News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Your article is from 2014. 10 years ago all of your other checks were NO as well. I can't find anything recently about atheists with a quick search, just old stuff like that.
It's still a core part of their membership:
https://www.scouting.org/
Scout Oath “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
More:
https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/05/31/bsa-reaffirms-duty-to-god-aspect-of-all-programs-through-resolution-adopted-at-2018-national-annual-meeting/
https://dutytogodbsa.org/portfolio/what-does-duty-to-god-mean/
it is, BUT, if you read between the lines of the requirements, there's plenty of room for pragmatic atheists (in pragmatic packs/troops). It's not perfect, but overall Scouting has absolutely embraced inclusiveness.
Not when you're interviewing for your Eagle they haven't. Describing how you serve your higher power is still a question at the final interview before receiving it. Either you lie as an atheist, or you tell the truth and don't get your Eagle. So either violate what it's supposed to mean to be a scout (integrity and honesty) or you throw away what you've worked so hard for for years.
And that's ignoring the fact that many troops are hosted via churches, especially in southern areas.
I can't argue with that, but I'd have no qualms about "lying" about a ''make believe'' thing anyway. Tons of kids get their religious award and then never step foot in a church again. It would be very nice if kids could be honest about it though, even just picking a religion to earn the reward for as an academic exercise should be allowed I think learning about how much of a part religion can play in people's lives, how it affects their judgement, is a good thing for a person to learn about, and perhaps that's the final test. Respecting the requirement for the sake of the ceremony maybe. Even a (respectful) atheist would take their hat off in a place of worship if asked to.
Maybe a regional/troop thing or my memory is failing me? My interview in 2017 (Iowa) didn't have a religious question in it iirc; there was a question on how I'd be giving back to my community. Don't think my interviewers were extremely religious though.
They would only ask that in a religious troop. There are plenty of troops charted by secular organizations that won’t ask about that.
I wish there didn't have to be any reading between the lines. They're sooo close...
Very true. Sadly, probably not something they'll budge on any time soon, but then again it's a volunteer organization, so maybe there's hope.
A big part of Scouting, at the organizational level, is fund raising. Without funds, you can't afford the uniforms or the events or any of the things that make Boy Scouts a social group.
Historically, the Mormon Church has been a major contributor and facilitator of Boy Scout troops, particularly through the American Midwest and Southwest. Catholics and Methodists are other large scale feeders for the organization. Yes, you can read between the lines. But show up with your "pragmatic atheist" merit badge, and you're not going to be particularly well received by other troops who came up through religious organizations.
Jews and Muslims haven't have it particularly easy integrating with the Boy Scouts, either.
If they haven't made a public statement that they've stopped excluding atheists, why should anyone assume they've changed their policies?
The rise of secularism