Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Will Hear Pledge of Allegiance Case
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported in this CNN.com article, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next year (most likely in June) involving whether public schools can lead students in a 'voluntary' recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. At issue in this case is whether the inclusion of the phrase 'under God' in the pledge constitutes an establishment of religion on the part of the state and an infringement on students' religious liberty when it is recited in the public school setting. This case comes to the Supreme Court as an appeal of the June 2002 ruling made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--a decision that led to one of the most active stories in Slashdot history." The CNN article's emphasis on voluntariness -- "whether schoolchildren can be allowed to recite the Pledge voluntarily" -- is grossly misleading, almost propagandistic. Most states have laws requiring the pledge to be recited every day as a class activity, and these are the laws in question. In theory students shouldn't be punished for failing to recite along with the rest of the class (due to a previous Supreme Court decision). No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to.
This case originated in my home town. They're a bunch of religious nuts out here. Very wholesome in Sacramento, except apparently in the legislature :)
We plan our Sunday breakfasts around church time... you can't eat in Elk Grove past 10:00am!
--D
I really don't see a problem with someone reciting the pledge, but if you don't want to, then don't. Prayer in school isn't outlawed, its just not encouraged. I'm more interested to see if kids really care whether or not they recite the pledge or not, my guess is "i dont care either way" responses would prevail.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
Aside from people who believe a supreme being does not exist, the phrase "under God" might as well offend people who are polytheists.
What I don't understand is why christians in general would get so upset when we want to take one line out to include all. Simply put I'm sure they would be as offended if we were to begin saying something like "under Bhudda" or "under no god" as some ppl are about saying "under god" in the first place. Times have changed, with them go the rules
The original generic sig.
Gee michael.
I guess there's nothing left to comment on, since the story was more of a long editorial rant than a newspiece.
Made compulsory, such a pledge is worthless, meaningless and a supression of intellectual activity. It represents a repudiation of Jeffersonian ideals, as embodied in the Declaration of Independance and U.S. Constitution.
Do we get to wear armbands, too?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
What does this have to do with online rights?
What does it have to do with anything Nerds are interested in?
It seems more like a topic for a civil libertarian blog.
I'm not saying the government is right or wrong. I'm just asserting this is off topic. Michael, can't you find another website to pound your drums on?
A Good Intro to NetBS
Propagandistic? CNN? Never!
"You're telling me the Oscars are also political? f** off!"
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
There, was that so hard.
Fuck your God.
-An American.
Before the flame war breaks out, read: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/06/26/1935246.shtm l?tid=103
And then decide if you have something new to say.
~ The Fudge Report @ http://mywebpages.comcast.net/fudgereport/
The phrase "Under God" was not introduced until the 1950s in order to "protect" the nation from godless Communists.
You guys are not getting the point. The constitution says that congress cannot make any law regarding the establishment of religion. It says nothing about whether we can have sayings or objects related to God it public places.
I remember that... Back in 8th grade, about halfway through the year, the teachers said to us, "oh yeah, you guys are supposed to recite the pledge of allegiance every day." Most of the student body basically said, "what? Eh, f*ck it." We ended up doing it once, maybe twice, before the staff realized it was just a waste of time. :D
one interesting development already: Justice Scalia will take no part in the decision of the case. Apparently he recused himself following a request by the anti-pledge side in the case. Scalia has vocally defended the right to religious activity, and I guess he recognized that this might come across as having a predisposition to the outcome of the case.
The argument seems to be about whether this constitues government establishment of religion. No one bothers to question why we are *indoctrinating* our children with this mindless drivel.
Kids should be *taught* about their country and its history and left to decide on their own how they feel about it. In a supposedly free nation, we have MANY Congress members who think the pledge is the greatest thing since sliced bread. To me it just smacks of brainwashing children that we used to accuse the Soviet Union of.
...about religion:
Article IV:
[...] no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Amendment I:
*Congress* shall make no *law* respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Anything else, such as "The treasury can't put _In God We Trust_ on the money!!!" isn't covered.
I think at some point, the seperation of church and state goes a bit too far. Take the pledge as a whole, not word by word. It's not religious in nature; it's about the country and what it stands for. And what it stands are isn't forcing religion on people, but about freedom, liberty, and justice. Sometimes it gets a big silly, just like forcing the Ten Commandments out of the courtroom. Remember, the Ten Commandments is a very early and almost universally understood code of laws. Nobody would object if Hammurabi's Code was in the courtroom. Just because it mentions religion or God doesn't mean it's forcing religion on people. And remember, saying the pledge is voluntary, and after the first grade, I don't ever remember reciting it in class.
Help me. I've been modbombed by a few people with entirely too much time on their hands.
When I was in grade school, I refused to recite the pledge for various reasons. The administration threatened to suspend me, but after a few threats at law suits they calmed down. Everyone, even kids under 18, have the rights granted in the Bill of Rights.
I simply paused when the line "Under God" was recited while I was in school. I was true to myself, and nobody made a big fuss over it all.
Back then I was an atheist, but I wasn't a hostile atheist who spit on every religious practice that anyone had around me. Live and let live is a good phrase to live by most of the time. (Maybe growing up in the Bible belt had something to do with that, but then again, now I'm a Pagan and living in the Bible belt, so perhaps I'm just a glutton for punishment!)
What does this have to do with online rights?
The current laws on the books state the no student is required to recite the pledge. It does not state that the schools cannot set aside time to recite the pledge. Please be careful to not add any more spin to an already charged issue.
Let the Republics/Religous Zealots/etc are evil comments begin! Whats the diffrence between an Athiest and an Agnostic? Agnostic's dont try to push a no-judgements policy and they don't viciously attack religions (especially christian ones)
It is unfortunate that zealots (on any side) have made such an issue out of what should be a non-issue. I recited the Pledge daily as a child and recall no misgivings. I am not an especially patriotic fellow nor anti-government. I am not an especially religious fellow nor anti-religion. It seems that it might be a good thing to give schoolchildren a few moments to think about potentially more important things for a few moments a day. In reality, it becomes routine, and virtually no thought is probably given by a child. But in retrospect, I rather miss those days. Be it God, Allah, or whatever name one chooses to use, it is ALL under a greater mind than ours.
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
When I was in elementary school on an air force base, not only did we have to recite the pledge, but we had to sing either 'This Land is Your Land', 'God Bless America', or 'America (the Beautiful)' too. The song was chosen by whichever student was chosen to lead the class in the pledge.
I wonder if military bases will be influenced by this (whichever way it goes)...
Two fish swim into a wall, one turns to the other and says, "Dam".
Thank you very much. I'll be here all week, tell your friends.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
MSNBC (Yes I know, I'm too lazy to change my default home page...score one for MS) has this article with a little interesting tidbit at the end:
The phrase "under God" was not part of the original pledge adopted by Congress as a patriotic tribute in 1942, at the height of World War II. Congress inserted the phrase more than a decade later, in 1954, when the world had moved from hot war to cold.
Interesting that these contraversial two words where just an addition to seperate us from those "godless commies", no? Sounds on the whole rather silly now :-/
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
Before people start throwing around 'separation of church and state' and freedom of religion, remember that it's freedom *of* religion, not freedom *from* religion. Some groups want the pledge outlawed because it mentions God (heaven forbid!), others want it madatory for the same reason.
Personally, as a heathen (unbaptised agnostic if you will), I don't care. I said it as a child, and it hasn't ruined my life. Nor have I felt the government was forcing religion on me. The pledge is to the US, and our way of life. Not to God. I think the pledge should be said. Perhaps the bit about God removed though (I never understood it myself).
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
This is not a troll nor a flame it is my opinion, and similar to millions of Americans.
This country was founded "under God". It was founded by those who could not worship God because of persecution. There i s n o d e b a t e about this. This is history. If you disagree, return to your history classes. This phrase in no way establishes a state religion. This simply recognizes what has happened. The prohibition of state and religion is not that it cannot be reccognized. It is a prohibition of establishing a religion BY THE STATE and ENFORCED BY THE STATE that all most adhere to.
You are free to worship some buddha or something, but that does not change what this nation is. A nation founded by people seeking to worship God free from persecution.
Why can't michael leave the comments for the comment section? I guess michael's opinions are more important than the readers, right?
Exactly. Whether its modding down whole threads or posting editorial liberal stories...michael has frequently abuses his powers because to satisy his annoying activist needs.
Acidic Diarrhea, you've become the only person to ever move from my foes list straight to my friends list.
I find it offensive that they want to declare it unconstitutional now. Yes, I believe in God. But God is with us regardless of whether or not we have the "under God" words in the Pledge. But at this point removing those words--or ANY words--from the Pledge is like removing a few words from the Star Spangled Banner. Just don't touch it.
I am optimistic the Supreme Court will recognize that the Pledge, in its entirety, is part of our national culture. For better or worse, whatever religious overtones "under God" may have should have been argued nearly half a century ago before it became a part of our culture.
Just like "In God We Trust" on dollar bills. Probably improper, I probably wouldn't have put it there myself, nor does it change my life drastically whether it's there or not. But now that it's there, leave it alone. Don't mess with our culture and traditions.
The biggest point to me is that it didn't always include "under God" - and the original version is still used by the US military (if I'm not mistaken)... why not use it in the classroom as well?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
The way I see the first amendment is that Congress shouldn't recognize religion at all. Congress doesn't need to protect religion, freedom itself protects religion (except for religions that involve sacrificing virgins, etc, which we don't want anyway).
The question that people should be asking is: why are we making kids stand up and recite something in the first place? Teachers should be presenting facts and explaining concepts (hopefully in a balanced way, but that's hard to enforce), not encouraging partiotism.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
...and let the kids recite the Gettysburg Address. It's more stirring, it has a better pedigree, and it's not a Loyalty Oath. Oh, it's still got that "nation under God" phrase? Darn. How about just reciting the national motto, "In God we trust"? No good? Sing the national anthem? Well, the first verse is okay, since it's mostly about stuff getting blowed up, but suppose somebody notices that the later verses invoke the Almighty? Can't have that, can we? I know! Let's teach our kids what's really important in today's America, and have them recite the Microsft EULA. They should be able to get through it in time for lunch.
I've always thought pledging allegiance to some flag is a bit quaint. It makes no sense. And pledging allegiance to your country each and every day.. doesn't that strike you folks as a bit forced? A bit nationalistic? More the sort of thing schoolkids in China or North-Korea would have to do, rather than kids in a democratic country?
Ow, and the "under God" thing. Well, the US were kinda founded by people who didn't appreciate having religion forced through their throats, so it's only courtesy to, well, do unto others..
But it's the daily reciting thing that creeps me out most anyway - whatever the content of the stuff being recited, really..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
That must explain the plethora of late night coffee shops & tattoo parlors in downtown Sacramento. :P
;)
Elk Grove may be a bit conservative, but I dunno about the rest of the area..
(I lived downtown for many years)
I think this whole thing is quite ridiculous(?) honestly.
As I understand, "In God We Trust" was not part of the original pledge and was added sometime in the 50's, sort of a way to spite the 'godless commies' or something to that effect. In this respect I don't see anything wrong with putting it back the way it was before that, but really the whole argument seems pointless to me.
I remember in grade school saying the pledge every morning, and I also remember not getting in trouble for not saying it (at the time I was refusing to say it just trying to be a pain in the ass), and there was no real fuss made.
The thing is, most students from what I remember, just drone through the pledge without really knowing what they are even saying.
If you want to talk about promoting of religion in schools, I think the pledge is a bad example to give, what about all the christmas breaks, coloring pictures of santa, memorizing 'twas the night before christmas, singing silent night, etc. Things may have changed since I was in grade school, but that hasn't been very many years ago (I'm 19) and we were still doing all of those things then.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Read the reasoning for accepting this case more carefully. It is clear that the Supremes have no desire to decide whether or not "Under God" phrase should be included in the Pledge.
They took this case on an appeal based on whether or not the father had the legal standing to bring this case about (he is divorced and the wife has the custody - and she has no problem with the pledge).
In all likely case, the Supremes will throw this case out and rule that the father had no right to bring this case forward, and avoid whether or not "Under God" is valid.
Do you seriously think Scalia would recuse himself voluntarily if they were actually going to decide whether or not religious phrases should be included in a public display? NOT!!!
It's freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.
What exactly does this have to do with "News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters"?
If this nation were truly interested in liberty there would not be a dogmatic phrase at all. If students wish to burn the flag every morning in the parking lot they should be allowed to. Its their country too. Its their flag too. You don't own their opinion or free will or right to act towards the symbols of statehood as they see fit.
In most other nations this is not an issue as state worship is not the national religion.
The first amendment on religion
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
As for this slashdot comentary, I think if a student recited the pledge out of the blue in the middle of a lesson they'd be disrupting the class. I mean if we are going to stop doing the pledge because it's got the words 'under god', then should we change the pledge? Should we remove 'in god we trust' from our currency? Do we stop swearing in government officials with a bible?
The argument could be made that by banning the pledge from schools and the words 'god' from we are making a law respecting the establishment of the religion of athiesm.
-- Greg ( -- agnostic )
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Two, Christians earnestly wanting the "under God" part in there. Sheesh, Christians pledging their allegiance to a Caesar! But, but, but, it's God's Chosen Caesar [tm], so it's OK!
Note: I am a Christian. For Christians I recommend a reading of Ernest Tuveson's _Redeemer Nation_, which gets to the bottom of the heretical view of America as Messiah Nation, of which the Pledge is a small part.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Stuff that matters?
/!
Not on michael's
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with technology and shouldn't even be here.
allegiance to flag of the united gates of america.
And to the monoculture, for which it stands.
One Operating System, under god.
With blue screens and DLL hell for all.
Shorten to: I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stand, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I hated saying the pledge...pledge to a flag? WTF for? It's a waving piece of useless cloth. You should pledge to your nation regardless of if the flag is a dish towel. And who gives a shit about the under God part anyway, it's under dollar signs. /disenfranchised
Will I end up either in jail or in another country?
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Have we already forgotten the words of our forefathers?
Our first president recognized this quite clearly:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness...reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
- George Washington's farewell address, 1796
He knew that is impossible to claim morality while excluding religious principle. He also realized that without God it is impossible to rightly govern:
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
- George Washington
John Adams also recognized this:
"Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue."
- John Adams
Even Patrick Henry who once said "Give me liberty or give me death!" was even noted to recognize the importance of God in our society:
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
- Patrick Henry
The very freedoms we have today are centered around the principles of their faith. Man is given a choice every day to choose whom he serves.
Without God in our society the worst will happen, William Penn put it best:
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."
- William Penn
It's Zod. Seriously though, why can't we just change the pledge to keep up with the times? Maybe instead something like, "one nation, mindlessly consuming, with liberty and SUVs for all"?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Yuo r so rong! Amerca is teh centar of teh universe!!!!1one U r luky 2 b living in teh USA (9/11 nevar ferget) so u shud b prowd 2 b Amercan. Y do u guys hav 2 b anti-amercan?!? Mi Dad sayss peopol die for tihs country evry day and we shud b proud 2 liv in the land of the free. R u guyz Comunists or sumthin? My revarand say taht USA is #1 bcuz God made it so an we r 1 nation undar God and all that. I think it shud b a conistutiunal law 2 hav a bible in ur hous bcuz we r a nation under God. Wat is the prblm wiht saying teh pledge of alegance or having "One nation unedr God" on r money? Amercan Pride!!!!11one USA USA USA USA USA USA
I mean really, is this so big a concern? So you don't like saying the pledge with god references, TAKE THEM OUT. You don't like saying the pledge at all? DON'T.
See how simple that is?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
At the time of our Revolution, nine of our thirteen colonies had state-established churches, Congregational in the North and Anglican in the South. They overlapped, with no apparent understanding of the contradiction, with the eight new states who adopted Jefferson's clause, which he had proposed for his home Virginia, that granted freedom of religion, "according to the dictates of conscience." Jefferson's own Virginia did not embrace this language until ten years later. Freedom of religion was an emerging idea and even where the language of secularism took hold, the reality was more difficult.
All states had some religious restrictions. Even Pennsylvania, the state most Americans think of as the leader in religious liberty, required those in public office to swear that the Old and New Testaments were divinely inspired.
On reflection, none of this should surprise us. Many of our settlers had been religious fanatics England had sent away. Their descendants not only lacked modern travel and communication advances, about half lacked basic literacy. The Deists, prominent among our founding fathers, were a tiny minority among the populace or even the leaders at the state level. Catholics wisely stayed in Maryland, which had been established for them.
The admendment to the constitution says "Congress shall make no law" - The state churches sort of disappeared when the 14th(?) admendment passed with it's clause of equal protoection under the law.
Which is the knotty point. Can there be equal protection under the law if you allow for relgious statements? My take is that you can havc equal protection under the law, such as in criminal matters without kowtowing to every nit who gets his noise into a twist because I whisper the word "god".
Being worried about every possible cause of personal insult and offence is not equal protection, not for me.
In fact, the atheist is making arguments to enfarce atheism as the religion of the USA. Which is just as bad as the other choices.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It's always amazing to me how much people think that God needs defending.
Your relationship with God is the only important thing in the universe, and you don't need a government to tell you how to have a good relationship with your deity.
And I don't need the government telling me how to have a good relationship with your deity. And you don't need the government telling you how to have a good relationship with my deity.
Our country is also strong enough to not have to declare that it exists through God's will. We made it, not God. The prophet George Washington didn't see a burning bush that implored him to lead his soldiers across the Delaware.
Our nation, like every human institution, is fallible. The more we bring God into it, the less we respect him, our nation, and ourselves.
God might help you make your personal choices, but you make bad decisions, too. Giving God the credit for your successes, and taking personal blame for your failures is dehumanizing to you and everyone else, and it leads to both a sense of false security (in your bad decisions), and false insecurity (questioning your relationship with God, just because you messed up.)
P.S. - if this comment pissed you off, then contemplate living in a country that forces you to worship a God that you don't believe in. Now, recognize that's exactly what you're asking other people to do in America. It's not YOUR country - it's OUR country. And the only way we can all get along, is to keep separate our personal and political worlds.
You have your personal relationship with your God, I have my personal relationship with my God - and the laws of this land should not give either one of us preferential treatment.
God != America
Education is the silver bullet.
I think we should make it a crime to say the word God at all. Because just by saying it, someone could hear and be offended, and oppressed by the current religious majority. Then society would crumble and fall just because someone had the nerve to put God in a sentence.
Not "in theory" but "by law" a student cannot be penalized for not saying the Pledge. Well known in most high schools across the country, that; I didn't say it in high school nor did most of my friends, and nobody took any notice.
Where you failed to RTF'nA is that this is not a student saying "I was penalized for not wanting to say the pledge." Ergo, here's some relevant text (bolding mine):
Forced to hear it? You've really got to be kidding me, here. I heard a lot of things I disagreed with, even when I was nine, and even worse, his daughter had nothing to do with it other than being a stepping stone for him to sue, as per the CNN article (again, bolding mine):
Hrm. let's look at the Bill of Rights...
Boil it down. There will be no state religion, no laws saying "you can't worship this god or that one" (qv. Church of Satan, etc) you can't make a law abolishing freedom of speech (qv. CDA, CIPA, etc), and you can't keep the people from assembling peacefully.
Beautiful dichotomy we live in, here: In God We Trust, but Novuum Ordo Seculorum.
I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
All the noisy rhetoric aside, I think it's most likely that the appeal will fail due to a technicality: there's a good chance the father has no standing. Several articles say that he didn't have custody of the child at the time of the original lawsuit.
Lets see how long before michael abuses his unlimited mod points to slap down this comment and others that dare criticize his selfish, soapbox rant.
The key point here, and the reason the Supreme Court will decide in favor of the Ninth Circuit, is that until congress added "Under God", that phrase was not used when reciting the pledge.
The constituion has simple yet direct and literally applicatble language, when it states " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Congress made a law that established the Christian Religion as the defacto religion by enforcing "Under God" to be added. Its a simple as that.
An easy test case would be if the words "Under Allah" were to replace "Under God", would this not establish Islam in preference over Christianity? How does it not work the other way?
Most frustratingly, the solution is very simple. Remove "Under God" and put the pledge back to what it said before it was changed. Then, if people choose to say "Under God", which is their right, they can. There is no law, I believe, that gives any penalty to saying a pledge that might be different then the established norm.
To the people objecting to the removal, what is your logic? The history of "Under God" is very recent so it can't be an appeal to tradition. The only thing I can think of, is you wish to evangelize your religion.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
The CNN article's emphasis on voluntariness -- "whether schoolchildren can be allowed to recite the Pledge voluntarily" -- is grossly misleading, almost propagandistic.
Kind of like not letting people decide if an article is propagandistic on their own.... i mean make a comment as yourself because i don't think a lot of people understand that the news is cnn posting that, not your interpretation of the news.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
What the hell is Michael smoking here? They are not "the laws in question" They are going to decide on a California law. It may have precedence elsewhere at some other time. Michael should be either canned or at least forced to disclose that he is *obviously* not a lawyer.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So what do I comment on? The authors opinion or the article in question? First off I'll comment on the article... here in the UK none of our class children have to undergo such brainwashing so I can only give you my opinion on the POA (pledge of alliegence). I think asking a 6 year old child to speak highly of a piece of material on a stick with 50 stars and a couple of stripes on it is a little too Monty Pythonish for me... I find it rather silly and if I saw an Iraqi doing it I'd probably wet myself. As for the author, well his opinion his is own. As my old dad use to say, "Son, opinions are like arseholes. Others stink but your own don't smell so bad"
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
Seeing as how the phrase "under God" was added in the 1950s in response to the spread of "unholy" Communism, why not drop the phrase? It's not original, was added for purely political reasons, and can solve a lot of asinine problems if it is simply removed.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
/. is so pathetic anymore. A bunch of 20 somethings trying to live in a dream world imparted on them while they were not stoned at college.
The premise of the founding of this nation had little to do with religious freedom and everything to do with political and more precisely economic freedom.
