Spinoff: Homosexual Scouts

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

So, people never, ever, change their religious opinions in your world, Ed?

[sherminator505 10]

I will never understand why anyone would want to join or remain in an organization to learn about his duty to "that thing I don't believe in."(This message has been edited by sherminator505)

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

I will never understand why an organization would talk about duties to something which is never described, and due to irreconcilable differences between members, can never BE described.

[sherminator505 10]

That's because you've tuned it out. It happens.

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Uh, no. You don't understand my point.

 

The BSA's belief in a 'supreme being' requirement allows anything, even gods with mutually exclusive traits, among its members. There is no trait that all these gods must have in common. The BSA isn't even clear if polytheism is OK or not.

 

For any issue X, you could have one member whose god approves of X, and another whose god disapproves of X, for any X you can think of.

 

Yet the BSA requires such a belief. A belief in something which has no particular properties. There's no point to that. It may as well be a requirement to believe in "bleem", and then refusing to define "bleem" in any meaningful way.

[sherminator505 10]

Um, no, I don't think you understand mine. I'm talking about faith, and while it is true that there is not a universal agreement on what that faith should look like, the "requirement" as you like to put it is to recognize one's responsibilities with regard to that faith. As you have chosen not to engage that part of your being, it is natural that you do not understand. I don't say this as a judgment, but as a statement of what I believe to be true.

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Uh, no, you still didn't understand mine. Deists can believe in a god that doesn't know or care about humans at all, and have zero duties to such a god, and they're acceptable. Like I said before, it's duties to something that can never be described because members have irreconcilable beliefs. My particular opinion doesn't even enter into it.

[sherminator505 10]

OK, educate me. What would "duty to God" mean to a deist, according to your education on the subject?

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Pretty much anything, from nothing at all to whatever they believe their god wants. Do you disagree?

[sherminator505 10]

From a purely intellectual standpoint, what you're saying sounds good. But how much faith is required to say that there is a God, but that you don't particularly feel any responsibility to it because you feel it doesn't care about you? And how many people do you know that actually subscribe to this, or is this just an intellectual construct?

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

I don't know anyone who is a deist, but there's nothing in the BSA's requirements that would suggest that a member be rejected for believing that they owe no duties to their god. And what does the "amount of faith" required to believe that relevant?

[sherminator505 10]

The amount of faith that our hypothetical "Deist" might have is not nearly as important as its mere presence or absence. One might say that the acknowlegement of God, irrespective of your feelings toward it, indicates the presence of faith on some level.

 

What is important is that you described a particular type of religion called "Deism" with the implication that a "Deist" would feel no duty to God but would still be okay to be in Scouts, then changed the hypothetical belief system of this "Deist" to cover pretty much anything, then followed it up by admitting that you knew of no such "Deists."

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

The amount of faith that our hypothetical "Deist" might have is not nearly as important as its mere presence or absence.

 

Where is that written?

 

What is important is that you described a particular type of religion called "Deism" with the implication that a "Deist" would feel no duty to God

 

No, what I wrote was this:

"Deists can believe in a god that doesn't know or care about humans at all, and have zero duties to such a god, and they're acceptable."

 

See that "can"? That means it's possible, but not mandatory. Your phrasing that a '"Deist" would' is not accurate, since I never said a deist would believe in such a god, only that a deist can believe in such a god.

 

but would still be okay to be in Scouts, then changed the hypothetical belief system of this "Deist" to cover pretty much anything,

 

No, I didn't change anything. There's no set belief system. You didn't appear to understand that.

 

then followed it up by admitting that you knew of no such "Deists."

 

I don't know any people who describes themselves as deists, no. So?

 

Why is any of that important? All I see is your misrepresentation of what I've said.

[sherminator505 10]

By misrepresentation, do you mean outlining the twists and turns of our hypothetical "Deist" that you claimed to be acceptable in Scouting, even though he was really an intellectual construct onto which you projected your perceptions of BSA policy?

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

By misrepresentation, do you mean outlining the twists and turns of our hypothetical "Deist" that you claimed to be acceptable in Scouting, even though he was really an intellectual construct onto which you projected your perceptions of BSA policy?

 

No, by misrepresentation, I mean the way you wrote you described a particular type of religion called "Deism" with the implication that a "Deist" would feel no duty to God when I clearly described deism as a religion where a deist CAN feel no duty to god.

 

And deists aren't intellectual constructs, they really exist. You seem to think I made up the term or something.