← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · PaleoconAvatar
Thread ID: 3294 | Posts: 14 | Started: 2002-10-30
2002-10-30 02:06 | User Profile
Oct 29, 2002
Atheist Scout Has One Week to Declare Belief in Higher Power The Associated Press
PORT ORCHARD, Wash. (AP) - Eagle Scout Darrell Lambert has earned 37 merit badges, worked more than 1,000 hours of community service and helps lead a Boy Scout troop in his hometown. But the 19-year-old has another distinction that may lead to his removal from the Boy Scouts: He's an atheist.
Last week, Lambert was given roughly a week by the Boy Scouts' regional executive to declare belief in a supreme being and comply with Boy Scout policy, or quit the Scouts. The official and Lambert were to talk again this week regarding Lambert's answer, although a definite date hadn't been set by Tuesday.
"We've asked him to search his heart, to confer with family members, to give this great thought," Brad Farmer, the Scout executive of the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts, told The Sun of Bremerton. "If he says he's an avowed atheist, he does not meet the standards of membership."
On membership applications, Boy Scouts and adult leaders must say they recognize some higher power, not necessarily religious. "Mother Nature would be acceptable," Farmer said.
As a private organization, the Boy Scouts are permitted to exclude certain people from membership. The organization bans gays and atheists.
Lambert, who has been a Scout since he was 9, said he won't profess a belief he doesn't feel, saying it amounts to a lie. "I wouldn't be a good Scout then, would I?"
The issue arose about three weeks ago when Lambert got into an argument with a Scout leader at a Boy Scout leadership training seminar over whether atheists should be expelled from the organization. Farmer's office soon contacted him to talk about his nonbelief.
Lambert disclosed his atheism to Scout leaders overseeing his Eagle Scout application last year, but still received the award.
The issue has surfaced before. In 1998, 16-year-old twins Michael and William Randall, who refused to take an oath to God, were awarded Eagle badges after a seven-year legal fight with the Orange County, Calif., council.
The issue has surfaced before. In 1998, 16-year-old twins Michael and William Randall, who refused to take an oath to God, were awarded Eagle badges after a seven-year legal fight with the Orange County, Calif., council.
I was never involved in the Scouts, but I am wondering why the twins mentioned above sued the Scouts over a seven year time frame for the Eagle badges. I don't know anything, really, about these badges--I have to ask if they are worth suing over--are they that valuable to the holder, beyond personal pride or status considerations?
2002-10-30 03:24 | User Profile
The value lies in the courts decision- whether or not a private organization can be forced by the judicial system to change it's standards for membership.
As for the stinking badges...
2002-10-30 03:30 | User Profile
The value lies in the courts decision- whether or not a private organization can be forced by the judicial system to change it's standards for membership.
Ah, I see, thanks for shedding the light on that. The family has a larger political agenda they're working for, that makes sense. I was gonna say, it's not like the badges are some sort of medical degree or law license that got denied.
2002-10-30 20:11 | User Profile
Let us hope the Scouts ride this kid out on a rail and make an example out of him. If the kid had any honor he would quit on his own.
2002-10-30 20:29 | User Profile
Boy Scout oath "I will do my best to do my duty to God."
Tiger Cub oath "I promise to love God."
Cub Scout oath "I, (state your name), promise to do my best to do my duty to God."
If that athiest doesn't believe in God then why is he in the Boy Scouts? He's very much like a guy who becomes a priest and then objects to being dismissed from his job when he announces that he's an atheist. "I wouldn't be a good priest if I lied and said I believe in God." That horse has already left the barn.
2002-10-30 20:39 | User Profile
If that athiest doesn't believe in God then why is he in the Boy Scouts? He's very much like a guy who becomes a priest and then objects to being dismissed from his job when he announces that he's an atheist. "I wouldn't be a good priest if I lied and said I believe in God." That horse has already left the barn.
You make a good analogy. I thought the kid's argument was kind of clever, sort of in the sense of using the system against itself, but then, with your analogy, his maneuver is exposed as being rather superficial.
