That's the statement my friend made the other day. His son is about to get his eagle. I was talking about the scuttlebut concerning the Mo church leaving scouts. I mentioned that we might be hearing spin. That maybe the BSA would rather divorce Mormonism than Morminism divorce the BSA.

IM not a scout. Never have been. But I have been in business in Utah. And have strong Utah roots. My family has been here since the 1880's. I'm sure the scouts create a good environment for young boys. When I was in retail I would meet new family's. And they would, once they found out I am not LDS, would proceed to tell me they did not feel welcome in the Mormon scout troops. Some of these family's were/are Mormon.

But a good majority are not.

My observation is and always has been that the LDS church uses the scouts as a great indoctrination tool. I mentioned this to my friend. His eyes perked up. "I had to find a scout troop where the leaders no longer had kids in." He went on to tell me that using this method he got away from badge mills and was able to find troop leaders that not only could lead but teach the true skills and values of scouting.

Mormon Eagles can't fly seemed to make better sense then.

It always amazes me when another Mormon scout troop looses a kid to death.

Mormons have perverted the Boy Scouts, and Mormon scouting bears little resemblance to actual scouting. Having said that, I dislike Boy Scouts and think that it has largely lost its purpose. I do like the purpose of Girl Scouts. And since women are constantly in need of empowerment and recognition, the goals of the Girl Scouts will probably always be needed.

I work with someone who is heavily involved in scouting and has been for a couple decades. This person calls "the LDS program of scouting the 'abbreviated version," and said the regular scouts find the LDS odd and self serving and they are bugged by the way the Mormons handle their Eagle program, almost making sure they get one rather than really taking the long hard route. There is heavy emphasis on getting it early--too soon, and not doing it properly."

Don't know anything about it myself and wouldn't know if this is accurate, but thought I'd pass that along. For some reason I find it funny this person always says LDS rather than Mormon. We're not in the morridor. They always practice flag raising on our pole. I like to watch them.

kolobian scouting is dangerous because it's led by a prickhood member inspired by Elohim.

in real scouting, if a group decides to climb a mountain and a storm starts brewing, the group would reassess that decision and maybe do something else.

but that kolobian troop is on a mission from god. God told them to climb that mountain so what could wrong? Quite a bit, apparently.

I was a Scout camp counselor one summer in northern Utah. My main job was running merit badge clinics for woodcarving and physical fitness. It takes more than five days to do properly earn these badges. The physical fitness badge is about improvement over months, and the wood carving badge requires being able to do more than scratch your name on a stick. So I wasn't signing off on badges. The kids and scoutmasters were outraged. Luckily, my boss was on my side. "Those are the requirements and we're not taking shortcuts." So when I see an LDS Eagle scout, I assume most of those merit badges are total bullsh!t.

I am an eagle scout. I was a TBM Scoutmaster for 10 years. I think, if done correctly, scouting can be extremely worthwhile for all involved. Must have a committed support staff, quality equipment, a way to transport a lot of boys (i.e. bus, 15-pass van, etc), an organized calendar, etc. Must have fun and exciting activities. The con in a Mormon troop are that boy's have to be there and participate instead of wanting to be there, but can be overcome with the fun factor. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I've been helping out a local non-mo troop for years, as I'm friends with the scoutmaster (whose own kids are long out, but he still does it because he loves it).
I have a home observatory, with some pretty sophisticated astronomy gear. So once a year, I have the troop come over. I give them a talk and q/a session on astronomy for about an hour, then we do some observing of planets, galaxies, nebulae, etc. in the observatory. It's for their astronomy merit badge.

The scoutmaster makes it clear to the kids that this one-evening thing does NOT get them their astronomy merit badge -- it's just one part of it, and they have to do more work to get the badge.

The leader of the mormon scout troop heard about my yearly event. He called and asked if he could bring his troop over, too. And said, "That way I can get all my boys their astronomy badge in one night!"

I declined.

It seem to me that the application of scouting is no more than a mission preparatory course spread over 5 or six years.

It was either Triple K or Hoax who said "I don't give a damn about Eagle scouts, the purpose of scouts is to prepare our boys for a mission."

In my day, the purpose seemed to be to keep us away from the girls.

My brother earned his badges and Eagle in CA with non-member professionals. He learned real skills and basic methods for many badges. He was Valedictorian, and a pilot at an early age...

It is sad that some Mormons wrecked the purpose of the program, and endangered lives... They can continue their own homophobic mission prep disaster and see how well that turns out. They seriously need their own island to control and police all behavior, reestablish polygamy...