Recently we enrolled Seth in Joeys (Scouts for young kids), I used to be in cubs when I was young and really loved it.

Almost immediately we ran into issues concerning our religion, or lack of one. Viv was told that there was a process in place that she could go through to become a leader if she so desired, later that evening Viv raised some objections to Seth having to write in a prayer book and asked if he could write an affirmation rather than a prayer, at that point she explained that we are atheists and were no comfortable with the children writing a prayer. Shortly after that revelation the offer to become a leader was withdrawn with the explanation that atheists were not allowed to be leaders in the scouting movement.

Back in the distant past when I was a cub I vaguely recall the “G” word appearing in the pledge we all said each meeting, at the time I was attending sunday school (and later fellowship) so it didn’t really register that this was unusual.

I hit up Google with the query “Religion in Scouting” and found a page devoted to it on wikipedia.

From what I read the founder of the scouting movement Robert Baden-Powell was of the belief that “spirituality and a belief in a higher power were key to the development of young people” he codified this belief in the rules of the scouting movement. Initially spirituality meant Christianity but in later years the growing popularity of the scouting movement lead to a softening of this stance to include non-monotheistic religions such as Hinduism and those that do not recognise a personal God like Buddhism.

Viv and I have been agonizing over what to for the last week.

I sent an email to the scout leader to see if my understanding of the situation was correct, text of email below (names withheld) ….

My name is Daniel Drysdale, my son Seth has recently started attending Joeys.

Last week my wife Vivien was told that she could become a leader if she was interested but upon disclosing that she is an atheist the offer was withdrawn.

I spent some time researching the issue of religion in scouting and found that Robert Baden-Powell held that spirituality and a belief in a higher power were key to the development of young people and that this belief forms the core of the scouting movement he founded.

My wife and I are atheists and have made sure to shield our children from religious beliefs so far, we do not have any issues with people of faith but we do not feel that exposure to religion is appropriate for children at such a young age.

Given all of that my question to you is simple.

Is there a place in the scouting organization for a member who is an atheist?

and to extend that a little..

If my son continues attending Joeys and moves on to cubs and later scouts, if he chooses to be an atheist will there come a time when he is excluded or discriminated against within the organisation due to his atheism?

I would really appreciate a prompt response as I am seriously considering pulling him out of Joeys before he gets too invested in it.

I received the following response

A core Principle of Scouting, is that a member of the Scout Association, whether youth or adult, must have a belief in a God.

My understanding of the rules, is that there is no place in Scouting for a person who does not have a belief in a God, because that person would not be able to adhere to this Principle.

Upon investment to the Movement a promise must be made by a Joey ; I promise to love my God….. and by a Cub and Scout and Leader ; On my honour I promise to do my best to do my duty to my God……….

I then replied

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I was expecting exactly this response but was secretly hoping I was wrong.

Sadly we will have to remove Seth from Joeys and cancel our plans for enrolling Callum, it is a real shame as aside from the religious issue we love the idea of scouts and we know it would have been fun and rewarding for the boys.

I understand that this is a clear case of “Their club. their rules” but it seems a crying shame that such a small issue should ruin an otherwise excellent organization.

We could of course either let Seth embrace a personal God or have him lie and pretend to be one of the group, neither option is palatable to us.

I find it interesting that Buddhism is allowed, with no concept of a personal God, is ok but that my own worldview of Secular Humanism is not.

Sadly without a Bill of Rights and legal protection from discrimination on religious grounds there is nothing we can do about it.

Now we have to break the news to the boys and there will be tears…

If anyone knows of a secular equivalent to scouts please let us know.

[UPDATE] While typing this post I was contacted by someone further up the food chain in the scouting movement and told that the definition of “my God” is very loose and can accommodate virtually any belief.

It feels a bit dishonest but we are going to see how it plays out, we are going to write “Humanist” on the application form for religion.

Last week I posted about a story on channel Seven’s “Sunday Night” program on the issue of vaccination.

I was impressed with the story, it was well written, backed by science and about as unbiased as  commercial networks get on a prime time current affairs style program. ( 60 Minutes, I’m staring at you buddy. )

I started seeing promos for last nights program that made me worry, it felt like they might be going to focus on “The Other Side” of the debate. It was with quite some trepidation that I sat down last night to watch the followup.

I was all ready to hurl a heavy object through my TV….

Fortunately for me and my TV this didn’t happen. What I saw last night was clearly an attempt to provide a forum for the anti-vacc movement to have their say while still keeping things firmly based in reality.

