BSA24

Kudu - I am very familiar with your work and happy to have provided an excuse for you to post about it.

This is why the congressional charter, trademarks and patents should be rescinded for BSA. BPSA can't even use the word "scouts", "scout", or "scouting." They can't call someone an eagle scout, even though a BPSA scout is trained the way we are all always complaining our scouts should be trained and aren't.

BPSA's biggest weakness is the lack of hard assets that BSA has. You won't ever ride down a dirt road under a big logo onto a gigantic camp owned by BPSA. They don't have any sponsors, and they lack the ability to get out their message.

If BPSA could get their hands on some corporate sponsorship, they might be able to get something going. Even a single national campground would help them out a lot.

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The frankly religious have a clear conception of what is sacred for them, but those arguing for science prefer to deny that they have often adopted science as a god, as something that is sacred.

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If you think tides, seasons, diel cycles, forest fires, volcanoes, and climate processes are random, then you haven't grasped some basic selective forces. If tsunamis were completely random, for example, Japan would be no more likely to experience one than, say, Iowa. They aren't random

I think the reality is that most people are not going to try to report someone for something like this because the law is out of step with human instinct. The truth is that 99% of people who see a parent smack their kid across the face are not going to call the police. They are going to shrug it off, smirk because a kid with a smart mouth got slapped, or think "They want me to report that, but I'm not going to end up on TV over a kid getting slapped and lose my job and end up the village tattle-tale."

The reality is that almost no one is will to report anything to police unless their own property is stolen or they think someone is in serious life-threatening danger at the time.

While YPT may insist that we take the phone from someone who possibly took inappropriate photos of youth, the truth is that if someone falsely accused me, and reached for my phone, I'd deck them. You're not a cop. You are not taking my phone without a warrant from a judge saying you can search it. So, I'm not going to seize anyone's phone from them. Not under any circumstances.

We can mandate people report rapes, but 13 year olds are pretty sophisticated, and if the choice is that they try to do back-yard abortion or fall down the stairs or someone not report the rape, then I'm pretty comfortable with it not being reported.

The bottom line and end result is what is important. A dead kid is a worse outcome than a secretly raped kid.

So, while what they are doing is technically wrong, it is not exactly morally reprehensible to me.

Since I will be lit aflame for this comment, I will also go ahead and confess I never obey the speed limit, I roll through stop signs at 1 mph especially in the middle of the night, and I also jay walk a lot. Oh, and once a vending machine dropped an extra milky way bar, and I giggled and ate it.

I know. I am evil.

(This message has been edited by bsa24)

What ads?

*pats the ad-block extension on the head lovingly*

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BSA24, the process is neither random, nor arbitrary. Selective forces wouldn't be 'selective' if they were random.

The purpose of the uniform insignia guide is to help you put together your own uniform. It is not a guide for you to control, judge, or annoy others about their uniforms.

A commissioner friend of mine in another council reports that AHG groups are starting to be published as welcome at camping events for cub scouts.

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Directed evolution seems to be the best explanation for the creation and increasing complexity of life.

All of these groups are just fronts for religious indoctrination programs. These are not programs which focus on the outdoors. These are adult constructs designed to pre-program youth to believe a particular way before they are able to choose for themselves.

The petition is so poorly worded and vague that I could not possibly support it. I fail to see demonstration of racism or enough details to determine anything about the story. The petition is filled with grammatical errors and is badly written. I doubt anyone deserves anything.

That being said... BSA is well-known for its incompetent buffoonery, so I would still recommend that someone within BSA who still has a pulse investigate the claim and then put out a press release about what the finding were rather than ceding the stage to this goofball. I have my doubts that the petition is entirely unfounded due to many, many life-long experiences watching BSA make very bad decisions almost all the time.

> it is not mainstream science

Translation: It is not science.

There is a list of talking points for creationists to follow when they challenge evolution. Peregrinator repeats them all as if from a sheet handed to him by a PR person. All of the points are false.

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And those scientific dating methods are based on certain assumptions for which there is considerable evidence, but not proof.

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dating through carbon-14 decay

If the debate would run negative pretty easily, maybe there are some major problems or people not doing their jobs that is obvious to all that will be brought up. Suppressing freedom of speech isn't teaching American citizenship. Forcing only positive statements isn't teaching it either.

We live in a competitive, capitalist, free country where citizens can go negative if they want. So let it happen.

The troop doesn't exist to sooth the feelings of adults. It is for the youth.

Ask the youth if it bothers them. Call a PLC and bring it up. Ask the youth if they care. If they shrug it off, then shut up about it and get over it. It's their troop, not yours.

If you do this, you need to conduct yourself carefully. Standing up and ranting that the youth should do something about it is way out of line. Just ask them if they have noticed, and if they care. That's it. It's their decision, not your passion that needs to be sold to them.(This message has been edited by bsa24)

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Would you care to elaborate on how YEC denies computers?

