Posted on 12/28/2002 1:08:16 AM PST by sarcasm
Darrell Lambert, the 19-year-old who was tossed out of the Boy Scouts last month for being an atheist, has asked the organization to reconsider.
Lambert wrote a five-page appeal and sent it to the Boy Scouts of America's Western Region office in Tempe, Ariz., on Monday. In the 10 years he has been in the group, he earned 37 merit badges, attained the highest rank of Eagle Scout and was named assistant scoutmaster, a leadership position in his Port Orchard troop.
His mother is the scoutmaster, and most of Troop 1531 supports him. If he didn't fight back, Lambert believes he'd be abandoning them.
"I don't think it's right for them to kick me out," Lambert said. "I've shown I can be a good citizen without believing in God."
The Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts, the regional governing body, revoked Lambert's membership last month. The council is referring media questions to the national office. Gregg Shields, the national spokesman, is on vacation.
The national media, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Public Radio and CNN, have covered the story. And, by scrupulously calling reporters back last month, he racked up a nearly $300 phone bill.
There are 12 points to the Boy Scout law. Scouts must be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, reverent and cheerful, among other things. Reverent not only means respectful but "reverent to God." Which of the points get enforced depends on the local chapter.
"Why are they so concerned about this one out of 12 points?" asked Trish Lambert, Darrell's mother. "Other points, like cleanliness, aren't always followed. Why are they being so strict about this one?"
Lambert, in his appeal, argued it isn't his beliefs that are out-of-line with the Boy Scouts. By excluding atheists and homosexuals, the Boy Scouts of America, he says, has lost sight of its tenets.
The organization teaches "outdoor skills, leadership and what it means to be a good citizen," he said. But Scout leaders don't run Bible study or preach to their troops. Religion is left at home.
"It's going against its fundamental values," he said. "A Boy Scout is supposed to respect others' opinions. It's like they're saying do as I say, not as I do."
Once the regional office receives Lambert's appeal, five members will be chosen to review his case, Lambert said. If they reject him, he would then have another 30 days to send an second appeal to the National Council in Dallas.
Lambert said he doesn't expect the Boy Scouts organization to change its mind. And, if his last appeal fails, he won't try to take the organization to court and "legally force my way back in."
What a surprise.
No, because if you are reverent, you respect the beliefs of others. You acknowledge in humility that there might or might not be a God, but that when you vow "to God" you are essentially saying that you are bowing to the idea of good. A reverent athiest society like China will recognize the "will of Heaven" in right and wrong, as Paul Woodruff's book on Reverence points out.
Reverence recognizes a higher good outside oneself. Athiests may recognize this, although they might not believe in a personal God. But the oath "to God" means that they reverence the symbol of what is good and right.
When you are like this gentleman, he is not "reverent". He is imposing his belief system on others, and insisting that they "respect" his beliefs. If he were a reverent athiest, he could be a scout, since he would believe that the philosophical idea of good and right is not an individual choice but has a larger reality (i.e. based on public opinion, or based on thousands of years of human experience as embedded in religious and ethical codes, or as reality in natural law, or Wilson explains in his book, based on Darwinian evolutionary implatation of what is good for the species).
Essentially, this gentleman's attitude is that his personal opinion and emotional interpretation of reality should be respected,, but if the scouts do that, they essentially are saying that reality is based on personal opinion, not on a greater reality. It would mean that scouts would have to stop teaching children right and wrong, but only say to them: it is right or wrong if you say it is right or wrong, not because of a higher law, and not because some deeds are considered by most religions and civilizations as right or wrong. This is the "ethics clarification" that has poisoned our schools and universities.
If the scouts went along, that would mean that they no longer reverence "God" or anything: the self becomes God, and one's personal opinon becomes the only way to judge if something is right or wrong.
" Last year, when a board of scouting leaders in Port Orchard interviewed Lambert for his Eagle award, he informed them that he did not believe in God."
" Boy Scouts requires its leaders to profess belief in a god - a requirement upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2000 decision."
" The court held that as a private organization, Scouts could disallow gays and atheists."
The more he protests and announces his pleas and appeals to the press (which he obviously is doing), the more narcissistic, self-importnat, and combative he's appearing to be.
These don't seem to be the traits of a good Eagle Scout.
The more he protests and announces his pleas and appeals to the press (which he obviously is doing), the more narcissistic, self-importnat, and combative he's appearing to be.
These don't seem to be the traits of a good Eagle Scout.
"Why are they so concerned about this one out of 12 points?" asked Trish Lambert, Darrell's mother.
Let's turn this around. Why is Darrell so concerned about this one thing out of his whole life? Can't he just believe in God?
I thought he was fighting to change this private clubs rules to allow atheists?
Somehow he slipped in homosexuals as well.
I am certain by mistake he and (NAMBLA) slipped in homosexuals.
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