I was brought up Catholic down South. It seems Catholics are "pagans" according to Evangelical Christians (statues in Catholic Churches are false idols it seems), and I heard plenty about me being a "pagan" in my public school classrooms as I was growing up. Any excuse to mention "God" or religion is taken by many in the educational system in the South as an opening to practice their evangelical work in the classroom. We spent more time in our weekly CYO church classes asking thing like why people we calling us pagans then we did on anything to do with being Catholic. Although I don't practice any religion anymore, in looking back I recognize what a problem those preaching public school teachers created for me and others who were not a member of the predominant faith. It's one of those "give them an inch and they take a mile" issues. If the door is left cracked open to any religious discussion at all, they burst the door open and dump their whole evangelical agenda on the students. Keep the religion out of the schools. Use the time for what it should be used for... reading, writing, and 'rithmatic.
1)Too Hungover
2)Too High
3)Too Tired
Most just tend to ignore the pledge.
The Pledge of Allegiance is in paragraph 172 of the U S Flag Code and has been changed three times: in 1923, the First National Flag Conference added the words "the Flag of the United States" in place of "My Flag"; in 1924, "of America" was added; and in 1954, the United States Congress added the words "under God" between "Nation" and "indivisible".
Sure, there's no law against voluntarily reciting the pledge at any time.
It's not about if they're ALLOWED to recite it, it's about if there's time set aside for it.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
If your are forced to say it in grade school regardless of your religion, or forced to "so help me god" in court, and when congress and judges start their sessions they are to start with a pledge clearing favoring one religions and money states "in god we trust" and ten commandments are displayed but not the tenents of every other religion (not even the tenants of any other religion for that matter)....
then the government is establishing one religion over another.
So with the current pledge of allegiance we are actually saying... athiest, polytheists, and all other non Jewish/Christian religions need not pledge their allegiance to America at all.
Is that what we want to do do? Marginalize other religions so we can someday enjoy the strife of the middle east? You are missing the point.
I'm hoping the result will void out the congressional act in the 50's putting the phrase, "Under God" into the pledge(As per the 1st amendment, which prohibits congress from respecting an establishment of religion), but require kids to pledge as per each state's law.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Remember that this case comes to the Supreme Court from the 9th Circuit, or as my Political Science professor repeatedly commented, "The Nutty Nineth." These guys are overturned more than any other district in the United States. Although if comments made here to the effect that Scalia will be reclusing himself from this case are true, that's one definate vote conservatives were guaranteed previously. With the current composition of the court, this could lead to some very interesting concurring opinions. I'm going to have to call some friends and make sure I get a reserved seat for the oral arguments on this sucker. I knew there was a reason I decided to move here for Law school. (and yes, there are tech nerds in law school)
The guy who wrote the pledge back in the 19th century was very religious, but after considering the issue, he decided to leave God out of it. Congress added God in the 1950's. Altering the text of an author's work without permission is an offense against IP law. And, although it is legal after the author's rights are expired, as they were for the pledge in the 1950's, it is very contrary to the current utmost respect in which copyright owners are held under the American system. Restore the old-time values. Restore the author's intent. Get the God out.
if we're going to strike any mention of a deity from government life i suggest the following changes as well:
Christmas is no longer a federal holiday.
That new 20 (and all money) we spend millions advertising must be redesigned.
the Consitution must be ammended to exclude the phrase "in the year of our lord..."
All religous items should be banned from government buildings (hey we'd hate for some one to SEE that you belive in god, and we can't offend them like you know...)
If you wish to make the Pledge strictly voluntary (as it already is where this case was originally brought), good.
But you can't possibly say a voluntary act constitutes forcing religion on anyone.
I fail to understand why the inclusion of "under god" in the Pledge is even thought to be a good idea in the first place. The United States has so many different religous opinions in it that such a statement doesn't seem very appropriate. Putting aside the validity of the idea of the pledge in the first place, let's assume its purpose is to make young people aware of their obligations to a larger common society of which we are all a part. OK, fine. What does "under god" have to do with the governmental unit that is the subject of the pledge? Not one darn thing. Religous communities are a different and private setup. Not what the pledge, even in its best light, is supposed to handle.
I strongly oppose ANY inclusion of anything religious where government is concerned. It's simply too dangerous to toy with - religion is typically absolutely convinced it is RIGHT, and everyone else is WRONG. The worst possible environment for democracy to flourish - it has no place in the United States government. Look at things like Pi being set to 4, or evolution not being properly taught in schools. These are not the people I want running the show - they are free to believe what they like, but making it a matter of law is something else entirely.
I think that's the core issue of this debate. The religous right has gained too much power in this country (it seems to parallel a rise in religous conservatism all over) and I think some of them view this as a threat. All the more reason to push the issue - if people are so gung ho to have some kind of religous sentiment included in an official government sponsered pledge, they should be fought just because of that eagerness. It is a dangerous attitude. Religion and government should be like oil and water - no mixing. At least officially. Of course, individuals may be religious if they want, but keep it out of government.
Equally interesting to me was the fuss made over the ten commandments display recently - some judge was willing to go way out of bounds to fight for it, and got a lot of supports to rally. To me, that's scary. People are at their most dangerous when they know they are RIGHT, and everyone else is WRONG. Religion seems to bring that out in people. Ergo, keep it away from government.
My solution - take the phrase out of the pledge. It serves no purpose. Remove in god we trust from currency. Instead of opening the meetings of Congress with a prayer, open it with something like
"Let all those who stand here on this floor today remember it is their first, greatest, and final duty to serve the best interests and carry out the will of the American people who have chosen to put you here. For honor, trust, loyalty, and the sake of our children's future, wield your power with the hand of justice."
No appeals to deity, nothing supernatural. Simply duty, honor, and justice. Let's get any and all religious overtones out of the governmental system. If taking them out upsets religous folk who are determined that religion have a place in government, I'd say mission accomplished. Problem is, we seem to have elected a lot of those people who want them. Is it really true that more people want religion in official expression? I hope I'm reading this wrong, because if I'm not it's a very scary time to be a citizen of the US. Not to mention the more and more fundamentalist Earth.
My favorite bit: "He [Justice Antonin Scalia] also reportedly said removing references to God from public forums would be 'contrary to our whole tradition.'" If that's all the reason, let's make new tradition. If a tradition gets squashed in removing a dangerous influence from government, so be it.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
This reminds my soooooo much of fascist states. I have to laugh when I think of schoolchildren pledging allegiance every morning.
Dump the whole pledge. I am an American. I am free by birth. My government doesn't give me my freedom. My freedom grants them their limited power. I am free not to pledge allegiance to politicians or governments including my own.
There are plenty of states where a child does NOT have to recite the pledge, or even stand while it is being recited.
Part of the suit is based upon the fact that a child has divorced parents. The mother, who has full custody, doesn't mind if the child says the pledge. The father, who has partial, is an atheist.
If the father does not have standing of custody, he shouldn't be allowed to bring the suit.
Michael, you are an idiot. I hope the SCOTUS leaves it as is JUST to piss you off! That would make my day.
Propaganda? Pot, meet kettle.
Besides, the constitution says no t oa state sponsored rteligion, not no to religion in general. There is no specific religion being touted here.
-- bearclaw
Are you familiar with the term editorial ? I don't think it really matters if his opinion shows up at the top or down with the rest of the comments - either way we know it's his opinion, right?
These days I'd more concerned about the whole "and liberty and justice for all" bit. How about some truth in advertising here?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Personally, I tend to distrust anyone so willing to go out of their way to fight that the existence of which cannot be conclusively proved or disproved. IMHO, a militant atheist is no better than a theist fanatic. Possibly worse, because h{is,er} agenda involves destruction of a large part of culture.
...does this have to do with technology? Idiots.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
This is a very important topic, even for slashdot. I don't know if this is true for the rest of the country but my friends (who are nerds) are mostly all atheist and we do not recite the pledge of alligiance. A few of them stand for it but I remain sitting. A few teachers made a fuss about it but the most hostility came from other students. Also, the reason I don't stand for the pledge is not because of the "under god" part. I just don't like how we are expected to pledge our allegiance blindly. What elementary student knows what they are saying? I'm not saying they need to stop pledging everyday, but they should make it more socialy acceptable to choose not to. I am one of mabey 5 people that doesn't stand and I feel others would join if they weren't shunned for it...
do unto others as you would have them do unto you
maybe the supreme court has nothing better to do?
Would you let a lawyer pilot the jet plan you are in? Why do we elect them into office...
love is just extroverted narcissism
The first amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..., yet Congress themselves added the phrase "under God" in 1954 and made it law. USC Title 4 Chapter 1 Section 4 states:
Pledge of allegiance to the flag; manner of delivery
The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, ''I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'', should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, and render the military salute.
Congress did exactly what it is prohibited from doing, it made a law respecting an establishment of religion. As much as some may disagree with this it is IMO a true examination of the facts...
The "under God" part of the pledge was explicitly added by Congress to show that we weren't atheists, like the damn communists. How could that not be offensive to atheists?
Bobby: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Teacher: (Pauses.) Well class, Bobby's just a little different from the rest of us, isn't he?
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
You know, the original pledge did not have the words "under god". They were added in 1954 as part of McCarthyism... to show how we weren't communists because communists were atheists.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. -- Walt Whitman
e.g.
- The State of Missouri cannot pass a law outlawing Christianity
- The city of Boston cannot require all residents to be Catholic
- And a public school teachers cannot lead their classes in prayer
What I don't understand is why so many people are threatened by the notion of a secular government?The thing that surprises me the most is that no teachers have sued over this. I would imagine that atleast one of the thousands of teachers being required to lead their classes in the Pledge of Allegiance would be athiest/polythiest/agnostic/etc.
I always liked that version ;)
;)) (i.e., it's easy to change a school pledge, very costly and unwieldly to redesign money - does the new USD $20 just starting to circulate still say "IN GOD WE TRUST*" over the White House?
Lets take bets on when the referance to GOD on USD money is challenged in the supreme count, bet THAT one looses
* all others pay cash
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
There's something about children pledging their allegiance to the gov't that seems a bit scary to me...Big brother and all that.
Now, I believe that the slogan of this site is "News for Nerds" - as an organization that claims to be involved with the news, everyone at Slashdot should know that in real news organizations, editorials are clearly marked as editorials and are usually placed in the "Editorial" section. On Slashdot, the area where opinions (and therefore the most natural editorial section) are voiced, is in the comments section. To place an obvious editorial on the front page makes the idea of this site presenting "news" laughable.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
now he adds his editorial.
/. seems like a dogmatic platform for Michael to spread his agenda.
Every time Michael makes a post like this,
Let them just insert the name of their God in the "under God" space.
:P
:P
So you can keep saying under God... or... you could say "under Allah", "under Buddah", "under Lucifer"
Yeah.. I am sure THAT would go over great. But when you think about it, if they can keep in "under God", then you should be able to replace God with whatever you believe in personally, or else the state is *blatendly promoting* Christianity.
Personally I would say "under Taco"*, but then I am not American
* J/K
Not only does the phrase "under god" imply that such a beast exists, but that there is only one. I guess freedom of religion only applies if you happen to practice one of the state sponsored religions.
And yes, that phrase should/must be excised from money as well.
Being an athiest is usually the result of being too lazy to subscribe to a religion backed with scripture.
Being an Athiest is the deliberate disbelief in any god whatsoever. Unlinke being an agnostic where you have an open mind to possibilties but really don't care either way, Athiests must actively believe that there is no supreme being.
They have no bibles and no organizations... yet they are pationately against the existence of any possibility of god. They also feel compelled to preach their non-belief to believers!
Pretty much like a religious zeolot without a religion... A bunch of gluttons if you ask me. Fat ass athiests of ther world unite!
I remember the policy manual read: Students who do not wish to recite the pledge shall maintain a respectful silence during the recitation.
There. End of story. Don't want to recite it? Don't. Just STFU for those who do.
Generally it's only totalitarian governments that require flag prayers/pledges. The US flag prayer is somewhat anomalous in this regard.
Personally I am not comfortable with my own child chanting this in the morning, in case he might actually mean it. It's a bit too redolent of the old Roman legionaries' oath: first to the standard, then the emperor, and only finally to the empire.
But if you slice the flag out, it's hard to object: "I pledge allegiance to the United States of America. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." If you're not a visitor to the USA, could you legitimately object to that?
Regardless, it should truly be voluntary. After all, everyone has the right to their own opinion, and it would be un-American to prevent someone from objecting to the republic!
A free country should not have an "oath of fealty" at all, let alone one used to indoctrinate schoolchildren every day. Facist and socialist countries force loyalty out of their citizens, but a government by the people should have to earn that respect.
The words "under God" weren't even in the original Pledge of Alliegiance, so good riddance, but ideally the whole thing should be struck from the lawbooks.
When ever I chose to recite the Pledge, I just left that part out, as I am an atheist. What would be the problem with those who don't want to say it, or if they want to say "under gods" or "under buddah"? If they have to recite the "under god" part when they recite the Pledge, then I say don't allow the Pledge to be recited at all.
No matter where you go, there you are. So Enjoy it.
In the past the court has ruled that it is too much of a burden on a child to have to stand up for his/her principles and "opt out" of prayer like before football games etc.
Going to school should not require a child to have to make daily moral decisions. "Do I look like an outcast to my friends/fellow students or do I lie and swear false allegence?" There's enough indoctrination in school as it is (and not enough real education).
Lets do job No. 1 first. Then maybe we can honestly debate the existance of god or God.
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
When I was 9-11 years old, I lived in the US and attended two years of elementary school in California. No one suggested to me that - as an Australian citizen - I could get out of pledging allegiance to the US flag. So I made up my own words - usually I pledged allegiance to the flag of the Confederate States of America (I was into American Civil War history in those days). In all the mumbling and muttering of words by my classmates, no one noticed what I said.
Moral is: do you really know what other people are saying, when they are supposed to be reciting the pledge?
PS: to an Australian, you all sound like you are saying "one nation under guard" (we don't pronounce the 'r' in guard). An interesting thought to those concerned about militarism.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Either you didn't pay attention in US History in high school, or you didn't have it. I could grace you with a well written essay on the true causes of the Revolutionary War, but I'm not going to, because you obviously don't care enough to read it if you advise people to return the history class you were snoring in.
Your assertion that the founding of the country was religious in nature is ludicrous. I don't care whether you intend that to mean that in reference to the Revolutionary War or the colonization of the eastern seaboard, you're just wrong.
If you want to talk about a portion of the colonists, this is true. Some of them came over for religious reasons.
Don't preach in such an authoritative tone without some fucking history next time, asshole.
>blogs that will hire
-pyrrho
Just Shut Up!!!
Just post as AC and type "OFFTOPIC" in subject and body if you think this story is offtopic for /.
Legal precedent makes reciting the pledge a voluntary act, but Newdow argues it is unconstitutional for students to be forced to hear it, saying the teacher-led recitations carry the stamp of government approval.
Michael why the rant? It has been clearly voluntary for decades. Some refuse to say it for religious reasons. Did you read the article? The is issue is can they be forced to hear a teacher-led recitation and does that give a stamp of government approval?
In 1923-24 the Pledged was ammended to:
Finally in the 1950's the phrase "under God" was added as a response to Communism. So, if you really want to stay with the original, take out the religous bit.
Oh, and prior to WWII, the offical salute to the flag was to extend your right arm up and out, palm facing the flag. Sound familiar?
I was an atheist in high school and I hated having to recite 'under God' in the pledge. In fact, I went silent whenever that part of the pledge came up. I felt like an outcast every time I did it, and considering this was a Southern small-town school, I was worried about anyone wondering why. 'Under God' should be removed or the pledge should not be required at schools. Its easy for the mainstream to say that you can just not recite it because they don't have to feel like a freak.
I'm an athiest, but I think people who devote themselves to removing every reference to God in public life need to get a life of their own. I'm presented daily with things offensive to me, and I suck it up and move on in a live-and-let-live philosophy. I'm getting increasingly tired of people who feel it's their place to expunge references to the Almighty from every venue, except presumably the privacy of one's home, where worship can be treated like some shameful secret. A reference to God doesn't entitle me to supress public speech any more than those references to The Environment (which I take to be essentially "Mother Gaea" worship in quasi-secular form). How about we also accord the religious people some of that "tolerance" we hear so much about?
Start your own site, or STFU.
Constitutional issues aside, every Christian organization in the U.S. should be OPPOSED to the recitation (voluntary or compulsory) of the pledge of allegiance, given that it amounts to a big, fat act of idolatry.
Dave Riesz
While most of the debate over the Pledge will focus on First Amendment issues, I look at this as an attack on cultural identity. The United States was indeed founded on religious principles. While these principles do not play an active role in government as they do in more theocratic societies, they are nonetheless essential to understanding this country's reasons for existing and the motivations of those who founded it. The Pledge merely describes the Founders' ideals: to create a Republic that is unified ("one nation", "indivisible"), promotes "liberty and justice for all" and so on. "Under God" points out the religious perspective from which they set forth such a nation, and should not be removed. One might just as well issue a revised version of the Declaration of Indepenence for schoolchildren to study that removes references to "Nature's God", "Divine Providence" and the "Creator".
This whole case is a load of crap.
What people don't know is that this whole case was the work of a single person, Michael Newdow, who has been trying for years to pursue his crazy adgenda of rewriting history. This is not the first time he's sued over his perception of religion in government. He tried to sue Congress and the Army because they both have chaplains. Both cases were dismissed because he had no standing to complain. He brought up the Pledge first here in Sacramento. He committed perjury by making claims that his daughter was traumatized and emotionally scarred by having to recite a pledge she didn't believe it.
Perjury. He and his wife separated well before he brought his suit. His wife and daughter both attend church and the daughter quite willingly participates in the pledge. The case was eventually thrown out, again, because he had no standing to complain since he didn't have custody. Why he was not charged with perjury escapes me.
Things changed a year later. His wife moved I think to Florida (probably to get away from this kook) but somehow he got partial custody or visitation rights. Tada, now he had standing. He promptly filed suit again...EVEN THOUGH HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER NEVER CLAIM INJURY.
So basically we have a complete nut and anti-religion zealot using a lie and his daughter to promote his adgenda. And yet he's being called a hero?
Regardless of what people believe, history cannot deny that this country was founded by religious men with religious principles. God is mentioned, referrenced and cited. Aetheists somehow want people to believe that the mere presence of religion in history causes them harm. Why don't they give up their Easter and Christmas holidays if they are so offended by the government's tacit endorsement of religion?
There are aetheists who want to re-date our entire timeline so as not to center around the birth of Christ. So should we have the entire country reset all our clocks in the name of separation of church and state? They are already lawsuits trying to get every instance of "AD" in government (including stone monuments, cornerstones, etc) changed to "ACE".
Stop it stop it stop it.
People like Michael Newdow are a plague on our society. Troublemakers for the sake of making trouble. The expression goes, give them an inch and give up a mile.
It's simple, if aethists want to make changes like this or get "In Dirt We Trust" put on a coin, etc. then they should find some legislators who agree with them. But they are in denial that aethism is a minority view, and rather than accept that the majority wills something, they want to try to make everyone so miserable that we give in to them.
Aetheists like Michael Newdow are NO DIFFERENT than some yahoo suing to make a Department of God because its absence offends him. We would never accept a minority kook trying to make a religious change that the majority feels is unwarranted, so we do we accept a minority kook trying to make an anti-religious change that the majority feels is unwarranted? It's called the status quo and it will be maintained and should be maintained until a significant portion of the population feels that change is warranted. Otherwise the entire country is subject to the irrational whims of the minority and everything is chaos.
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
He thinks slashdot is his own personal platform to push his pet issues whether they are relevant to slashdot or not. He has done this almost from the beginning of his days as slashdot editor. He has no problem espousing his opinion even when he has no clue about the issue.
He must believe that people read slashdot to read michael's "insights" like the stuff you see attached to the story that cannot be modded or filtered.
Basically, michael now holds the slashdot readership hostage when he gets on his soapbox.
that the Father is using his 9 year old daughter as a pawn to push his political agenda. Given the mother's statements, I seriously doubt the 9-year old, herself, objects to the pledge.
As a member of the US military, or children under 18 of military members, you are official US government property, with only whatever ordinary citizens' rights and privileges that the military wishes to allow you to have until you leave the military.
The rank of 5-star General is still at least one rank below Mister.
I suspect that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case because it desperately wants to overturn the 9th Circuit Court's decision banning the pledge (and yes, despite what the /. editors say in the story heading, this actually *is* about banning the pledge altogether). The 9th Circuit's decision is wildly unpopular amongst conservatives, and they want to make it go away. It's no secret that our conservative Supreme Court despises the decision as well. They have ruled against similar cases in the past, so as soon as it hits the court it's hasta la vista to the ban.
It's too bad because I rather like the thought that kids won't have to be brainwashed by religion and false patriotism on a daily basis. If I had a religion it wouldn't involve a diety, so the pledge just seems plainly inappropriate. When I was a kid I mangled the words in creative ways when they made us say the pledge, and I always skipped the "under god" part.
As you almost but not quite point out, if you want to go back to the original internationalist socialist version, you need to get rid of the "United States of America" bit and go back to the "My Flag" version.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'd like to see the congress-approved version of the pledge rolled back to the pre-1954 version. The version used from 1896 till 1954 was "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". By including "under god" in the pledge, on our currency, in oaths, etc. our government is excluding everyone who is polytheist or atheist. The US is supposed to be a place where people have religious freedom, that includes people who don't believe in a god that rules our country.
I presume this post will be down-modded, but the question needs asking.
This is an interesting story, but I don't see why it is "News for Nerds." It's interesting news for Americans; it's news of such great interest to Christians that I've even submitted it to the new Good Fig site which is a News for Christians site that follows the Slashdot format:
http://www.goodfig.org
It's interesting that one of the most highly discussed Slashdot articles of all time isn't entirely topical.
> Is there anything wrong with the Pledge? Is there
> anything wrong with saying it? Is there anything
> wrong with believing what you are saying?
Is there anything wrong with coercing a pledge from children? Is there anything wrong with forcing children of a variety of religious and non-religious backgrounds to make religious pledges involving someone else's religion? Don't know where you come from buddy, but I'd say it's wrong.
