AwakeEnergyScouter

That's true, the charter organization thing isn't done everywhere. I don't know what the influence of the YMCA was, but assuming in this context that it was an explicitly pro-Christian influence. I'm not quite sure I understand how these differences make comparing BSA scouting to other aligned NSOs invalid or unhelpful, though. Would you be willing to explain?

Why is American scouting different?

Unfortunately, it wasn't even grooming, because random guys threw all these requests at you seemingly without any consideration of why we would agree. I have no idea what they were thinking. It just formed a constant stream of chatter to shut down. Real grooming would have been much worse - I've heard of some pretty horrendous sextortion cases that started with catfishing. I don't bother with sites that aren't heavily moderated for this reason myself, and don't want to let my child onto the open internet until they're confident enough and tech savvy enough to reject men regularly. But even then, more trusted adults would be good. I understand wanting to shut down potential avenues for actual grooming, but you're also shutting down avenues for helping like you say. We obviously need to keep looking for pedophiles, but tacitly making the assumption that all men who want to work with and advise children and youth are displaying suspicious behavior isn't helpful. We need better discrimination than that. Especially on the internet, where pedophilia is far from the only problem! The vast majority of scouts in Scouts BSA fared no harm. Everyone who's been on the internet has met harmful people. The cost/benefit calculus is completely different online.

It's probably me. I never feel as foreign as in conversations about Christianity, all the Americans including the non-Christians all share a vocabulary and know so much about Christianity that you all seem like Bible scholars to me. I have met Jews that know more about Christianity than I do and I got top marks in religion class in school. A scout's own what, for what purpose? Own expression of spirituality, traditional forms of practice? What is the scout's own ______ supposed to achieve? Are we building community, pointing to reverence for... The natural world? Some and/or all deities from miscellaneous places? The buddhadharma? Studying comparative religions? And what is the connection to scouting - learning about diversity? Practicing patience? I looked at the resources you provided and couldn't quite guess beyond what I already knew, something to do with spirituality. That format was helpful to see for my own understanding, though, thank you for sending that. Gives me a better understanding of what we're talking about.

As it always has been in the scouting movement, the scout law. That's the whole purpose of having the law, that's our shared values foundation. That's also why WOSM and WAGGS approves NSO scout laws. They're all variants on a theme. https://www.scout.org/who-we-are/scout-movement/scout-promise-and-law "Scout Promise and Law Scouting celebrates inclusion and is open to everyone regardless of gender, age, background, faith, or beliefs. Every Scout is unique, but they find common ground in their shared Scout values. These values are upheld in the Scout Promise and Law, which are adapted to fit the unique culture, traditions, and diversity of each National Scout Organization. All adaptions of the Scout Promise and Law by National Scout Organizations and National Scout Associations must be approved by the World Organization of the Scout Movement. Scout Promise The Scout Promise is a personal and social commitment that a young person makes at the beginning of their Scouting journey. As every Scout around the world makes a similar promise, it promotes a sense of unity and marks the first step towards self-education and discovery of the Scout Method. A Global Pledge Reflecting the diversity and inclusive nature of Scouting, National Scout Organization often create own version of the Scout Promise but that can be said together and at the same time as a show of strength and unity. Here are just a few examples: Scout Law The Scout Law describes the values that every Scout should try to live up to in order to become an upstanding member of the Movement and their community. While the wording of the Scout Law has changed over time and among different National Scout Organizations, its key principals and objectives remain the same." https://www.wagggs.org/en/about-us/our-history/original-promise-and-law/ "THE ORIGINAL PROMISE AND LAW Learn about the Original Promise and Law of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting IN THIS SECTION Lord Robert Baden-Powell encouraged the development of the whole person, including spiritual, moral, physical, mental, social, intellectual and emotional aspects. All of these aspects all were instrumental in the creation of the Fundamental Principles of Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting, outlined in the Original Promise and Law. ORIGINAL PROMISE On my honour, I promise that I will do my best: To do my duty to God and the King (Or God and my country); To help other people at all times; To obey the Guide Law ORIGINAL LAW A Guide’s honour is to be trusted. A Guide is loyal. A Guide's duty is to be useful and to help others. A Guide is a friend to all and a sister to every other Guide. A Guide is courteous. A Guide is a friend to animals. A Guide obeys orders. A Guide smiles and sings under all difficulties. A Guide is thrifty. A Guide is pure in thought, in word and in deed" What I scouted under was this https://www.scouterna.se/scout-ledare-kar/jag-ar-scout/scoutlag-och-lofte/ "To be a good friend The scout law is a way for us to make sure that we are kind to each other, nature, and ourselves. We don't promise to always follow the scout law, but we promise to try. The Scout Law A scout seeks their beliefs and respects those of others. A scout is honest and dependable. A scout is kind and helpful. A scout shows consideration and is a good friend. A scout meets difficulties cheerfully. A scout makes themselves familiar with and takes care of nature. A scout feels responsibility for themselves and others. The Scout Promise 'I promise to follow the scout law as well as I can.'"

