As quoth Tom Lehrer:
Yes, Catholic girls were completely pure and innocent before the Girl Scouts came along. I guess the Girl Scouts are like that rebellious older boy with the leather jacket and cigarette pack rolled in his shirt sleeve-- way to make the Girl Scouts cool again, Bishop!
They encourage Gluttony in me, which is one of the seven deadlies. Tasty, tasty sin.
Apparently there was once an English aristocrat who had his own private church in the grounds of his estate. The prayer books had been heavily excised on these lines:
Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty……with all the pompous and boastful words removed. Because the aristocrat hated flummery and was convinced that God, who was a gentleman, would hate it too.
It’s my personal, atheistic opinion that you can tell a bullshit religion by how much it focuses on trivia. Girl scout cookies, masturbation, swearing, etc. I call bullshit.
I’m pretty sure Baden-Powell was a closet homosexual (which I don’t hold to his discredit, of course) but one interesting thing is that he envisaged Scouting as a way of breaking down class and ethnic barriers. Aristocratic gay men of the time were often attracted to working class men, and the Army was one way in which this desire could be satisfied.
Sadly my own experience of the Boy Scouts was terminated abruptly when I worked out that the deputy scoutmaster was a paedophile but nobody else wanted to know (this was the 1960s). Blame my grandfather for teaching me the facts of life they didn’t teach in school because he felt it was better I know about these things ( and could be left to roam NW London safely) rather than be confined to his house during visits.
Mmmm… Do-SIN-dos.
Though he wouldn’t put it in precisely those words, I rather think the present Pope agrees with you.
Anyone that sees this list as anything other than a recipe for a great afternoon is out of my church, that’s for sure.
Thank you for also recognizing Bishop Brennan. Can’t get enough Father Ted in my life.
Are you a Ranter too?
News flash… aged white guy says something outrageous in a public form to gain attention to his waning voice and influence in the community. Doesn’t realize he’s actually causing the acceleration of humans leaving the church.
He’s mad because they are creating competition for his crappy, tasteless wafers.
In honor of this thread, I am sinning right now (samoas, of course, the ultimate sin!).
Not necessary, it’s already that high across populations in parts of Europe. What we actually need to do is to get rid of the negative consequences of declared atheism in some societies. The US is particularly bad here, and unfortunately some of its churches have a poor record on exporting intolerance. That separation of church and state thing is a bit of a joke, it only gets invoked when someone like Trump wants to deflect attention, but not for instance when a Republican wants to diss a Democrat.
One of my lecturers at U was doing research into people’s idea of God. He reckoned that most of the people he interviewed who called themselves “Christian” would comfortably fail the doctrinal test of their churches.
He was also an Anglican clergyman, and he told the tale of how a (well qualified) candidate for the post of scoutmaster was interviewed by the parochial council, and was asked by one of them if he believed in God. To which he replied no…
So the person asking the question then asked “Well, do you believe in a supreme being?” At which point, said our lecturer, he intervened by saying “We’re not here to discuss the finer points of 18th century theology”, and moved on to recommend the guy be appointed without further questions.
I’m betting that got you a long talk with the minister! Kind of like my visit with the Principal when I said I thought Judas had gotten a bad deal - if he hadn’t betrayed Jesus, we wouldn’t be sitting here in this Catholic school, now would we?
What’s he so worried about - don’t people line up for his wafers every Sunday?
I’m committing the sin of envy.
Always vaguely reassuring to see threads like this crop up. I was a scout ( not quite Eagle ) in the 80s / early 90s, loved it - but if the larger organization had the same views that get espoused to prominently now, it wasn’t trickling down to the local level in any way. Have a son, would love to see him off camping / setting …err, ‘building’ fires / and all snark aside learning how to enjoy being in the great outdoors in a gentle and sustainable manner but I can’t get my grown-up brain past the unacceptable shortcomings of the larger organization. Even if I found a troop which was sensible I’d still baulk at the funds raised which go back to the larger organization, and wonder what folks thought who saw him in uniform.