> Is there anything wrong with having pride in your
> country, even if you don't agree with its
> government sometimes?
No, blind patriotism is a fabulous tool for autocrats. It's great in fact. I think the Taliban would rate it really well.
But here's a question for you - exactly what do coerced pledges have to do with patriotism? The typical reason we see forced shows of patriotism is that some political party is trying to prove that it's more patriotic than another. How pathetic.
You probably have a flag on your car as well, don't you? That was the fashionable way to flaunt patriotism last year - but now they're mostly dirty and tattered. The folks who put them up were looking for a lazy way to show support for our country and have shown that they're often too lazy to even take them down when they're filthy and torn.
> Anti-Americanism within America is really annoying.
Not half as annoying as Americans that think free speach and critical thinking are unamerican. What does America mean to you? A totalitarian theocracy in which you're left alone as long as you never critize a conservative move in government?
OK, I'm not real fond of the "under god" bit, nor do I think that anyone should be compelled to pledge allegiance in our public schools. But why oh why do we pledge allegiance to a flag? I don't give a rats ass about it, its a piece of cloth, a symbol with no meaning. How's about a pledge of allegiance to the Constitution. Oh wait, then we might think we have rights or something.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
There is no such thing as god, and if you believe there is you're weakminded and should shoot yourself in the face. that is all.
wud
have been refusing to say the pledge or participate in holiday parties since forever.
What makes their children so special that they can refuse to say the pledge?
I find it highly ironic that religious people who are often claimed to be mindless sheep can manage to raise their children to stand out from the crowd while parents of those who claim to be freethinkers are petrified of their children being anything but sheep and following the crowd.
Stop whining about conspiracy theories to brainwash your children and spend more time instilling a backbone in them. I don't bitch to the school everytime some teacher goes on about evolution.
Personally I don't care either way. I just find it funny. The dad who was fighting against the pledge "for his little girl" apparently is raising a little girl who actually LIKES to say it. Maybe you should take a moment and ask your children what they think before shooting your mouth off and telling everyone what you think they think.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
The CNN article's emphasis on voluntariness... is grossly misleading, almost propagandistic... Most states have laws requiring the pledge to be recited every day as a class activity
More Slashdot FUD. Did any of you editors actually go to public school in the US?
Pledging allegiance was voluntary when I went, thirty years ago. Many students did not pledge. Some were Jehovah Witnesses. Others weren't US citizens. Still others simply chose not to. This wasn't in some "enlightened" urban school, but down in deep rural America.
The schools may be required in some states to have this activity. But it is not required for any of them to coerce any students into participating.
No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to.
And no state has a law requiring anyone from reciting it either. If you don't want to say, don't say it. Duh!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
... while they are at it.
It used to be apledge to "My Flag" not "the flag of the united states of america".
It was written by a clergyman, as a tribute(or somesuch) to his brothers Socialist Utopian books.
Wierd, aint it?
My version might be a little off, but not much.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One of the controversial cases of church vs state in early US history involved whether or not the Post Office should be open on Sunday and whether it should transport mail on Sunday. This is back when some of the framers and many who knew the framers were still alive. It was a hot issue, and the buck was passed to a commission headed by Johnson, a Baptist and a war hero. The commission decided that it would be an improper extablishment of a state religion to shut down the US Post Office on Sundays, and thus Post Offices were thereafter open on Sundays and mail moved on Sundays. So, we see that strong efforts to support a strict separation were certainly in place in the early days of our republic. (Madison declared a Thanksgiving, but later said that it was a mistake, so these things are never clear-cut.)
Yes the headline and other aspects of the story are misleading, but look below the surface and you will see more. The crux of the dad's lawsuit is that he objects to his child merely being forced to hear the pledge, even if reciting it is voluntary. A ruling in his favor would amount to banning the pledge being conducted in an organized fashion in schools, as the article states. It wouldn't ban anyone individually saying the pledge whenever they want, but who does that?
I am an atheist myself and I'm raising my daughters to be atheists. I know they will eventually go their own ways, but I want them at least to have a healthy skepticism about unsubstantiated beliefs in general, and to recognize that religious beliefs in particular have a long history of inflicting conflict and suffering. I don't want them to have to hide from religion or pretend it doesn't exist. I want them to be able to hear two words in the pledge of allegiance and not feel uncomfortable about it. That's why I think the dad in this case is going in the wrong direction.
This ruling could have vast consequences in terms of how religion can or can't be talked about in school. Could different religious belief systems, or even the fact that they exist, be discussed in schools without infringing on the rights in question? I want religion to go away, but what I want is for people to reject it, not for the government to suppress it. The last thing I want is for religion to go underground and do its persecuted underdog routine, which it does very well.
It's kind of ironic that with an issue that hits so many people's hot buttons as this does, the hearing of the case depends on the details of one couple's divorce and child custody status. If the court refuses to hear the case because the dad has no legal standing to bring it on the kid's behalf, a huge segment of the general public will interpret that as a rejection of the claim itself, which will be completely wrong (but sort of typical of the way our system operates).
In my mind, there are two issues involved.
1. The pledge invokes god.
2. The pledge is basically an oath to the U.S.
The two words "under god" where not part of the pledge until 1954 (I might be slightly off on the year). Personally, I would prefer they revert back to the original pledge without those two words. They have no place in the pledge, and they especially have no place in a public school.
The second point, as an oath to the country, isn't really a big point, EXCEPT when the student in question is not a citizen. My daughter is not a citizen of the U.S. (not yet). Why should she be forced to basically swear an oath? For her, it's not so serious since she'll be a citizen within a year and she considers herself an American (except with better grades). However, there are many people here in this country who are only temporary (parents with H1-B visas are but one example). This oath can be a problem for them.
Don't tell me it's voluntary. In all too many cases it is not. I have heard of cases where teachers demanded the students perform the pledge. You must also take into account peer pressure. Peer pressure can be a force of good or bad, depending on the situation. Either way, peer pressure is simply a group appying pressure, psychological or otherwise, to get someone to do something they may not wish to do. Peer pressure is a very powerful force. It can also be violent. There have been cases of kids getting beat up by other students for their refusal to participate in some activity (class prayers in the not so distant past is one nasty example).
So remove "under god", and make sure the teachers remind the classroom that participation is completely voluntary. If the teacher suspects any sort of coercision, deal with it. If the teacher is guilty of coercion, he/she should be fired.
-- Will program for bandwidth
That's sloth, not gluttony, wannabe-troll boy.
This kind of issue is the kind of thing that any idiot can have an opinion about because it requires very little knowledge or research. It's mostly emotions. Thus, it is perfect as a form of political entertainment to keep everyone busy while the "hard" issues get decided while nobody is looking. Keep the proles entertained and the government can go about its business of pushing money around to campaign contributors.
Really, the argument is irrelevant. Forced recitation of a memorized collection of phrases isn't going to make anyone patriotic or religious. In fact, it more or less trivializes the excercise and turns what could be a well-considered oath into a mechanical regurgitation. It means nothing and the pending decision will mean nothing.
In the end we have nothing but emotional pontificating making everyone feel righteous. Meanwhile, the national security industry and the "intellectual property" industry buy more of your rights and every other industry buys more of your tax dollars.
This was one of the most active slashdot stories? Ok, not being american my logic would go something like this:
Should it be compulsory for students (or anyone) to pledge allegiance?: No
Should it have "under god"? or is that religion in the state?: Its up to whoever is saying it, Yes it is if its said in connection with the state
Should people therefore be banned from pledging allegiance or banned from using the "under god bit"?: WTF? No!
Any dispute?
I think the main problem here is how to combine the two versions. Do you have them both said at once and risk the whole class going un-synced? or do you do one and then the other, with the other set of kids covering their ears when they're not doing theirs? Or do you do it at the same time but have the non-god kids go silent for the under god bit?.. OR do you separate the kids into two rooms? or do you have them in the same room and just use sound-masking technology to stop them hearing each-other?
These are the sort of tough questions that America must answer. I mean god forbid a court room was actually used to discuss something usefull like, i dunno, the rogue president that keeps bombing things. Im honestly not trolling, im totally serious here - how many times has George Bush's sanity been discussed in a court? and is the pledge of allegiance more important than most other issues around today?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
We don't have things like that in it; they [don't] apply to everybody.
"I pledge al..."
"Sit down Mikey, and do you math assignment."
"But the Supreme Court said I could..."
"Shut the hell up Mikey!", the teacher says as she slaps Mikey across the face with a ruler.
As you can tell I went to Catholic school where violence was part of the curriculum (sp?).
Everyone should know that the under god part of the pledge was added in the 50's when everyone was acting holier-than-thou, kind of like some people (I'm looking at you George) still act that way now that they have finished their boozing and coking. It should be removed. How hard is to understand, that church and state are supposed to be seperate and government organizations shouldn't be blathering on about god. That doesn't mean you can't believe in god, I just don't have to hear about it when I am in public school. Keep your pagan rituals at home.
LoRider
Ed`i*to"ri*al, n. A leading article in a newspaper or magazine; an editorial article; an article published as an expression of the views of the editor.
"His role is to just post the article. His role is not the tonesetter of discussion."
I see you've appointed yourself job description manager for Slashdot. Editors, take note, you are no longer allowed an opinion or to publish editorials; you are now only html formatters and may also no longer discriminate on what gets posted to Slashdot as that also constitutes the expression of an opinion. In fact, you may no longer post articles to the front page, as that too may be construed as having an opinion on the subject... all articles should now be redirected to MSN to be suitably screened for relevancy.
Anyways... don't like Slashdot? Start your own website.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
This got an offtopic mod?
How the hell did that happen? He specifically talked about the topic.
Idiot moderator. If you want to abuse your power, don't be stupid about it. Mod then down overrated, and then you wont be meta-modded.
As a kid, the school I went to required all students to recite the national anthem and say a prayer every morning at assembly. I resented it because I did not believe in religion or nations.
But it's not that big a deal. I didn't have a problem with everyone else doing what they felt was right. I was smart enough to stay silent through the whole thing. We need to stop being so sensitive about these things.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Why does /. not show years? Or not have the option to show them that I can find?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
It's also news for brights. Hopefully, a majority of "nerds" are brights.
While we're on the topic of new words, I want to introduce the word "dafts".
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
You can read the history of the Pledge of Allegiance at this page
MOD THE CHILD UP!
Why the fuck are school children pledging allegience to the flag anyway. Why not pledge allegience to something that means something. Why not pledge to the the Constitution?
This is exactly why we need to look at school vouchers or tax credits. People who don't want their kids to go to Government Schools should have the right not to pay twice for their school. If a parent wants all mention of God out of their school, so be it (go to a Government School). Otherwise, that parent should be able to spend their tax dollars on a school that holds their values. Not the values of the ACLU (you can't honestly say that the ACLU even has values). I just think it's odd that so many Slashdotters who hate America demand that proud Americans pay for schools that bash America.
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you!
Be it "under God" or anything, the whole concept of "allegiance" is something I don't believe a 5-year-old, or 11-year-old, or even a 16-year-old can be expected to understand.
It feels so propagandistic
I won't go into the irony of "freeing" other countries when America is so controlling...
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
The pledge was written by a clergyman, because of his brothers enjoyment of Socialist Utopian books.
it didn't mention united states, it said "My Flag" and there was no mention of God.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Anytime somebody wants to defend his actions, you should use this to show one of his shining moments of stupidity.
not too mention his statements from the article are totally wrong.
No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to.
Uhmm, except that a simple google search on "voluntary school prayer" immediately showed a third result of This case. From the article:
A 22 word prayer, crafted by the New York State Board of Regents, was read aloud daily in public school classrooms. Student participation was voluntary. On June 25, 1962, the Court ruled the Regents' prayer unconstitutional.
In a public school, I cannot lead a group prayer, even voluntarily. Prayer must be seperate from the school. Then, following the page a whole three links down, there is full text of a bill urging congress to pass a "voluntary prayer" ammendment to the constitution. From the house resolution:
32 WHEREAS, voluntary student prayer formed a part of American public schools [33] from their origination in 1642 for over three hundred years afterward, until [34] the U. S. Supreme Court, in a 1962 ruling, which the court said was "without [35] precedent," struck down what it described as "voluntary, nondenominational [36] school prayer";[]=line numbers
Despite what the all-knowing michael says, evidently after 0 minutes of research, there ARE LAWS AGAINST VOLUNTARY PRAYER. Of course, he says "no state," and since it was ruled unconstitutional, it would actual be the federal government prohibiting it. Yeah, thats what you must have meant, right michael? "no state has a rule against it, just the federal government." sure... how about doing some research before embarassing youreself. Oh, and you ended your sentence with a preposition.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
You can check it out here: http://www.ffrf.org/articles/pledge1983.html
When I was a kid, I recited the pledge just like everyone else in my school every morning. I memorized it. I had no idea what it meant. Talk about brainwashing. They never once told me that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to. We never once discussed what the pledge meant. Why do we make kids do this? Whats the point? Shouldn't we wait until they are old enough to decide for themselves before we have them make pledges?
By the way, as far as I know, America is the only country whose citzens pledge allegience to a FLAG.
Christian principles? I know you're just a troll, but you ought to know that the majority of founding fathers were Masonlic Dieists.
Here's some good quotes:
http://religion.aynrand.org/quotes.html
As an atheist, I would be willing to leave the references to God in the pledge and on our money if we could put "We love our dark Lord Satan" on our coins.
That's all I ask, a little fairness.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I hope you're aware that the colony was absorbed into the union, which is secular. Talk to the people around you -- they should be able to confirm this fact.
What's the big deal is. If you don't believe in God, what does it matter? If you're agnostic, etc., and this matters to you, I can't help but wonder what kind of loser you have to be. AFter all, you're swearing allegiance to something that, in your mind, you don't care about or believe in, so doesn't that cancel it self out? It's like saying, I promise to obey that "rock". Ideologically, isn't that the same thing to an agnostic? "One nation, under [a rock/a cloud/the sky/space/the sun/God]"...how and why could it possibly matter to these people. Why can't people simply ommit it when saying it?
...and yes, I see national pride as being important and so, I see the need for a national pledge in schools. Nothing better than helping people feel like they belong to something...anything, to help outcasts and misanthropes of this world. Helping them, helps us help our selves!
What about people that believe in different names for God? Calling a dress a skirt is pretty much the same thing? So, why does it matter to them? Tomato, tomato. Seems like the same thing. Finally, could these people simply say, "one nation under Allah"...etc., who's going care one way or another.
I don't understand why courts have to have their time taken up with this. It's sad! Are our brains so small these days that they can't filter out something we don't believe in??? This is as stupid as the cases surround the ten commandments in that courthouse. Who f-n cares?!?! Even if you're not a Christan, you have to be pretty dang stupid to object to those. After all, there are some pretty good rules to get alone with each other in those. Things like, "don't murder", "don't hump your neighbor's wife", "don't hold false witness", etc, etc., all seem like pretty good ideas to me. Have people become so narrow and closed minded that they simply can't use their brain matter and decide for themselves the parts they can agree with and the parts they want to ignore?
To me, these cases say nothing about religion and everything about how petty, selfish and self absorbed most American's have become today. Remember when America used to be about "...we the people..." and not, "...what can America do for me and my group?"
I see nothing but narrow, tiny minds...
"Going to school should not require a child to have to make daily moral decisions." !!! What an astonishing thing to say. Every day involves some moral decisions no matter what we're doing, and that's part of what we need to learn to do as we grow up. What better way to do it than to stand by your convictions even when it's not what most other people are doing! And what an excellent argument for leaving the pledge just the way it is!
Or would you rather raise a generation of amoral slugs?
And the brethren went away edified.
And if it's not completely voluntary (i.e. not prompted or led by school officials), then what's the point? Any pledge, if not voluntary, other than for indoctrination purposes, is completely meaningless. And this is the good ol' US of A. Who needs indoctrination of school age children? That's something only the commies and nazis do, right?
Now that I think of it, are there any universities which have the students recite the Pledge? If a student is of an age where he can take an oath to join the military, the Pledge has much more meaning.
Because the only thing christians hold in higher regard than martydom, is their pride. In their prideful minds they believe that retracting these words would somehow be "defeat" and make their delusion less of a world religion.
They'll rant and scream and they don't mind being intellectually dishonest about it either, because lying for the jesus-myth... well, that's not really lying.
That almost sounds like brainwashing to me. Allegiance to a nation and all the ramifications that go along with that are not things that children are generally equipped to consider. They lack the maturity and objectivity.
Secondly, taking the pledge is a patriotic act. Plenty has been said about the folly of patriotism . Here's some of it:-
"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious" -Oscar Wilde
"It is man, not systems of man, to whom I owe my allegiance. I care nothing for the flag to which you pledge, I care only for the actions by which you represent yourself as a good or bad person."
"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, 1945.
"Nationalism is an infantile disease" Albert Einstein.
"If an American is concerned only about his nation, he will not be concerned about the peoples of Asia, Africa, or South America. Is this not why nations engage in the madness of war without the slightest sense of penitence? Is this not why the murder of a citizen of your own nation is a crime, but the murder of citizens of another nation in war is an act of heroic virtue?" Martin Luther King, Jr.
"My patriotism is not an exclusive thing. It is all-embracing, and I should reject that patriotism which sought to mount the distress or exploitation of other nationalities." Gandhi.
It says in the bible to not take oaths or swear under any name, but let your yes be your yes, and your no be your no. Saying a pledge to such a thing as a flag or a country goes against this.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
Please mod parent sideways.
The pledge is nothing but a good old conditioning device. Brainwashing.
Are you ever amazed by how fast your knees jerk when the US is criticized? Are you wondering about your inability to find even the smallest flaw about the US society? Do you think little children saying pledges is a good idea?
I don't know any other western country where there is a mandatory (or even volountary) pledge to your nation. There certainly isn't one here.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
One Nation Under God.
I see the meaning of this as we are a single nation who is not controlled by any other nation and that we stand by ourselves. If we said One Nation Under No One, sounds very threatening and more dictatorship. So we can use God who is a Force for Good and the leader of all. Now Even though I believe in God there is a chance that God may not exist, but in the case there isn't a God then the word is a term "All thats Good". So I rather stick with Under God then mess up the poetic and the message for the pledge.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's about making non-religious and other non-Christian kids different.
Why not remove "Under God" and allow those who want to say it to do so? That way, the government isn't taking the position that non-theists are second-class citizens, but people who want to feel special can still mutter those two meaningless words.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Jesus christ, the vision of ranks of children droning allegiance to an ideology every day was disturbing enough when it happened in Nazi Germany...
The case is going to go ahead without strom thurmond, who said earlier that he dissagreed with the lower court. So theoreticaly the ban has a much better chance of being passed. If the court ties in a 4-4 verdict, the lower court ruling will stand as well.
Although, given the response after the origional ruling, I wouldn't be suprised if someone tried to get an amendment added to the constitution spesificaly allowing it, or worse...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
You're wasting your time. These "people" believe what they want to believe, and in this particular case, what they want to believe is that 100% of the Founding Fathers were extreme right-wing, Jerry Falwell-style fundamentalist Christians. The fact that this is not true is not particularly meaning to them. If the ghost of Thomas Paine appeared in front of one of these people and said "I was a Deist", their response would be "No, you weren't."
I guess I first don't see what the issue is. We have similar expressions on our money and in many of the documents that founded the US. I'm a person of faith and I can't honestly say that I really understand how it's a religious expression in the first place, or is it simply that the word "God" is used, outlawing words seems a lot like thought crime to me. It's not like they are teaching religion or something, it's simply a word. "God God God!" Did that hurt? How about your freedoms, did I force you to think something you don't believe or something? "Jesus God Abraham God Muhamad God Jesus Buddha Bible, mecha Streisand!" how are you doing now? Should I turn myself in to the ACLU? Did I hurt you too much?
Secondly, so suppose it's volunteer, well would it be okay for the school to hand out printed copies to the students? People seem to go apeshit at the idea of the school handing out Bibles, prayer is volunteer also and in most schools that outsiders are those that pray. That's fine though, I don't think the constitution says that you're free from what people think about you or say about you, if you are peer pressured in to saying the pledge then so be it, so long as the teacher isn't pressuring you. The states should be force to change their laws to make it optional, they are well within their rights to provide the time to teachers though.
I think this is a big part of the dumbing down of not just America but the whole world. Religious freedom is a paramount freedom but it's no excuse for being uneducated. The one thing that is known to reduce hate and hate crimes is education, it is the only thing that seems to work routinely. Most Americans get a public school education, because of that they have little knowledge about Islam (which sounds incredibly similar to the Muslum world and their education about Christianity, the west and Judaism; kind of hard to dehumanize a race when you kind of understand how and why they are, so they ban all and any teaching about Jews in most of the middle east and sure enough, most Arab nations don't think they should exist.) Seems most have a fairly trivial knowledge of Christianity and Judaism as well, from my experience. The reason there is any debate over this is because should it be outlawed to have kids optionally say the pledge, then there is no way that it will be discussed, there is no way anybody will allow the school to print out copies of it for kids to read and optionally say and it will die because people are scared of a word. How then are we supposed to educate our children about the religions of the world? With any seriousness. States have laws that require students to pass certain exams before they can graduate highschool; should a world religious studies type class be prohibited from such tests because it forces students to learn about such things? Part of me thinks that kind of logic is like state sanctioned intolerence, because we are so afraid of the word God and who knows how many other "religious words" we're going to ban those topics from public education, rather than learning about them and hopefully gaining a better understanding for others.
I'm all about religious freedom and I'm really not in favor of the state imposing on the church, I like the separation for many reasons but I think when we squable of things like this we're setting ourselves up for failure long term because we're making subject taboo, subjects that require understanding and subjects that enable us to be good members of the world community and relate to our brothers and sisters of all creeds, races, sexual orientations, nationalities, etc.. That's what they did in 1984.
You want to make the world better and end conflict then start teaching our kids about the different people of the world and why they are different rather than trying to hide a word from them. Maybe in a thousand years when there are no more wars it might make sense to start sanitizing our language but not now.