2002-10-30 21:24 | User Profile
This is a little beyond me, but -
-on the one hand, maybe there just isn't a secular alternative to the Boy Scouts that offers the same sorts of activities
-on the other hand, what the heck is a 19-year-old DOING in the Boy Scouts?
The fact of the matter is that most mandatory "oaths" are read in a toneless, perfunctory manner to begin with. They're simply formalities to get out of the way, especially to kids. So which is the bigger affront to an all-powerful deity? The kid who won't say the oath, or the kid who does without believing in - or even thinking about - a word he says?
2002-10-30 21:40 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Oct 30 2002, 15:24 The fact of the matter is that most mandatory "oaths" are read in a toneless, perfunctory manner to begin with. They're simply formalities to get out of the way, especially to kids.
True, and all the more reason there needs to be consequences when one breaks them. How else will they ever come to take them seriously?
2002-10-30 22:08 | User Profile
Like that socialist one-world Pledge of Allegiance we were all forced to intone every morning - the one originally designed to browbeat Southern children into reflexive submission to the authority of the Federal Gov't, almost from the cradle?
"Consequences" for breaking a mandatory oath never voluntarily taken seem to me to be completely capricious. Rather bizarre irony coming from a guy who named his website Original Dissent.
2002-10-30 22:17 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Oct 30 2002, 16:08 **Like that socialist one-world Pledge of Allegiance we were all forced to intone every morning - the one originally designed to browbeat Southern children into reflexive submission to the authority of the Federal Gov't, almost from the cradle?
"Consequences" for breaking a mandatory oath never voluntarily taken seem to me to be completely capricious. Rather bizarre irony coming from a guy who named his website Original Dissent.**
No, you're missing the point, IR. His decision to be involved in the Boy Scouts is a voluntary one. No one forced him to become a scout. That is quite unlike a government mandate that puts a gun to our head and says, "Do it or else."
Any private organization ought to have the right to set any rules they want and expect those who voluntarily join it to abide by them.
2002-10-30 22:25 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Oct 30 2002, 22:08 "Consequences" for breaking a mandatory oath never voluntarily taken seem to me to be completely capricious. Rather bizarre irony coming from a guy who named his website Original Dissent.
But the oath isn't mandatory. One can get through life without joining the Boy Scouts.
If Lambert had a problem with the oath, then he should leave and quit interfering with other people's right to associate, no matter how silly you, he or anyone else may find the standard.
Best, P
2002-10-30 22:31 | User Profile
No argument; you're both right. But one question.
How do you collect 37 merit badges without once ever reciting this 'mandatory' oath? Didn't anybody notice the 19-year-old was always in the can when the 12 and 14 year olds were all saying this pledge??
2002-10-30 22:40 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Oct 30 2002, 16:31 **No argument; you're both right. But one question.
How do you collect 37 merit badges without once ever reciting this 'mandatory' oath? Didn't anybody notice the 19-year-old was always in the can when the 12 and 14 year olds were all saying this pledge??**
More than likely the kid had no problem saying the pledge as a 9 year old, but 10 years or so of attending public school through junior high and high school hardened him into the militant atheist he is now.
<_<
2002-10-30 22:45 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Oct 30 2002, 22:31 **No argument; you're both right. But one question.
How do you collect 37 merit badges without once ever reciting this 'mandatory' oath? Didn't anybody notice the 19-year-old was always in the can when the 12 and 14 year olds were all saying this pledge??**
I imagine he collected those badges over a period of years. When he lost his belief in God is not specified in the article, but one may probably assume that he did so fairly recently. It says something about his mentioning it months ago, which means, as you seem to imply, that the Boy Scout officials in question weren't very attentive to their duties. Their bad, as modern slang would put it.
As to his age, I assume he was working toward being a Boy Scout Leader. I was never in the Boy Scouts, but I believe, the ages range from the lower teens to the upper teens. I knew High School seniors who were in the Boy Scouts. Some people like the camping, the uniforms and all that.
Best, P