The agenda for the House of Representatives contains a bill, recently reported out of the Judiciary Committee, that asks our elected officials to reaffirm "In God We Trust" as our national motto. News reports indicate the bill's supporters appear particularly keen on having public school classrooms display the motto, so that children can spend their days gazing upon it.
Granted, "In God We Trust" has a long public record, dating back to 1864, when the government first started engraving it on our coinage. It became the national motto when Congress voted it as such in 1956. Think those two years might have shared anything? In each case, the nation perceived itself in a life-or-death struggle -- the Civil War in the first instance, the Cold War in the second. And given that the principal enemy the second time around was the Soviet Union, the idea of adopting "In God We Trust" as our national motto must have seemed a pretty clear way to distinguish Americans from the godless Commies in Moscow.
An obvious question to ask is why our public servants think now would be a good time to throw the spotlight back on the motto? To be sure, we're again at war and have very recently enlarged the field of battle to include Libya.
But a more pertinent question -- and an enduring one for the country -- is, who is this God in whom we are called to place our trust? (I'm not talking about religious pluralism here, the important theological differences among the believing population, whose members call themselves Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, etc.)
The God whose name shows up on our currency and is at the heart of the proposed legislation is, I'm inclined to believe, a national deity, considered by Americans as our special guardian. In other words, this is not the biblical God, but a deity invoked by politicians who close their speeches with a ritual plea, "God Bless America." I hear that as a prayer -- and sometimes it sounds foreshortened, with the longer version being, "America's God, Bless America."
Forty-four years ago, the eminent sociologist Robert Bellah wrote a wonderfully perceptive and influential essay about Americans' "civil religion," which he identified as a set of beliefs and rituals that draw some inspiration from Christianity and Judaism, but which exist separately from them. This faith includes a God invoked on public ceremonial occasions, has its own roster of martyrs (heroes fallen, defending the nation) and celebrates its own holidays (especially, Memorial Day).
But there's another way to look at "In God We Trust," and it's one that ought to be of real concern to religionists.
Twice in the last three decades, the Supreme Court has specifically identified that phrase as being void of substantive sacred meaning. The justices describe the phrase as "ceremonial deism." The late Justice William Brennan wrote that the motto falls into a category of public expression that has "lost through rote repetition any significant religious content."
If you are a believing monotheist, is that how you want God's name treated?
Compare that with the God described by Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address, a deity that Lincoln described as sovereign, mysterious, and possessed of a power of judgment beyond any human control.
Of warring Northerners and Southerners, Lincoln said, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other ... The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."
The last six words are a powerful theological statement. Congressional supporters of the motto might do well to meditate on them before pushing their bill any further. Indeed, the Representatives might engrave Lincoln's sentence on a plaque for their own offices, where they hang it in a prominent place so they can see it every day.
Roy Speckhardt: The Resolution for 'In God We Trust'
In God We Trust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
snopes.com: New Dollar Coins and 'In God We Trust'
Live Vote: Should 'In God We Trust' be yanked? - U.S. news - Life ...
U.S. national mottos: History and constitutionality
Committee to consider 'In God We Trust'
Q1) Do you have a problem with the words "In God we Trust" on our money?
Article 1 of The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states:
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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof---".
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I would like to point out to 'you' what appears to me a fact:
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Congress speaks for the State;
and, when the First Amendment states: "
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof---"
The "State" is,in effect, 'stating' that the "State" shall remain 'separate' from "religion"!
Or 'church'!
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Thus: We have a 'defacto' "Separation of church and State"!
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And, ANY "Law" "respecting "religion" VIOLATES our U S Constitution's 'mandate' opposing it!
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So, such "Laws" that condoned the implamting of "Religious" 'terminology' on U S Coinage,
or that condoned the implanting of "under God" in our "Pledge of Allegiance" are beyond doubt
DIS-RESPECTFUL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
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What we really need is for Americans to move away from silly superstitions and start looking at our problems from a logical scientific view. What we need is not freedom of religion but freedom from religion. Make them pay taxes like any other business and hold them accountable for their crimes (like child abuse) and hope that someday we can all cast off this silliness.
