go on a five mile with a map and compass, but adults today would struggle to let a patrol hike through the safe parts of our town without some kind of oversite. How many boys can ride their bike accross town without getting permission? Our culture has closed in on our youths freedom of expression and freedom to move about. The culture is more prissy, and we don't have very many adults who remember how it used to be. Barry

When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use. It all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn't believe in evolution because it was "just a theory", they'd probably be a bit puzzled.

In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations. It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be.

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.

This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.

Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.