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That sounds like a pretty good outing, there.

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As opposed to the approximately 50 million children aborted in the U.S.

My beading ceremony was a nightmare. They came out to the COH to do it. I told them they had five minutes. Give a two minute talk about wood badge, then hand me the stuff, and then shake hands and sit down.

40 minutes. That's how long the clowns went on and on.

I think the beads and such should be given to the SPL of the troop, and he should put them on the adult leader. In the case of the cubs, the CM should get it and give it to some cubs to give to them. It'll be fast that way.

WB staff should never, ever, ever get the stage at any youth meeting or ceremony. They are insufferable.

I loved WB. I would love to do it again. I despise beadings.

Why is it that the Girl Scouts accept atheists and the sky has not fallen on them? They have as many members as BSA does, and I don't see the girl scouts that meet in the same hut our boy scouts use as being in total meltdown because they have atheist members. They still have the same oath they have always had, and I haven't seen anyone try to undermine anything in the program.

There is no logical reason for BSA members to predict doom when the evidence shows no doom will occur.

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And frankly Merlyn, your behavior on these forums on behalf of atheists is ample good reason why they should be excluded.

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While I'm not a young earth creationist by far (I'm an evolutionist (biologist by education) as evolution is the best explanation for some of the stranger things in the living world), your argument about technology being science is a little bit strained. Besides evolutionary theory, most of the science in the world today can be explained without need of belief in evolution. Heck, most of the biology needed by an MD doesn't need evolutionary theory.

It also depends on the Scoutmaster. Ultimately he is the decision maker on badge earning, and if he says you need a blue card to start, then you need a blue card to start.

I do not understand at all the comparisons of American liberals with dictatorships and the like. Not even a little. It's like you've been talking to the neighbors and asking them what I am like, and they lied, and you didn't ask me directly what I believe in. Instead, you just spray painted my internet comment with "Dictator of Korea!!!"

I don't think rhetoric helps people to get along or accomplish things. It certainly doesn't help them learn about each other. Instead, it just drives them apart. It's discourteous to compare someone who wants a cross left up on public land with a Taliban theocracy-seeking terrorist. It is discourteous likewise to associate someone who wants their pre-existing medical conditions to be insured inexpensively with a Korean dictator.

I am open to a discussion with anyone on this forum who is curious what drives a this liberal who votedf or Ford, Reagan, Bush, Perot, Dole, and Bush Jr. twice and changed sides. You can even call me names if it helps. I already understand the conservative mindset. I was one. I'm in I&P if you want to chat.

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Environmentalism and Conservation are and have been Conservative concerns. Just as conservatives first championed the abolition of slavery and the civil rights of minorities, it was conservatives that first championed conservation and environmentalism. After conservative succeeded in protecting minority rights, liberals adopted the cause as their own and use it primarily as a means to advocate increased government control over citizens. Likewise with environmental issues.

Modern Lefties champion the environment because they think environmental problems demand the solutions they like best for every problem... collectivism. Communism, socialism, and collectivism in general tend not to sell very well these days unless they're packaged as something else.

Scouting was founded by environmentalists, Seattle. It is a recent phenomenon that the right wing have begun to see Scouting as their domain. Scouting is what made me a liberal. I earned merit badges in Soil and Water conservation, fish and wildlife management, environmental science, mammal study, reptile study, and lots of other tree hugging badges.

American labor is a good one. It teaches you to appreciate unions.

Scouting is not a politically partisan activity. I do not see it as a leftist activity. I do not see why you think it is an activity belonging to the right being invaded by the left. If anything, the invasion has gone in the opposite direction.

Young earthers make me laugh. Fickle fans, they are. They deny all science and scientists, then use a PC, an amazing scientific creation, to surf the Internet (more science) with an amazing flat panel monitor and a smart phone more powerful than a 1990's super computer... but scientists don't know anything.

Please someone show me what I do all day that is provided by young earth belief. Oh yes, that's right. That would be NOTHING.

But science lets you drive to the store. Science made the products in the store possible, and the transport and storage of them. Even the cash register is a scientific marvel. The lights, the power grid, the air conditioning... every capability humanity has is based on science.

There is no capability we have based on our superstitious beliefs. Well, except to defund scientific research, refuse to educate children in science, fall behind other nations in education in math and science, and lose our ability to remain the world's leader in technology. Oh, and not vaccinate and therefore die and suffer under horrible diseases.

So, yes, superstition is bad for us. It has terrible side effects and no demonstrated benefits other than making us feel better about ourselves and rationalizing away fear and doubt. Science, on the other hand, made you able to read this. Without an education, you could not respond or understand it.

Imagine what you could read, understand, and respond to if you were as educated as the typical astrophysicist or geologist?