A Scout is Reverent

Upchurch

Papa Funkosophy
Upchurch
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I know it's been talked about before, but it's been in the news lately, so I thought I'd dole it back out.

The twelfth point of the Boy Scout Law is "A Scout is Reverent." When I went from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts and first learned the points of the law, I through "reverent" was equivalent to "religious".

However, as I grew up, matured, and learned a bit more, I came to believe that "reverent" was more a synonym of "respect". Which, I just found out, is in keeping with the definition of reverence. This last point of the Scout Law, then, means only that a scout is respectful of religious beliefs. It does not mean that a scout must be religious, although it is certainly encouraged.

This being the case, (1) I don't agree with BSA's policy of excluding atheists (or gays, but that's a different issue) and (2) I don't agree with notion that the Boy Scouts is a religious organization.
From the above link

The lawsuit said the city showed favoritism toward a religious organization by leasing the Scouts land for $1 a year.
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Maybe I'm missing something here, but is there anything inherent in the statement that "A Scout is Reverent" that implies that a scout must hold religious beliefs?
 
Upchurch said:


Maybe I'm missing something here, but is there anything inherent in the statement that "A Scout is Reverent" that implies that a scout must hold religious beliefs?
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It's not the "reverence" statement that says it, it is the scout leaders. They insist that the Scouts hold religious beliefs. It would be disengenious to turn around and claim that it is at the same time not a religious organization.
 
Atheists have been kicked out of the scouts. So have homosexuals. The Boy Scouts of America is a private organization, so they can do that if they want. There is a problem, however: they want (and actually EXPECT) public funding. No can do if you discriminate. Luckily the courts have supported that view, and the scouts have been denied public tax dollars.
 
The Mormons bought the BSA some years ago. It's an entirely religious organization now. Not a proselytizing one, but a religious one nonetheless.
 
And even if "Reverent" meant "Religious", wouldn't kicking out an atheist be sorta like kicking out someone who couldn't reliably tie a square knot?

I was in the Boy Scouts as a kid, and among the life survival skills I learned was that an "oath" is something that you say whenever it would disappoint the adults standing around you if you didn't say it. I am certain that they are still teaching this.
 
phildonnia said:
And even if "Reverent" meant "Religious", wouldn't kicking out an atheist be sorta like kicking out someone who couldn't reliably tie a square knot?
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Yes, Bayden Powell's idea was to include everyone (everyone who is male) and only to encourage them towards a religious life, which was seen as the only moral path at the time.
 
The Scouts have gone to court and argued that they are a religious group to protect their discrimination policies.

Which saddens me greatly. I earned my Eagle Scout award in 1985 and I remain as proud of that as any achievement in my life.

Yet there are days when I'm tempted to slice everything BSA related I own to ribbons and mail it to the national office.

I'm probably only a few years away from having kids and I come from a family with something of a Scouting tradition. I don't look forward to having to wrestle with this in something more than a philosophical sense.
 
I know several people still racing BSAs.








Wait, what were we talking about?
 
My Viable Mutation Merit Badge:

biohazard.gif
:p
 
Beleth said:
The Mormons bought the BSA some years ago. It's an entirely religious organization now. Not a proselytizing one, but a religious one nonetheless.
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Is this true?? Reference?

I was a Boy Scout for many years. I was also an out-of-the-closet atheist. Furthermore, it was a Mormon Boy Scout troop. Everyone in the troop but me was Mormon, it was run by the local Mormon church, and the meetings were at the church. I got some flack for being an atheist, but there was no talk of kicking me out. In our troop we were required to get the geneology merit badge, since the Mormons have a mania for geneology.

On a mostly unrelated note: I'm astounded by the fact that there are so many devout Mormons. Anyone with an iota of sense can take one look at the historical details of that religion, and the Book of Mormon, and immediately recognize it as obvious snake oil of the lowest order.
 
While reverent can (and these days, often does) mean respectful in a general sense, it's pretty clear that it connotes religious adoration, at least by analogy. I'd estimate that well over half of the usage examples (particularly the older ones) for the word in the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary allude to religion. Some definitions of the word or its cognates specifically denote this (i.e. reverence (as a verb) = "To regard with reverence or veneration as having a divine or sacred character; to worship in some manner" (OED). In other instances, I suspect that the secular usage has proliferated by way of conscious or unconscious analogy to the sacred context.

More to the point, as far as interpreting reverent in the context of the Scout Law is concerned, the same principles of construction that inform the interpretation of real laws favor the interpretation given by the Boy Scouts. It's their rule, after all, and the organization's explanation of the sense in which reverent is intended ought reasonably to carry the debate.
 
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