Under God

El Hombre Invisible

No, I don't agree. The absence of "under God" does not imply "above God" just as me telling a friend I love them without saying "almost as much as my girlfriend" does not suggest I love them more than my girlfriend. The pledge is not to God - it is to the state. So long as the pledge does not explicitly state that allegiance to country supersedes any other, there is no problem.

Yes, but allegiance to the flag is not a test of religious faith.

Evo

Wow, that's pretty bad. I live in Kansas and it's not even that bad in the schools here. Of course the Kansas School Board was recently touched by the Spaghetti Monster's noodly appendage. (just realized that a lot of members probably have no idea what that is in reference to).

Artman

The word allegiance derives from the Old English word "Liege" or "Lord." When you give your allegiance to something you are basically saying it is your one Lord. Now I don't know about other religions, but the Bible says that God said, "You shall have no other gods before me."

So, how can a Christian say the pledge of Allegiance, in good faith, without going against their beliefs, if you take out the phrase "Under God?"


Sorry, but Christianity is a 2000 year old philosophy.

Gokul43201

The pledge of allegiance is, to me, the most strikingly communist act commited by Americans.

El Hombre Invisible

Again, this isn't a real argument, just semantic silliness. First off, as you pointed out, the "Liege" in question is not God, therefore "allegience" has no explicitly religious connotations. Secondly, the usage of the word in America, which does not have the feudal system, already tells you that your definition is inappropriate. Thirdly, if "allegiance" suggested only ONE thing you can be allied to, the existing pledge is paradoxical, since you cannot pledge allegiance to the flag under God - it's one or the other. This is not a constructive discussion.

sid_galt

The nation was founded on the principle of individual rights. Read the Declaration of Independence.

Artman

My purpose is to state a reason for its inclusion, which I believe must be determined in order to decide if it should be omitted. So i did some reserach and found this:

In light of this discovery, I'm changing my position on this issue. It seems to have been included as a reminder of God, which has no place in a government sponsered affirmation. I agree it should be removed.
Reason for adding Under God

loseyourname

Come on, Pengwuino, how can you say the nation was founded on the basis of freedom from Catholicism? Maryland was a Catholic colony. Many of the southern colonies were basically Anglican, so it's hard to say the country was founded on the basis of freedom from the Church of England, too. Massachusetts was Puritan, Pennsylvania Quaker, and the other northern colonies various other strands of protestantism or with no religious affiliation at all. Many of the founding fathers were deists, and it is from Deist thinkers of the Enlightenment that our founding ideals derive from. The rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness are not Christian ideals. In particular, a good deal of Christian thought (especially of the Augustinian strain) consider the exercise of free will to be the source of evil, and complete submission to God's will (hardly liberty) to be the only path to heaven. Jesus himself implied, if he did not say outright, that we should have no property. I don't see how anyone can claim that the pursuit of happiness was thought to be of any importance to Christians of that era, either.

I know that people will bring up the fact that rights were thought to be bestowed upon us by the creator, but nowhere is it stated that the creator is the Christian God. This is a Deist, or at least non-denominational ideal. Another thing to remember is that there were not many atheists around back in those days. Freedom from religion didn't have to exclude references to God or a creator, because everyone believed in one form of God or another. The nation has since progressed, and not everyone still feels that way. Besides, the whole "under God" phrase was just added to distinguish us from the atheist Soviet Union. It was stupid from the beginning and should never have been there in the first place. If we really wanted to highlight the important differences between the two systems, we should have been pledging allegiance to a country built under capitalist and democratic ideals, not under God. (In jest, of course, because being American does not require one to subscribe to any set of ideals other than the one that says we are free to subscribe to whatever damn ideals we please.)

loseyourname

Artman, it was added during the Red Scare of the 50s because communists were officially atheistic.

Astronuc

That is exactly the point. Most see it as a religious affirmation.

Just look at Judge Roy Moore who placed a copy of the 10 commandments in the court house. He maintained that the 10 commandments are the basis of US Constution and Law, which is certainly not the case.

Just listen to Senators Brownback and Coburn. IIRC, Coburn was possibly leading Judge Roberts toward stating that the Constitution and US law have their basis in the 10 Commandments. Roberts didn't go their, and it ended up with Coburn making a comment about natural law. Coburn had recited several of the Commandemnts about "Thou shall not . . . ".

There are quite a few people in the US who believe God and prayer must be part of the experience in public education. God and prayer belong in one's home and respective church of one's choice, and not in the public education system.

El Hombre Invisible

Did he? The commie get!

Art

the bible also says "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" I wonder how wealthy neo-cons marry this with their christian fundamentalism?

El Hombre Invisible

A pinch of hypocrisy is most efficacious.

SOS2008

I am concerned about this adding fuel to the fringe fire too. The Christians of our nation have always been a majority that has been meddling in the government throughout our history. This is why I do not agree with the ceremonial deism (historical usage) as a test of separation of church and state and protection of individual rights. The fundamentalists in the U.S. not only have grown in number and power, but have become more extreme. To nip this in the bud, it is necessary to roll back all that they have done and enforce the First Amendment.
Agreed--it is not just a matter of our government favoring a specific religious belief, but protection of individual rights versus majority views. Last night Tucker Carlson said it is wrong for the minority to "force their beliefs down the throat of the majority" by removing these two words - Right.
That too.
If there were any atheists that admitted they were atheist they would have been burned at the stake as a witch. True that the phrase was added to supposedly distinguish us from the Godless Commies. Those Christians always come up with something, don't they? As Jon stewart said last night, now our enemies are fundamentalists, so perhaps we should change it to: under the true God (or something like that).

Getting back to the majority religious group versus minority religions and equality for all, this is what is likely to cause civil war in Iraq.

kyleb

Yes, it can be considered Protestant in the fact that it rejected Papal athority, but it was still Catholic in much of it's theology and tradition (and in some ways still is). You can read more about this on the Church of England's own website.

Entropy

Oh, don't even get me started! Infact, christian (christian as in what Jesus actually said and did, not necissarily what today's church teaches) teaching emphasises on physical as well as political neutrality. Meaning that even being president is sinful, or any political position for that matter. Also, the concept of forcing people to follow biblical rules, like in ancient Israel, was abandoned by the teachings of Jesus.

yourdadonapogostick

wow, one day and already five pages