Same here, I had a lot of good times in my troop. The main things I didn’t like that are currently still required for Eagle is all of the “God in …” badges. Even before I realized I was an atheist, it felt super bad that religion was so baked into it. It bothered me that it wasn’t at least more agnostic as to the specific religions being focused on. Being “reverent” doesn’t mean only Christianity (or Jewish or Muslim), being a member of the community means that you are supposed to respect the religious beliefs of others. Even as a non-believer I try to make sure to be “reverent” in respecting religious folks of all kinds (I have even taken time to go to multiple services of a branch of Buddhist org a friend’s family goes to). It also kept me more in the closet with regards to my belief in no god when I heard that it could block me from getting Eagle (which I did get). Though a co-worker did tell me that they were allowing girls to join (as she had a son and daughter in the scouts). So depending on how badly they need to get more people signing up. They could eventually take a more broad acceptance of what it means to be “reverent”. But I imagine they would openly support folks of the LGBTQIA+ community long before they accept that atheists can be “reverent” of and understand the importance of all religions to those that believe in them.
A socialist org would be cool, and really could use much of the current BSA material. Since so much is based on stuff that isn’t specific to any political system. And the stuff that is could be re-worked pretty easy, as it is important to understand different systems in the world. Though an openly socialist version of scouts would be super attacked as “indoctrination”. But it really already is “indoctrination” in its current form, as it is instructing kids into being certain kinds of persons.
It also kept me more in the closet with regards to my belief in no god when I heard that it could block me from getting Eagle (which I did get).
I had similar reservations in my troop. But during my Eagle Scout Master Conference, I told him flatly that I was an atheist and also talked about my philosophy – such as it can be for a teenager – around ethics and morals and community. I still got my Eagle Scout rank. This was back in 2007 and, if I recall correctly, there was already some rumbling about how the BSA might start loosening its rigid religiosity. So perhaps at that point it wasn’t a big deal anymore. Or perhaps he just stayed mum on the matter and/or filed whatever paperwork he needed to with the “right” boxes checked.
Nice to see that your Scout Master was understanding of the “spirit” of the whole thing and not just a “by the book” kind of person. I think that the fact that you came with thought-out reasons and everything showed that you weren’t just being an angsty teen rebelling. They also may have still done the whole “this may be a phase and shouldn’t block the one shot at getting this” in their head. Which even if that were the case, would still be a much better situation than forcing shit on you. I got mine in 2002 which was a very different time from any version of “loosening up”. Just thinking of some of the open homophobia that was just “normal” makes me ashamed of just going along with it (I am a cis white male, but I really never hated the LGBTQIA+ community and just did the kid/teenager thing of not wanting to be the one being picked on). The worst people about it were the uber religious kids or otherwise ones that made fun of things they never interact with (like how lots of former racists talk about when they learned everyone is people regardless of skin).
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Same here, I had a lot of good times in my troop. The main things I didn’t like that are currently still required for Eagle is all of the “God in …” badges. Even before I realized I was an atheist, it felt super bad that religion was so baked into it. It bothered me that it wasn’t at least more agnostic as to the specific religions being focused on. Being “reverent” doesn’t mean only Christianity (or Jewish or Muslim), being a member of the community means that you are supposed to respect the religious beliefs of others. Even as a non-believer I try to make sure to be “reverent” in respecting religious folks of all kinds (I have even taken time to go to multiple services of a branch of Buddhist org a friend’s family goes to). It also kept me more in the closet with regards to my belief in no god when I heard that it could block me from getting Eagle (which I did get). Though a co-worker did tell me that they were allowing girls to join (as she had a son and daughter in the scouts). So depending on how badly they need to get more people signing up. They could eventually take a more broad acceptance of what it means to be “reverent”. But I imagine they would openly support folks of the LGBTQIA+ community long before they accept that atheists can be “reverent” of and understand the importance of all religions to those that believe in them.
A socialist org would be cool, and really could use much of the current BSA material. Since so much is based on stuff that isn’t specific to any political system. And the stuff that is could be re-worked pretty easy, as it is important to understand different systems in the world. Though an openly socialist version of scouts would be super attacked as “indoctrination”. But it really already is “indoctrination” in its current form, as it is instructing kids into being certain kinds of persons.
I had similar reservations in my troop. But during my Eagle Scout Master Conference, I told him flatly that I was an atheist and also talked about my philosophy – such as it can be for a teenager – around ethics and morals and community. I still got my Eagle Scout rank. This was back in 2007 and, if I recall correctly, there was already some rumbling about how the BSA might start loosening its rigid religiosity. So perhaps at that point it wasn’t a big deal anymore. Or perhaps he just stayed mum on the matter and/or filed whatever paperwork he needed to with the “right” boxes checked.
Nice to see that your Scout Master was understanding of the “spirit” of the whole thing and not just a “by the book” kind of person. I think that the fact that you came with thought-out reasons and everything showed that you weren’t just being an angsty teen rebelling. They also may have still done the whole “this may be a phase and shouldn’t block the one shot at getting this” in their head. Which even if that were the case, would still be a much better situation than forcing shit on you. I got mine in 2002 which was a very different time from any version of “loosening up”. Just thinking of some of the open homophobia that was just “normal” makes me ashamed of just going along with it (I am a cis white male, but I really never hated the LGBTQIA+ community and just did the kid/teenager thing of not wanting to be the one being picked on). The worst people about it were the uber religious kids or otherwise ones that made fun of things they never interact with (like how lots of former racists talk about when they learned everyone is people regardless of skin).
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