@KublaiKen, to build off of @qwazse's distinction, Here are Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's words about theism in volumes 1 and 3 of The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma, composed of talks he gave while alive: Vol 1 P 11: “KEY HINAYANA TEACHINGS: A non-theistic path In order to study the hinayana teachings and the buddhadharma, or the “teachings of the Buddha” altogether, you need to let go of theism. You might think that nontheism amounts to a reaction against spirituality and that there is no hope in such an approach. However, people who have given up the theistic approach to religion and spirituality still feel a quality of magical power. They feel that it is possible to practice and study very hard, and to develop strength or power over their situation. When you see that such nontheistic practicioners are becoming more sane, solid, and calm, you may begin to suspect that, in fact, something good is going on. As a reasonable person who is perturbed by your relationship with the so-called bread-and-butter world and uninspired by the prospects presented by this ordinary version of reality, you may begin to think of the possibility of getting into a different and higher realm of discipline and experience. If you do not want to do so within a theistic framework, you might decide to follow the nontheistic Buddhist path. The way to begin is with the hinayana, so it is important to understand how the hinayana teachings are structured.” P 48: “What Buddha said at the very beginning was that it is very necessary for you to be intelligent about what you are doing. Lack of intelligence is one of the most significant problems in spirituality and religion. Buddha's statement that you have to be intelligent about what you are doing and about your commitment to spirituality automatically brings up the notion of nontheism. If you are getting into true dharma, you have to check out your own psychological setup, first of all. You cannot simply trust somebody's blessing or magical power. You have to understand that your wretched setup is not so great, not so fantastic. That approach automatically eliminates the possibility of worshiping God, Brahma, or any other deity. All of that must go. You no longer worship your own emotionalized anything-at-all. You simply relate to your immediate psychological surroundings. You have to make that important point. You no longer worship anybody or try to gain magical powers, so you are stuck with what you are - your existence, your livelihood, your everything.” Vol 3 p 433: “39 The Importance of a Nontheistic View It is timely to review the difference between theism and nontheism, at this point, for we will continue to speak of the divine principle or devata throughout our discussion of vajrayana, so it is important to understand the nontheistic idea of divinity. The view of deity in tantra is often thought of as the same as in the theistic traditions. The simple fact of having all kinds of deities, gods and goddesses, devas and devis, is completely misunderstood. However, in the vajrayana teachings, the concept of deity has nothing to do with messengers or representations of some kind of external existence. We do not talk in terms of God, Godhead, or God-ness. There is no reference in vajrayana to celestial beings. Rather, we are talking about a higher level of energy, a higher level of wakefulness. (…) Buddhist tantric deities are simply expressions of our mind. So although the word divinity, or devata in Sanskrit, is used quite widely in the Hindu tradition as well as in the Buddhist tradition, there is no mutual understanding of divinity between the two traditions.” p 435: "The vajrayana approach to deity is very simple and basic: it is that there is no external salvation. Although in vajrayana we speak a great deal about the experience of blessing, or adhishthana, and we invoke all kinds of power and energy, those things do not come from entity existing either within us or outside of us. We do not invoke blessings from any entity at all. The whole experience of invoking the deity is on a nonentity level. That is a very basic point.” p 436: “The nontheistic view is crucial to the vajrayana. In hinayana, the question of nontheism is not particularly important. You do your little practice and you have your particular discipline. Everything is based on morality and discipline, on monastic rules and individual salvation. On the mahayana level, the theory of God or gods still does not play a very important part. You engage in compassionate action, and there is the inspiration from within concerning your buddha nature and so forth. But in the vajrayana, knowing the real differences between theism and nontheism is absolutely crucial. It is very tricky. It has been said in many of the tantras that whatever the deity, if you visualize the deity on the basis of blind faith or one-pointed belief, you are cultivating egohood. So nontheism is a very important point." This book has prefaces by (among others) the head of the Karma Kagyü lineage (the Karmapa), by the ninth Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, the seventh Shechen Ramjam (Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's grandson), Tulku Throndup Rinpoche. This is, in other words, the establishment view of Karma Kagyü Tibetan Buddhism. So we are a deliberately nontheist lineage, part of a nontheist religion represented for decades in the BSA. Whether we are also atheist depends on the definition of atheist, and what you think the overlap between atheist and materialist is. I think there are effectively multiple definitions of atheist, since different authors use different working definitions in their texts. I usually call myself an atheist as well as a non-theist because, as in qwazse's example, I don't find the Christian God concept useful. (Or the Muslim Allah concept, or the Jewish Jahweh concept, the next most common theists I might meet.) Some might think I'm not an atheist but I think that's more linguistics. I'm definitely a non-theist as defined above by Trungpa.