Scalia, strom thurmond, what's the diffrence?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Whether you think so or not this is a very important case. It strikes symbolically at the heart of recent eroding of freedoms via the patriot act and the DMCA. along with various other things. I think there is a good chance for the ruling to stand, any sane person can plainly see the arguement on how it is a iolation of the first amendment to have compulsory pledging "under god". I also think that the more conservative members of the court have actually ruled only similar issues with an eye to protecting rights.
:)
Of course Scalia is a raving lunatic that barely grasps the law (at least in his few public statements) so I bet he'll rule that it should be changed, but to "under the catholic god that favours capital punishment"
All we have to do is take back the money next, too bad those fights havent faired as well.
so I should spend my time trying to eliminate the elitist monarchy in Canada
Can't you see you're trying to have your cake and eat it too? The documents mean we're a nation governed by laws, not by men. (And they're hardly static. The US Constitution has been amended 27 times in its history.) This is what you must do if you don't want to be ruled by a monarchy, becuase otherwise you're ruled by the whims of whatever magistrates happen to take jurisdiction over you. The fact that activist judges try to do just this has seriously undermined the prestige and perceived validity of their offices.
On the other hand you claim to want to eliminate rule by men by ridding yourself of the monarchy. So which is it? Laws or men? You've got to have one or the other, unless you want anarchy, which is an utterly insupportable.
And the brethren went away edified.
Aren't there more important issues that we need to addressed rather than these two silly little words? If you are so oppressed by them, stick your fingers in your ears! Bunch of babies! Gawd! The 1st Amendment was only trying to prevent a state sponsored church, like England's.
Was the "voluntary" prayer organized read by the teachers? Is the fact the prayer was crafted by the New York State Board of Regents inconsequential? Most (if not all) prayer-in-school cases I've heard had voluntary student participation that was "voluntary" in the same way the boss selling candy bars for his kid is "voluntary."
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
NT. (Not the OS)
I always thought it would be more efficient to vote than to destroy the government by force :)
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for witch is stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty, justice and equality for all" That was the original pledge, written after the civil war (thus the 'one nation, indivisible'). The "Equality" part was taken out right away, along with the "of the United states of America". "Under god" was not added for like a hundred years.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This little girl certainly deserves a better dad than this guy who puts her in the middle of a constitutional challenge in apparent defiance of the girl's mother.
And one more thing - please give us a break with your activism, Michael (the
And you don't know the difference between too, two, and to. I agree with you, but be more careful next time.
In 1942 the Supreme Court ruled (WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION v. BARNETTE, 319 U.S. 624 (1943))that students could not be required to recite the Pledge. The issue before the Court is not relating to those laws. While I appreciate the editorials fervor, it is wrong and (with regards to Slashdot) misplaced. This is a case regarding religious freedom, not freedom of association, as considered in Barnette.
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
Well said sir.
The only similar pledge I've ever uttered was made was when taking up Australian citizenship which is perfectly sensible and in accordance with the decision you are making.
There is a version both with and without God in it. This however lead to the strange situation where the "God" half and "no God" half sit on seperate sides of the room and take their pledges seperately. It seems to me that there would be better symbolism if they could drop the "under God" completely and everyone could make their pledge in union.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to.
What you said was
there ARE LAWS AGAINST VOLUNTARY PRAYER
That's 2 completly different things. He said there is no law keeping anyone from reciting the pledge. He said nothing about laws that keep you from leading prayer groups in school. So rather than accusing him of spending zero time researching his article you should spend a bit more than zero time reading it.
What say we just leave the kids alone, hmmmm?
Why not try pushing legislation to require (make available) the Pledge of Allegiance in the workplace at the start of every business day.
At least then, you're doing it to voters who have a chance to let you know whether or not they approve....
Never mind "under God" for the moment.
... to the Republic ... one nation, indivisible.
Why are states requiring MINORS to swear a loyalty oath?
- Minors can't make binding contracts.
- The oath uses an arcane vocabulary that they typically can't understand when they're first required to swear the pledge.
- Their attendance at the oath-making is mandatory (because the oath is mandatory at the government's schools and attendance at the government's schools is mandatory for all whose parents can't afford to provide an alternative).
This has alway struck me as suspiciously totalitarian. Is government no longer derived from the consent of the governed? Is consent valid when it is mandated, in the form of an imposed ritual, rather than based on an informed judgement by a rational adult?
Further, the pledge itself appears to be an affirmation of the Union position from the Civil War:
I pledge allegiance
While the issue of unilateral decisions by states to seceed may have been "settled" by a lot of blood, over a century ago, but it seems to me that division of the nation by constitutional amendment is still an option.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
We got the privledge of reciting the pledge every day in my old HS... i was one of few students that refused (not because i was being a punk like the other 3, but because i felt that they were ruining the meaning... they changed it from *A* pledge of alligience to *THE* pledge of alligience... it had no meaning, and was just helping aid the student body's unappreciation of our country)... anyways, i opted out... and every class where i was supposed to pledge, i bot a bitch out from the teacher. and when i refused to conform, they would send me to the hallway... was our daily dose of fake patriotism voluntary? yes... supposedly.
Teachers will enforce whatever they want i spose...
This should be enough to make anyone sick.
"...I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." -- George Bush. article
As if. You want a one-sided conversation, go to the freeper haven. Just make sure you have a tin foil hat ready. I mean, /. doesn't get into that near as much you seem to think. Over the past several days, this is the biggest article with any sort of a polititcal bent. Mostly, we see things like announcements of new processors, and sumo-wresteling robots. Moreover, this discussion seems to be dominated not by atheists but people who take exception to reactionary revisions of history.
#define DRM chmod 000
the closer to orgasm michael gets. He worships at the feet of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most overturned court in the land. His religion IS big government. He prefers to live in a "nanny state" where he has no responsibilities and the "state" takes care of him. He is basically insecure and will never be a man who can stand on his own. Let's all hope and pray that he is infertile and incapable of making more little "michaels". Don't pay him the attention he is craving; you only add to his warped view of the world.
Don't believe in God? Better get with the program, Sparky; life is too short to waste worshipping yourself. You are here to serve others, not yourself. What religion you choose is unimportant. Just choose one.
I don't hate michael; I do hate his ideas and the sin that he does everyday. If he changes, that's good. If he doesn't, that's his problem.
1) The poster's personal views on religion and politics are ambiguous, and see no harm in leaving the pledge in.
2) The poster is a diehard athiest, and refuses to have anything to do with religion.
3) The poster is a diehard American patriot, and refuses to see this phrase removed from the pledge.
The thing is, most of the posters have said, "Ya, I hate/love the pledge, but it didn't really affect me as a child." I can't believe that two words are going to have a serious impact on a child's life; they certainly aren't going to turn them to religion any more than would saying the Lord's Prayer every morning.
Here's the point: are there really eight year old athiests out there so adamantly against religion that they would squirm if forced to recite the pledge? Or is this an argument by parents/patriots for parents/patriots? Are we really thinking about the kids?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
With all due respect due Bill Watterson, my pledge of alleigance: "I pledge Alleigance to Queen Frag and her mighty State of Hysteria..."
I do hope he decides to come out of retirement someday, dilbert just doesn't compare sometimes...
...in bed
This site needs a Random Rants section. Especially since it keeps getting bogged down in dissing religious issues. Certainly not News for Nerds.
Wow...truely spoken like someone who has never lived in a facist state.
You hit the nail right on the head. People are way too sensative about the word "God". The real issue is the nationalistic ideology in which the pledge of allegiance resembles. This isn't China, this is America. Our founding fathers would, in my opinion, be furious if someone had come up with a "pledge" to our "nation". It completely flies in the face on the principles in which our country was founded on.
We should take the pledge out of schools, and any other government run institution. If a private institution (eg: ballpark, schools, etc.) still wishes to participate in such nationalistic (aka religious) behavior, that's their right. Just don't make my kid, or even pressure my kid to do so.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
just to clarify my post, I was not in any way trying to comment on the article and or ruling itself. I was just pointing out how unjustified michaels rant was. He called the CNN story "propagandistic" (?) because it dealt with voluntary recital. The court case is also dealing with only voluntary recital. Voluntary (do i need to bold it again) recital in public schools is a BIG ISSUE, hence the reason CNN reported on this court case. My comment was directed to why michael went off on a tangent about mandatory recital, which is not at all related to either the case or the article, and why he ranted about the article itself being biased and propagandistic. If the ruling was about mandatory recital, and the article only covered voluntary recital, I could see his rant being justified. But, the ruling is about voluntary recital, and thats what the article talked about. Michael was out of line.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
Sorry bucko, America was not founded on any one religion. The fact that they were Christian does not mean they founded the country on Christianity. Do your research before opening your troll mouth.
Virginia, a conservative state which is consistently Republican, has a voluntary recitation of the pledge in effect at its schools. At my Virginia high school, students not wishing to recite the pledge would do as they wished, and nobody seemed to care.
Judges don't adhere to the laws as strictly as you think they do. I don't blame you for being naieve though.
If that's true then why did we have to wait until the 1950s for "under god" to be added to the pledge of allegiance? Why are we pledging allegiance to a piece of cloth anyway? How Mao Tse-Tung of us!
of course the original pledge (without 'under god') was written at the turn of the century by a christian-socialist minister .... the original
"one nation, indivisible" was not liked in the South which is one reason why "under God" was snuck in to break it up
Eh?
Actually...do some homework. The founding fathers words have been so twisted by the atheist "activist" types it isn't even funny anymore. "Separation of Church and State" comes from a reply to a letter in which a baptist was concerned about the govenment endorsing or forcing one religeon over the other. It ain't in the constitution.
Also, lookup the Northwest ordinance...from congress in 1787.
"ART. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
What do YOU think the founding fathers really thought when they aren't being taken out of context?
Maybe they should give readers the ability not to display front page articles posted by particular editors.
Yes we can, if the child has acutal convictions in the matter. It's routine for the children of Jehovah's Witnesses not to say the pledge, and has been for many years.
It's always heartwarming to see an indoctrination defeated by a deeper indoctrination.
(To paraphrase Lone Star)
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
America was formed on Romantic philosophy (all men created equal, etc). Many of the people behind that philosophy, and many of the people who founded this country were not Christian.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
... discuss ...
-pyrrho
until you fail to recite the pledge and get beaten into a bloody pulp by your classmates for being "Unamerican" even if you are exercising your "American" constitutional rights in not doing so.
Seriously, it's all fun and games until someone looses an eye.
In Australia nobody ever took our Monday morning assemblies seriously. We may have recited the national anthem but it was very half hearted if at all. And the worst we'd ever get was a stern look if we didn't do it at all or do it properly. You can diss Aussies for not being patriotic, but you can't diss us for being free thats for sure.
There's a lot I could say on this issue but apart from the fact I'm still a foreigner, even living here (in the US). But let me just say that from a foreigner's perspective, it's not something you get used to very easily - singing a national anthem of a country that is not your native one.
In a nutshell, my stance is that nobody should be *forced* into saying it. That said, I think they should keep the anthem as is, and if people want to say it should do so in it's entirety. But dancing around a solitary line for fear of stepping on someone's politically sensitive toes is just plain stupidity.
Everyone here takes stuff far too seriously....
Two things to note here:
- in all cases I know of, people who do not want to recite the pledge do not have to
- the fact that these state laws exist seems to be somewhat of a public secret, and is rarely, if ever, mentioned in connection to this case
Boy, am I glad I read Slashdot. You learn something new every day. I always had thought that the country was founded by guys with people like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, etc. and that the causes for the Revolution were primarily things like taxation and tarrifs (see the Intolerable Acts), British trade restrictions with the rest of Europe, brutal governorship of the colonies, the Proclamation of 1763, etc. Thanks to you, I now know that the founding fathers were actually Pilgrims and that the country is over 150 years older than is generally believed.
I apologize for my ignorance, but in my defense I must point out that I did not have access to your high-quality history classes.
http://maddox.xmission.com/pledge.html
CC,
...
I have a 6 year old daughter. We teach
her that there are many Gods and Goddesses.
A Goddess for learning, A God for strength,
Forms (Gods), afterall, are crutches to
the understanding of the imperceptible spirit.
When people say "One God", it is implicitly
understood which God one is talking about -
the Judeo-Christian concept of God.
That to me does not wash. And I certainly
don't want my 6 yr. old child anguishing
whether to listen to her mommy or to the
teacher.
I predict the supreme court will rule that it is not unconstitutional. The reason I think that is that it is becoming increasingly clear that the united states of america are becoming a christian fundamentalist nation, with a religious fanatic currently at the helm. This is a very dangerous situation and will increase tension between "east" and "west" even further.
there is nothing unamerican about wanting the phrase to be removed. There is something wrong with thinking this nation is "under God". And it's the fact that... well, it's not under God.
-pyrrho
The full text of the treaty, along with the above paragraph written by President John Adams, were published in New York and Boston newspapers (copies of which survive to this day).
The United States was not
Hmm, a lot of people I know who say things like this turn out to be hard agnostics and not atheists at all. Since many forms Buddhism don't have a concept of godliness, and the Buddha (Siddharta Guatama) was a real person; would you object to references of the Buddha? If you don't you're an atheist (because you think God doesn't exist, so religions without gods are fine), if you do (because you think all religions are pretending to know the unknowable) you're a hard agnostic.
And there's no such thing as a "Judeo-Christian concept of God." Jews and Christians have very different ideas about what God is like. Please educate yourself before criticizing.
If your six-year-old is being caused "anguish", that's the teacher's fault. In matters like this, the teachers ought to bow to the wishes of the parents. If they're not, they need a stern talking to.
And the brethren went away edified.
How about we just change it to "under Allah"?
Allah's just another name for God, right?
Simple logic. Nerds are intelligent people. Intelligent people tend to be atheist. Thus, nerds tend to be atheist.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
I don't believe in God. I didn't believe in God as a teenager. We recited the Pledge every morning at my high school. I simply left out the words "under God". It's that easy:
That let me express the ideals I do believe in, without expressing those I don't. Some of the homeroom teachers would give me wierd looks, but nothing ever came of it.
There were kids who refused to recite the pledge at all -- they were often targeted by the teachers for being unAmerican or whatever, there would be loud arguments, sometimes the kids would get punished for it.
Which I still think is dumb, patriotism isn't true patriotism if it's compulsory.
But kids can currently recite the pledge without the religious overtones, or they can include them if they want. I just don't see the controversy.
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
-Look, I only have one problem with the pledge of allegiance: that I can recite it in any state of mind, without pause, and without thought. I have never actually thought hard about this pledge, true that I am an agnostic, and have been mildly peeved with the inclusion of "under god" for years, I never questioned it verbally. It, along with "God Save The Queen" (I know this is the English anthem, I have British Parents and I have never actually bothered to learn the U.S National Anthem), seems to be burned into my brain, and I can recite them without pause. I love this country, but I have enough education to realize that I may be a little brainwashed because of this pledge. When I was growing up, even though I stopped believing in organized religion at a young age, I kept thinking of god as if the concept was real. Although I believe in something completely different now, I still call to god when I have been seriously injured. I call for god not because of faith in this power, but because the name has been embedded into my brain. This is not separation of church and state, for I feel a part of me has been lost due to this phrase; I have lost my ability not to think of a specific deity.
- "I have walked the long road of pain and darkness, and though I have found my light, I fall towards the fading star whenever my path is crossed"
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
...to drop the whole thing? It's laughable, anachronistic brainwashing and a waste of everyone's time.
Or is this another of those things where outmoded tradition has been irrationally enshrined as being beyond reproach, like your gun laws?
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The whole Under God thing should get the boot and I'll be very disappointed in our system if it doesn't. It goes against the constitution and everything we originally settled here for. The constitution clearly mandates the separation of church and state where the church has no authority. The pledge, states that state reports to the church. The two just don't jive and there's a good reason to have them separate.
Robert
I think I've decided to reserve my opinion on the matter until I hear g*d's view, if Ms. Walters can get the exclusive interview .
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I agree with you about the danger of allegiance but let me also say it's a matter of what you ahve to allege to.
If you allege to a Queen, or to a Flag or even a country, that's a bit like a blank check. Unconditional support, right or wrong.
But if you allege to the Constitution of the United States of America, well there are ideas there that you can allege to or not, and that allegience might actually, if real, force you to stand up and criticice your country or flag or queen.
I say the correct answer is to change the pledge to one where it's the Constitution that is alleged to, because it really does express, for better or worse but mostly better, the real core meaning of being American.
-pyrrho
I did, Bought one for each bathroom, where it serves double duty.
Help fight continental drift.
Newdow could be crazier than Michael Jackson for all I care. It doesn't change the fact that this is a highly controversial issue over a textbook example of indoctrination which many people are uncomfortable with, and which is long overdue for a trip to the Supreme Court. By attempting to sidestep the arguement by attacking the arguer you're just making yourself look like a douchebag.
See here for more about baloney detection. Courtesy of noted scientist, educator, and atheist Carl Sagan.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Um, what states are these? I haven't been 'forced' to say the pledge since I was in 4th or 5th grade, circa 1989-90. Maybe that's b/c I live in a somewhat liberal state (CA - all hail the governator!)?
Explain yourself with links the the appropriate state legislature before spouting your own propaganda!
-bZj
.sig
Its not a Pledge, its a Loyalty Oath. A dinosaur left over from the Macarthy era. Under God = anti Godless Communism. In the view of Macarthy and his followers, anyone refusing to publicly pledge loyalty to the Unted States of America was an enemy. Since communism is now defunct, the current crop of rightwingers uses Terrorism as its bogeyman. The rhetoric of the early 50's and the language of Ashcroft, Bush, et al. is very similar
not all religions involve God, capital G. And too many protestants have tried to convince me that atheist is a religion to think that "under God" does not in fact establish a religion that is not ahtiesm. It might not be Baptist... maybe it's a whole new America Under God religion. Maybe the God is a whole new kind of god, like a giant dog that plays banjo and drinks Italian Soda, but whatever it is, it's not paganism, it's not atheism, it's not Zoroastrianism or a thousand other religions.
It DOES establish a religion, what on eath else could it be doing there. Is it a historical comment?
-pyrrho
Have you checked all the state laws that are in question? I haven't - but I well remember being told that it was the law back in elementary school when I refused to recite the "under God" phrase of the Pledge. (I was disciplined, but I never did say it, because it feels wrong coming out of my mouth.) This was Ohio, early 80's.
I would not have had a problem if there was simply time set aside for the pledge, but either law or administrative custom in my comparatively liberal school district pushed in a different direction. I know my argument is anecdotal, but I'd really like to see some supporting references for your assertion.
The thing that bugs me about the Pledge of Allegiance is this: it's taught, usually by repetitive drill, to every kid in public school. This is done at a young age, and before the kids have had any formal exposure to the concepts embodied in the Pledge. Those important concepts include the religious content. That stuff got covered in my last year of high school.
(I was just brought up to believe that honesty is important, especially when making promises. The Pledge of Allegiance is a promise. But I don't believe in the sort of god most people mean when they say "God," and I don't intend to be misunderstood.)
[|]
Apparantly you haven't been a highschool student recently. I am in high school and all last year I opted out of saying the pledge because of West Virginia Board of Education VS. Barnette (1943) because I felt I was being patriotic (exercizing my rights) and idealistic (which was someone silly.) Anyway, I garnered no flak from classmates, I may have been asked once why I didn't say it. Now keep in mind that I respected the flag... I was on my feet, just not reciting the pledge, as is my Constitutional right.
Finally none of my peers care about the pledge, these are high school students, you give them WAY too much credit. If someone doesn't want to say the pledge, nobody cares.
My generation is a post modern one-most of us (not including myself) have fallen to the belief that whatever is right for you is right... patriotism, religion, and morality get brushed away in its wake... [ps I'll be scared in a year or two when the people I know are voting.]
is that Michael is a total chode.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
but it wasn't for religiouse or political reasons...i just didn't know it so i hummed along and the teacher put me in the hall...the next day i didn't do it at all and she put me in the hall again. The wierd thing is that it was a private catholic school so they had the right to force me.
I really don't understand why the ACLU even cares...i wish they didn't. As a card carrying memeber I should write a letter to them to shift thier focus to more important things.
Also I don't understand this whole attack on religion. I am an athiest but if anyone cares to look at recent history it is the athiests who tend to kill more then religiouse people...hitler, stalin, etc.
It is my opinion that religion has to do with our nature. As edward o wilson said "Man has evolved to belive in gods not biology" By removing religion from the public sphere it seems to leave a void in our moral or ethical structure. Potentialy dangerous if you ask me. There is no god but i don't think its smart to force its removal from the public.
hook
Why is it that these threads about Supreme Court cases are the only time nobody here says "IANAL"?
That's one in five that you are stomping there bucko.
-pyrrho
That's not good enough. I don't think you should have to change the thing, to set yourself apart. To some people, appearing different, and in that context, is...not desirable. I know that when I started thinking for myself, and settled on atheism, I actually got some flak for it. A lot of flak, really. MUCH more than I could have possibly expected. I was in 9th grade, so I was 14. A lot of my friends' families wouldn't have me over for dinner anymore, things like that. I only actually lost one friend, and only had three get much more distant. This isn't the South, by the way, I'm talking about upstate New York here. So sure, I never said 'under God.' But that set me apart. That made me different. And that hurt me. Note that I personally have no problem with just being different, but with the other effects it can have. Some people might not even want to be seen as different.
As a student in a public elementary school, I was ostracized by more than one teacher for omitting the "under God" part of the pledge. Sure, we were told that said part was optional, but there was always a teacher who would say something like "Mr. Morse apparently thinks it's OK to alter the pledge." or some other snide comment. The teachers knew they couldn't officially punish me, but they sure as hell could embarrass me in front of the class for not saying the pledge the way Joe McCarthy and the Daughters of the American Revolution liked to hear it.
As a strong-willed person, I had no qualms about saying the pledge the way it was originally composed. I could take the flack, but then again many students could not. And when the teacher, who after all is an agent of the state, can ostracize a child for not saying two stupid words in a flag pledge, then we have an establishment of religion. The supreme court may not agree, but the framers would.
