Sunday 3 February 2008

On My Honour

The British Humanist Association has reported the Scouts to something or other because they require new members to “promise to do [their] best to do [their] duty to God” (as well as, I should add, “the Queen, to help other people, and to keep the Scout Law”).

Well, there is the question of not caring which god it is, which recalls the Catholic objection to Freemasonry. And there is the fact that the Boy Scouts of America are now almost completely controlled by the Mormons (with, now that I think about it, their Masonic roots alongside those of the American Republic itself).

But I am not aware of anyone’s being compelled to join the Scouts. Is the BHA? And what is to be its next target, churches that perform Confirmations?

4 comments:

  1. David,

    if you are going to complain, you might at least do some research first.

    The objection was based on two observable facts. Firstly that the Scout Association (SA) will, in theory, not accept members without a religion and secondly that it has received government funding by claiming to be equal opportunities organisiation.

    The objection isn't that a private organisation gets to set its own rules. That's a ridiculous straw man. The objection is that a theoretically discriminatory organisation is accessing funding, some of which it should be barred from.

    There are separate arguments about whether the SA should accept non-religious members. But the BHA are objecting to the lack of clarity on the part of the SA about their discriminations.

    Robert

    PS I am unclear what relevance the practices of the BSA, an entirely separate organisation, have to do with this. Could you explain please?

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  2. They're part of the family, Robert.

    The SA does not require a "religion". It requires a profession of duty to God. That that can be any god you like is problematical in itself. But it is very far from the same thing.

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  3. David,

    you are, I'm afraid, simply wrong.

    Ths SA accepts Bhuddists, some forms of which don't belive in a God or Gods. POR makes references to Religious belief rather than God and gives a varient of the promise for Bhuddists which makes no reference to a God but rather to Dharma which is not the same thing to many Bhuddists.

    (the following sections of POR may make this clearer
    http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/hqdocs/por/2006/1_5.htm#rule_1.1
    http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/hqdocs/por/2006/chapter_2.htm#part_1
    http://www.scoutbase.org.uk/library/hqdocs/por/2006/2_2.htm#part_1
    )

    In any event, it still doesn't address the fact that the BHA's complaint is that the SA recieves statutory funding on the basis of being open to all when for many, the only way to join is to lie.
    http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/newsarticleview.asp?article=2413

    Nor does the fact that an entirely separate organisation in an entirely different country operates in a different way. Their shared membership of WOSM has little to do with how the SA presents itself in the UK.

    Your presentation of the BHAs position is still a straw mam, for all that it has been repeated in a number of newspapers today.

    Robert.

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  4. If they get away with this then they will kill off every faith-based charity in the country. That is their aim.

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