Beavers

Darwin has started going to Beavers, that’s the precursor to Cubs and Scouts. It’s a great little club that many of his friends go to and he gets to do stuff like map reading (to an extent!), making paper air planes and sailing, all great stuff. The only thing I have against it is the promise:

I promise to do my best
To be kind and helpful
And to love God

What the actual f*ck is that about? Lines 1 and 2 I’m all for, good stuff, but line 3 sends that promise into one proper mental orbit of a planet far, far, away. The Scouts do make a point in being accepting to other faiths and consequently have different variations to suit, the humanist/atheist one replaces the last line with ‘and to love our world’.

My point is, why not make this a secular one by default? The Muslims and Christians make a point in believing that there is only one true God, in fact it’s one of the most important commandments in Christianity, for which the punishment for believing there is another God is catastrophic for all men, women, children AND animals.

In order to understand my issue with it you can replace ‘God’ with ‘Hitler’ in the promise. Anyone who isn’t a member of a far right group would have an objection to the promise. Giving an alternative of Goebbels, Sutcliffe or Shipman also wouldn’t be appropriate.

So to be totally inclusive I believe this great organisation should drop any allegiance any of the ‘Gods’.

That said, it is a lovely organisation with fantastic staff. Darwin is becoming quite the occupied child during the evenings. Swimming on Tuesday, Beavers on Wednesday & Tae Kwon Do on Thursday, lovely init?