I went all through Cubs, then joined a different troop of Scouts than the one my Pack normally graduated into, because my parents thought it was more "prestigious" . . . then quit before becoming 2nd Class because the troop was a bunch of hoodlums, to resurrect a word from the 50s. Filthy, foul-mouthed, and many, many other things antithetical to the Scout Oath.
An Eagle Scout I knew in high school became, in his 30s, a murderer who dismembered and allegedly consumed a portion of his victim. He's incarcerated for life somewhere in the state you call home. I don't blame the Scouts for that, I blame schizophrenia -- I knew the guy pretty well, and his family.
What I do blame the Scouts for is -- like many other "fraternal societies" who are hide-bound* in tradition -- the inability to evolve as society does. If the Scouts are to claim any relevance in a world where "wilderness" is rapidly dwindling to nothing, as are all of the activites Scouts used to do in the wilderness, they should -- at the very least -- re-examine what it means for a Scout to be "reverent".
There are other forms of reverence than worship of God through an organized religion officially sanctioned by the BSA.
On the other hand, it may be time for natural selection to take its course, and pronounce Scouting irrelevant by way of its inevitable extinction. How's that for "social" Darwinism?
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* The term "hide-bound" comes from a form of torture in which the victim is sewn into a wet cowhide, which shrinks as it dries, slowly crushing and/or asphyxiating.
Current Events » in reply to Were you a Boy Scout?
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The whole thread (20 posts)
- Another victory for the ACLU
- The Boy Scouts require that members affirm belief in God... or lie about it.
- And people keep thinking the ACLU is a neutral protector of civil rights.
- Those Boy Scouts are dangerous subversives. They should be arrested and sent to Siberia. What a load of crap! (n/t)