The panel featured Prof. Peter McIntyre from NCIRS ( The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance ) and Dr Giselle Cook (apparently the only doctor they could find that was anti-vaccination and willing to appear on the show).

The started with a recap of the previous weeks’ story and then allowed questions from the audience.

The most vocal audience member was, as I expected, Meryl Dorey of AVN (Australian Vaccination Network). The AVN claim to be all about “Empowering the people to make informed choices”.

Their website looks professional (if you ignore the numerous typos) but seems to be largely concerned with attacking the traditional medical establishment and spruking “Alternative Medicine”. There were plenty of things you could buy from them and an easy way to donate to the cause, but I couldn’t see any links to peer reviewed articles or studies.

To me the AVN seems to be all about muddying the issue, spreading doubt and making a tidy profit on the side.

I was very pleased to see that Prof McIntyre was easily able to refute Meryl’s claims and that Mike Munroe stepped in to rebut her as well.

When asked about her professional qualifications Meryl Doyle stated that she has been researching the issue for 20 years and has a brain.

When asked why she provided no evidence for her claims she stated she sent many studies and the names of vaccination victims to the Seven network. Mike Munroe denied that they recieved her evidence and stated that the victims she named refused to speak with them…

Please check out this link to a post on “The Skeptics’ Book of Pooh Pooh”, the poster was actually at the debate and has a lot to say about it…

Here is a link to a post from the father of Dana McCaffery that everyone should read…

The debate ended up with the anti-vacc movement calling for “More information” so that parents can make an informed decision….

This tactic, we need more information, crops up in many areas as a means to create doubt in the minds of the audience. The fact is that vaccines have been studied, tested and retested for as long as they have been around. The risk factors are well known and understood, the information about the risks is readily available.

The problem is that not that there is too little information for parents but rather that there is too much information to wade through.

As a parent myself I can attest to the fact that it is easy to become confused and overwhealmed with all the information that you are bombarded with by friends, relatives, healthcare professionals etc

Unfortunately many parents choose not to read what they are given, they don’t ask enough questions of the healthcare professionals looking after them and their children.

In todays modern, frantic, ADHD ridden, push responsibility onto others culture we want to be spoon feed everything and make sure there is someone to blame when it all goes pear-shaped.

Taking the time to read the information ( Click here for the comprehensive Australian Government immunisation guide ) is probably the most important thing that a parent can do. It might be a pain and require some commitment but to put it bluntly it is part of your job as a parent to make informed decisions based on the most accurate information you can get access to.

If we can put the emotional outbursts aside (which I admit I have a lot of trouble doing) and approach this issue with logic and reason backed up with a through thorough education then it will be clear what the right choice is…

Back in the 80′s Australia was pushing to become “The Clever Country”, recognising the importance of a well educated populace (and hence workforce) in securing a bright future for the entire nation.

Roll forward nearly thirty years to the current day, how well educated and “clever” are we now??

The “Internets” are abuzz these days with debate over the “Vaccination Issue”, on one side we have well known celebrities like Jim Carrey and his wife Jenny McCarthy spewing torrents of pseudo science, lies and downright non-sense and on the other the medical and scientific communities desperately trying to counter them with logic and reason.

Personally, I place as much credence on the opinions of celebrities as I do on those of random people on the street, the trouble is that there are a lot of people unable to separate the celebrity from the status.

Outside of North America we tend to look on the “antics” of “The Yanks” as amusing and fun to comment on but largely unimportant. Unfortunately in the case of the “Anti-vacc” movement, here in Australia it is becoming all too real.

I read an interesting blog post (via Twitter) from Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy website. I was disturbed to hear that we had any serious “Anti-vacc” movement in this country.

One thing Phil and I have in common is that we both get worked up over “woo woo”, pseudo-science and quackery.

A post here at “Skeptic Zoners” talks about the Australian “Anti-vacc” movement.

All hope is not lost, according to figures from the “National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance“, immunisation rates in Australia are around 90%, we cannot afford to be complacent though.

There is a link from Phil’s blog to a story about an episode of “Sunday Night” on the Seven Network that screened last night and covered the vaccination, including the tragic death of Dana McCaffery aged 1 month, in a way that was positive and well researched.

On the topic of Vaccination I feel very strongly that it is our duty as citizens to maintain the currency of our vaccinations for the good of the whole country. Vaccination is not only beneficial to the one that is vaccinated but the “Herd Immunity” that comes from the majority being vaccinated helps those who are unable (or unwilling) to be vaccinated themselves.