After a while, I figured that I might as well alter the pledge some more. If I was going to be ostracized, I might as well have some fun. About junior high it had morphed into something like
:)
I pledge allegience to the flag
of the united police state of America
and to the Republicans for which it stands...one nation indivisible, with bribery and cabbage patch kids for all
As you can imagine, it angered more than one teacher
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
This is off-topic, and not picking on anyone in particular, but I was wondering whether there is a name for when someone brings up slavery to make a point. Kinda irks me when people who have no idea what it was like back then use it to explain something to other people who also have no idea what it was like.
Politics and religion, all wrapped up neatly in one little subject. Somebody get me my musket!
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
But there's certainly no need for anyone to make a pledge like this anyway - the US isn't a feudal society requiring an oath of fealty to participate, as much as the current Presidential dynasty and Attorney General might like. It's a modern democracy - come buy a house or rent an apartment or sleep under a bridge, and understand that if you break the laws you might get thrown in jail. All the rest of it's decoration imposed by Congress and the bureaucracies. Most of my ancestors got here before the current government did, but the one or two latecomers still arrived before the potato famine, and there wasn't any of that nonsense needed, though later on you probably had to register with some county or town clerk if you wanted to vote.
And as far as making kids affirm every day that they're going to obey some piece of cloth and the government that claims to own it, well, that was pretty silly back when that socialist minister Francis Bellamy wrote it and started promoting it, and it was an internationalist thing - he was pretty torqued in 1923 when it was Americanized, because that wasn't what he'd had in mind at all, and his daughter also objected in the 1950s when the Red Scare folks added "Under God" to add the trappings of religion to the evils of nationalism in opposition to those Godless Commies.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Here I thought you were an idiot, and I find out that you are really just an asshole.
Let's not forget that when you're sworn in to testify in a court, you put your hand on a Bible. And the phase "so help me God" ends the Presidential oath of office. There's a lot of ground to cover here.
I decided not to give the pledge of allegiance for the better part of my high school career and caught hell for it early on. Kids are very pure in their actions and tend not to be as political, so if they think you're out of line they let you know. Middle and high school teaches conformity as much as knowledge, and even the teachers encourage the recitation of the pledge. Acting on principle or doing what is right, especially at that age, is neither easy or without reprecussions, and it is much easier to go with the crowd than voice your mind.
The way I got out of it was when one of my teachers saw me not pledging for years and brought the issue to a head. I told him that I truly love this nation and its ideals but that prostituting such for the notion of conformity both cheapens my humanity and belittles my respect of this country. Oddly enough most of the students agreed in principle and only a few of them continued giving me trouble after that.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Probably because the Constitution is more comprehensible than most laws on the books.
If some US citizens do not believe in a God, then are they forced to be under God? Don't they count as part of the "we" in "we are a nation under God"? I guess you do not think they do, if you believe that point is valid.
You can have the "one nation" part of the pledge, or the "under God" part, but you can't logically keep both those in there. You pick which one.
The reason that students in US government-funded public schools are not legally required to say the Pledge of Allegiance is that the Supreme Court has already fixed that, mainly due to a bunch of lawsuits by the Jehovah's Witnesses in the 40s. They view the pledge to be idolatry, and their allegiance is to God and the Bible, not to any human government. They may have a bunch of other things wrong with them, but they're willing to stand up for their principles on issues like that, and good for them.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I notice a lot of self-righteous comments; has anyone taken a good look at US currency lately?
Whether deists, atheists, aliens or otherwise, the US government -is- and has been heavily influenced by the Christian faith.
Do I agree with this? No, but I believe it's a bit naive to think otherwise.
One look at the row over abortion will tell you that.
...is here for all the poorly informed. A few choice quotes:
"While the Founding Fathers as a group loosely held the Judeo-Christian values prevalent in Europe, (...). In fact, many of their leaders were not Christian at all. They were Deists, Unitarians, Universalists and Quakers."
"The radical right chooses to ignore these facts of history and maintains that Christianity and America are one and the same. They point to the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights as proof of their claim. To underline this proof they offer our country's motto "In God We Trust" and the "One nation under God" phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance. The truth of the matter is they are wrong on all counts."
"It is obvious that our country's motto, In God We Trust has nothing to do with the Founding Fathers and was never intended to be a metaphor for Christianity. The phrase derives from the line "And this be our motto, 'In God is our trust,'" in the British bar room drinking song that later became "The Star Spangled Banner.""
In short, most of the religious stuff was invented in the 1950s, and in particular the link to the christian God. The founding fathers wanted total and utter separation of church and state, no less. If you read it any other way, it's the same kind of twisted reading people do with the Bible or the Koran.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The idea that the Constitution includes something referring to "Separation of Church and State" is somewhat false.
The Constitution was written by our primarily Christian forefathers and is founded upon Judao-Christian beliefs and morals. The founders and settlers of this country were primarily persecuted Christians and as such the Declaration of Independence, Common Law of the time, and the Constitution were all founded upon the beliefs, both moral and religious, of the same.
The purpose of the First Amendment is two fold (for this discussion we're not including free speech, etc., only the religious parts) and was written for specific reasons. The framers and founders had just fought a war with a country and king that forced religion down their throats. England had established a State church (the Church of England), and anyone who said or did anything against that church was, to some extent (and often to a severe extent), persecuted. Europe had a long history of religious wars. Therefore the Constitution was written to prevent this from happening again in this new country. The Constitution prohibits the government from establishing a State run or sanctioned church - the establishment clause. However, the framers were Christians (primarily) and as such believed in religious freedom.
This belief in religious freedom brings us to the second purpose of the First Amendment: It guarantees the freedom to partake or not to partake in any religion as each individual sees fit - the free exercise clause. In other words, the government will neither shove religion of any kind down the throats of the People, nor will it prohibit religion of any kind from the people, however that religious freedom is not absolute.
Therefore, constitutionally, the government can pass no law that either supports nor denies any religion. On the contrary, the government must, constitutionally, avoid involvement in religion. That said, should the morals that this country was built upon be removed from government as well, because after all they are based upon religious morals? If those morals are removed, where does that leave us as a country? If one person wants to say "...under God...", should that person be prohibited, and if another wants to leave it out, should they be prohibited? Both cases are a violation of the First Amendment, of not only the establishment clause, but also of the freedom of exercise clause and the free speech clause.
PGA
P.S. - While writing this I noticed a post by someone claiming that most of the early settlers were godless, etc. First of all, the reference in the Pledge and the most of the discussion involves God, not god. There is a big difference. Second, most of the early settlers were Christians, not heathens.
You don't have freedom of religion if a differing set of beliefs is forced upon you. Unless you have freedom FROM religion, you have no freedom OF religion.
I find it truely facinating that people actually feel peer pressure to say the pledge. During 11th and 12th grade (and unrecalled time before) I was the only person actually saying the pledge. This was even before this "under God" crap; people just stood there and didn't even mumble. In grade school kids said it, but they didn't ever really think about it. Heck, they probably don't even know "under God" is in it. The whole thing is just memorized so greatly.
The point? This is just a bunch of adults trying to get their way by dragging kids into it. There isn't even a winning solution. If "under God" is removed, the government is promoting Atheism. If is stays, they're supporting Christianity/... Heck, they could change it to "under Gods and Goddesses" to support Hinduism/...
There's no way to win, but that's just life in a free nation I suppose.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I would say this qualifies as "Stuff that matters". Or maybe the most controversal and cared about Supreme Court decision I've ever seen isn't important at all. Whatever.
As for "News for Nerds", well, at least for nerds in America (and since not being global hasn't restricted any previous slashdot stories) then see above.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
havn't said the pledge since forever. Why not ask them why they can refuse to be sheep and others kids "have no choice?"
If you can't instill in your kid enough of a spine to not say the pledge then imagine what other things they won't have the spine to say no to.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I wouldn't object to having schoolkiddies drilled on that every morning.> The question that people should be asking is: why are we making kids stand up and recite something in the first place? Teachers should be presenting facts and explaining concepts (hopefully in a balanced way, but that's hard to enforce), not encouraging partiotism.
Sick as I am of living in a society full of people who want to ram their religion down my throat, I think brainwashing schoolkiddies with nationalism is probably a worse problem with the pledge, and very dangerous in a nucular-tipped superpower that thinks whatever it wants is a moral entitlement. That stinkin' pledge may be part of the reason we're having the international problems we're having these days...
Somewhere I heard a suggestion for a "short form" pledge that everyone should be able to agree on:
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Huh. You say you can put any interpretation you like on the words "under God". Yet if I'm not mistaken, you and the pledge both capitalize "God". Typically this is done with proper nouns, which refer to specific persons, places, or things. Notably, this is how the Jews and Christians refer to their god (in English, anyway), out of respect. Muslims specifically prefer Allah, and the various eastern religions tend to be non-exclusive or even non-deistic, to say nothing of all the others. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence that it's capitalized. If it weren't that would mean Congress had compromised the separation of church and state back in '54 you and others were using a lame and weasely arguement to keep it that way.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Hey, there are tons of ways to get it changed if you want, but if you aren't going to step up and call up your senator or rep then you shut your mouth. Our nation was created under God, whether you like it or not. It is not hurting anyone to hear it or say "one nation, under God" in the pledge. If you don't wanna say it, you don't have to. Of COURSE you are gonna get your ass kicked. I know I would be the first one to. If you don't "fell like" honering what our country is founded on then leave. Seriously, all you bitchers don't know what it is like in other places. You think that your life sucks and the Government and its religious bias are the worst thing in the world. Well wake up and smell the coffee. America is the greatest country in the world, I am not saying that to be arrogant, but it is the truth, whether anyone likes it our not. Ya sure, you are granted freedom of speech to say and do most anything you want. Why does everyone take this for granted??? Go out to Africa, China, North Korea, then you will see how much life really does suck. There you can be killed for talking bad about the government. In those countries people are starving to death while us Americans sit at home getting fat and watching football. WE HAVE IT GOOD!!!! Why complain about something SO TRIVIAL YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY IT!!! You are allowed to do what you want. Instead of complaining about something that is not going to make anyones life better or worse, do something with YOUR life!!! The constitution was formed UNDER GOD whether anyone likes it or not. If you don't then you can go talk to Benny Franklin or good ole George Washington about it. If you can't respect all this country has given you then get out. Stupid people that just sit while the national anthem is being sung should get a reality check. HONOR THE COUNTRY THAT HAS GIVEN YOU A GREAT LIFE AND ALLOWS YOU TO SIT ON YOUR ASS!!!! I hope the Supreme Court just throws this guy out of the court room telling him to go get a job or something. I understand the seperation of church and state, I am a political science major. The fact is that it wasn't meant to bar religion from public practices. The idea behind seperation of church and state was so that the government can't discriminate based on religion, and they don't!!! People just abuse the constition in its vaugness on the issue. I know when I was in high school we prayed no matter what, even at graduation. If you didn't like it, then you didn't have to do it. YOu better believe people would single you out... that is just the way things are. That is the way life is, so get used to it!!!
I have a $20 bill from 1940, and there's no 'in god we trust' on it. Joe McCarthy's crew was responsible for that too.
Personally, I don't think 'God' belongs ANYWHERE on our money or in our pledge. The founding fathers would be turning in their graves.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
People think that sucking Gods cock will help them get into heaven. That's why he has so many cock sucking pals. The problem is that God can tell the really sincere people from the cock suckers so the cock suckers are just wasting their time.
What's the big deal though; if we really want to stop students from praying in school, we would just eliminate exams.
For all your bashing of Michael, maybe if you had done your own google search you would have found out that VOLUNTARY school prayer IS LEGAL. Here is a short summary from the ACLU
IS IT EVER OK TO PRAY IN SCHOOL? Sure. Individual students have the right to pray whenever they want to, as long as they don't disrupt classroom instruction or other educational activities -- or try to force others to pray along with them. If a school official has told you that you can't pray at all during the school day, your right to exercise your religion is being violated. Contact your local ACLU for help.
The Supreme court in Good News Club v. Milford Central School upheld an after hours bible study that was held at a public school (they did pray during bible study).
The Supreme Court stated in Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 120 S.Ct. 2266 (2000). confirmed, "nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the schoolday."
http://www.windmeadow.com/
how about you just don't say it? oh wait thats too easy...
Haha, that was hilarious, very, very true of the fact that it is amazing how one person can change everything... And that guy made a good point about Christmas...
In addition, your ungrammatical implication that slavery started after the Revolution is, of course, wrong.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
"Allah" is simply Arabic for "God". The fact that Muslims don't view their scriptures or prayers as valid unless they're in Classical Arabic is neither here nor there for this discussion. Nor is the fact that Arabic-speaking Christians refer to God using the same word. The Pledge is neither scripture nor a prayer.
Among the eastern religions, I think you'll find that in Hinduism, for example, "God" would not be incompatable with their beliefs. Many others would also be comfortable referring to a generalized divinity in this way. In any event, the bare word "God" does not imply any religion whatsoever. I do not share the beliefs of most people who describe their deity with that word, and they don't agree with me.
The Constitution does not provide for the "separation of church and state". The First Amendment certainly doesn't. Re-read the "establishment" clause carefully and then honestly try to find out what "establishment of religion" actually means. You may find your preconceptions aren't supportable.
And the brethren went away edified.
I was raised as a Buddhist and a Protestant. Yeah, go figure, I'm kind of screwed up.
While Buddhism is a major religion in parts of Asia, it has a smaller presence in the US. However, it is not some cult religion that sprung up yesterday. It is an established religion.
There is no God in Buddhism.
Freedom of religion means, if someone is a Buddhist, that there is no God, and that the US Government should not impose the concept of a God on them. If the US Government wants to declare that Buddhism is not a religion, then this obviously causes another problem.
Personally, I pledge allegiance to the US and the Constitution that governs me. I believe that the writers of the Constitution, while being very religious, understood the dangers of a majority religion imposing its will on the government. The Puritans, Quakers, etc... came to America because of this.
What the writers of the Constitution likely did not know was that there was a religion that did not worship a God.
...this story has more comments than anything else today. Michael gave us a whack of the controversy stick; it's probably good for business.
The only thing the government should be doing is protecting our rights. If "our wishes" are to murder innocent people, our government should not do so.
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"I . . . do solemnly swear or confirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same . . ."
Get it? The oath sworn by U.S. military personnel is NOT to the flag, but to the Constitution. Not to a colorful rag, the country, the government, or anything else. The country IS the Constitution; all the rest is just stuff. I took that oath in 1974, and still stand by it. Too bad most politicians don't.
We didn't even recognize the U.S. flag as having any "official" standing until well into the 1800's. The pledge came later, then in the 50's the "under god" clause got shoved in through the good offices of Joe McCarthy. You know, that upstanding Red-baiting, witch-hunting, drug-addicted, brain-rotted (syphilis, y'know) paragon of righteousness? So bag the flag pledge --- put large-text copies of the Constitution in every classroom, teach the kiddies, and let 'em swear to defend it. Or not. Their choice, not mine.
WRT the "under god" clause in the pledge: If your faith is so weak that you have to force others to support it through these kind of tricks, you have sonme real problems. True faith-holders have no need to pressure others, or run around shouting "my way is the right way." If it is, others will figure it out on their own. Or not --- that's their problem, not yours.
Get over it, OK?
Go Cubbies,
Mal the Elder
it is a meanless waste of time meant only to flex the muscles of the minority which is this case are people who care about this crap.
there is NO separation of church & state anyway... and if you listened to the FF they never meant FREEDOM FROM RELIGION they meant FREEDOM OF RELIGION.
don't muddle things up because you don't like nuns.
This
Now, god is all well and good, and really he's referenced all over the place. I usually just skip over that bit, because knowing that when people are saying this they're typically referring to the Christian God whom I'm pretty sure said that he really didn't want to get invovled with all of this governance stuff and affairs of the world nonsense.
Seriously folks, if you want to talk about the man, Jesus, he was a carpenter who liked to hang out with his friends and tell stories, he was a bit of a rabble rouser sometimes but you never really see him leading vast armies and commanding hordes of men. His buddies call him Rabbi about a thousand times more than lord, think about what that means. I feel that this whole under god concept is just silly, everyone likes to claim that god is working behind their country and their ideals, it's like saying, our product has been approved by magic pixies, no one can disprove it, so everyone can claim it.
Now we have this country where there are people who don't believe in the same god, some people dont' belive in God with a capital G, some don't believe in god at all. For moment, let's just give God a rest, becuase I sure as hell didn't elect him.
Peace
Cute turn of phrase.
My *point* is that the state doesn't guarentee you the freedom from seeing, interacting with, and in all other ways being exposed to religion. In fact, the U.S. is quite heavily based in Christianity. Sure, there may be a 'separation' at times, but "In God We Trust" is still written on our currency.
But this is *not* a state sponsored religion. Just a state accepted one. There is no "Church of America" (which is what the constitution authors wanted to avoid).
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Unitarian Universalism is a rather large religion too, in which not only is no official role of god established, but most members are distinct aethiests, who have been, in my experience, constantly harassed by teachers forcing them to say the pledge of allegiance.
All of our fore-fathers would be rolling in their graves at the notion of god being forced on to people. Many of the were Unitarians (Franklin, the Adams, and almost but not quite Jefferson, and Taft and Fillmore two more presidents) and while Unitarianism did accept the existance of God at the time, it had already denied the deity of christ and was steadily moving away from the "pure christian roots of america" that the federal government seems to think existed back then.
A good example of what they felt in this, is how most people don't know that "In God we trust" also only became our motto in the 50's For the 170 years or so of our country before that, it was "e pluribus unum" god never even entered any part of our countries government until the 4th verse of the star spangled banner was written 20ish years after the country was founded.
So add the UUs to the list with Buddhists of non god religions, and strike them one more point for actually creating the country before it got drowned with god.
How is it that everyone gets their panties in a bunch over the Pledge of Allegance, but nobody is sueing over the fact that all US currency says "In God We Trust" on it? I'm athiest and find that offensive because I don't trust in God, so should I sue over it?
Just take "under God" out for the version that the teachers use to lead the class, and any kid who wants to say "under God" can just insert those words in between "one nation" and "indivisible" if he or she wants to, which of course is perfectly legal in any case. Only the teacher cannot (if the high court rules in favor of the 9th circuit.)
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
What I don't see is why people are pledging their allegiance to a stupid flag. At least it makes sense to pledge allegiance to the Almighty. That seems the more logical.
"Stupid flag - this is all your fault!"
Simple solution:
Burn the damn piece of cloth. It represents a tyranical country that oppresses countless other countries, mis-represents other western nations unfortunate enough to be "allied" with it, and it looks damn stupid too.
Stupid flag, stupid yankees arguing over it, stupid country with a stupid leader.
All I can say is that once this this topic is even more in the spotlight you will have every Christian and the Moral Majority come out fighting. Christians get serious about defending things like "under God" and prayer.
I doubt that the words "under God" will be removed from anything. Watch and see what happens.
You're exactly right. Took me till my senior year in high school before I had the guts to not stand up during the pledge. Before that, I'd always do it but not say the "under god" part. My teacher senior year said it "wasn't required," but that we should do it, and acted pretty serious. So, some friends and I eventually sat through it one day. Got some weird looks, but I think enough people already thought I was weird, so it was no surprise to them. Didn't do it the rest of senior year.
Given that there are people as fucked up as those at that school where kids were hazed so gruesomely, I'd say it shouldn't be allowed at all. Even if the rule is changed to "not required, but you can come in early and say it," this early time (or whenever) will become a "required time" as time goes on, and the same kind of thing will happen.
This is the same thing with church. Every time my family went, I was forced to go, and out of fear would put my head down during prayer, etc. Of course, I was the only one who actually stayed awake through the sermon and/or actually listened to anything the pastor was saying. (mostly old people, though, so this isn't much of an accomplishment)
You can claim all you want that I wasn't actually in danger at all or had nothing to fear, but until you're in that situation, you are clueless.
Regardless of the United States Supreme Court's ruling, the words "under God" will be in the Pledge.
It really comes down to 2 options:
1. The SC rules that it is NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL
IRC, this has already happened not once, but twice. Life goes on until the next time it is challenged. *yawn*
2. The SC rules that the words "under God" ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL
If this happens, then things get fun. I would not be suprised to see a Constitutional Amendment proposed that specifically states that the United States of America has a Pledge of Allegiance and specifically states what that pledge is. This pledge will include the words "under God" This proposal will be approved in the House and Senate with speed to match the " Oops, We Forgot to Give Authority to Implement the Do Not Call List Bill" (Not the real name) that was passed within days of the courts ruling that the previous bill passed wasn't done right. Within weeks, enough states will have ratified he new proposed Constitutional Amendment, making any claims that the pledge is unconstitional moot, since something specified in the constitution cannot be unconstitutional. (Did I just say that?) You see, that is how checks and balances work, congress passes a law, president vetoes it, congress overrides the veto, the courts rule it unconstutional, the congress amendmends the constitution, the states ratify the change. Like I said, it gets fun then.
Now, a real Conspericy Nut (IANACN, Figure it out) would go on to state that the whole process has been initated to get the American Voting Sheep used to congress messing with the Constitution, by floating out some softball issue like the Pledge, then propose something else, then something else, then what the heck, repeal one or two existing amendments, then add another one or two... Rinse, and repeat... If it goes in reeeeaaaalllly slowly, it dosen't hurt as much, I've been told.
Again IANACN, but I do love to play Devil's Advocate.
Then again, I could be wrong. It's be known to happen regularly.
my closest religious group according to the religion quiz was the quakers who apparently were quite tolerant and flexible in their religious outlook. i would almost consider them anti-religious in comparison to the current right wing government.
what a nice thread too. only a half dozen good comments, and loads of blather. it has actually changed my understanding of the issue.
I defy you to tell when a word's capitalized when it's spoken out loud.
... except it's defended with religious zeal, treated as political dogma, and recited like prayer.
I don't have to tell whether God is capitalized or not in the pledge by listening. It's written that way. And the fact that it's not "a god" or even "the god" but just "God" indicates that it is a name or title and refers to "God" specifically.
The Pledge is neither scripture nor a prayer.
