I do not pledge any alligence

Isn't the saying "One nation under God" supposed to imply not a "holy being", but rather spite the Communist Soviet Republic in the 50's? Or did I misinterpret again...

 

So you must be very offended by the fact that American Culturte has the word "God" all over it. Like on our money, and in our court systems (tell the who truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God). What about the State of Lauisana? Did you know that they are in violation of the constitution? They don't have countys, they have Parish's. A parish is the area that a church covers. I guess we should kick them out of the Union huh.

What about "God Bless America" that everyone and their mother was singing? It was sung on a Government sponsered Television program and none of you seemed to mind.

There is a huge diffrence between saying the word God in the Pledge and fuseing Church and State.

You use the arument "What about the Buddists", well for them Budda is God. The word God does not refer to any one religions beliefs.

 

Well I must say that I have changed my mind thinking about this over the past few days.

First of all. Buddah was not a god and is not a god. Siddarth (sp?) was a man who became inlightned and is know as the Buddah. Buddhists actually have in interesting take on God. Basically whether or not God exists there is suffering in the world and the goal of Buddhism is to ease that suffering for yourself and those around you. But that is neither here nor there in this argument.

At first I was outraged by such petty arguments when we have such big problems. The pledge is patriotic not about god, get over it. But then I got to thinking.

...under Allah. (or "with the Mother" [from the wiccan faith])

MTX. You seem to be a devout christian. Now in my views God, Allah, the Force, the Mother, and "It" are pretty much all the same thing. We just use the symbols that allow us to identify easier.

But to people of devout faith or no faith it is often harder to distinguish. We say "oh just get over it."

We think about this. How comfortable right now would you be, "Just getting over it" if it said, "under Allah"

Or your so popular money comments. "In Allah we trust." "Allah bless America."

Even to me, who is very open minded about religions and the different ways people choose to express their faith, find that a little disturbing and it would make me uncomfortable to have to do.

Lets face it. This country was founded by people who were escaping religious oppression. They were being forced into a religion or faith that they did not believe in. So they left to start a country where all faiths would be respected.

A small thing? Yes. But I find myself able to sympathize with them, even when I was outraged when I first heard about it. I do not agree with taking away peoples right to choose what to do. But I also agree we should not be forcing people to do something that goes against their fundamental beliefs and faiths.

 

this is really a simple matter of the foundations of our nation. We created this nation with the understanding that the church and the state would be seperate... any church. Therefor, any situation in which they creep together must be eliminated. The dangers of church and state being one have been shown time and time again in history. If we choose to err on the side of caution (as in this case) it should really be considered a simple matter of consistency. We choose to keep religion out of our governement, in all forms. However, i am the first to recognize that as a nation, we are fucking hippocrites. Our elections are frequently determined in large part by the religion of the candidates. Sad, but true. We are, as a nation, insanely religious. However, we are accepting of all religions, which is a large part of the cause of this. We just have to remember that we cannot endorse any single religion over another, it is not who we are as a nation, and our government cannot take an official role in religion. Beyond that, we may have to accept some intermingling.

 

My take on the words 'In God We Trust' and such things as 'God Bless America'...

Let's use an analogy. Let's say aliens came down to Earth, and didn't do any research beforehand, therefore they don't know anything about the language / customs, etc. They meet up with some farmer, who starts to curse at them [for whatever reason, just go with it].

Now the words themselves mean <i>nothing</i> to these aliens, but the emotion that the farmer is <i>delivering</i> through those words is what matters, not the words themselves.

Now let's say the farmer says the same words, but without the infliction of anger in them. The aliens <i>still</i> have no clue what they mean, but there is no harmful emotion in those words, therefore they have no reason to be angry. [although they decide to vaporize the farmer anyway ]

I've always seen the 'In God We Trust', and other works containing the word 'God', as a general term, and not specifically relating to any certain religion, be it Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or some other religion.
Now...the problem I see with removing 'under God' in the Pledge is this...where else do we remove those words? Do we remove them from 'God Bless America'? Do we remove it from our currency? We all know that simply doing that would be a very large task, we would have to re-issue every single bill that we have ever created and that is currently in circulation. Talk about throwing money away...

 

actually no fox, changes like that dont require removal of the old bills, they simply phase them out. The problem with a monetary change would be coins actually, bills deteriorate very rapidly, they have a very short life expectancy. And yet another reminder, the words "under god" were added in 1954 as part of the "war on communism" because communits were atheist, so the government was trying to support anti-communist ideology. Never mind that it was unconstitutional, if anyone noticed that they didnt say anything, because if they did McCarthey would have come down on them like a ton of bricks, not to mention their neighbors, friends, associates, and the average passerby on the streets. It was a wierd time. And fox, you are partially correct, the emotion conveyed by a word is a large part of the situation... but it is not the only factor. Words do have meanings on their own, especially religious words.

 

Rayzer, thanks for your comment about Buddhists. You are correct for the most part...but yes, that is another discussion.

'In god we trust' is on our money, but we do not say it.

