Congress is at it again. Rather than focusing on the faltering economy or the wars our nation is engaged in, the House of Representatives recently passed a resolution which would reaffirm "In God We Trust" as our national motto. The President appropriately chastised the House, saying "That's not putting people back to work. I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people to work." It's bad enough that this resolution is a waste of precious legislative time, but the motto it recommends posting on public buildings is in direct opposition to our national tradition of secular governance and is a slap in the face to the many nontheistic Americans who object to government endorsement of religion.
By placing "In God We Trust" in public buildings, public schools and other government institutions, we weaken the wall of separation between church and state. Even though this motto doesn't favor one religion's god over another, it assumes that there is a god, and that there's only one. That excludes polytheistic Americans like Hindus, nontheistic Buddhists and the 16 percent of us with no religious affiliation. This kind of government sponsorship of religion runs afoul of the First Amendment and should be strongly rejected by our legislature and our judicial system. It is the sworn duty of the government to uphold the Constitution, and allowing this resolution to pass would be a direct violation of that obligation.
Placing such religious language on public buildings not only violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, it also ignores the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. By taking sides on this religious question, the government signals to the millions of non-religious Americans that they are second-class citizens and that secular Americans do not deserve to be considered eligible for equal consideration. The principle of equal protection is seriously threatened whenever the bulwark between church and state is breached, as our government takes an active part in the promotion of religiosity at the expense of secularism. What guarantees can the government make to the non-religious community about their freedom to not believe when the political institution that is tasked with securing that freedom engages in the promotion of religious belief?
Why not promote "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many, One) instead? This was the effective motto of the United States until "In God We Trust" was made official in 1956 as a result of the red scare and subsequent religious dominance of government during the McCarthy era. "Out of Many, One" is a phrase, unlike the one promoted in the House of Representatives, that speaks to our diversity and our unity as a nation. It respects the secular foundations of our country, and it doesn't violate the law of the land.
Religious Right activists continue to successfully push religion into government, as seen by our increasing dependence on Faith Based Organizations, the defense of adding "Under God" to our pledge, the influence of evangelical chaplains in our military, the federal funding of ineffective abstinence-only sex education programs and now the effort to post "In God We Trust" everywhere we look. This isn't simply the result of the actions of a few private citizens; rather, it is the product of a calculated crusade to promote religion through the government. Atheist and agnostic humanists, as well as concerned progressive people of faith will continue to challenge this divisive agenda. We recognize that America must remain committed to the secular foundations of this nation if it is to maintain its reputation as a land of freedom of equality for all under the law.
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In God We Trust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CP World Report: In God We Trust Reaffirmed, Greece, UNICEF ...
GOP Congressman Defends 'In God We Trust' Vote: Must 'Remind ...
George W. Bush and his crew.
Usama bin Laden
The British Government in the First World War
Kaiser Wilhelm Hohenzollern
Adolf Hitler -- he was born and raised Roman Catholic, made a deal with the Pope, and was never excommunicated.
Charles I -- the one who was beheaded,
Oliver Cromwell, whose people did the beheading,
Henry VIII -- who beheaded two wives
The Spanish Inquisition
the Conquistadores of Latin America
the kamikaze pilots, whose God was Hirohito
Napoleon Bonaparte
I invite you to make your own list.
Billy Graham whos fear mongering ruined the greatest secular nation in the world.
Joe McCarthy who wouldn't tolerant Godless people.
Joel - the "God wants you to be rich" preacher
Jones- the "Burn the Kuran" preacher
The Vatican- "We reserve the right to discriminate against Gays"
The Vatican- "We transfer pediphiles to 3rd world countries.
In closing, the article’s title appears to suggest that faith and freedom are mutually-exclusive choices. Perhaps in a humanly-managed social structure, this might be the case. However, the Bible appears to suggest what American founders appear to be secularly reported to have suggested: freedom, defined as the absence of external constraint, is a condition that works only in the presence of appropriate self-restraint. A successful society is not established by any humanly-devised social structure, but by the willingness of each individual to do that which is right.
The Bible appears to suggest that appropriate human discernment of right and wrong is solely a result of intimate relationship with and leadership by God. In light of this perspective, an apparently reasonable alternate perspective to that which appears to be suggested by the article’s title appears to be that individual faith in God is not mutually-exclusive to freedom; apparently, to the contrary, individual faith in God appears to offer humanity the greatest freedom.
I welcome your thoughts.
