tonyfish58

AM - Girl Guides no longer promising to serve God and the Queen 06/07/2012

It is a sad reflection on the world that God is thrown out of another organization.

Also the latest Australian Census has stated that 25% of Australians now do not beleive in God.

At this rate I would think it would not be long until God might say - Enough is Enough?

To be fair I have put in Bold as to what now will be said instead of "To do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country".....

From today God and the Queen will no longer be mentioned.

Instead, the young recruits will promise to do their best to be true to themselves and develop their beliefs, serve their community and Australia and live by the Guide Law.

It is just a shame God is taken out of the declaration.

Regards Tony

arthra

I think the Scouts still recite:

"To do my duty to God and my country"

but some parents of atheist persuasion attempted to challenge that..

See the article from wikipedia:

Although the Constitution of WOSM states that the Promise should include a reference to Duty to God,[2] six countries (Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Finland) were granted the right in the 1920s by Lord Baden-Powell to additionally use an alternative promise without a reference to God.[4] Three of these countries still offer this alternative promise (France, the Netherlands and Czech Republic), where others have abandoned it. WOSM stated in 1932 that no new exceptions would be made and expressed the hope that the few remaining countries would stop using any promise lacking a reference to Duty to God.[4]

The Israeli Scouts, though founded in 1919/1920, and joining WOSM in 1951 and WAGGGS in 1963, also have no 'duty to God' or apparent equivalent in their promise.[5]

Scout Promise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So it would appear Australia is not the first to have omitted the "God" part of the pledge..

In our area back in the late seventies and early eighties.. Our Assembly authorized a Youth for One World Y.O.W. organization for Baha'i children and any friends of Baha'is. It was also approved by the National Assembly and featured briefly in a newsletetr.. There were oh maybe about forty young people between the ages of six and twelve that participated. Some Baha'is in Chile and Sweden were also interested in Y.O.W.

We had a manual and theme song based on Baha'i values.



So whatever happened with scout type organizations around us we already were developing an alternative.. Older children or shall I say later teens were usually involved in Scouting organizations. Two of my sons received the Scout award "Unity of Mankind".

http://www.bahai.us/files/Level%203%20Manual.pdf

http://www.bahai.us/files/Level%201%20Manual.pdf

Image Detail for - Unity of Mankind Religious Award Program for Scouting – Bahai Faith ...

I think the Scouting movement is still a good thing and encouraged my children to particpate in it.

Fadl

It is indeed a sad thing, and sad because it is so completely false. "Be true to yourself" is just like saying "be true to nothing" since there is nothing higher than the self (in this way of thinking). Being "true to God" conversely, means to be true to all things, if we think about it fairly.

One of my favorite Christian apologists was G.K. Chesterton, who was of the Orthodox persuasion. This is what he had to say on Believing In Yourself in is book "Orthodoxy:"


“Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true.

Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, ‘That man will get on; he believes in himself.’ And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written ‘Hanwell’ (lunatic asylum). I said to him, ‘Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Supermen. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.’ He said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums.

‘Yes, there are,’ I retorted, ‘and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself.

If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can’t act believe in themselves; and debtors who won’t pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one’s self is a hysterical and superstitious belief…’ And to all this my friend the publisher made this very deep and effective reply, ‘Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?’ After a long pause I replied, ‘I will go home and write a book in answer to that question.’

Fadl

"Self love is a strange trait and the means of the destruction of many important souls in the world. If man be imbued with all good qualities but be selfish, all the other virtues will fade or pass away..."

(Annamarie Honnold, Vignettes from the life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 10).


"If man were to care for himself only he would be nothing but an animal for only the animals are thus egoistic. If you bring a thousand sheep to a well to kill nine hundred and ninety-nine the one remaining sheep would go on grazing, not thinking of the others and worrying not at all about the lost, never bothering that its own kind had passed away, or had perished or been killed. To look after one’s self only is therefore an animal propensity. It is the animal propensity to live solitary and alone. It is the animal proclivity to look after one’s own comfort. But man was created to be a man—to be fair, to be just, to be merciful, to be kind to all his species, never to be willing that he himself be well off while others are in misery and distress—this is an attribute of the animal and not of man. Nay, rather, man should be willing to accept hardships for himself in order that others may enjoy wealth; he should enjoy trouble for himself that others may enjoy happiness and well-being. This is the attribute of man. This is becoming of man. Otherwise man is not man—he is less than the animal."

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity, p. 42)


So much for being "true to yourself." It is certainly better to be true to God, or at least the Queen.

wombatwolf

I'm an Eagle scout, and I can say that, at least in the US scouting tradition, reverence towards God is still a major part of the program, though it's not something that's emphasized or "shoved down the throat" of the scouts- every campout usually has a non-denominational service before the end.


I do believe that the problem is that people still sometimes think of God as a bearded white-man in the sky (and that's why, especially among atheist and secular parents, they have a problem with these things), and we as Baha'is know that this image is not true..

BruceDLimber

Quote:

Originally Posted by wombatwolf I'm an Eagle scout....

So did you perhaps earn the religious award for Baha'i scouts?

Peace, :-)

Bruce