'god bless America' is a song that is sung all over the country, but we are not forced to sing it.

Now I have a delema because the 4th verse of the 'star spangled banner' has:
And conquer we must when our cause is just
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Now, it is true, we are not made to sing the star spangled banner, and we do not sing the 4th verse anyways.

K, back to my comments:

In schools students are made to say the pledge. I am for it. Re-aferming our commitment to the country that we all love should be done. There is an opt out clause stating that a student does not have to say it. That is fine as well, if it worked. People who are opting out are getting an unjust amount of torment from other students.

In August of 1954 there was an addition to the pledge with the line 'Under god'. There was a reason for the addition at the time. I believe that that time has passed.

Church and state are mixed...have been for a long time. The founding fathers had in mind a seperation, but that idea never fully came to light. In order for that orriginal idea of seperation to come true, we HAVE to experience things like this.

If taking out a line that was not in the pledge orriginally will make that seperation more of a reality, if it will make just 1 student decide to say the pledge and not opt out, if it will make one person feel safer at school, TAKE IT OUT.

I know people are upset at the idea of the suit...as am I. My opinions on our leagal system are another matter. But what has happened is a large, vocal debate. It is emotional on both side, and sometimes the arguments are not logical, but it is discussion. Our country needs discussions like this to come up, we need to include as many people as we can in our national songs, mottos, and pledges.

my 2 cents (yes they say in god we trust)

 

P.S. that was the longest post I have ever made I think (grin)

 

Actually religion is not the cause of any wars. Man is the cause of all wars. Because some men choose to use religion to justify their wars, does not mean religion causes them. Without religion, man would simply find another reason to kill eachother.

Oed, I apologize for my over simplification of Budhism. But it was just that a simplification

 

Is that what the catholic priests tell the altar-boys when they're not practicing good ethics and morals?

 

Thanks for the history lesson RaptorMax...I already knew it all...but thanks for the reminder

And when I said 'removal' of the bills that are already in circulation, I should have said 'phasing out', would have been a better term as you noted.

There are many historical songs, poems, etc, which directly relate to the democracy and freedom that we hold so dear. How do we handle those? Do we edit them in order to become even more politically correct, to appease everyone? Or do we keep them as they are, and preserve historical evidence of what was done and is being done in order for this country to be what it is today and tomorrow?

I don't believe that one specific side is right in this matter [it is rare that I feel that way on any matter, but that's for another post]. Both sides have valid arguments. One side is for political correctness, while the other side is for historical accuracy. Personally, I would rather forgo political correctness in favor of historical accuracy, because it is the history that matters. It is the history that we must preserve because of the very fact that it is history, and it teaches us many things. It teaches us both the goodness and the horrible evil in man's mind, and it teaches us mistakes that we have made, right next to the wonders that we have created. If you edit history for any reason, no matter how small, you will edit out the mistakes, the hurtful words, and you will then forget those mistakes and hurtful words. Which leads me to this quote:

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana

 

What does disturb me is the radical emails I am getting about how the teenagers of america should gather together and rally against our legal system and put god back into schools.

"Actually, it's time to go to war!


I am appealing to you and America's youth to say to the Nation's political and judicial leadership...this terrible court decision must be overturned!

It is high time that God-fearing, freedom-loving American people stand up and say, "Enough is enough!" If we don't do so right now, we will soon lose this culture war, as Pat Buchanan has defined it.


I, for one, am not going to sit back and allow this imbecilic decision to go unchallenged."

I, for one, don't believe the the public practice of religion... of any kind.
and I think it is slightly narrow minded of people who scream for the practice of religion in school, because by allowing religion in school we would have to acknowledge every form of faith.
I'm not sure if these people understand that if they are allowed to openly practice their religion in public places that involve people around them that they are permitted to do the same... regardless of their religion...

So what I am saying p) is I don't understand how people precieve the removal of a biblical word, when the other religions are not exemplified...
The pledge is something that is meant to be extremely patriotic and i would think it could be hard for someone who doesn't believe in that same god to say the pledge and mean it sincerely...

just because a person isn't christian doesn't make them bad... and your children won't become corrupt because the words "under god" were removed from the pledge.
I'd never thought it was this big of a deal though...
Heh,

eMa

::edit:: the email was from liberty.edu sent by a man named Jerry Falwell

 

thats so true eMa...but...they won't become corrpt because the words "under god" stayed either with they?

its silly...this whole arguement...the fella originially wanted to have our currencey changed a while ago...what better way to go about it than use your 8yr old child as a stepping stone..cycnicsm..i can't spell it....but i gots it

i mean....kids/people DONT have to say the pledge in school....we are giving the kids a choice at an early age...and depending on how that child is raised...they will or will not do what they believe is right...

keep in mind....i believe our constitution or some historical document wekeep dear...mentions something about "in the year of our lord"?

hell..i think both sides are being over sensitive about this....but whatcha gonna do...? heh...just somthing silly we are wasting time and money on when i believe there are other issues that a seem a bit more pressing...but thats just me...and what do i know...