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which_chickMy friend has a six year old son (seven in April). This is fine.
She wants to involve him in scouting. Also fine.
She has signed him up for Royal Rangers, which is kind-of like scouts only with a bigger helping of God. This is not fine for me.
Her husband's parents are big on the God front and I suspect they are pushing this form of scouting rather than traditional BSA or whatever though honestly BSA isn't godless either. Also kid's dad was a Royal Ranger and so he thinks his kid should be a Royal Ranger like his dad was.
I would totally like outdoorsy merit badge stuff like Lighting Fires and Cooking Over Campfires and Assessing Water Turbidity In Lakes and Counting Night-Flying Insects and Looking for Newts and Learning The Trees and Learning to Swim and Boat Safety and Hiking and Using a Compass and Identifying Snakes of Pennsylvania and so forth. Like I am fucking down with that shit. I am. I am on board with merit badges. I am totally 100% gung-ho about doing that shit with someone else's kiddo.
Incidentally, the golden chanterelles and black trumpets from The Wet Summer Before The Dead Baby Horse were delicious in a mushroom-and-barley soup that I ate at work all last week. Probably I've survived eating wild mushrooms that I gathered myself and also they were tasty. So yay. Still sad about dead baby horse.
But anyway, back to the current woe. I don't do God. It's not my thing. As a general rule, I think it's a paternalistic shitheap of make-believe. I don't organized religion, I don't say God Bless You, I don't offer to pray for people. I just... don't.
Usually I can get by with this and not raise too much of a stir in my little redneck part of the world. Usually. Sometimes I have to field well-intentioned questions about where I go to church (I don't.) or if I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior (Nope.) or whatever, but it's not much of a problem because mostly people don't get all up in my business about my faith or lack thereof.
I also don't take it upon myself to go around telling Believers thatSanta God isn't real. That's a dick move. Also, atheism as I do it is a free-form non-belonging activity that does not hand out merit badges for converting the faithful. I do not encourage the public discussion of matters of faith. It's graceless and only rude people ask about such personal matters or deign to discuss them in public.
And now I have to navigate a very faith-focused scouting organization which I just know is going to have something of an evangelical bent. Fuck.
"Can't you just lie to the boy? It's not like it matters."
No. And it does matter. It mattered when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's golden idol. That was not their deal and they weren't gonna do it. Belief in God is not my deal and I am not going to lie about it because that's easier. That's a bullshit way of going through life.
I am hoping he can understand a nuanced view of "Different people believe different things. I believe that faith is a private matter." Note that the preceding isn't a lie.
Different people DO believe different things.
I DO believe that one's faith (or lack thereof) is a private matter.
We'll see how that goes.
She wants to involve him in scouting. Also fine.
She has signed him up for Royal Rangers, which is kind-of like scouts only with a bigger helping of God. This is not fine for me.
Her husband's parents are big on the God front and I suspect they are pushing this form of scouting rather than traditional BSA or whatever though honestly BSA isn't godless either. Also kid's dad was a Royal Ranger and so he thinks his kid should be a Royal Ranger like his dad was.
I would totally like outdoorsy merit badge stuff like Lighting Fires and Cooking Over Campfires and Assessing Water Turbidity In Lakes and Counting Night-Flying Insects and Looking for Newts and Learning The Trees and Learning to Swim and Boat Safety and Hiking and Using a Compass and Identifying Snakes of Pennsylvania and so forth. Like I am fucking down with that shit. I am. I am on board with merit badges. I am totally 100% gung-ho about doing that shit with someone else's kiddo.
Incidentally, the golden chanterelles and black trumpets from The Wet Summer Before The Dead Baby Horse were delicious in a mushroom-and-barley soup that I ate at work all last week. Probably I've survived eating wild mushrooms that I gathered myself and also they were tasty. So yay. Still sad about dead baby horse.
But anyway, back to the current woe. I don't do God. It's not my thing. As a general rule, I think it's a paternalistic shitheap of make-believe. I don't organized religion, I don't say God Bless You, I don't offer to pray for people. I just... don't.
Usually I can get by with this and not raise too much of a stir in my little redneck part of the world. Usually. Sometimes I have to field well-intentioned questions about where I go to church (I don't.) or if I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior (Nope.) or whatever, but it's not much of a problem because mostly people don't get all up in my business about my faith or lack thereof.
I also don't take it upon myself to go around telling Believers that
And now I have to navigate a very faith-focused scouting organization which I just know is going to have something of an evangelical bent. Fuck.
"Can't you just lie to the boy? It's not like it matters."
No. And it does matter. It mattered when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's golden idol. That was not their deal and they weren't gonna do it. Belief in God is not my deal and I am not going to lie about it because that's easier. That's a bullshit way of going through life.
I am hoping he can understand a nuanced view of "Different people believe different things. I believe that faith is a private matter." Note that the preceding isn't a lie.
Different people DO believe different things.
I DO believe that one's faith (or lack thereof) is a private matter.
We'll see how that goes.