🤯

Yeah, open internet is a no-no in our house, and will be for a long time. I agree completely that dangers of all kinds lurk on the internet. I had a long talk with another xennial mom who's a lot more worried about internet dangers than kidnapper dangers. We came of age right when the internet became ubiquitous, and we remember from our own adolescence the constant sexual harassment and/or prodding to send nude pictures and sex chat requests. I don't want to derail the thread with how dangerous the internet can be, but I do think that scouts might have a role to play as a place that attracts other parents that want to let their kid have some physical freedom to be unsupervised, or at least only lightly supervised. (Unfortunately, parents still need to fit scouts into the time puzzle that is daily life.) Some of the previous two words right at the start include that aspect though, IMO.

@SSScout Thank you for your reply. I'm glad to hear that your new computer is running! That's always a chore. It's interesting to hear your perspective as someone who actively works with this issue. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find passion, aggression and ignorance in samsara 😂 Round and round the wheel spins! So vows would be relevant here then, I suppose. Seeing if perhaps someone needs a ride to the other shore. It also sounds like adults aren't supposed to be running religious ceremonies at camporees in the first place, did I understand that correctly? It did sound funny that Scout's Own be done by not a current scout. Might I ask, what is the point of a Scout's Own?

Maybe it's as traumatic for them as it is for me if they have seizures! 😂 I'm a bit worried about the explaining aspect in a BSA context also, because of the very strong anti-atheist vibe. One can mean slightly different things by 'atheist', of course, but when the answer to "are you a theist" is "no" even in a scholarly, not just personal, sense, I can see that going south based on what I've seen on the Internet. If someone asks point-blank if my scout believes in any creator deity, they're going to have to say no, and then I think all hell will break loose and my scout may well get kicked out. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.

I hate to say this, but it's not a given that enough kids would be allowed to walk to a park unsupervised to play unsupervised, let alone this happening without neighbors getting involved. I tried to teach my child independence by letting the walk to friend's houses to ask if they wanted to play. In the 200 m from our house to a friends', they were stopped by a neighbor who asked if they were lost and only started walking again when the friend's dad came out to wave the neighbor off. No friends ever ring our doorbell without a parent. My husband shoots daggers at me every time I tell our child that they can go see if so and so is home. I don't know if I'm correct, but I think someone might call the cops and/or CPS if there were a bunch of kids playing without a gaggle of adults in the park. Not to mention all the kids are signed up for a million things that most of the time, the kids aren't home. Little League, just like cub scouts, assures you other kids who are into the same thing will be there. Childhood has definitely lost a lot of freedom. Not sure why everyone is so scared of kidnappers, but they definitely are. Although in the case of why my child's school now has security and checks ID against tickets only available through the school for elementary school soccer games, I do know - bomb threats against elementary students. Statistically, crime rates are way down, but emotionally everyone is very scared. The result is a lot of things, but includes that kids in the neighborhood playing outside spontaneously seems almost taboo.

I hadn't considered this. I cannot fathom starting a business meeting with a prayer. Unfortunately for my child perhaps, I don't have very much experience navigating these situations with grace myself. It isn't a needed skill in Sweden, and in the US I hadn't experienced any until I moved to the South, and my method for dealing with it is avoidance. It probably helps that I work with people from all over the Earth and so it is plainly never a good assumption that most people present are Christian. The few times when it's happened I am so taken by surprise that this is really happening that I feel like a deer in headlights. Once I can run away I do. But that obviously isn't handling it with grace. Any tips?

Thank you for sharing your experience. This obviously isn't what I was hoping to hear (I was of course hoping that my concern was overblown or that times had changed), but one does after all need to be prepared ⚜️☺️ Now I know we do need to have talk about this in a few years, or - quelle horreur! - next month before day camp. I will call the council to ask about religion at day camp so I know. If I end up continuing as a Scouts BSA leader if/when my scout crosses over, I absolutely will emphasize that any and all religious expression and practice at scouting events is 100% optional.

