Why do people think that the BSA is dumn?

Question

when they do so much community service and things to help the people around them? Like i for example am a Boy Scout and i think that being one is really encouraging and seeing scouts from around the world is amazing!

Answer 1

They think that it is dumb beccause they do not understand it. Some people have been raised in front of the television and that's all they have ever known as a source of recreation. Some parents do not see the value in investing in their children to get involved in activities other than what can be done from home.

When I was a Boy Scout a group friends and I went to summer camp for a week. One of our friends could not go on the trip because his parents could not afford it. His family, on the other hand, had a TV and VCR in every room of the house. To put it in perspective- this was in the early 1980's when VCR's were a few hundred bucks and you were hard pressed to get a color TV for anything less than $300.

One of the kids asked his mother, "How is it that they can afford VCR's and movie rentals but they cannot afford summer camp?" and his mother replied, "Unfortunately some parents are just like that." That really amazed me. I was thinking that it had something to do with their money situation but it didn't. I quickly learned that some people put more of an investment into material posessions than life experience.

Answer 2

Consider the source.
Are they informed and authoritative? If they dont understand it, and they are speaking, then they arent talking about BSA, they are talking about themselves.

What is their motive? Everyone always has some intention when speaking or doing anything. Everyone always is serving themselves in some way they know or think is profitable at all times, even when aparently being not profitable. Everyone thinks their own economies are the most valid. What is the percieved benefit the detractors get from trashing the boy scouts? Is it about what they get you to do? Is it their adherence to some percieved cultural norm or a variant of modern conformity giving them the warm fuzzy feeling of belonging? (note: modern cultural norms may say the boy scouts is evil because they say specific behaviors are not acceptable, like homosexuality. Its a self-anhillating philosophy because it cant live up to its own standards, it cant eat its own dog-food. If they exclude anyone who excludes, they must exclude themselves.)

It is essential to know yourself. Your greatest enemy, and greatest ally can be you. That knowing doesnt come from bowing to peer pressure, or not bowing to peer pressure. It comes from understanding yourself and what you like, want and the person that you want to become both alone and in the contxt of community, but you find that apart from peers, parents, or anyone else. Once you have an idea about what values you personally want to live by, and personally adhere to, once you know the person you want to be, then you can interact with others in a manner faithful to that person, that you. Unless the person speaking also really has an understanding of who they are, what they value, and have a vision for the person they really want to be, they arent speaking to you. Words are coming out of their mouths, but those words arent an expression of who those people are, its them being a mouthpiece for some other Sauron.

If they are speaking words not their own, you have a choice: disregard the words, ponder the words but disregard the context, or track down their original source and have the actual discussion with the person whose words they are.

The vision I have, because I am "older" and know how short life really is, is to do things so that when I am on my deathbed, I can have no regrets. I believe that if I can greatly benefit my family, my neighborhood, and my community, then as long as the effects of that blessing live on, I have a part in life here. When I die, I look forward to seeing what is beyond that, but I want to "leave a trace of my passing", a good one. I want to leave tracks of life, and health. I want to leave the world better off for my having passed through it, and not worse. Alone, without the aid of my Creator and Sustainer, that is impossible, so I do my best to be faithful to my beliefs, to what I know in my heart is truth, and to my God.