Among the eastern religions, I think you'll find that in Hinduism, for example, "God" would not be incompatable with their beliefs. Many others would also be comfortable referring to a generalized divinity in this way.
Others, notably atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and any religions that don't like their divinities being generalized or co-opted for political purposes, would. I might also point out that in the 1962 Engel vs. Vitale case so-called "non-sectarian" prayers were specifically disallowed. If everyone were comfortable with it we all wouldn't be having this discussion now would we?
In any event, the bare word "God" does not imply any religion whatsoever.
Well that's a new one. Pray tell, what exactly does the phrase "under God" imply if not religious, and why is it so important? Apparently the '54 congress thought they put it there to "acknowledge the dependence of our people and our Government upon the moral directions of the Creator."
The Constitution does not provide for the "separation of church and state". The First Amendment certainly doesn't.
Indeed, the phrase "separation of church and state" is not present in the First Amendment or Constitution. The idea was developed and avocated by Jefferson and Madison but not officially sanctioned until the 1947 Supreme Court (whose job it is to elaborate points of constitutional law) case of Emerson vs. Board of Education, when Justice Black wrote of the "wall of separation" the Constitution maintains between church and state. The justices in that case unanimously interpreted the Establishment Clause as going well beyond simply prohibiting the establishment of a state religion (including specifically prohibition of laws which "aid all religions" and also that no force shall be used to make anyone profess belief or disbelief in any religion).
In any case, what you seem to be defending is the idea that some vague religiousity pervading into public institutions and schools in particular is harmless or even beneficial. However, as the wikipedia entry on this subject so aptly put it, "in practice the predominant religious make-up of a school often makes those of a minority religion feel unwelcome or hated." Particularly if juvenile practitioners of said predominant religious make up and minority religions (and especially the non-religious) are given a daily reminder first thing in the morning about it.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Why don't we not say the pledge at all in schools? Honestly, it's taught entirely too young for a child to understand. I said this thing hundreds of times without questioning it's meaning, never giving it a thought. When I was0 old enough to wonder the meaning, I asked a responsible adult figure to explain it to me. So I'm basically saying I'm following this country and it's people evey morning for what reason now? And i've been saying this oath for HOW many years without knowing it's meaning? I say get rid of the thing. Kids don't need to drone this sacred "oath" every morning -- especailly when they don't even have a clue what it means.
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
>remember that it's freedom *of* religion, not freedom *from* religion.
The difference is almost academic. If a religion is established by the government then my inalieable right of freedom FROM religion would be in jeopardy. Your comment is practically religious sophistry.
>groups want the pledge outlawed because it mentions God (heaven forbid!)
Its a clear support of monotheism which excludes millions of polytheists and non-believers. Smart bets are on the SCOTUS holding up the decision. Any other outcome means opening the door for more theocratic elements until we wake up one day in a theocracy.
>Personally, as a heathen (unbaptised agnostic if you will), I don't care.
Good for you. Some of us aren't politically apathetic and want our children to grow up in a society that respects diversity of belief and non-belief. It didn't hurt you, but it may hurt my kids. Society is bigger than just your personal experience.
Regardless of what has been stated in the mass media, this case should be regarding the 1954 additions to the Pledge made by McCarthy proponents and/or anti-communists and/or religious leaders. The phrase "under God" should be the item under debate and whether Congress acted unconstitutionally when it allowed the phrase to be added to the pledge. The Congress at that time could have been under similar pressures as when currently they approved the PATRIOT act. Both items are controversial and could be unconstitutional.
Whether children should be required to recite the pledge is a rather moot point - children will follow peer pressure and an instructor. Once one child starts reciting with the instructor, then the rest of the class will fall in and start.
I personally don't feel that "under God" should have been added to the pledge and that it should be removed. Children reciting the pledge should always be voluntary and it should be stressed that it is voluntary. The last thing the US needs is to be seen as a militant nationalist superpower that forces patriotism onto our young. Leave that to China, Cuba, and North Korea (amongst others).
Don't forget what Slashdot is.
NEVER FORGET what Slashdot is.
It does not have paid journalists. It has no stated journalistic standards. It amounts to some guy's private website that millions and millions of people visit and comment on, but it is NOT an accoutable news site, and never will be without massive changes.
It is an advertising driven blog and news hashing site. The more people respond to an article, the more advertising dollars Slashdot receives.
The more pissed off you become - the more you rant and comment - the more you keep coming back despite - the more advertising dollars it makes.
But don't make the mistake that Slashdot should be a reputable news site. It is advertising driven; the more comments it receives, the more successful it is. The drive is comments, not journalistic integrity.
Think about it. And remember this next and every time you visit Slashdot. Always.
You know, you could have changed your homepage in the amount of time it took to write: Yes I know, I'm too lazy to change my default home page....
If X% of the population were Hindu, and Y% were atheist, then should we require the Christian majority to recite the pledge with "one nation under Vishnu" X% of the time and "one godless nation" Y% ? Or, does the majority get 100% ? Maybe that is why there is a first amendment.
The defense of the Pledge is characterized by you as religious. That don't make it so. It certainly doesn't look religious from where I'm sitting.
I had no idea that the expression of any idea was supposed to make everyone comfortable. Surely you don't belive that yourself do you? Aren't you trying to make anyone who disagrees with you as uncomfortable as possible? Aren't you free to do that if you want? Aren't numerous things that happen in school uncomfortable for many students? Comfort is an absolutely useless standard of what should and should not be said in any context much less this one.
No, "God" by itself doesn't suggest any particular religion. Ask any fundamentalist or religious conservative. You're apparently in complete ignorance of the religious point of view.
Thank you for citing court cases. The Supreme Court has been wrong before, and it was wrong in Emerson on a plain reading of the words of the Constitution. They simply don't mean that. You might as well interpret the Second Amendment to mean that everyone must own a gun. It's every bit as reasonable.
Again, "God" suggests no religion in particular at all. The phrasing was clearly intended to be as vague as possible. If it had said, "The Holy Trinity" or "The Lord Jehovah" instead, you might have a point. As it is, you're arguing pretty much off-case.
And the brethren went away edified.
...aren't there some kids in US schools who aren't actually American? Such as, say, kids of the much-reviled H1B holders? What happens to foreign kids in US schools - surely they can't be expected to recide a pledge of allegance to a country in which they don't have citizenship?
While in very recent times "freedom of religion" has come to mean "freedom from religion", the original idea was just to not have a government mandated or backed religion (ie Church of England). The phrase "under God" doesn't back a particular god (likely Muslims would be as OK with it as Jews or Christians). The original colonies were mostly religious, and Christian at that. Had they known the silliness that was going to follow I'm sure that they would have clarified many things, including allowing prayer in school and banning gay marriage (civil unions, whatever). Athiests are such whiners :-p
insightful my ass. Sounds more like a rant of your own
Bah, make it a part of their history class, where they must memorize the pledge...and recite it orally for credit... =)
Screw the Government and Special Interest Groups!
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
There are more meaningful oaths of allegance. Non-US citizens are required to take this oath to become a US citizen:
That oath has real teeth. A naturalized US citizen who then serves in the army of a foreign country can lose citizenship for violating that oath. (Native-born US citizens can fight in other armies if they wish, as long as they're not fighting against the US.)
I think there are a few basic issues that people have been glossing over in their discussions of the Pledge of Allegiance that need to be examined in greater detail.
As a reminder, here is the government's post-1954 version:
What does "pledge" mean? It simply means "to promise," but in a very formal and serious way. "Allegiance" is just a synonym of "loyalty," but again it connotes more than just casual loyalty. So the first phrase of the Pledge could be simplified as "I formally promise loyalty to the American flag."
What is the moral status of promises to inanimate objects? In most moral systems, promises can only be made between or among "moral agents," i.e. those things that have self-awareness, hopes, dreams, goals, and desires.
Suppose I made a "promise" to my lawn, e.g. "I promise to mow, fertilize, and water you regularly so that you'll be beautiful and healthy." Now suppose that I "broke" that "promise" and my lawn turned brown and died. It seems that no promise, in the moral sense, would have been broken, since the lawn is not a person or moral agent, and so there was no actual promise in existence.
Or suppose I made another "promise": "Dear computer, I promise to upgrade your OS on or around January 1, 2003." Now let's say that I did not, in fact, upgrade the OS. Again, did I "break" a "promise" to an inanimate object?
But I can already hear people saying that the flag represents America, and so the promise is to the American republic or people, which are moral agents. However, the "and" after the first comma in the Pledge implies that the flag is NOT the republic. In fact, it states that the flag represents America.
But perhaps the flag is the American people, and so the first phrase really means: "I promise loyalty to the American people." However, this seems not to be the case. The flag is the abstract pattern of stars & stripes that we all know and love, and also the piece of cloth or other substrate upon which this pattern is imprinted. The American people are roughly 300 million individual biological organisms composed of DNA, protein, and other organic molecules. The flag and the American people seem to be different things, i.e. they are not the same thing. So the phrase "I pledge allegiance to the flag" does not mean "I promise loyalty to the American people."
Ah, but I can hear other people saying: "But that first phrase is really poetry! Don't take it so literally!" However, in point of fact, the Pledge is not poetry. It is prose. In fact, it is government prose.
If we accept the fact that the Pledge is prose, and that words have meaning, then it seems inescapable that when we force schoolchildren to say "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," that we are forcing children to make nonsensical promises to inanimate objects.
Let's move on to the second phrase:
This is a formal promise of loyalty to the American republic.
But what is the moral status of promises made by children? Anyone who has ever dealt with or who has ever been a child knows that children are "persons," i.e. moral agents with self-awareness, hopes, dreams, goals, and desires, and so that promises made by children are morally binding.
For example, let's imagine that two 8-year-old children, Simon and Judas, formally agree to meet at a certain time & place to play "catch", i.e. to practice throwing and catching a baseball with baseball mitts. (It's good practice to get familiar with doing this and they both play Little League baseball.) Now suppose that Simon arranges his busy schedule and shows up at the agreed time & place, but Judas is playing Xbox and "It's like s
Exactly what I mean. Whether you do or don't believe in God, or maybe just don't believe in saying his name outside of a synagogue, that's nobody's business but your own. It should be your private choice to share or conceal as you choose, but as long as that phrase remains in public recitations of a loyalty oath (and I can only imagine that the Founding Fathers would shudder at that thought alone), either way you say it will smoke you out.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
Kids can't even decline to recite the Pledge of Allegiance altogether. And doing so every day is a brutal case of brainwashing.
Just out of curiosity, when you're in a court and have to put one hand on the bible and swear to tell the truth, if you're not a Christian/Catholic/etc, do you still need to use that book? I remember an atheist I know not having to, but this is in the UK.
So I hear you saying that, other people reciting the pledge of allegience is important enough to you that you would be willing to risk incarceration on an assault charge in order to punish someone for not saying it?
I think you have bigger problems. I think you are a violent individual, and possibly should not be allowed to go free in society.
"United States of America" as a nation-state is just a mass delusion of huge numbers of people who think that there is some invisible line separating it from "Canada" and "Mexico" what ever they are.... in fact this whole nation-state business is just silly, it's just dirt and shrubbery people, nothing special.
Who came up with it anyways, some old guys from hundreds of years ago. Why do we still believe in that nonsense? This is the new millenium right? Globalization, World Peace, whatever...
What about money? What holds that old belief up... why do we all still accept it? It's just an old idea whose time has come. I mean isn't it a little superstitious to give value to things like paper with pictures on them.. and they're not even rare, I see that same type of paper everyday countless times, how could it have any value?
Just get rid of the hard money and we won't have this little God problem anymore. No more money, no more God... easy as that, and all aetheists will suddenly be safe from the daily harassment they feel any time they look into their wallets.
In the meanwhile their kids won't be forced into saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" to this so-called "nation-state" / mass delusion, "The United States of America".
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
if I've got both sides of the argument straight.
Arguments for retaining the present "under God" pledge:
1) This issue isn't worth our time even considering.
2) Our "God" really encompasses all belief systems.
3) What's wrong with all you godless commies!
Arguments for reimplementing the original pledge:
1) It adheres to the Constitution's separation of church and state.
2) In its neutrality, it is fair to all belief systems.
Perhaps I missed something, but I've not heard a single pro "under God" argument that wasn't a shallow knee-jerk reaction. Here's a clue. If someone's so insecure about their belief system that loosing two words rattles their world, maybe they've got larger issues.
However, I'm not surprised at the resistence I've seen towards this inevitable reversal to the original pledge. Afterall, I can imagine how hard it must be to stand true to the political ideal of religious indifference when one believes so strongly in their "one true religion".
I don't think religions people are "fuckheads", I think people who belive taking the 'under god' part of the pldege out is somehow 'anti-american'.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
In Canada we have no such pledge of allegiance. In school we sang O'Canada every morning, in French. Anyways, I went to school with a guy up until Grade 2 or something, and then his family moved to Las Vegas. I talked to him a couple years ago, and he said that he had never once cited the pledge of allegiance because he's not an American. He said he got in trouble the first time, but the principal heard him out. He said he's Canadian, and nothing they can do will ever make him say it, so the Principal gave in. He went through elementary all the way through high school without ever once pledging allegiance to the flag. Did he break any laws? Was his punishment (or lack thereof) adequate? Does anyone care? Should anyone care? I don't think so... If you Americans want to say some pledge every morning, that's your business. I bet there are lots of people who don't even mean one word of it when they do say it. I'd make it voluntary, then the DHS could use the data of who is and isn't reciting it to weed out potential terrorists... :P They might as well, they're colour coding airline passengers for Pete's sake.
There's my $0.02... hey don't you scoff at my 2 pennies, they're worth 75% of your american pennies now, and growing more every day :)
ever since bush took control, i`ld prefer they change the pledge...
one nation under SATAN...
doesnt anyone see he`s no good for the americas ?
he has zero political skill, zero diplomatical skill and is a puppet of the corporate america.
tokyo environmental agreements, extraterritorial relations etc etc all out the roof.
i suppose his office number is changed to
667 - neighbour of the beast...
Details of capitalization aren't particularly a propos,
But they are; "a god" and even possibly "the god", but "God" is a proper name and hence always capitalized.
"God" suggests no religion in particular at all.
To the best of my knowledge, no other religions besides those that consider themselves descended from Abraham (i.e. Judiasm, Islam and Christianity) uses the word God like that. No pagan, no Buddhist, no Confucist, and certainly no atheist would use the word like that.
it was wrong in Emerson on a plain reading of the words of the Constitution.
It's amazing how many people make plain readings of the Bill of Rights and then disagree widely. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" has always impressed me by its very murkiness.
An English perspective...
I never understood the need for Americans to recite the pledge. I never wake up in the morning and think that I should recite an oath to my country. It is automatically assumed because I am English I therefore have the best interests of my country at heart.
Saying that, I do live in Australia now. And I do wake up every morning and am incredibly greatful for being able to live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
Do you think this debate would be happening if you didn't have a religious fanatic at the helm in the US? This is afterall a man who can't tell his left hand from his right!
what's wrong with "one nation under Canada" ?
PS Alska doesn't count!
Obviously Fundamentalist Christians don't have real faith that their religion can prevail on its own merits. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to use the government to shove it down everyone else's throats!
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Score $99.99 for MS?
Unless you're using the Office version, in which case score them $199.99.
paintball
They have snacks?
Maybe this religion thing ain't so bad after all....
paintball
You have a responsibility to vote for responsible officials who will follow your wishes, and vote for someone else if they don't. If the guys who get elected don't do what you want, tough - destroying the government is treason.
Now, if they take away the right of you or other citizens to vote, then by all means, kill the bastards.
paintball
P.S. - if this comment pissed you off, then contemplate living in a country that forces you to worship a God that you don't believe in.
What part of the pledge of allegiance defines God as Christian, Jewish or any other religion? The fact of the matter is (and I'm being modest) 90% of the world believes in some type of God. A study conducted in 2001 showed that 71% of the US claimed to be Christian link. The pledge of allegiance is a patriotic tradition of our nation in the public schools and has been for a couple of centuries. To say this is "OUR country" and choose to stand up against such a tradition shows me that you really have a beef against popular religion.
The constitution says that congress shall not make any laws prohibiting or establishing religion. There are no laws that say "the pledge of allegiance must be recited in every classroom". Congress should also make no laws prohibiting it on the grounds that it's a religious activity. It should not make laws pertaining to religion. I would say the lawsuit should be aimed at the school district in hopes that the person be allowed to move their child to a different school district.
As a father, I'll have to teach my children about an interesting but unproven theory called evolutionary biology before they learn about it in public schools because they are going to be taught it in public schools or will be failed. As a parent, you have to prepare your child for the world and the fact is, 71% of that child's classmates will believe in and talk about God. That's if you remove religions besides Christianity. For the past couple of centuries God == America. In the past 50-70 years there has been a serious assault on that fact. If you look at statistics the majority of America claims to be religious and believe in a deity called God. To remove a patriotic tradition on the grounds that is has the word God is in reality the promotion of the !God religion.
You should read more works on spirituality written by Hindus then.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" has always impressed me by its very murkiness.
What's so murky about it? "Establishment of religion" has a very specific meaning. There are many posts in this topic that have taken the trouble to explain it. Here's a web page that explains it too. It's anything but murky.
And the brethren went away edified.
recently saw a documentary on North Korea. Children there are also forced to recite, as part of the ongoing indoctrination.
Ofcourse I know USA is not the land of the free, it is too bad however that alot of Americans can't think for themself anymore due to successful indoctrination. Enforced reciting of the pledge plays an important part in that indoctrination.
>Maybe you didn't realize this, but no one can be forced to say this pledge thing. This has been the law of the land since 1943 (before they even added the "prayer" part to it).
And nobody was ever officially forced to join the Young Pioneers or Nazi Party.
Recognize the indoctrination for what it is, and give up your fantasy that there is not pressure applied to the average kid to say the pledge in the exact same robotic tone as everybody else. Stop profering this flacid defense and actually ask people how it the pledge was conducted in their experience.
For fucks sake! your president talks about god all the time and half his voters and party think hes gods gift, do you not think this slightly more of an issue? Do you not think he might have a slight vested interest or biased opinion leading to violation of the bill of rights? Does this mean that if the court decides that 'under god' shouldnt be there then Bush should go? well i can
kill the suspense now and tell you that the mostly-friends-of-bush supreme court will be deciding in favour of god.
George Bush states that atheists are not citizens or patriots
Bush puts God on his side
George Bush Invites God to School
America Attacked Iraq, Because God Told George Bush To
President George "W" Bush: God's Man for This Hour
Is George W. Bush God?s President?
Bush announces war with plea for God's blessing
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Then you pledge allegiance to your countrymen but not your country. Can you guess why I find this illogical?
It's more logical than saying that one doesn't derive from the other.
As reported in the Independant newspaper, they will replace their (3-5% error rate) mechanical voting machines with computers running unreliable touch-screens (that whereever you press, the republican candidate lights up), MS Access and Win98 with hundreds of security holes, made by secretive companies that promise to get the vote for the republicans.
They've already did this for the mid-term elections in some states, and the administration has allocated large amounts of money to roll this out across the country.
After all, why use a fair and heavily distributed system (pencil and paper and human counters under supervision from all parties) when you can get three small companies with partisan CEOs to make machines that tell you who you voted for with no paper trail.
Shurely Myanmar (formerly Burma) and North Korea also qualify. Possibly Cuba too.
a place to practice their particular idiosyncratic beliefs" would be more correct. The continent received representatives from various Christian sects, primarily be cause they thought they could live remote from the "misbelief" of other creeds. They came to have the freedom to worship "my God" rather than tolerate the Satanic mischief maker those heretics believe in. There were repeated riots, lynchings and murders between various sects in Europe, most notably the persecution of Catholics by various protestant sects, but also the Quakers by protestants and protestants by each other, all quite certain of their own correctness. The pilgrims bugged out because they were actually so self-righteous that not even covenanters could stand them.
The first ammendment exists to protect the religious from each other, because very few really agree about what they really believe, in detail, and what little concurrence there is does not extend across sectarian boundaries. In short, the first ammendment exists so that Catholics and protestants can't argue that either sects is imposing their beliefs on the other. This extends to all religions.
The nation was not and never was intended to be "under God." No two groups could ever agree on which God that might be.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
In my school, in Atlanta (which explains a lot), we were forced to stand and recite the pledge while facing the flag every morning. In 9th grade, I was suspended for an entire week for not reciting (more appropriately not *standing* during the recital) the pledge. My principal simply said "I will not tolarate *Un-American* students in my school" as she handed me my suspension papers. She promptly got my middle-finger-response. I failed two classes because of this suspension, b\c it was during exam week. Not being one to give in, when I returned to school after my first suspension, I stood, but with my back turned to the flag. Another suspension. This continued for an entire semester until finally my homeroom teacher and my principal just got sick of the paperwork, and constant threats of lawsuits. I think I was suspended for about an entire month (not all at once) during my 9th grade year for not reciting the pledge, along with countless "In School Suspensions" and detentions. I object to the pledge not only for my religious beliefs (or lack thereof), but also my political beliefs, as well as a laundry list of other reasons..all of which have been brought up by previous posters... So for all those people that say that schools don't force kids to recite the pledge, or that kids don't get beaten up for being UnChristian: just because it didnt happen to *you* doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It does, and will continue to happen until the pledge is returned to its original state. Let's not even get into the stuff about school's banning kids from wearing pentagrams and whatnot, but allowing students to wear crosses. There is a grossly biased favoratism in public schools (especially in the south) towards Christianity, and it needs to stop. Hopefully this case will be one step forward in the right direction. "How's the weather in Canada this time of year?"
It might well behove you to understand a little bit more about america. We're hardly homogeneous, something that many european countries, courtesy of their many purges, would find unfamiliar.
It's akin to saying, that it's laughable for europeans to wonder why everyone thinks they're so into beastiality, based on the rumors of late night tv in amsterdam.
Quoting the words of others carries a big responsibility. Misquoting misrepresents the ideas of others. Here's a classic example of a misquote:
John Adams has often been quoted as having said: "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it."