I think I will contact them, thanks! I would love to strengthen our mahasangha by simply connecting. I know BCA has done a lot for Buddhist scouting. Bobby Tanaka with the National Buddhist Committee on Scouting is amazing. Actually, I should talk to him too. Wait, they pray Christian prayers before meals, too? Well, at least there we have a form I could ask to substitute, our lineage meal chant or Plum Village's meal gatha.

I agree that it would be unscoutlike, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen, so it's helpful to hear at least one American scouter affirm that basic view. The wall of Christianity is intimidating sometimes, especially in view of US society as a whole, even though I know very well that the scouting movement explicitly isn't a Christian movement. There clearly are a lot of people who want to make it one, and it's hard to tell how well they've succeeded. Had a lot of them systematically not left the BSA already I don't think I would have dared pick Cub Scouts over Brownies or whatever the young scouts in GSUSA are called. I did see the religious awards, and we just threw a sangha party to celebrate that my scout earned theirs! I'm quite proud actually, that was a lot of material to get through. I had to start with bribes of tea and cookies like they give the littlest nuns candies during sadhanas, but then the interest in the life of the Buddha took over and the cookie-eating pace slowed significantly, and then they wanted to finish the whole thing up through his paranirvana even though it wasn't required for the award. When we went to our center in uniforms to help open the shrines and participate in an adult public sit for the first time we flushed out a number of old scouts, all of whom were surprised that the BSA has anything for Buddhists. The WOSM adult friendship scarf is white with a purple edge, which says "Making a Better World". It so happens that when you thank a teacher for teaching in our lineage, you offer them a white scarf as a symbol of your primordial buddhanature, the ultimate totality of what you (and also they and everything else) are. So, since the friendship scarf is also white and the edge message is not coincidentally similar to our socially engaged vision of creating enlightened society, I blessed and offered one to the senior teacher who oversaw my creation of the curriculum details. She also is an old scout, so that seems doubly appropriate. She also just left on a pilgrimage to see our current lineage head, so instead of the customary champagne toast to the lineage I blessed an extra one for him to send with her as an offering. ⚜️☸️ Hoping we can let more people in the mahasangha know about the possibility of Buddhist scouting. Thank you very much for your support! Although, I'm your sister ☺️

This whole letting it all hang out is difficult for me, and part of that is definitely cultural. https://satwcomic.com/the-easy-way So they really do do Christian services at camps regularly? Sigh. Does this mean I can practice my Buddhism as if I was at home? I've sat outside my tent, hoping that people write it off as trendy nonsense, but I try to hide my land spirit offerings and such because I don't want any questions. It's private. And I don't want to accidentally be seen as proselytizing to others' children! I don't know that I would be comfortable doing even foundational and Mahayana practices in public view even if others wouldn't mind, but I can't help but suspect that they would in fact mind. I'd hate to find out that they do, and ruin friendships. Not sure what my scout will want to do, but it will be good to be clear from the start that they don't have to go and that it really is ok to be different.

In the abstract I agree, in practice I don't think it can be done in the general case. How many religions are there? How many different ways of practicing? It would suck up all available time with just a few religions. I mean what I would want isn't a flavor, it's a completely different event. The closest thing to a Christian church service is doing a public sadhana not requiring empowerment, and even that doesn't make sense to just throw out into a crowd because even if they're Buddhist, they may not practice that specific one or do tantra at all. Lots of people stick to the sutrayana. We could all sit, and all dharmic religions could follow our own specific instructions, but then the tables are just reversed on the Abrahamic folks who don't meditate. This is why I think we should just leave religion to the private sphere and get on with the scouting. As BP said, it's underlying it all anyway.

Thank you! This is very helpful. It seems a bit rude to just leave a camp event, but if this is acceptable then that's a clear route to not having to participate in someone else's religion if all planning and checking fails. I'm not entirely sure I understand what you said about value system contortions. Would you be willing to explain?

