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Well good for you and yours. I hope they grow up to be good solid anti Christian adults who have no faith nor clue as to the good and the bad of this world but instead apply only values of moral relativism that is so dominate of the party of inclusion.............
Talk about your false dichotomies!
There's nothing about being pro-constitution that requires one to be anti-Christian.
Does the phrase "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" ring any bells with you?
As for moral relativism, I think one would be hard pressed to support the stance that the folks who believe that God should be in the Pledge are any less morally relativistic than those opposed to it, in their behaviors rather than their purported beliefs!
I agree with this premise. Some faux christians that want to interject their affiliations caused the addition of God to thiese things. The pledge was a recent occurance. why not go back to the way it started?
I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. ~~~~As written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy.
Learn some history. Congress controls the pledge and has defined it as the official national pledge since 1942.
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Originally Posted by ViewFromThePeak
It is simply an oath, not compulsory at that, played at certain public events.
It is and has been compulsory, but even voluntary recitation is made morally impossible for increasing tens of millions of Americans by the inclusion of any religious entity to whom allegiance is either directly or indirectly to be sworn. Religious zealots are again usurping the rights of others. Get back where you belong.
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Originally Posted by ViewFromThePeak
The establishment clause is overwhelmingly interpreted to prohibit a particular religion over others.
Not much on Con Law either, are you. The state isn't to involve itself in religion at all absent the advancement or protection of some legitimate state interest. It may not endorse one religion over another or religion over non-religion. Get used to it.
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Originally Posted by ViewFromThePeak
As such, God is in many different religions. If you disambiguate the word it to imply a Christian God, that's your problem.
Which other religions name their deity "God" and spell it that way? Which other religions do the Knights of Columbus represent? What was Rev. Docherty's faith? Which non-Christian was able to play any role at all?
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Originally Posted by ViewFromThePeak
To imply that I'm disrespecting our laws by not supporting the omission of God in the pledge is "short bus" talk, you know.
I don't claim that you disrespect the law. I claim that you fail to respect the law because you don't understand it well enough to be able to do so. All you cater to is your blind faith. As the result, you bring about as much substance to the debate as would be expected from a potato.
Last edited by saganista; 12-09-2008 at 08:52 AM..
Pay special attention to the very end of the Snopes article (and yes I know that Nedlow's kid was not being compelled -- but kids CERTAINLY have been, which you can ascertain by reading the Wiki entry).
Newdow's daughter was under compulsion. The combination of state and district policies required that a school day include the conduct of an appropriate patriotic exercise, and the only approved appropriate patriotic exercise was recitiation of the 1954 Pledge. As the court and snopes point out, the state is already over the line at that point. The state is expressing its clear endorsement of one thing while withholding it from another. Whatever might come after cannot wipe that away.
I don't consider myself to be overlly religious or even spiritual. I believe in Jesus the moral philoshper, but fall short of believing that he's the son of God... or that there even is a god. However, I have no problem with with the phrasing of the Pledge. When I hear "One nation, under god", I invision the author meaning "One nation, made of many and considered equals.." I think it embraces the theory of the melting pot.. We're not one nation bound by ethnicity... we're just one nation.
However, I have no problem with with the phrasing of the Pledge. When I hear "One nation, under god", I invision the author meaning "One nation, made of many and considered equals.."
But that clearly wasn't the intent of the addition, the purpose of which was to clearly distinguish the United States from the atheist Soviet Union. Responding to a sermon by Rev. Docherty, President Eisenhower proclaimed on June 14, 1953;
"From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."
You can choose to ignore the intent and actual meaning, that is your choice, but the fact remains that the addition of "Under God" has a clear and purposeful meaning which is beyond the pale of Constitutional muster.
But that clearly wasn't the intent of the addition, the purpose of which was to clearly distinguish the United States from the atheist Soviet Union. Responding to a sermon by Rev. Docherty, President Eisenhower proclaimed on June 14, 1953;
"From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."
You can choose to ignore the intent and actual meaning, that is your choice, but the fact remains that the addition of "Under God" has a clear and purposeful meaning which is beyond the pale of Constitutional muster.
As one who was raised Catholic and gave it up, I must say that, EVEN when I DID believe in its tenets (much the same as those of Protestant Christians, despite their anti-Catholic rhetoric, which bemuses me), as a CHILD, I felt it was wrong to force kids...even those who believed!...into reciting what amounted to a prayer aligned with GOVERNMENT!
Yep...I was a "pistol", a free-thinker. I thought that, as taught, the Separation of Church and State actually MEANT something! Imagine my surprise when the "adults" in charge turned out be self-serving, manipulating hypocrites!!!
Nothing got by me since then (unless I wasn't paying attention) and still doesn't, 50 yrs. later, and of that I am proud. My kid is BY CHOICE, an atheist and I couldn't be prouder! If someone EVER had tried to make him recite some stupid pledge with the word "God" (I don't care WHOSE "God") in it...they'd have had to deal with ME!
Man...I almost wish they'd tested me...but then....they already KNEW what I'd do to them in court! WIMPS! They push kids around but not elders who know what's what.
I find it fascinating that I was a "cusp kid", Pledge-wise, in that I recited the original version in second grade and then came back to school that September (I somehow had made it to Third grade) and they had changed it, and we said it that way. I don't remember any great difference. I was neither filled with a sudden reverence for the Holy Spirit, nor with indignation at the unfairness of it all. Nor were my parents. All they cared about was that I keep my mouth shut, study hard, respect my teachers, and escape the blue-collar dead-end working lives that had entrapped them.
No lasting damage was visited on me -- nor, I suspect, on any of my classmates -- by the modification of the Pledge. I remain an indifferent heathen, religion-wise. I guess some people just have to have something to get angry about when their lives are too easy. Mine --- and my family's -- never was, when I was growing up.
I'm too grateful for what I have, including the opportunities provided me by this country, and an intact family and children whom I love and whom I have never felt compelled to manipulate, to get worked up by words which we are all are both free to ignore and are not required to repeat in any setting, should we choose to do so.
That may be the basic difference between the Michael Newdows and the Yeledafs in the world.
I hasten to add that we need both types. I doubt if Mr. Newdow would agree, though...
I think God should be removed from all official government items. We have to remember that originally the phrase "under god" was not even in the pledge and instead it was added in the 1950's by Republican Senator Joe McCarthy of McCarthyism fame. Why is it so difficult for religious zealots to keep their religion to themselves? Why do they always have to try to push it on everyone else?
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Who IS "The Almighty" anyway???
