Can a Scout be multi-reverent?

22 June 2004

On Sunday, we attended a Court of Honor for a friend of ours who was being invested as an Eagle Scout. The honoree belongs to one of the Scout troops for observant Jews.

After the ceremonies, my wife and the fledgling eagle’s sister worked up the courage to ask one of the Scoutmasters: could you be a pagan Scout? (One would think that Druids would have a particular interest…) The Scoutmaster told us that there weren’t enough pagan troops to create a religious emblem for pagans, like the Ner Tamid for Jews, but there were a number of Zoroastrians. We can infer by the Zero-One-Infinity Rule that if a religion that believes in two deities is kosher with the Boy Scouts of America, then a religion with a pantheon of any nonzero size is kosher.

Indeed, a little Googling turned up a Boy Scout troop in Utah (apparently defunct) that was sponsored by a community that worships the traditional Northern European gods. (If the members of this troop spend too long hiking, do they get Thor feet?)

• Later: Those who do not march in formation
• Earlier: Copy. Right.