The apparently Biblically- and otherwise-suggested motivation for rejecting intimate relationship with and leadership by God appears to be humanity’s apparent desire for the apparently slightly greater range of human freedom that fully-human management of the human experience appears to be humanly perceived to represent. However, both Biblical and secular history appear to suggest that the result of humanity’s assumption of such full management of the human experience has been that humanity has been vastly overwhelmed by the weight of the task and has ultimately reacted by, itself, perhaps even desperately, carving out and jettisoning apparently fathomless amounts of human freedom and of even human life itself, to try to reduce the human experience to a size that humans might somewhat capably and appropriately manage.
Apparently, the human attempt to establish and/or manage the balance between (a) the recognition of the human individual’s apparent need for God and (b) the recognition of the need for the human individual to be ultimately answerable solely to God appears to be suggested to show its best product in the United States of America.
Alas, the greatest loss of freedom in modern times is a direct result of society's ability to support ever-growing numbers of people.
I humbly submit the theory (without even attempting to estimate its apparent appropriateness) that the human individual‘s implementation of guidelines appears to be Biblically-suggested to be, essentially, an individualized phenomenon. To clarify, this perspective appears to suggest that even adoption of guidelines that appear to be intended to apply to a general public appear to be, essentially, applied by the separate individuals in that group. This individual application of such apparently “general public” guidelines might include differing ranges of acceptable compliance “customization”. For example, the Bible appears to suggest that:
(a) Abel, apparently a keeper of sheep, sacrificed a lamb to God,
(b) Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by God,
(c) Cain, Abel’s brother and a tiller of the ground, offered to God some of the output from the ground.
(d) Cain’s sacrifice was rejected by God,
(e) When Cain became upset about God’s rejection, God appears to have advised Cain that acceptance by God was as easy to achieve as “doing the right thing”.
(f) In an apparent example of greater flexibility,
(f) God appears to have often instructed Israel to avoid intermarrying with other cultures,
(g) Moses married a Cushite (NIV, “Ethiopian” in KJV) woman,
(h) when Moses brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, begin to criticize Moses’ choice, God appears to summon all three, severely reprimand Aaron and Miriam and defend Moses, essentially saying that Moses and God have a close God/human relationship and raising the question of their daring to speak against Moses.
In the apparent perspective of this believer in God, the apparent human attempt to establish and to properly, fully manage the human experience in an apparently Biblically-suggested, sovereign-God-managed reality appears to be a rather complex phenomenon.
The complexity of the phenomenon appears to exist in the apparent, varying and apparently oftenly-opposing, dissatisfied opinions that appear to pertain to God’s apparent management of the human experience. Some opinions appear to consider God’s apparently adversity-avoiding guidelines to be too restrictive and others appear to consider the apparently adverse condition of the human experience as indication that God has been unconcerned and/or too lenient. Both parties appear to suggest that they can do a better job.
In God We Trust implies the invocation of a monotheistic faith's deity, and is therefore exclusionary to atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, Hindus, Wiccans, Pagans, and other non-monotheists. So we worship different deities and follow different faiths-does that make us less American than those who follow the "Big Three?" I think not. Ditto the words "under God" that were added to the Pledge of Allegiance during the same "Red scare" that provoked the motto change. There are plenty of people who refuse to engage in hypocrisy by invoking a deity they don't believe in, and to keep those two words in there does nothing for the Pledge that way. We're pledging allegiance to a symbol of our country's freedom, NOT a deity we don't all believe in!
Bring back E. Pluribus Unum and bring back the pre-McCarthy era Pledge. They are far more fitting for this country.
Let's not forget that the Magna Carta was only intended to assert the rights of the nobles versus the King, but its words nowhave a wider interpretation.
Yet in our own country, the Christian right is replacing democracy with doctrine to an extreme that is matched only by the Taliban.
How is that not clear? What is it that you can't understand about that simple concept?
The day will come when the American people will have government that is actually of the people, by the people, and for the people – rather than of, by, and for the wealthiest few.
The day will come when the United States of America are actually united, under a federal government that properly regulates commerce, promotes the general welfare, ensured domestic tranquility, and ensures equal rights and justice for all the people.
The day will come when peacemakers will prevail, and the American people will work together, cooperate and collaborate, share and share alike, and use the common wealth for the common good (as even Jesus of Nazareth advised).
And that day will come as soon as enough Americans realize how they have been misled and duped by the deceptive forces of greed and self-interest who claim to be religious and patriotic.
http://www.soundclick.com/ttap
http://messenger.cjcmp.org/dream.html
So much for patriotic Christian values.
I guess you're harmless. The tune was relatively placid.
Are they really? If they do, let's resolve to come up with a concept of god which has more stories and is thus higher.
Of course I'd rather those two words be taken out altogether, but until this country comes to its collective senses, I have to settle for hoping and sticking to my guns on that part of the Pledge.