galiel

Gee, I wonder where he got the impression that someone could make such a bigoted statement and get away with it? Surely not from the U.S. government:

"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
--George Herbert Walker Bush, Dubya's dad, during Bush I's campaign for president in 1987.

Bush I, by the way, was a sitting vice president of the United States at the time he made that remark.

Despite a petition sent to every member of Congress shortly thereafter, not a single one from either party was willing to go on the record denouncing Bush's statement.

The Bush I White House was given numerous opportunities to do so as well, only to say that they stand bythe original statement.

When The secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs under Bush I was asked what atheist veterans could do to get him to act on the matter of discrimination against atheist veterans, he reportedly stated "What you should do for me is what you should do for everybody: Believe in God. Get off our backs."

At least one major city, Chicago, barred the American Atheist Veterans organization from marching in a Fourth of July parade to honor the Desert Storm veterans.

Boy Scouts, all of them, I am sure.

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: galiel ]</p>

DMB

I wonder if they realise how badly this reflects on xians.

This is based not on any knowledge of atheists, but on their own inward eye. The implication would seem to be that only the fear of god prevents xians from misbehaving. They therefore can't imagine that when atheists throw out the fear of god they won't also throw out all morality.

gravitybow

I wonder if they realize how badly it shows lip service to their <a href="http://www.scouting.org/nav/enter.jsp?s=mc&c=ps" target="_blank">Position Statements In Support of Diversity.</a> There's obviously one leader failing in that regard.

d'naturalist

It's sad that such open bigotry and slanderous hate-speech gets press in the 21st century. Hey Mr. Schmidt, I've found a wallet and returned it unplundered. Shows how much this fool knows.

Why isn't there a non-denominational/non-discriminatory children's organization that teaches the same kind of social & natural responsibilities that the BSA -- obviously a private, religious organization -- does? You would think that a group that teaches inclusion and diversity would be successful.

American Agnostic

I don't know what's with the theists' (it's not just the christians) view that atheists are somehow less moral than them. There are some popular media portrail of Nihilism which seems to be what these people think we're all like (don't get me wrong, i'm not for ANY form of censorship). If you look at the questions that they think we can't answer and that trouble us the most (why do you bother to live? what is your purpose in life?, you can't be moral without god, etc) then you'll see that these seem relevent to Nihilism but certainly not to atheism as a whole. But what I think it comes down to is that their (fundamentalist) religion holds that only God-fearing Christians can be happy and moral so when they see atheist living lives just like theirs they have to create some comforting myth to help them handle this inconsistentsy. They claim that atheists we rob or even kill with no regard for what the right thing to do is. They claim that we are rejecting what we now the be true otherwise they wouldn't be able to reasonably justify that god exists. If you simply KNOW or FEEL that god exists then how come that person doesn't. In short, by attacking atheists they are trying to keep their own little world from falling apart.

BTW. I was a scout for a while. <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" /> a really horible part of my life. Because of my experiance with them I have a very deep hatred of the BSA and recent news has only made it worse. I was the kid always picked on and those mother f*ckers that did picked on me at school where of course in the scouting and church (yes, I did go to sunday "school" for aquite a few years but is was generally moderate to liberal and it didn't get down deep enough to be perminent) groups too. Why should I be supprised. Unlike those kids that have gone on shooting rampages (I tend to empathize with what these kids were going though but certainly do support what they did) though I just became a real loner and still am a bit of one today in college. I can truthfully say thought that I learned more about how to shoot a gun in scout summer camp then in all the first-person shooters I've ever played.

Dark Jedi

Hmm, anyone care to point out that the prisons are full of good Christians that took the wallets directly from their owners at gunpoint, then plundered it?

Alonzo Fyfe

The greater sadness that I can see is associating this type of bigotry and hate-mongering with the belief that only bigots and hate-mongers can be proper role models for children.

This is, after all, exactly what the BSA is about these days -- bigots and hate-mongers giving themselves access to children to better spread their philosophy of bigotry and hate.

Daggah

[Radorth mode: ON]

They weren't true Christians.

[Radorth mode: OFF]

Curt Epithet

Not to mention the automatic 50% exclusion rate they generate by calling themselves the BOY Scouts.

jlowder

I had an idea.

In other words, it is the official position of the BSA that atheists *cannot* be moral.

So what was my idea? Everyone on this mailing list has heard apologists say *ad nauseum* that nontheists *can* be moral. (Apologists deny that nontheists have a *basis* or *foundation* for their morality, but that's a theoretical issue that is independent of the pragmatic issue raised by the BSA.) So it seems to me that an effective response to the bigoted comments of Schmidt would be to compile a list of quotations from theistic philosophers and apologists admitting that atheists can be moral.

Here's two quotations from William Lane Craig to get the list started:

" it would seem arrogant and ignorant to claim that those who do not share a belief in God do not often live good moral lives--indeed, embarrassingly, lives that sometimes put our own to shame." (see
<a href="http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/meta-eth.html" target="_blank">http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/meta-eth.html</a>)

"It would, indeed, be arrogant and ignorant to claim that people cannot be good without belief in God." (see
<a href="http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/meta-eth.html" target="_blank">http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/meta-eth.html</a>)

What do you think?

Jeffery Jay Lowder
(an Eagle Scout, FWIW)

[ October 31, 2002: Message edited by: jlowder ]

{edited by Toto to fix links by removing ')'}

[ October 31, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>