John Adams did, in fact, write the above words. But if you see those words in context, the meaning changes entirely. Here's the rest of the quotation:
Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company-I mean hell.
As you can see from this example, context matters!
Example from: Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions. Oxford University Press, 198
----- I hate sigs.
Should change it to " under "
"As a writer / novelist you might want to spellcheck your sig.
Well, the "Under God" part is quite clearly historical commentary... Referencing the DoI.
OTOH, the Oath the president, Congress the Supreme Court, members of our military, etc. take, Ends with "SO help me God"... Now that part is technically optional, but it is included nonetheless.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
True, however there is a common theme running through this and pretty much any discussion that touches on religious issues that, to an outsider, American society's attitude towards religion is pretty weird. Obviously all the people within that society have different views but there is a pervading attitude. American's seem to get very worked up over religious issues very easily. And a rather larger proportion of them than you'd expect seem prepared to state fantasies as fact. It's just a bit weird that's all.
I am just curious whether other countries also have a pledge of allegiance (with or without God) that they recite in schools. I know that Australia and Germany do not. Are there any other countries in the world other than the US that do this?
It's akin to saying, that it's laughable for europeans to wonder why everyone thinks they're so into beastiality, based on the rumors of late night tv in amsterdam
Yeah, I'll remember that next time I see the Dutch head of state address the nation with "May bestiality continue to bless the Netherlands".
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Were actually added in the '50s if I remember correctly. Just take them back out. And while you are at it, get rid of that idiotic Star Spangled Banner and bring back America The Beautiful as the National Anthem.
Clearly written in the Constitution.
And one of the posts below is absolutely correct, the Christian connotations were added in the 50's for Cold War propaganda as we were not "Godless Communists." IMHO, that change turned the Pledge into a prayer not something Patriotic. Our Founding Fathers would probably be sick to their stomachs if they knew of the influence of religion in our government...they would remember all to easily the unchecked power it threw around in England before people left to come to America.
This basic principle of freedom of religion is non-existent if you force Muslim children, Hindu children, Buddhist children, and all the rest to have to listen to a Christian prayer much less recite it. This is why Church and State are supposed to be separated! Government has no business forcing or influencing personal belief upon any of it's citizens. Make it Patriotic again and it might lose a majority of the backing to force it upon people.
Then again, why force people to recite it not like we have a huge wall around our country to force people to stay here and we need to build false security making people speak words that could be hollow to them...
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
Your school was able to acquire televisions, but not flags? A flag appropriately sized for a classroom, complete with wooden dowel pole and mounting bracket, shouldn't be much more than 10 bucks.
For a good time, write a letter to your local newspaper, chastizing the school administrators for not finding enough money in the budget to allow the young people of your town ample opportunity to be patriotic. While you're at it, chastise the townspeople for not having a big enough budget for the school in general.
In, what used to be, my High School I remember specifically the fact my homeroom teacher attempted to force someone I know to cite the pledge of allegiance. This was a frickin High School! Of course, this kid is really smart and also said he had the right to not partake in it, which the teacher didn't even believe! I didn't even know this. NO ONE ever said you don't have to recite this. . . but then again I just sped through it since I nowadays also feel the pledge was sort of put in place as a means of declaring you a traitor. . . ironically they also said in the constitution that we have the right to have a revolution if we feel our country is going nowhere for us. . .
The REAL PROBLEM is being forced to do it and NOT BEING TOLD YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NOT SAY THIS considering this is totally not separation of church & state. Eastern religions are all alienated by the pledge due to them having none/many gods. . . ever check to find out how the "real" americans feel (ie. the ones who make this country diverse w/their different religions)?
The other problem seems to stem from this belief that everyone has to just accept, even if they don't believe in anything, that there is definitely a god and America is its chosen people. This is exactly the same way Americans first felt (Divine Mandate - the right to all the land from the pacific to the atlantic, god given might I add)
the US dollar must be unconstitutional.
So are children now to be exempt from (atheistic, materialistic determinist) evolution classes if they object?
What about the American Indian culture stuff where they force the students to act pagan rituals out?
Or the various things in Sex Ed including teaching that alternate lifestyles are good even if it is against one's beliefs, or even simply that we should not subject children to teacher pushed porn indoctrination masquerading as lessons?
If we give a "heckler's veto" to atheists, christians should have equal rights.
Although I personally would like to see the pledge restored to its original state, I do believe all this stuff about schools is the wrong question. Originally the pledge did not have "under God", but the Congress added it during the Cold War so as to distinguish us from the atheistic culture of the Communists. The lawsuit should therefore center around if that act of Congress established religion. Bear in mind that the 1st Amendment says only "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"; it (unfortunately) says nothing about states doing that. Thus this Cold War act of Congress is the 1st Amendment violation, not the acts of individual state laws that requires its recitation in school.
Then there is another angle as to why this question is the wrong one to ask, and that is if government should be involved in schools (or libraries, etc.). For example, the issue of what schools can and cannot teach, what books they carry, and if they can make students recite the pledge all go away when the school is privately owned. And then parents could send their kids to the school that requires the pledge if they like it, or go to another school if they don't like it. Issues like what books libraries can put on their shelves or COPA net censorship (another hot topic here on Slashdot) all go away when government is removed. Perhaps the 1st Amendment should also have said "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of education, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Though federal involvement in education is already unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment, which puts such powers into the hands of the states or the people...
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
and over 20 graduated from a seminary.
/.er can discern the difference.
As other posters pointed out, you are very selective with your quotes when you don't wrench one out of context.
The truth is more complex. The founders weren't all deists, yet they were specifically avoiding creating a theocracy or anything near it. Perhaps the best way of putting it is that Government should be concerned with this world, not the next. This was not a problem when government was small and you could go your entire life without contact with it.
As far as national defense, a postal and road system, official weights and measures and definitions for things like property, and a judiciary to settle disputes, there is nothing which has to be involved with religion.
I don't know how I would christianize or muslimize these functions anymore than I could create a hindu oil change different from a shinto one. Either the oil and filter are replaced with new and things are tightened properly or they are not.
At the time of our founders, we had Public schools, not Government schools, but I doubt the average
Ideas like education and feeding the poor and hospitals are religious ideas. An atheist might think they are good (when they aren't preaching survival of the fittest), but having government involved with these (other than in fascist or communist countries) is a recent development.
I believe in separation of church and state. But that means that the Supreme court should get Government out of schools, not "under god" out of the pledge.
And why should atheists "opt-out" of the pledge (to the point of a universal ban) but Christians and others not be able to avoid Orgy-education and "we weren't created, we evolved" evolution classes? Note I am not talking what is right (true) or not, but if the standard is one student's offense at a dogma can ban it I just want it to be applied equally.
Then atheists and christians (and others) can set up and fund their own schools.
Why should government not regulate with and interfere with the internet and web standards and everything else that seem to raise the libertarian hackles when proposed when they regulate all these other things? If you don't want the government on your line, you should not want it in your or your children's school.
Great intentions, but here's the problem:
Learning something by rote, BEFORE you have the ability to comprehend it, will make you far less likely to ever have any chance of incorporating those ideas into your view of the world.
It just sets up a kind of weird, false idol that has no connection to any real thoughts or feelings.
It's the kind of thing that creates all of the Rebel flag waving freaks around these parts, who are the first to scream that we need to string up Johnny Taliban, and lock up any people who oppose the American Way.
But the Rebel flag is the symbol of the greatest treason and mass deaths of Americans that ever happened.
-jmlyle
I have misplaced my pants.
Interesting that during all the thousands of comments in the nation-wide argument over the constitutionality of the pledge, no one has discussed the more important intellectual property issue.
Can Congress or any private organization arbitrarily change an artists work?
The Pledge of Allegiance was the intellectual property of Francis Bellamy.
In 1914, a private organization took it upon themselve to change the artist's work.
In 1954, Congress and the President presumed to have the right to change the artist work (or is the current pledge a derivation or parody under copyright law?)
If a writer, artist, or programmer creates an original piece of intellectual property, can Congress decide that the creator almost got it right and alter the work as was done with the Pldge of Allegiance?
If so, then Congress has the power to add the Books of Maccabees to the King James bible, rewrite all those objectionable song lyrics, and rewrite our software.
Personally, even though a career veteran, I no longer stand and recite the codified version of the pledge, but will gladly recite Francis Bellamy's beautiful work.
(By the way, Francis intended the pledge to be adopted world-wide. What if we should teach children in Afghanistan and Iraq to recite Francis Bellamy's flag salute to honor their flags and countires?)
Since when is "GOD" a single religion? Since when is having GoD mean that we are respecting the establishment of A Religion.
Religion is specifically spelled out TO BE around. FREEDOM OF RELIGION not FROM Relgion. Atheists try and make the point that it is forcing relgion on them.. it may be.. but it is NOT forcing a single type of religion.
All the quotes for and against religion means nothing. They framed the consititution to prevent a religion from being named state religion not to prevent religion.
Oh and there IS NO SUCH THING as "Seperation of CHURCH and STATE" in the consititution.
Now..
1. Dont force people to say the Pledge of alliegiance anyways.. as that is CIVIL Religion.
2. Dont force people to NOT burn the flag.. again.. CIVIL Religion.
Oh.. Did I mention a thing called Civil Religion.. the worshiping of the State? Yea.. its called "Patriotism" but then again Worshiping of Jesus Christ is called "Christianity". Words, Semantics.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
I have lived in the US for eight years. Every now and then I contemplate becoming a citizen. And then I run up against the whole Pledge of Allegiance thing.
I am told it is customary to remain silent while everyone else says "under god". I have a problem with it being customary for the final step in the process of becoming a citizen involves defying an act of Congress. But that's not my biggest problem.
My biggest problem is that it's a flag. My allegiance is not to a piece of cloth. My allegiance is (or would be) to the Republic for which it stands. So my Pledge of Allegiance would go like this:
I pledge allegiance to the
[pause]
United States of America
[pause]
Republic
[pause]
One nation
[pause]
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all
[sotto voce]: who can afford it.
--
E_NOSIG
Go back and read your history books. Yes, a real one. Not the Bible.
It seems more like a topic for a civil libertarian blog. . . . I'm just asserting this is off topic. Michael, can't you find another website to pound your drums on?
Might I humbly suggest PLASTIC? It is primarily a political group newsblog with generally a libertarian readership.
It also has a couple of advantages that would keep a -1 Off Topic post such as this one is to SlashDot from running in the first place. The submission queue is readable to most users, and hundreds of users have sufficient karma to comment and vote on the submissions in the queue.
They also have a way for users to post "Quick Links" stories that might be interesting to the community but either don't have discussion potential, or which aren't generally relevant to the topics Plastic deals with.
Oh, and because the main reason I can see this running here is that it generates page views and thus ad revenue, you might be interested in learning that Plastic has no advertising and so is free of the motivation of posting something just to make money off user supplied content.
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WHOA!! C'mon man, I'm at work!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Thanks for clarifying that. I had forgotten the last bit. Adams was raised a Congregationalist, but his written beliefs vaccilated between Unitarianism and Deism.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."
An agent of the state != congress. An agent of the state endorsing religion != congress making a law establishing a religion.
Fear of losing control.
By fostering a sense of "us vs. them", governments and religious institutions play on the fears and insecurities of their supporters/followers. If you can make your minions believe that only you have the answers, they'll follow you to hell and back, or straight to the Kool-aid table.
Secular governments are traditionally far more liberally minded (yes, I used the "L" word) with regard to education. An educated populace loses a lot of its fear of the unknown, and thus becomes dangerous to the status quo. The staus quo responds by closing ranks and promoting new fears to try and restore order. In the old days, it was the fear of hell that kept the common folk in line while the Medici popes raided the European and Vatican coffers. The modern day equivalent of hell is poverty, so the fear of losing money, or to appear that you have less than others, is the demon dangled whenever those free-thinking types get uppity. In times of uncertainty, hypocrisy reigns supreme over logic.
If it wasn't so sad, it'd almost be funny. But then again, humankind has known this for millenia, and yet we still fight the battles over and over.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
> No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to.
[...]
Oh, and you ended your sentence with a preposition.
No, he didn't. He ended it with the introductory "to" that begins an infinitive mood verb. I.e. "...whenever they want to [recite the pledge]"
I'd have gone to a newspaper, or even published a few broadsheets myself; 'Principal SoandSo Claims Freedom of Expression, Of Opinion, Of Religion 'Un-american.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
And why should atheists "opt-out" of the pledge (to the point of a universal ban) but Christians and others not be able to avoid Orgy-education and "we weren't created, we evolved" evolution classes? Note I am not talking what is right (true) or not, but if the standard is one student's offense at a dogma can ban it I just want it to be applied equally."
Well, you seem to be trolling, but I wanted to specifically point out the fundimental wrongness of this part regardless. The government has little legal standing to fund schools, but it has more standing to do that then to force religious doctrine. And there is no doubt that is what 'Under God' does. The government is specifically forbidden from advocating any religion. That referance to god is just as clear an establishment of religion as 'there is no god' would be an establishment of no religion.
And as for evolution... Well, the schools are teaching science, so evolution is required. The schools generally do not teach religion, so creation 'science' and CS-a-likes like ID are not to be taught. If the schools do comparitive religion, then that could easily be added to that portion of the cirriculum, of course. But it's not science.
And it's not 'one student's offense'. It's the government endorsing something that it shouldn't that is the cause of the ban. I don't care if NO students are offended. The government should not, in any way, force religion onto them.
I'm not shy, I'm stalking my prey
the irony here being that "Allah" simply means "God" in Arabic. An Arabic speaking Christian would not be offended at all...
... and is a devout believer in the separation of church and state, and despises the American Christian right for selling out the founding principles of this country in the mistaken belief that it will be their brand of Christianity that will prevail should that separation continue to be eroded.
... throw in the rapidly growing Islamic and Mormon religions (both of which are growing orders of magnitude faster than the fastest growing Christian religion) and the point should become apparent even to the Jerry Falwells of the world. Given those irrefutable statistics, what version of God do they expect their grandchildren to be forced to worship in class, to be promoted by their schools and government? Their tiny minority version, or the ever growing, by-then-much-larger-than-they-minority version adhered to by others?
... not the historical and constitutional illiteracy coupled with the emotional knee-jerk reactions we have come to expect from that quadrant of our society.
Or perhaps, the arabaic speaking Christian (probably Assyrian living in a mainly Islamic country) would be deeply offended, understanding the desirability of the separation of church and state far more intimately than his or her American compatriots, having lived on the short end of the religion-in-government stick all his or her life.
I have an Assyrian friend who was born in Iraq, grew up in Iran, then emigrated to the United States. He has stories of political and social oppression that would curl your hair
Indeed, any Christian who gives it any reasonable thought is likely to come to a similiar conclusion: the freedom to practice their religion is dependent on the government NOT EMBRACING ANY RELIGION. There are enough incompatible Christian denominations to make this apparent
But of course, this requires rational, reasoned thought
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I see that a non-controversial option is right in front of the SCOTUS - make no ruling on the Pledge - or rule that its mere existence is not establishing religion - but rule that the Pledge cannot be made compulsary - which would be consistent with prior rulings (someone cited a case of a Jehovah's Witness that the SCOTUS ruled in 1947? could not be required to say the Pledge).
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Disclaimer - I was born atheist, became agnostic when I started trying to make logical sense of the universe, now I'm Buddho-Christian-heretic. I believe in God, but I believe evolution, quantum theory and rocket science - at least as far as they are scientific explanations for natural phenomena. I'm particularly thankful for anti-biotics, insulin and fetal heart monitors.
From an anthropological standpoint 'atheism' quacks like a duck, therefore it is a duck... er, religion. Thing is you see, atheists are as varied as deists. Atheists are segmented into cults of personality, cults of dogma and then there's all the millions of non-practicing atheists, like my friend the born-Catholic, reborn as sexist, alcoholic jock. To him God/god/goddess/gods (etc) is just a non-issue.
Atheism is an -ISM. It's a belief system the super-ordinating maxim of which is "there is no god", (not, "I don't believe in God") and all other values stem from that. This can be as ancient as Buddhism or as modern and topical as a talk show where libertarian lawyers tear apart ex-Catholic priests to the chears of the studio audience.
Atheism has plenty of positions on morality, just as there are plenty of sects in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and any other religion, and few of them agree any more than deists/theists. Some atheists think abortion is just fine because human life has no meaning. Some think abortion is an abomination because human life is the only thing that has meaning.
Some atheists actively pursue the destruction of theisms. (Like Communists and Socialists.) Most, like my friend, couldn't give a fig. There are other _groups_ that feel theists/deists are deluded, incapable of seeing logical truth and are therefore insane. This group of atheists, seeing that the deists/theists are irrational, would like to ensure deists/theists aren't allowed to vote, or, in some cases, raise children, since they would pass on their irrationalism to the children.
Atheism is institutionalized in the charters of rights and freedoms, constitutions and innumerable legal documents of various nations. It is likewise institutionalized in the forms of Communism and Socialism. The mental health community in North America, as I have seen it, is vehemently hostile to any form of belief that does not elevate the individual and said individual's impulses to pre-eminance. I've known shrinks to push their patients to cast off all "religious" beliefs and just do whatever they felt like. Some of those people have AIDS now.
Untold magazines line any newstand's shelves catering to the belief in the non-existence of any form of supernatural reality. They promote the infallibility of science, the superiority of humanity and the eventual ascendance of the human mind to transhuman and possibly transcendent states. Science departments at universities don't take a stand of "we're not here to talk about supernatural realities, we're here to measure the natural world". They publicly castrate anyone who asks a simple question about intelligent design. Or anyone who questions the presently accepted theory or points out that the current theory superceded a previous one and the current one might be as wrong as the previous and, wait, why are you throwing me out of the class, I have scientific proof, wait...
And most philosophy departments will have one or more experts on the dogma/doctrine (depending on sect) that is Freud's "The Future of an Illusion". That will get pounded on dogmatically, emphatically and emotionally every chance the professor gets.
From my experience, atheism is an active and varied belief system which is deeply entrenched within the modern cultures of the world.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not down on atheism. It's just really, really unscientific to think that atheism isn't a religious belief system.
What's particularly sad is that when the pledge had "under God" added in the 50s, the placement was meaningful:
.
right between nation and indivisible
Say it in the original form a couple times, actually listening to the words... you'll notice something. The insertion is obvious and clumsy, but has gone unnoticed by a generation who has it memorized as just another constant string.
Ever read The Age of Reason?
Finding God in a Dog
> So are children now to be exempt from [...] evolution classes if they object?
AFAIK, there aren't any classes strictly in "evolutionism." Add into that, evolution is a well-established theory with lots of scientific basis. Your point is invalid as well, because that is a class which SAYS it's a theory. Children are taught ABOUT it, not told that it is fact. There is nothing to prohibit schools from teaching ABOUT christianity, either.
> What about the American Indian culture stuff where they force the students to act pagan rituals out?
I was never (nor have I heard of anyone) forced, let alone asked, to act any rituals, "pagan" or not, in school or anywhere. I was barely taught about A.I. culture at all, and certainly not their rituals. Sounds like you're building a straw man.
> Or the various things in Sex Ed including teaching that alternate lifestyles are good even if it is against one's beliefs
I was never taught about "alternate lifestyles," either. Sex Ed was straightforward "man & woman" type stuff, but was mostly about diseases. I think that promotes all sex in general as bad, not any as good. That in itself, I would argue, is a religious viewpoint. To me, sex is morally equivalent to taking a crap -- it is not good or bad, it's just something mammals do.
> we should not subject children to teacher pushed porn indoctrination masquerading as lessons
Porn, wow that's pretty ignorant of reality. I sure as hell wish my school would have handed out or even shown anything resembling porn. Unfortunately, my school taught it like biology, with cross-section drawings & badly-obscured pictures. And I thought "sex ed" would teach something about sex. Nope, it was an anatomy class.
> If we give a "heckler's veto" to atheists, christians should have equal rights.
This is the first time I can recall anyone ever claiming that atheists have more rights. I'm not sure what you mean by "heckler's veto," as it's a pretty ambiguous term, but why should a christian's right to say "under god" overrule an atheist's right to recite the proper Pledge of Allegiance (and proudly display their patriotism) without declaring an aknowledgement of the existence of any god (christian or not)?
Sure, they can just not say that part, but then they are not reciting the actual Pledge of Allegiance, they are saying their version of it.
Imagine if I were a Christian (it's hard, but imagine) and I thought the Lord's Prayer was cool & all, but I decided I didn't like a line or two of it, so I changed it. Would it still be the Lord's Prayer, even though I'm the only one who says it (modified)? No it is not, so why should I expect those with slighty different opinions to recite it? I shouldn't, since my version does not reflect their beleifs, as saying our country is "under God" does not reflect mine.
And as for evolution... Well, the schools are teaching science, so evolution is required. The schools generally do not teach religion, so creation 'science' and CS-a-likes like ID are not to be taught. If the schools do comparitive religion, then that could easily be added to that portion of the cirriculum, of course. But it's not science.
:P
Please explain how evolutionary research is science and creation research is not science? Do both not operate on a hypothesis defining the origins of the world, life, and the universe? Are both not scientific methods used to try to defend these hypotheses?
You may have been subject to a creationist who doesn't use scientific methods to try to defend the creationist stance. Hopefully you don't use that one person's act as the foundation for your belief that creation science is not science.
Neither evolution nor creation can be proven empirically, and neither can be proven as fact as surely as we know molecules exist and the earth spins on an angle. Without being biased, evolution and creation are both theories that are in the process of being proven through scientific method. Both have their 'good' and 'bad' scientists with their methods, but creation is just as viable as a science as evolution.