Lauri Lumby
Authentic Freedom Ministries"
Color is an experience created by our brains. The experience of green is not an attribute of the tree but it does REPRESENT an attribute of the tree, the way in which it gives off light. God is also an experience, and I would agree with you that it must REPRESENT an attribute of reality that really exists. Although many atheists would argue with me, I do think that everyone understands what is MEANT by God. But even if I will go along with you to that extent, it does not mean that everyone TRUSTS in God. A color-blind person learns that their colors, with all the evocative emotions that they are capable of generating, are different than other people's colors. What might be a pleasant color to them may appear ugly to 95% of the population. In addition they must be careful about the conventions of colors that the general population uses and know the correspondence of their colors to other people's colors. To a color-blind person color is not something transparent, something that can be taken for granted. "In color I trust", is not a color-blind person's motto. The thing about our brain-created experience is that as much as it is similar for all of us, created by similar brains, it is also individual. We should respect that.
RATIONE HABITUR RESPONSIO
It is already the national motto pursuant to Congressional vote in 1956. Why would there be a need to reaffirm it?
I would say to Congress, get to work on the real problems facing this country instead of wasting our time and money on things like this.
Sure, they'll be the usual gaggle of moronic efforts, but it will kill some time.
We also forget that we are supposed to have a "separation of Church and State".
You are right though that there are some people who worship money but not because of that motto.
Lauri Lumby
Authentic Freedom Ministries
http://yourspiritualtruth.com
2. You then dilute "God" to mean anything, and consequently....nothing.
3. Ugh......
Conflating belief in a deity with patriotism and citizenship runs counter to the ideals this country was founded upon.
Tell that to a Buddhist or an Atheist. It might be better to say that it is a remnant of a time when the country was populated almost entirely by theists of a certain ilk and, like saying the same grace over and over at dinner time every day, it has lost much meaning to those theists. But it is still a blatant reminder to non-theists that the majority demands allegiance to a certain god and that non-theists are often excluded from participation in public discourse and power.
Totems of belief may only be totems, but they do carry the power of group identity. The supreme court may waffle and defer to the majority mindset, but it doesn't make it purely constitutional. Religion is not only a matter of faith and sanctity. A brief perusal of history will tell you that there is more at stake than that.
I've heard people say money is one source of power but I never heard anyone tell me because there is that motto on currency that I have to believe in a certain god. It's so generic anyway. You can believe it to be any god you want or not as the Supreme Court has decided. And neither has that motto any relevance for matters of group identity. Being generic no one can say definitively of who makes up the alleged group.
Nope. It certainly excludes anyone who doesn't have a god. That is, anyone who practices a non-theistic religion or is atheistic or a non-believer. It is true that it could exclude theists who do not trust their god as well.
I do not trust in a god. I am a citizen of the United States. How could this be my motto? Am I not excluded from the group of people that trusts in God? Who is the "we"?
Would it bother me if the motto was removed it?
Not in the least, as I don't honor money as a lot of people do. For myself and most people it is just one medium of exchange. However Newdow and his fellow atheists are making a meal out of it. Should it ever pass to have the motto removed from currency it will cost a lot of taxpayer money to remove the current coins and banknotes from circulatioÂn and have them replaced. Those most concerned, namely the various atheists, atheists associatioÂns and the ACLU, could save the majority of taxpayers money and offer to pay for that recall and re-issuance of the currency. That way it would show that they really want to put their money where their mouths are.
It wasn't my demented idea to proclaim this a "God trusting" nation, and I'm not ready to take "sole" responsibility for fixing the mess.
In fact, I think we ought to levy a special tax on the churches to pay for it...
And putting "In God we trust" on our money just gives the right-wing Christians that much more ammo to use in their argument that "this country belongs to us".
Fanned & faved.