Scouts Guides and religion

My kids go to Cubs and Brownies, I know this is hypocritical, as the movement requires the children to have some kind of faith.

I wasn't sure what to do about this, would there be some kind of test, would my kids be asked directly and have to lie to get in?

I talked it over with them and told them the situation and my eldest decided that it would be wrong to lie, but seeing as they counted Buddhism as a faith, he was quite happy to say he was a Buddhist, as when we'd talked it over, he liked the sound of it, and while he didn't agree with everything or believe a lot of the spiritual stuff, we reckoned that was the case for about 99% of the people who would put 'Church of England' on a form if asked.

My daughter who 'got' the idea of the Flying Spaghetti Monster at the age of 6, decided she would tell them that that was their religion if asked and I was quite excited of the prospect of having a battle with the Guide Movement over her right to believe in something patently stupid and silly just like every other religion. I imagined the story getting onto the Today Programme and Newsnight. I could even picture Jeremy Paxman allowing himself a smirk. It was going to be great.

Of course they never even asked.

They do have to do the oath thing of course, and to add insult to injury, that involves them swearing to do their duty to God and the Queen.

I've explained that their duty to both of those is precisely nothing, so it's a pointless oath. It's a shame though that they now both have a bit more contempt for the movement which provides them with all sorts of opportunities for fun, education and personal development.

It's such an anachronism this religion thing in the Scouting movement. They've already diluted it down now so as long as you believe in practically anything it's OK, as long as you don't declare yourself an atheist. Plus it's crazy to deny kids the right to join based on their 'beliefs' - at 7 years old what do you know after all, they believe all kinds of weird stuff, probably they still believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy.

The National Secular Society had a bit of a campaign about it, but that seems to have stalled now:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/scoutschallengedoverdiscriminati.html/

I did ask about becoming a helper, but then they did really make it clear that atheists weren't welcome. Which is a shame, because they are always really short of leaders and by having the religious requirement, they're excluding a large proportion of the population.