Boy Scout Officials Have Their Say on God and Atheists

I have already published a dissent from my opinion that a scientist’s proposal for killing defective children at birth is absurd.

I should also acknowledge protests against my opinion that the Boy Scouts of America’s policy of rejecting boys who do not believe in God is also absurd.

Of course, I have received the usual tracts and sermons from readers who deplore my tolerance of skeptics, but my tutors in this instance include a number of Scoutmasters or Boy Scout officials.

At the outset I must say that I respect the Boy Scouts as a venerable and useful organization that has no peer in the training of boys to be good citizens and honorable men.

That is part of the problem. Must a boy be denied the Boy Scout experience simply because he is a nonbeliever?

I specifically cited as absurd the rejection of two Orange County brothers by the Scouts. (I am informed that they were seeking membership in the Cub Scouts, not the Boy Scouts, and that the pledge they were asked to sign was a promise, not an oath. Boy Scouts sign an oath.)

That understood, the question remains. Is it absurd for the Scouts to exclude boys who do not believe in God, or do not wish to commit themselves to such a belief? I asked whether Buddhists and Confucianists would also be rejected.

Arthur E. Hammarlund, assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 10, Reseda, observes that the Scouts admit boys of many religions, including Buddhists. The Scouts do not require membership in any religious organization. However, he says, “Should a boy ask if being a Confucianist is acceptable, I would first need to learn more about his beliefs before answering.”

I can assure Scoutmaster Hammarlund that a Confucianist could make an excellent Boy Scout, though he did not believe in the Christian God.

“The Bill of Rights,” Hammarlund goes on, “gives the citizens of this country various rights. The free exercise of religion is one of these rights. The Boy Scouts, as a private organization and not an agency of the state, has elected to require that its members believe in God. . . .”

Surely freedom of religion implies freedom from religion, as well.

Hammarlund adds, “Since you feel that the state, through its courts, should prohibit the exercise of these rights, I call upon you to join me in abolishing another one of them-- your right to publish. Or are your politically correct rights holy and mine absurd?”

By the way, the Cub Scout Promise reads “I (name) promise to do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to help other people, and to obey the law of the pack.”

Clark M. Hay of Ridgecrest, district chairman of the Boy Scouts of America, says that Buddhists, Confucianists, Muslims, Unitarian-Universalists, Hindus and members of many other churches are eligible to join the Scouts. (Then why not an atheist?)

Hay answers that the Scouts admit any boy who believes in any God, even an agnostic’s “unknowable and unknown ultimate cause.” Only the atheist is excluded because his belief is “a complete denial of the existence of any God or divine being.” (Evidently, a boy would be acceptable if he believed in Moloch, the god who ate children.)

Lee R. Sollenbarger, director and past chairman of the Los Angeles area council, Boy Scouts of America, asks, “Would you have us eliminate also duty to a country, moral integrity, physical fitness, mental awareness, just to accommodate all others? Shall we reduce all to the lowest common denominator?”

Why couldn’t an atheist kid be taught loyalty to country, moral integrity, physical fitness and mental awareness, like any other boy? Why should he be regarded as the lowest common denominator? Is that politically correct? Why should he be derided, despised and excluded? The exclusion of atheists is just another form of religious prejudice.

There was a saying common among civilians in World War II. “There are no atheists in foxholes.” To many who spent a night in a foxhole that was absurd. Nothing will shake one’s faith in a merciful God more quickly than seeing one’s friends blown to pieces.

Of course, one who survives a battle may think that God has spared him for a reason. I never felt that way. I was just lucky.

In the movie of Dostoevski’s “Crime and Punishment,” the protagonist Raskolnikov is talking to a prostitute on a bridge over the Volga. She says, “Don’t take away my faith. It’s all I have.” And he says, “Don’t take away my unfaith. It’s all I have.”

I’m thinking about those two little atheist kids who were rejected by the Boy Scouts of America.

If a boy can’t believe in the Boy Scouts, in whom can he believe?