Speaking as a parent I have put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, with both my children. In fact my youngest, Callum, is part of a whooping cough vaccine trial run by the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, the trial was to see if vaccination from birth can be effective.

( a link to an article discussing this study can be found here )

As a result of this study, we believe, Callum becomes very distressed whenever we take him to see a Doctor.

We’re sure he will grow out of this but given the opportunity again we would definitely enroll him in the study.

So far it seems that the study is pointing to whooping cough ( and possibly other vaccines ) being very effective even from birth and if the whooping cough vaccination starts to be routinely given at birth then tragedies like the one that befell Dana McCaffery and her family can be entirely prevented.

I’ve been meaning to try this for a while now, making cheeseymite scrolls that is.

Armed with our trusty bread machine and a 10kg bag of breadmix I decided to see if I could come up with something yummy for lunch.

The bread machine did the heavy lifting by making nearly a kilo of dough (I made the dough yesterday but ran out of time to make the scrolls)

Making the scrolls was pretty simple, here’s what I did;

• Roll the dough out to a thickness of approx 1cm
• Spread vegemite liberally over the surface of the dough
• Sprinkle with grated cheese, not too much
• Roll the dough into a long tube
• Cut the tube into approx 2cm thick slices
• Place the slices on a tray lined with baking paper
• Sprinkle the top with more cheese
• Bake at 210 C for 30-35 mins or until golden brown
• Remove from the oven and place on a cake rack to cool

The results were really tasty and great for a first try.

Man I love these guys, you can spends hours watching random videos, I hope they stay around but with a burn rate of US$1 MILLION per month they better start making cashola soon.

One of lifes great ironys is that when you really should be blogging (i.e. when you’re busy) you don’t have the time to do it

Many things have happened since my last post and really I should post them separately but for the moment I’m lumping them all in together.

• Seth is in his own "Big Boy" bed.
• Callum is on "solid" food
• We had Christmas with lots of presents for the boys
• We had New Years
• I bought a PSP and a Video Camera courtesy of American Express Rewards Points.
• I’m nearing the end of two weeks at home with my lovely wife and my boys.

As you can see, a few things have happened recently.

Another one in my "F**KING" series…

I read this article today on sysinternals about a rather extreme form of DRM on some of Sony’s latest CDs.

In case you couldn’t be arsed reading the article, Sony in their infinite wisdom require windows users to use a special media player to play their CDs in a windows box, in order to force the user to comply with this requirement they install (without permission or even telling you) a Root Kit that patches parts of your Windows installation to hide itself and prevent the CD driver in Windows from accessing the disc without using the "special" media player.

There is no way to uninstall this Root Kit without going to extraordinary lengths….

A related post I saw on digg the other talked about the fact that Sony is pissed with Apple for not allowing them to licence the FairPlay DRM that it uses in the iPod. Apparently one of the reasons they instigated their current DRM is to prevent windows users from being able to rip Sony CDs for use in iTunes and the iPod in the hopes that the masses of affected users will bombard Apple with demands to play nice with Sony.

So, you are basically being coerced into lobbying on behalf of Sony.

The amusing thing about this is that Mac owners can happily rip the same CDs into iTunes with no DRM problems.

I’m sorry for the strong language people but this is getting beyond a joke.

I read a post on boingboing today that really pissed me off.

Up until now Hollywood has been doing everything in their power to lock down digitial content. We’ve all said to ourselves, we can always record the analog output and re-digitise it and  live with the loss of quality…… Until now.

The level of frustration amongst consumers is on the rise, we have the MPAA and RIAA suing everyone that can think of including 12 year old kids, way to alienate your customers guys.

We have companies selling CDs that we can’t rip to play in our iPods (more about this later).

And through all this we have the MPAA and RIAA moaning about pirates destroying their livelyhoods and ripping off artists.

Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that we are deluged with a barrage of crap music, crap sequels and unneccesary remakes.

I have pretty much stopped listening to the radio, I listen almost exclusively to free podcasts, I haven’t watched a movie in ages as few of them look good enough to block out an hour and a half of my precious free time.

I still watch a fair bit of TV, but less then I used to.

Maybe I should go back to reading books, until they come up with some DRM scheme to lock those down as well.

A quote springs readily to mind (from back in the days when Hollywood produced good, original movies…)

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
—Princess Leia to Grand Moff Tarkin

I hope the various organisations that give out grants don’t stumble onto this site…

The Ig Nobel Web Page

Amazingly, these people actually do this stuff for a living.

Next time your boss lectures you on the importance of commercially focused work, think of what can happen when you let people research anything they like… It’s a sobering thought.