I'm glad to hear that your troop has mastered religious coexistence. This is a key skill for creating a good, stable future, as well as something that's logically required to live up to the scout law. Our pack has also been very welcoming, despite the fact that we're almost certainly odd ducks in an incredibly Christian part of the US. It isn't this level that I'm worried about. I was previously, before we joined, but I simply avoided all units owned by churches and this seems to have worked. However, I'm reading about religious services being held at camps and camporees, and the content of all of these seems to be generally Abrahamic at best, explicitly Christian at worst. I see lots of voices here blending Christianity and scouting quite freely, even people saying that it's ok to proselytize to scouts. Someone mentioned having heard fire and brimstone sermons at a camporee, and that's just not something I want my child exposed to for multiple reasons. How do I know what kind of religious content is part of an event like that that's organized by people outside my own unit? That's my question. As for atheism, Buddhists are explicitly allowed, so I guess atheists are allowed after all. The way that religious declaration is worded in and of itself sounds an awful lot like "you have to be a Christian" with an asterisk on it. In terms of signing agreements, however, the asterisk definitely means that people who disbelieve in the existence of the Christian God can be BSA members even though the standard interpretation of "God" in the singular and capitalized in English is the Christian God. It seems like what the statement is really after is whether you can connect to the luminosity of emptiness, in other words whether you are a strict materialist or not, and plenty of atheists aren't strict materialists.

I am not a Christian and neither is my scout. Neither of us believe in either the old gods or the new God. My own scouting experience was secular, and I want my scout to be free to seek their own beliefs as I was. Some of the things I'm reading here and elsewhere on the internet have rekindled my worry that Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA are, in practice, an arm of the Christian church except for in very select spots, despite the loose technical definition of "God" in the religious pledge. I can select a secular pack and troop, but I don't want to send my scout into some district Christian recruiting camp, or give them the impression that scouting is Christian. How can I ensure that I don't do this by mistake? Are some councils more prone to having Christianity be part of events than others? Does it depend on the people organizing? How do other non-Christians navigate all the Christianity everywhere?

I recently dug round the WOSM pages for MoP, and even looking for some of these other programs there I end up at Scouts for SDGs over and over because so many of the links go there. That may explain some of the lack of awareness. It never occurred to me to ask if it's ok for BSA members to execute WOSM programming, I just did it. I took their SDG training, selected from their suggested exercises, used their materials - but with modifications. Why I modified might be another reason why some of the WOSM programs aren't popular here. Several of the SDGs veer into politics in the US by their very existence, and because scouting is one of the few community organizations in which liberal and conservative people work side by side to build community, I dropped several SDGs to not alienate the parents whose attire makes me think that they might find some of the SDGs aggravating or offensive. I don't know if I was right, but coming in from another NSO I have to say that I got an off-in-your-own-corner vibe from the BSA. After taking the leap and joining, I see it's not quite like that, but there does seems to be a general lack of sense of being part of a global movement in scouts here. Some people very much have interest, but the global community perspective can't be taken for granted. When I read WOSM's materials, I experience a sense of relaxation and familiarity with the perspective. I can't know for sure, maybe someone else can comment, but a lot of WOSM programs come out of of a view that doesn't seem to be generally shared by the BSA. Now, why is MoP an exception? I raised some eyebrows at the BSA suggestion that you can tag basically any service project a MoP project for the extra badge. Not sure how many MoP projects are actually executed primarily from the WOSM guidance and view, or how one would even know the answer to that question. See below for just one example. "How is Messengers of Peace different from Good Turn for America? In terms of project reporting, MOP is very similar. However, MOP emphasizes peace and the influence Scouts around the world can have. It also adds a global recognition to the local and national recognition Scouts already receive for their service. Why do we need a new program? Messengers of Peace is less a new program than a new focus—and an opportunity to connect and share with Scouts around the world without leaving home. It’s designed to integrate with Journey to Excellence reporting, as described below."

Thank you to everyone who has participated in this discussion! I am developing next year's bear schedule right now, and since my own scouting experience was in a different NSO that didn't have something like cub scouts at the time, this has been tremendously helpful in determining what kind of programming philosophy to use. Hearing a variety of viewpoints has been very enriching, and now that my scout and I have been in the pack for a year and a half I see some of the points made reflected in the kids, especially my own. I also see I'm not alone in taking certain approaches, so I'm probably not bucking some BSA tradition in doing that, which is also good to know. Thank you all.

Good to know, thanks!

I haven't seen any mention of GPS in either the wolf or bear adventures - did I perhaps miss it? Or can cub scouts perhaps earn merit badges? I thought you had to be in Scouts BSA for that. I'm not intending this to be for an award or an adventure, though, just think I see an opportunity to practice core scouting skills while having fun.

I thought about it, but I'm old-school and want to keep all electronics at home. We go out into nature to commune with nature and each other, not to fiddle with devices. Plus, GPS is to map and compass as a TI-83 is to doing it by hand. I think you should know it the hard way before you take the shortcut, at least if you can make it fun enough when it's not school. Given how much fun they had with the map and compass, I see a yes there, at least for these particular kids. I was thinking about essentially converting the geocaches into an unconventional orienteering exercise by marking the coordinates on a map, though ☺️