Boy Scout program

[Boston Rockbury]

My boss, who is also an ordained minister here, and myself have been considering starting on a "religious emblem" program for the Boy Scouts.  We thought we'd see what the good dudes here thought of the idea.  It would include some basic information on Dudeism that would be expanded on as the scouts got to be older.  We would need to design some medals that they could be awarded as they make their way through the program.  What say the dudes here? 

'The Dudeist Youth'?
Maybe we should invade Poland?

[milnie]

Isn't like an offence to put any non sanctioned sticker on your uniform? ;)
Ps does anyone know why my smileys aren't working when I post from the mobile version?

[Boston Rockbury]

Isn't like an offence to put any non sanctioned sticker on your uniform?
Ps does anyone know why my smileys aren't working when I post from the mobile version?

When things go wrong with your phone or computer just use the sacred Sanskrit chant 'om muni muni maha muni soha' 108 times. You can do it to any tune, but Sheena Easton's 'my baby works from 9 to 5' seems particularly effective. It will absorb your concentration totally so that by the time you have finished you will have forgotten the problem (expecially if you're stoned) - never fails.

[milnie]

Joint already in hand dude! :)

[kilteddude]

The way it is typically meant to work is as a means to help the lil dudes learn about other religions.  The typical starting point for kids in first or second grade is a coloring book of some sort.  From there at each level they typically are given a book that has a list of tasks that they need to complete that can range anywhere from simple readings to talking to someone that has been deemed "knowledgeable" in the religion.  There would also be an adult award that could be awarded to scoutmasters that can be either gotten through a similar process, or they could be nominated and interviewed by in this case a "council of dudes."

[DigitalBuddha]

Point of order not "Dude-ett", not the accept nomenclature here (as keeper of the Crusade myself) a Dude is a Dude, is a Dude, independent of genitalia.

Much like Doctor or Actor (non-gender specific).

This is true; just as long as when I reach the for-mentioned genitalia (in the process of helping my lady friends conceive, man), it doesn't turn out to be a Johnson. If that were the case; the god damn plane would have crash into the mountain!  

[Masked Dude]

The way it is typically meant to work is as a means to help the lil dudes learn about other religions.  The typical starting point for kids in first or second grade is a coloring book of some sort. [...] talking to someone that has been deemed "knowledgeable" in the religion.

I feel that a Dudeist Youth scout type thing would be sort of like that. If you're looking at a serious youth program, here's my $0.02:

Little Dudes nowadays have so much to worry about. Girls worry about being skinny, boys worry about being muscular and athletic. They worry about growing up too early. They worry about grades. They worry if any peers don't like the kid over there who's Hindu, Jewish, Zoroastrian, or undecided. They worry about choosing clothes or hating school uniforms. They worry about having zits/spots, braces, scars, funny walks, and so on.

Maybe a little dudes program would teach them more than tolerance. Tolerance for others, but mostly tolerance for themselves. Hell, they have so much to worry about, so sometimes they need to say "Fuck it!" (or whatever their parents would let them say) They need to accept each other for all their weird little idiosyncracies and accept themselves for their own freakishness. You like comic books and your friend doesn't? Fuck it, read them anyway. Your friend likes Justin Bieber and you don't? Fuck it, let your friend listen anyway. Your friend wants to get an illegal tattoo? Fuck it, it's their skin. Et cetera.

We're all part of this big weird stew we call Earth, and we could do a lot of good teaching the little dudes that. And they could have a lot of fun in the process.

[kilteddude]

Masked Dude you've basically hit the nail on the head as far as what we are hoping to accomplish with getting this whole deal off the ground.  I'm sure there will be lots of headaches and bumps along the way to getting it really going, but I think in the end it could be well worth it. 
It seems to me that many of the concepts that you can find being talked about here among the Dudeists are things that are just as important as anything you could hope to learn from a traditional religion, but in many cases more readily applicable to our daily lives.

[forumdude]

I love the idea, but it just seems as if the Boy Scouts would have rules about what kinds of patches and programs they would allow. Probably need to check with the BS league office on that one.

I can put you in touch with my patch people here in Thailand - they're much cheaper than americanpatch.com or other US based companies.

I'm hoping that Abide University will eventually have youth programs to help teach kids not to worry about peer pressure so much and also to teach them "meta-learning" so that they can learn more efficiently in school. Maybe in the future there would be Dudeist "sunday schools" (or maybe more like hebrew schools, which they could attend a few times a week after normal school) that would give them the leg up on their peers by teaching rationality, meditation, methods of grokking subjects more quickly, organizational (or disorganizational) skills, creative brainstorming, etc.

[kilteddude]

We had that concern at first as well as to whether or not they would allow a program like this.  We've discovered though that since the programs are run by the people representing the religion and not by the scouts as an organization the exact content is left up to the discretion of those that set-up the program, within reason that is.  In fact the dude I'm working with on this has already been admitted to his local interfaith council as a representative of Dudeism.  Once we get a little further along in our design we will certainly be looking for a good, affordable way to make all this happen so we would be glad to have any contact information for possible sources.

[BikerDude]

I didn't make this up. Boy Scout monument.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scout_Memorial

[Boston Rockbury]

I didn't make this up. Boy Scout monument.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scout_Memorial

That's quite a well known statue. It's called "The Golden Dildo"