Caving for infidels
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kay
Well-known member
paull said:
It sounds like the Scout Association has been reading ukc :tease:
They are considering whetehr to change the Promise
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/04/scouts-guides-consider-atheist-oaths
yeah i was searching for this post to add the below link from the Beeb too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20584208
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20584208
and reaction from the family of the boy in the initial post - http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Father-atheist-boy-banned-Scouts-welcomes-pledge/story-17495018-detail/story.html
underground
Active member
Jesus. I have never been a 'believer' as I like to think I have more sense, but I also had the sense as a kid to just say the promise and not give a monkeys, frankly. I don't believe in Father Christmas any more but I don't denounce him either or ever stopped celebrating Christmas
cap n chris
Well-known member
Amazingly, in this present era of mass superstition and overt religious military crusades, a minor win in the cause of sanity has occurred....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22959997
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22959997
TheBitterEnd
Well-known member
A step forward indeed but I was bit surprised they dropped "country" in favour of "community" but kept Queen. Can't see what is wrong with a non-specific country, whereas some people may have more an issue with monarchy.
cap n chris
Well-known member
It would be hard to be republican over it when your President is Royalty, and your chief Patron is the Monarch, though, I guess.
graham
New member
Tony_B said:
I know lots of excellent arguments to the contrary. Possibly UKC isn't the best place to air them, but one useful question to ask one of them is:
Is an action moral in itself (in which case you don't need god to explain it to you) or is an action only moral because god says it is (in which case aren't we all in the mire if god actually turns out to be this guy)?
TheBitterEnd
Well-known member
Cap'n Chris said:
Yes I agree. I was more intrigued by the motivation for dropping country in favour of community. Can't see what's particularly wrong with "country" and don't recall many strong arguments against its use. The term community just seems to be a subset of country and possibly waters down a wider obligation.
cap n chris
Well-known member
I'm guessing "country" has been dropped and replaced with "community" because there might be pockets of Scouts/Guides in the UK which are comprised of children all from different countries of origin and if doing a group hug/oath then it would be weird to the max if they were all making a solemn promise at odds with one another simultaneously.
TheBitterEnd
Well-known member
And there may be (in fact I hope there are) scout/guide troops that comprise people who regard themselves as being from different communities ? Methodists and C of E, Darwinists and Creationists, cavers and unicyclists?
I did the stupid promise thing to get into venture scouts, but made it very clear that I though it was bullshit. They were OK with that.
I used to argue with Christians, trying to work out why apparently intelligent people would believe in sky-fairies, but fairly quickly worked out that it was a waste of both party's time. I try to be tolerant of xtians so long as they keep quiet about it, but it's an effort to ignore the stupid sometimes. I am glad that people like Dawkins can find the energy to argue about it in public. He's doing a marvellous job. A few years ago, as Britian rapidly de-religioned, I got quite hopeful about the future of humanity, but then I noticed that in much of the rest of the world things were going backwards, and overall, so far as I can tell, the problem is worse than ever. It seems that people's brains are badly wired up for evolutionary reasons. Still - glad to see most people here haven't been taken in.
These days I restrict my efforts to global warming deniers as that seems a rather more important matter where people's opinions might actually matter. Although this mostly illustrates just how hard it is to change anyone's mind over the internet. Now, where's that fellow Rose got to...
I used to argue with Christians, trying to work out why apparently intelligent people would believe in sky-fairies, but fairly quickly worked out that it was a waste of both party's time. I try to be tolerant of xtians so long as they keep quiet about it, but it's an effort to ignore the stupid sometimes. I am glad that people like Dawkins can find the energy to argue about it in public. He's doing a marvellous job. A few years ago, as Britian rapidly de-religioned, I got quite hopeful about the future of humanity, but then I noticed that in much of the rest of the world things were going backwards, and overall, so far as I can tell, the problem is worse than ever. It seems that people's brains are badly wired up for evolutionary reasons. Still - glad to see most people here haven't been taken in.
These days I restrict my efforts to global warming deniers as that seems a rather more important matter where people's opinions might actually matter. Although this mostly illustrates just how hard it is to change anyone's mind over the internet. Now, where's that fellow Rose got to...
Cave_Troll
Active member
Could it not be argued that Atheism itself is a religion with some followers who argue (sometimes violently) for its case and try to spread the word?
The irony that the Atheists complain about religions trying to spread themselves, seems to be lost.
The irony that the Atheists complain about religions trying to spread themselves, seems to be lost.
Peter Burgess
New member
Atheists are by and large reasonable people. Antitheists are a right pain in the rear end, as bad as the people they continually slag off. A lot of those who claim to be atheists should more honestly and accurately call themselves antitheists.
Bob Smith
Member
Cave_Troll said:
I think Al Steffanelli sums this up nicely;
[quote author=Al Stefffanelli ]Atheism is not a structured system with defined rules. It is simply the lack of a belief in the existence of a god, gods or the supernatural. It has no uniform beliefs and is not a means of understanding our existence. Atheism is not philosophy of life. My unbelief in Santa Claus is not a philosophy of life, and thus my unbelief in god isn?t, either[/quote]
debunking-atheism-as-a-religion
I'm not sure that it's real irony, Cave_Troll; I think it's more likely that the religious have had things their own way for so long, claiming the moral high ground (and in some cases, of course, putting to death in particularly cruel and vicious ways those who disagreed with them) that the atheists want to assert their case now that they can do so (without being burnt at the stake, for example).
