Girl Guides membership - our daughter cannot join?

Welshwoofs

poet123 wrote: »

It wouldn't make a difference though as the ruling body are still considering the wording change. This Leader is simply carrying through the current rules.

I'd say she's being a job's worthy though. She didn't actually need to question the girl about whether she believed. I've never heard of anyone else's kids undergoing questionning about their beliefs.

Obviously having questionned, she now as the ammunition to exclude. Hence why I'd recommend having a bit of a laugh with it in a way that should sufficiently deter the woman from ever asking that question again.

mountainofdebt

valkirn wrote: »

But the guide promise is:

"I Promise that I will do my best;
To love my God,
To serve my Queen and my Country,
To help other people
And
To keep the Guide Law."

So therefore they wouldnt be excluded.

So if the OP's daughter said her God was Harry from One Direction that would satisfy the Leader?

valkirn

Welshwoofs wrote: »

I'd say she's being a job's worthy though. She didn't actually need to question the girl about whether she believed. I've never heard of anyone else's kids undergoing questionning about their beliefs.
.

They do ask them here, and it is all put in a introductary letter when you join here again we also live in a rural area.

poet123

apples1 wrote: »

She doesn't believe in anything. Religion is not part of our life. She is a well brought up little girl who is truthful and polite and has the morals I believe the Guides would agree with. But we don't have a faith. I am not anti religion or anti God we just don't believe it ourselves. She didn't mean any harm when she said she didn't believe in God she was just being honest when asked a question!

And she was perfectly right to say what she did, and perfectly entitled to not believe. However, if the rules of this private members club state that all members must have such a belief then it is stalemate. There are rights on both sides which seem incompatible.

skylight

My DD had a similar problem as a non-believer in anything when she joined the Cubs. We had a chat about what she wanted to do and in the end she decided that as there are no gods, there would be nothing to insult if she said the words anyway. She agreed that "my god" can mean anything anyway, from the more well known ones to Greek, Roman and Pagan ones, including mother nature. Now she is older (10), she is a bit of a Humanist.


My other DD (8) is trying all religions at the moment to see which one she likes. Dinner conversation can be interesting.....

Callie22

emslovesmickey wrote: »

I wonder what the uproar would be if they excluded someone because they were muslim, jew, hindu, or any other religion? The same should be applied if they are excluding somebody who has belief in no higher power.

That's why they changed the promise a few years ago (some time in the 90s I think, I seem to remember that it happened when I was a Guider). It used to be 'to love God', and then they changed it to 'to love my God', because it was felt to be discriminatory to non-Christians. I never faced this situation with any of my Guides, but if I had then I would have let them leave that line out or amend it - I like the Australian version of 'developing my beliefs'. It would have been an interesting point for discussion, and a good lesson on discrimiation. I'd imagine that wouldn't be 'allowed' officially but I personally never viewed Guiding as a 'religious' organisation and would rather have had the local girls involved in doing something productive than them hanging round outside drinking cider.

Person_one

Guides was cr-ap anyway, I only lasted two weeks in which they taught us how to serve tea, how to give ourselves a facial and made us pretend we were sitting round an invisible table and you got in trouble if you 'walked on the table'. The one that wasn't there.

I have no idea why a deep religious faith matters for any of that.

Find a scout troop that accepts girls, she'll have far more fun and the chances are the people involved will be less up themselves and more aware of the real point of these groups, which is to make friends, mostly have fun and learn a few useful tricks along the way.

shebangs

how about Athena the goddess of heroic endeavour and wisdom (she is also the goddess of war but hey ho) or Hestia the goddess of hearth home & cooking

I don't necessarily believe in making a child pledge to a god they don't believe in and I think its unfair they have to but its hard to incorporate non believers in an organisation that was originally set up by believers.. my friend got round the problem by letting her daughter pledge to a Greek God/Goddess as they are more about specific traits the child would want to be such as above heroic or a good home maker & cook

PS its not a new problem my mother had the problem back in the 80s when I was a brownie.. I was basically told by her to say it because as someone else said above if I didn't believe I couldn't be offending as I believed they didn't exist to offend.

Welshwoofs I got chucked out of brownies in 4 weeks I cant believe someone broke my record i'm gutted lol

Mojisola

Person_one wrote: »

Guides was cr-ap anyway, I only lasted two weeks in which they taught us how to serve tea, how to give ourselves a facial and made us pretend we were sitting round an invisible table and you got in trouble if you 'walked on the table'. The one that wasn't there.

I have no idea why a deep religious faith matters for any of that.

Find a scout troop that accepts girls, she'll have far more fun and the chances are the people involved will be less up themselves and more aware of the real point of these groups, which is to make friends, mostly have fun and learn a few useful tricks along the way.

Scouts also include god in their promise.

poet123

Person_one wrote: »

Guides was cr-ap anyway, I only lasted two weeks in which they taught us how to serve tea, how to give ourselves a facial and made us pretend we were sitting round an invisible table and you got in trouble if you 'walked on the table'. The one that wasn't there.

I have no idea why a deep religious faith matters for any of that.

Find a scout troop that accepts girls, she'll have far more fun and the chances are the people involved will be less up themselves and more aware of the real point of these groups, which is to make friends, mostly have fun and learn a few useful tricks along the way.

Scout troops have a promise with similar content.