Scouting and the atheist family

By Eris Discordia

Hi everyone! I have been hanging around this site for quite some time now and I feel like you all are my extended family! It is so nice to be able to voice my anti-Christian opinions, vent my outrage at their insanity and just rant whenever I am overwhelmed with frustration at having my rights continuously violated in this Bible-Hell called the Midwest, USA!

Today is one of those days, so here goes...

I have four lovely children. Two are happy non-religious adults who barely tolerate their crazy fundie relatives on their father's side of the family. My other two boys are ages 11 and 14. They are happy, well-adjusted atheists who appreciate the idea of being good, honest people just for the sake of being good. They don't have the pressure of having to please some imaginary god so they are free to explore their own conscience. They are amazingly grounded and seem to have no problems understanding right from wrong.

Now, having said that, I hope you will understand where I am coming from when I tell you that they are forced by circumstances to lie about their religious beliefs. You see, they are Boy Scouts. Since the Boy Scouts require a belief in God they play along. Both of them are working toward their Eagle Scout rank and since there is no other organization that offers this sort of opportunity they must misrepresent their beliefs.

O.K. I felt that I needed to explain that before I tell my story. We don't feel good about lying, but, personally, I don't have a problem with it since "the church" lied to me for 40 years of my life. I no longer have any respect for the "church" including those who represent it. the only thing I feel bad about is having to encourage my boys to lie in order to maintain their membership in scouting. That sucks.

So here's my rant: I am sure I am not the only person who has observed a general problem with the mentality that pervades Christianity. I have noticed that the more religious a person is, the more unreasonable their behavior gets. That is why it is so easy for cults to form. The men in charge of our scout troop are classic examples of this mentality. They really believe that "spare the rod, spoil the child" crap. Well, one of our scout leaders has carried this to the extreme and thinks it is ok to physically punish OTHER PEOPLE'S children!

Last year my (then) 13-year-old told me that while he was at camp, he was running to his tent to get something for an activity that was about to start. As he was running the scout leader grabbed my son's arm and yanked him toward him, jammed his face about 1 inch from my son's face and preceded to chew him out for running. My son told me that he grabbed his am so hard he thought for sure he would have a bruise. since my husband is an assistant scout leader, he asked me not to say anything because he knew that I was ready to go off on this guy and my husband didn't want me to blow my kid's chances of getting their Eagle Scout ranks. I found out later that he makes it a habit of physically grabbing the boys whenever they get carried away and start goofing off.

Shortly after this incident, I dropped my boys off at a scout meeting and this sexist, child abusing little prick COMMANDED me to stay and pray with them! I am NOT kidding! In fact, he talked down to me like I was less than a person because I was a woman! He is about 5 feet tall and I think he has a short-man's complex on top of his god-complex! His is a "good Catholic" with a wife and 6 kids. I could tell that he had no respect for women as well as children. Anyway, I shot him one of my famous "fuck you and the camel you rode in on" looks and went on my way. I showed remarkable restraint considering that I really wanted to haul of and slap him for hurting my kid. But I knew he was on the Eagle Scout board and that my boys would be standing before him in the future and my hubby begged not to cause a scene. So I let it go.

In the mean time I kept hearing stories from my boys about this man's aggressive behavior toward the kids and how the parents refuse to stand up to him out of fear. The boys absolutely hate this guys guts.

I spoke with my husband about it and we decided to wait for him to grab one of the boys in front of witnesses. This little prick is so cocky that we had no doubt he would eventually slip up in front of witnesses. Well, sure enough, he didn't let us down. A couple of weeks ago he grabbed a two 11 year old boys and yanked them toward his face in front of a room full of people. He was holding their arms so tight the boys looked like they were on the verge of tears.

Now here is what I find truly disturbing. ONLY ONE adult came to the aid of those children! The scout leaders did nothing. It was a parent that walked over to them and tried to neutralize the situation. My husband was walking toward the boys when the other parent got there first. Apparently the scout leaders are so used to this guy's aggressive behavior that they didn't even react.

Just so you know, my husband and I took the matter to the Scout Headquarters. I told them that they are looking at a huge lawsuit and and ugly scandal if they don't get this guy under control. We also made it clear that we will not have him judging our son's fitness to be an Eagle Scout since he obviously cannot control his own behavior!

However, the point of my story is this. I have seen countless examples of child abuse, sexism, racism and other forms of aggressive behavior in the church over the years. It seems to me that religion spawns this mean, nasty, aggressive, disrespectful attitude toward one's fellow human beings that defies all reason! What is it about religion that brings out the worst out in people?

Why is it that atheists are the LEAST trusted in this country when it is the sick, twisted, Christians that don't care how they behave because they are 'forgiven"?

It's just nuts! My 14-year-old is so fed up that he doesn't even want to stay in this COUNTRY when he is grown! And you know what? I don't blame him!

Anyway, thanks for this site! It is good therapy to get this out!

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