What country did you have that experience in?

I'm an atheist and a Scout leader in the UK. When writing my programme I always include a spiritual component to it but leave it non-religious. We definitely discuss and explore different religions (in past year visited a Mosque, an Abbey and a Synagogue to learn about their cultures) but never focus hard on a religion or even suggest that holding a religious belief is necessary to be a Scout.

Recently at an event where I renewed my promise I took the Atheist promise which is as follows:

I promise that I will do my best Uphold our Scout values Do my duty to the Queen Help other people And to keep the Scout laws

I find the majority of Scouters I meet, despite saying the original promise follow this non-denominational one throughout their Scouting. We promote the "worldwide family of Scouts" more than a religious grouping.

If you do look for a Scout group for your son, make sure to talk to the leader there. Different groups approach the issue differently so try to find one that suits you and lets your son avoid being 'forcible subjected to the propaganda' though it can be good for a young person to experience it and make that decision for themselves.

> I promise that I will do my best Uphold our Scout values Do my duty to the Queen Help other people And to keep the Scout laws

Well I'm an atheist and a republican, so that wouldn't work for me.

Being an atheist is expressly OK in the UK Scout movement (in fact, I'd say it's probably true of a decent majority of our adult and young members), and there's nothing in the scout values that people promise to uphold which require religion in any sense.

The duty to the Queen bit is a little bit more tricky. I'm a republican (and a scout leader) and concluded I was happy to follow the wording. The reason being that it doesn't define the scope of the duty, especially not in terms I would find problematic. The traditional scope of the duty is to keep the peace and not commit treason, both of which are required by statute law in any case. I don't see it as incompatible with wanting a change in the country's constitutional arrangements. And certainly the Scout movement wouldn't insist otherwise.

Luckily they also thought about that! You can replace both the religion and reference to the Queen with:

"To uphold our Scout values, to do my duty to the country in which I am now living"

I'm in the UK, former Cub and later a Scout. My daughter has just joined the Brownies, her promise doesn't have anything about God in it but does include something about the Queen. I'd be much happier if it were the other way around; turns out my (small r) republicanism is stronger than my atheism.

My father and I went to cub scouts when I was younger. Very quickly in the first session the religious focus arose and my dad said, "Ok, we're outta here." (We are jewish/atheist)

It's a shame to make something like this religious because I think I would have really enjoyed everything else about the scouts. I'd do the same with my children in the future if the tone is the same.

There's alternative inclusive scouting organizations that don't include a focus on religion.

Funny, here in The Netherlands, my son recently joined as I also had fond memories growing up with the scouts. I don't remember anything really religious except building the make-shift christmas church with the animals and a renegade priest in the woods. I was actually disappointed that God was left out of the vow (I am catholic) with my son, perhaps I should have asked. I don't know where you live, but do you really think the in your opinion bad things, the frequency of socalled forced prograganda, outweigh the beneficial things like playing outdoors and hiking in nature? Regarding religous education, you can't choose if you don't know what 'religion' entails. You can't explain it to your child as you have an anti-religious stance (which I fully respect), so he will have to find out for himself anyhow later on if 'choice' if something you value (or not). FWIW, I consider religion a metanarrative and vocabulary for the existential dimension of life, like playing mystical Nordic LARP stories. The sooner a human learns to speak or aprreciate it (in whatever form) the better imho. A vow to the Akela and the troop, fine... it's a vow to community values not to some sort of demi-god or god. https://twitter.com/fsiefken/status/741687278796431360

In almost all countries the reference to God is mandatory, but in the Netherlands it is not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_Promise#Alternative_prom... https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belofte_(scouting)

Of course if you're not a member of the "World Organisation of the Scout Movement" you can do whatever you want :-)

If it helps, I was an atheist in the Scouts and the only time religion remotely came up was at the swearing in. I just treated it like the promise to the Queen. This was around seven years ago. We also did _lots_ of pioneering/orienteering.

> "still subjected to it"

I'm a den leader for cub scouts in the US. In our pack, we leave the directly-religious requirements up to the family to accomplish in whatever way they see fit (i'm fine if that includes doing nothing). Beyond that, any other would-be religious aspects are really just "be a good human" without any specific references.

At least 1/3 of my oldest son's den is not Christian.

You want him to choose his own path but are keeping him from interacting with others who share a different world view to yourself? It seems more like you've chosen the philosophical and theological positions for him and want to lock him away from other influences.

That would appear to be "religious [fundamentalist] atheism".

Hiding our kids from other ideologies to me is like hiding them from danger (using knives say) - they need exposure to it in order to learn a good approach and how to handle it.

FWIW I was an atheist cub scout (UK), atheist Scout, agnostic Venture Scout, and ultimately a Christian cub leader... but I'm almost certain the exposure to Christian ideals in Scouting had nothing to do with my conversion. The closest we got to theological influence was as teenagers badgering our leaders as to why we had to make a promise to a God we didn't believe in.

Groups vary of course, in the UK the greatest influence is probably the individual leader. Last I knew leaders had to be monotheist, I expect that's changed now.

The church parades of my youth would convince anyone that Christianity were baloney.

tl;dr don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Depends what troop your son joins, the strong surviving troops that have more than a dozen scouts & stable funding are either filled with atheists & have a few openly gay scouts, or are run by the Mormons. I know in my patrol alone 3 to 4 of the scouts were atheists (myself included) and it was not an issue. A well run troop is there to teach you life skills and morals to live your life by, like not torturing POWs, not force or encourage you to adhere to a religion.

I would be more fearful of a poorly run or Mormon troop myself, but attending a meeting or two and talking to the Scoutmaster/Assistant Scoutmaster will definitely let you scope it out and get a reading before you give your son a choice of getting involved. I would not deny my own son the opportunity I had in scouting assuming the BSA makes it through the next decade, since it definitely helped me form into the accepting, caring & compassionate person I am today.

Not sure it make sense. How to choose/decide about religion (or the opposite) without knowing about it. It's like refuse to send him to elemental art/math/chemistry class until he choose the university himself. And the another thing, you have enjoyed it (as a whole package), yet you deny this from your child? Sounds a bit strange.

Knowing about it and be a subject to it differs quite a bit.

That's right, there are quite a few thing in the world, that you need to experience (to really understand), because knowing about it is not the same. Like poverty (disability etc), one might know about it, but until experience it one might look those down. You need to be exposed many things as a child to gain experience, because as an adult you will be much more closed to new things and have less time. + this is safe.