However, it is UNSCIENTIFIC and unethical to rephrase theories to state that your belief is fact, especially if there are other viable scientific theories that disagree with yours. Evolution, if being taught in schools, MUST be taught as theory, and if being taught as theory, creation has just as much right to be taught as theory. If creation is not allowed as a viable scientific theory, then evolution cannot either. If the government makes laws against bias towards any belief system, evolution cannot be taught, else creation has as much right to be taught, as long as both are taught as theories, with adequate research material. Both are belief systems founded on a hypothesis, whether that includes divine intervention or not. All theories are viable until one is disproven. If two theories are fighting, and neither is disproven, that does not invalidate the science, it just means believers of either theory need to continue to work towards the goal of proving theirs (or disproving the other)
Alas, teaching both would likely cause a very LARGE amount of chaos in the education system. Thus I'm for not teaching evolution in school. And no, this does NOT cut out science as a class. Evolution is one aspect of the strive of science - the pursuit of truth. If science only works on the assumption that evolution is the only possibility, it is not the pursuit of truth. Plenty of science - physics, biology, chemistry - can be taught without touching conflict enducing 'religious' topics such as origins.
Teaching our students 'what we evolved from' when it should be 'what is believed we evolved from' is a crime, if it is a crime to allow voluntary prayer in schools (as has been attested in numerous previous posts in this article).
If one step is to be taken, the first is to fix our schools, and ensure that theory is not taught as fact - whether that be evolution or teachers who take it upon themselves to teach creation as fact.
I'm a Christian, I believe in creation. But that doesn't make me a believer that america should falsely be a forced religious country. People should have choice to believe for themselves what they want to believe. And I believe in fairness, freedom, and rights, if that is what the country is founded on.
Anyway I could go on for pages and pages, so I'll stop now and get back to work
This is all I could find at this point... (via ht*p://www.reclaimamerica.org/PAGES/fastfacts/Amer icasChristianHeritage.pdf)
"O most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful and loving Father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt, in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day."
--from Daily Sacrifice, Washington's personal prayer book, written in his own handwriting, declaring continual faithful-ness to Jesus Christ.
"Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man."
--John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1801-1835) who served with George Washington at Valley Forge, describing Washington
President Adams proclaimed a national day of prayer and fasting so that America might "call to mind our numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, imploring his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgression, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience."
--National Proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, John Adams
September 11, 1777
--The Continental Congress recommended and approved that the Committee of Commerce "import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere," because of the great shortage of Bibles created by the Revolutionary War's interruption of trade with England.
Misc Resources...
Resources:
Barton, David.
Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion.
Aledo, Texas:
Wallbuilder Press, 1997.
Eidsmoe, John.
Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith ofOur Founding Fathers.
Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House Company, 1991.
Federer, William J.
America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations.
Coppell, Texas:
FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994.
Grant, George.
The Patriot's Handbook: A Citizenship Primer for a New Generation of Americans.
Elkton, Maryland:
Highland Books, 1996.
Staver, Mathew D.
Faith and Freedom: A Complete Handbook for Defending Your Religious Rights.
Orlando:
Liberty Counsel, 1998.
I agree with some of what you said. Religious arguments have been used to excuse and justify all kinds of wrong thinking and injustice. As a Christian, I find it horrible that the name of Christ has been used to justify things like the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust. There are also many who seem to think that because God has blessed the US in the past, anything it does is just, which is a dangerous lie. The addition of the words "under God" might be a mild example of this problem.
However, for the Supreme court to prohibit reciting the Pledge of Allegiance would be a violation of the principles of the first ammendment. It would violate freedom of speech and religion just as seriously as if Congress established a national religion. God doesn't need a government's defense, but one of the US government's primary purposes is to defend its citizens' rights.
I also think it's wrong for a public school to require students to recite the Pledge or to participate in other patriotic rituals. I don't see how voluntary participation is violating anyone's rights. If parents don't like what their children are taught, they should send them to a different school, which leads to my final point.
I think the biggest problem with this whole debate is that it's reached too high a level. Public schools are under school boards and ultimately under the states. Why is this being debated at a Federal level? Why can't these type of questions be resolved at a local or state level? This whole thing shows how the public school system is far too centralized. If schools were locally controlled as they were originally, the Supreme Court wouldn't have to be involved.
You fail to make an important distinction between a theory and a hypothesis. Creationism is a hypothesis, evolution is a theory. There is, in fact, a plethora of empirical evidence to support evolution. Christians repeatedly say things like "it is only a theory," but fail to realize what a theory really is. A theory has to have a wide range of experimental evidence. The reason it is theory and not simple fact is because there is no absolute proof of it. But you use things every day that a theories without considering that they might not be true. Much of the physics explanation for gravity is theoretical, but that does not mean you can levitate.
Thus evolution can justifiably be taught in schools while the hypothesis of Creationism, which has no empirical evidence to back it up, is not.
Can you point me to articles about the details of the case? I've read about it a couple of places and nowhere have I read that the objection is to simply hearing the Pledge. I'm not doubting your word at all, but instead more interested to get the whole story.
I agree with most of what you've said about this case. If someone can prohibit teachers from saying something in a public school simply because he disagrees with it, will public schools be able to teach anything of value? There will be someone who objects to almost anything said in school. Some people object to certain theories or to Science entirely. Others might be offended by certain spin or lack of spin in history books. I wonder if this atheist has considered the weight such a precedent would give to those who object to sex education or the teaching of natural evolution.
Like you, I believe in free will and personal responsibility to decide what to believe. Unlike you, I believe in a personal God. A person can choose to believe in Him or not, regardless of whether He or religion is discussed in school. Mentioning or discussing God is not the same as establishing a state religion.
No. See bold for incorrect word. Creationism and ID do not make a hypothesis in the scientific sense.
"Are both not scientific methods used to try to defend these hypotheses?"
No. See above for creationism/ID. Evolution is a theory (scientific terminology, not popular, see below), not a hypothesis.
Hypothesis propose testable results. In the case of creationism/ID, there are none. Prove god exist, scientifically - Can't be done. Prove the earth was created 6000 years ago (young earth creationism) - Demonstratably false. Creationism has no tests that cannot be applied to it, so it fails to be even a hypothesis.
Evolution: Theory. Not only does it have results we can test the validity of (example: result from hypothesis: birds should have more genes in common to other birds than bacteria. Test: Found to be true. Therefore, theory holds up). Even where evolution has 'bugs', it's not in the overarching theory, but in the details. In the large sense, evolution is TRUE. In the large sense, F=ma is true... only in certain details at odd times do you need to modify (not throw out) that fact.
"You may have been subject to a creationist who doesn't use scientific methods to try to defend the creationist stance."
True, if you replace 'a creationist' with 'all creationists'. Even the creationists with science degrees seem to forget the scientific method when they talk about creationism.
"Without being biased, evolution and creation are both theories that are in the process of being proven through scientific method. Both have their 'good' and 'bad' scientists with their methods, but creation is just as viable as a science as evolution."
You are being biased. Creationism does not use the scientific method to determine proof. It relies on untestable statements like 'there is too much complexity in the human body for it to have arisen randomly' (a statement which ignores a large number of facts about evolution, but anyway...). That is not SCIENCE.
"MUST be taught as theory"
Which it is. It's right there in the phrase THEORY OF EVOLUTION in every textbook I know of.
"and if being taught as theory, creation has just as much right to be taught as theory."
Hell no. Again, creationism is not a scientific theory. It is a religious doctrine. ID is creationism in a white coat. No changes, it just claims to be scientific without anything to back it up.
"All theories are viable until one is disproven."
A theory is a hypothesis that has been proven to accuratly reflect the observed facts. Again, evolution passes this challenge, creationism doesn't even get over the starting line.
"If science only works on the assumption that evolution is the only possibility, it is not the pursuit of truth"
Correct. Luckaly for us, science does not assume this. Science has shown that with all the evidance currently available to us, evolution IS true. If we encounter something that disproves it, well, we need a new hypothesis (and once tested, theory), but right now, there is no other theory that comes even close to explaining as much about the origin of species as evolution does.
"Teaching our students 'what we evolved from' when it should be 'what is believed we evolved from' is a crime, if it is a crime to allow voluntary prayer in schools (as has been attested in numerous previous posts in this article)"
They are unrelated. Science is not a religion. The government has a strong interest in science education (well, as strong as it has in education itself, anyway). But the government cannot in any way endorse one religious viewpoint over another. So evolution goes into science classes (it not being a religion or a belief system) and creationism goes to comparitive religion (where many religions are studied, creationism being a belief system not rooted in physically ob
I'm not shy, I'm stalking my prey
And why should atheists "opt-out" of the pledge (to the point of a universal ban) but Christians and others not be able to avoid Orgy-education and "we weren't created, we evolved" evolution classes? Note I am not talking what is right (true) or not, but if the standard is one student's offense at a dogma can ban it I just want it to be applied equally.
:)
First, WTF is "Orgy-education"? Hahahah. Heh. You mean sex ed, don't you? As in "Be responsible", "Don't have multiple partners", "Think about the consequences of your actions", "If you choose to have sex (despite our suggestions to wait), make sure you use protection", "If you don't follow this advice, here's concrete things (like pus, warts, open running sores, financial responsibilities way above your current means that last for 20 years) that can and will happen to you if you're unresponsible". Yeah, that's MUCH worse than "Don't, because God said so" and "Don't touch that filthy thing, you unclean whore! Go pray until those feelings go away!" (like until you're about 85).
Sorry for the aside, you really got me going
To address your question/statement: How is teaching facts (history, english, the scientific method) the same as pledging your life to an idea? School is for education, not preaching. Maybe you'd be happy to have everyone required to pledge their souls to Buddha, or Zeus, or Satan? Sure, THAT belongs in school. Heck, we can pledge and chant the kid's days away, and they can go to Sunday Math and Science class! It's going to take AT LEAST the whole school day to have them get through enough proseletizing to make 95% of the students and parents happy that their particular views were covered.
And as to why creationism shouldn't be tought in science class: Because it's SCIENCE class, where everything has been subjected to the scientific method. If a hypothesis can't be tested and independantly verified, then it doesn't belong in science class. Sure, it's possible to disagree with some of the current theories (like, maybe somebody's true belief is that there is no gravity, the Earth just sucks), but science class is not the place to teach those alternative suggestions (or to even acknowledge them, as it might seem that science gives them some credibility).
And while I'm going: I always think it's funny that creationists are so adamant that God is all-powerful, etc., but then assume that the only way God would be able to create Humans is to say "abra-cadabra" and *poof* there's Adam. Personally, I'd give God more credit than that and think that just MAYBE the exact implementation would be a bit more complicated than I could easily come up with (and likely more complicated than humans can ever fully understand). Taking the Bible literally seems to be an insult to God. It means that humans are capable of fully understanding all that God can, and that there is no possibility of filtering error and no room to assume that maybe the info was dumbed-down a bit for us (especially considering the time the bible was written and their lack of knowledge of things like DNA).
I believe in separation of church and state. But that means that the Supreme court should get Government out of schools, not "under god" out of the pledge.
That's funny. Separation of church and state is good, but the phrase "one nation, under god" is ok?!? I'm trusting that you wrote "god" correctly, and that's it's not actually "God", but *any* reference to *any* diety in a solemn pledge to your country is a direct melding of church and state. So, the pledge needs to be returned to its original state, without "under god".
BTW, the point of schools should be to ensure that all children recieve good basic educations in reading, writing, science, etc. To me, it's the same argument as your oil change. If I ask a kid what 2+2 is, I expect to hear "4". Not "the all powerful and merciful creater of the heavens has decreed through divine will that the sum of 2 and 2 be 4". They have nothing to do with each oth
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved me a lot of writing. The only thing I might add is where you said, "Creationism does not use the scientific method to determine proof," I would note that it is impossible to use scientific method to determine "proof." Proof is essentially a rationalist concept. We use scientific method to disprove, or fail to disprove, hypotheses. TheBruce, like all creationists, does not understand the difference between empiricism (and science) and rationalism.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Not that anyone would read this, but ending your sentece with a preposition is not "wrong". . . it's discouraged. So while ranting about Michael's 0 minutes of research, you don't do any of your own.
dictionary.com says
"Usage Note: It was John Dryden who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end of a sentence, probably on the basis of a specious analogy to Latin. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. English syntax does allow for final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or I asked her which course she had signed up for. Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have stilted and even comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying "This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put." Sometimes sentences that end with adverbs, such as I don't know where she will end up or It's the most curious book I've ever run across, are mistakenly thought to end in prepositions. One can tell that up and across are adverbs here, not prepositions, by the ungrammaticality of I don't know up where she will end and It's the most curious book across which I have ever run. It has never been suggested that it is incorrect to end a sentence with an adverb."
Because that religious text proclaims to be the word of a spiritual being that lords over us all. On the face of it, it is a dubious claim at best. But that aside, it has been edited, added to and generally messed with over the centuries. There were initially many more than four gospels in the Bible, but the Catholic Church decided a while back that there should be only four. King James created his bible through committee and then made the final changes himself. Don't you think that in 2000 years (more for the Old Testament) something could have gotten lost in translation? I suppose you could make the argument that God sheperded it through the ages, but that's really getting into the metaphysical.
It's not that the Bible doesn't have wisdom in it; it does. But there is alot of terrible stuff that goes on in there that is supposedly condoned by God (the Torah and Qu'ran have this same problem). I'll do the research if you need chapter and verse, but I think you know what I mean.
"Why is it so dangerous to have a leader who seeks to humble himself before God?"
Humble? Okay, maybe he started out that way, maybe. But now we have "With us or against us", "dead or alive" and "Bring 'em on". We have a man who says that Saddam has to go for defying US resolutions, and then defies the UN in going after him. In the State of the Union address he said of terrorists who had been killed, "Let's just say they're not a problem anymore." with his best gunslinger lean. Bush talked of humility during his campaign, but he has shown himself to be proud and arrogant.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
do you have a problem with that, because it's the written word of what this country is about and if you disagree, and think it's about amenities, you should leave.
also, perhaps you need to also look up the definitions of "devotion" and "loyalty" when you deny that allegience to a person implies a certain amount of unconditional support.
It's the difference between to ally and to allege.
Here is the american heritage defintion via dictionary.com
1. Loyalty or the obligation of loyalty, as to a nation, sovereign, or cause. See Synonyms at fidelity.
2. The obligations of a vassal to a lord.
Vassal to a lord? Oblication of loyalty?
-pyrrho
There are many people in the states who believe as strongly about their god as we so about Ours. For those who would yowl and scream about changing it to "one nation under Allah" or "Krishna", or any other name of god, consider what it feels like for those who worship in those religions -- or simply those who understand enough of the history of politics and religion to object to the politicization of religion. (As Jesus said: "Give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar and give to God what belongs to God".)
With so much talk about overthrowing fundamentalist religious states in the Middle East it seems rather hypocritical fighting to keep/install fundamental religous features into US government structures.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
First of all, let me state that I don't particularly believe in God. Actually, to be clearer, I don't think that IF there is a God, that he gives a damn whether you believe in him or not. What I DO believe in is the right of every American citizen to DO and SAY anything they damn well please as long as they aren't infringing on someone else's right to do the same.
I am always amazed at how many people are out there that have no idea about what the term "separation of church and state" really means.
The first amendment states that:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;or abridgin the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, an to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
That's it. Plain and simple.
Point 1: This has nothing to do with a matter of law. There is no "law" in question here that would either promote or hinder any aspect of religious freedom.
Point 2: The constitution is a document solely designed for ONE purpose... to outline and more importantly restrict what the Federal government can and can not do. It has absolutely NO bearing on what other citizens or free enterprise does to you and its a strongly debatable topic as to whether or not it can interfere with local and state government, unless specifically given rights in other areas of the document (i.e. the 13th amendment which outlaws slavery, etc.)
Point 3: I have read through the Constitution again and again and I can find NO REFERENCE WHATSOEVER to "protection from being personally offended". I am sorry so many people in this country have such thin skin, but frankly, I don't care. I respect the right of everyone to say whatever they want to, without fear of reprisal from the GOVERNMENT... but not necessarily from his fellow citizens. What I mean by that is...If you plan to have a KKK rally in downtown Detroit, or burn the American flag at VFW meeting, don't expect not to get your ass whipped. And quite possibly you would deserve it just for being so stupid.
True.. the Pledge of Allegiance was ammended to include the words "under God", and that only happened in this within the last 50 years or so I believe. But the fact of the matter is that this country was founded by Protestants that believed in God, and religion is now and has always been a big political influence. What's next? Do we protest our political leaders from going to church or synagogue because we feel they are trying to influence the rest of the country unfairly?
If the biggest problem you people can think of in this country is whether or not the Pledge of Allegiance has the word "God" in it... you all really need to get a life.
-K
-K.
You should be commended for your resolution and doing what you think is right, even in the face of such great adversity.
Your teacher/principal should be fired for being such narrow minded educators.
And... you should be thankful that you were able to have this experience at such a young age. Many people live their whole lives in this country and never come close to having something like this to be proud of themselves for.
-K
-K.
Part of the duty of citizenship is not to be intimidated into conformity. I wish that the oath of citizenship taken by recent immigrants, and the pledge that students routinely ricite, included something like "I promise to question everthing my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgements."
I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation.
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
Even generals in the army feel the same way as you do - and they're just as wrong as you are.
... And the enemy is a guy named Satan."
Pentagon Defends Gen. Who Chided Muslims
By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Pentagon (news - web sites) leaders on Thursday spoke up in support of a top general who has told church audiences that the war on terrorism is a battle with Satan and that Muslims worship idols.
Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has made several speeches some in uniform at evangelical Christian churches in which he cast the war on terrorism in religious terms. Boykin said of a 1993 battle with a Muslim militia leader in Somalia: "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
Boykin did not respond Thursday to a request for comment.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday he had not seen Boykin's comments, but he praised the three-star general, who is the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
"He is an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States armed forces," Rumsfeld said at a news conference.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he had spoken in uniform at prayer breakfasts, adding he did not think Boykin broke any military rules by giving talks at churches.
"There is a very wide gray area on what the rules permit," Myers said. "At first blush, it doesn't look like any rules were broken."
A Republican senator visiting the Pentagon Thursday was more critical.
Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island said he had not been aware of Boykin's statements as reported in the news media, then added, "If that's accurate, to me it's deplorable."
A Muslim civil rights group on Thursday called for Boykin to be reassigned.
"Putting a man with such extremist views in a critical policy-making position sends entirely the wrong message to a Muslim world that is already skeptical about America's motives and intentions," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Awad's statement noted that a verse in the Quran says Muslims believe in the same God as Jews and Christians.
Boykin's church speeches, first reported by NBC News and the Los Angeles Times, cast the war on terrorism as a religious battle between Christians and the forces of evil.
Appearing in dress uniform before a religious group in Oregon in June, Boykin said Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian.
Rumsfeld on Thursday repeated the Bush administration position that the war on terrorism is not a war against Islam but against people "who have tried to hijack a religion."
The defense secretary said he could not prevent military officials from making controversial statements.
"We're a free people. And that's the wonderful thing about our country," Rumsfeld said. "I think that for anyone to run around and think that that can be managed and controlled is probably wrong. Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) could do it pretty well, because he'd go around killing people if they said things he didn't like."
(Emphasis added.)
This guy is nuts. Casting this as a religious war is idiotic - most Christians AND Muslims agree on that.
Education is the silver bullet.
George Bush is not a man of God. George Bush abuses the name of God for his own political ends. George Bush is a sleeper agent for the Godless Communists. George Bush is a Godless Communist. George W Bush encourages our enemies to shoot down our troops in Iraq.
That is why I, Richard Milhous Nixon, the greatest president this great country has ever had, is calling for all truely God fearing Americans to bring down this liberal pink hippie commie liberal scumbag George W. Bush. And don't wait until the Presidential election in November 2004. I'm calling on all Loyal Americans to join the Republican Party, if you haven't already, to vote against George W Bush in the Republican Primary.
Vote for John McCain, a truely loyal American, who not only fought for our country, but survived being an MIA for years. Do you think that he would needlessly squander our military resources, and put our brave soldiers at risk like that Godless Communist George W Bush did in Iraq? No. John McCain knows what it means to be a soldier and would not risk other soldiers lives so pointlessly.
Only a Liberal godless communist like JFK or George W Bush would start a war over so little. Remember, Liberals start wars, and true conservatives finish them. I didn't start Vietnam, Kennedy did. I just did what I had to do to finish it. That's why I say that George W Bush is a Godless Commie Liberal.
Thank you, and good night.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
Obviously Fundamentalist Christians don't have real faith that their religion can prevail on its own merits.
Maybe they aren't really Christians at all. Maybe they are really Godless Communists. If they were real Christians they would have faith. Not to mention they wouldn't have the Government force a Loyalty Oath on everyone that violates the third of the Ten Commandments.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
You just don't understand because you are a godless communist. Loyalty Oaths are the only thing protecting us from the godless communists. We must make everyone swear a Loyaty Oath on a daily basis because only a godless communist would refuse to take a Loyalty Oath. That way we can find out who they are, and ship them back to their caves in Siberia.
Now off with you! Back to your cave in Siberia!
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
Anyone who doubts that those born in the center of the North American land mass are favored by God above all others are Godless Communists.
This is the true purpose of Public Schools; to weed out the godless communists. The pledge is just a tool. A tool to weed out the godless communists and send them back to their caves in Siberia where they belong.
Patriotism is love of Country
Nationalism is love of Government
Jingoism is our national religion
We must make sure everyone worships acording to the national religion by putting cameras in everyones bedrooms so that we can all recite the pledge in Unisom at the beginning of every day.
So says I, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 43rd President of the United States.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
Good god, are you really so ignorant of history? No wonder it seems so poised to repeat itself in all its ugly misery.
There are dozens of forms of Christianity, and throughout the 2000 or so years of their ignoble history they have fought wars with one another and killed one another by the tens of thousands.
(And, while not a war per se, it is certainly true that the Quakers and the Puritans were driven to America by religious oppression by other "Christians." But of course, since there's only 1 Christianity, one group or the other wasn't really Christian by your definition now, was it. So oppressing the non-Christian desbelievers who happen to believe in Christ, but not your way, is okay, isn't it? Perhaps to zealots of today's Christian and Cathloc right-wing, but not to anyone sane enough to want a nation free of religious oppression, and not to our founding fathers).
Then there are the wars they fought with others not of their genre ("heathens," a term akin to "nigger" in religious circles in its derogatory implications).
There are multiple Christianities even in America, and if the separation of Church and State this country was founded upon (your despicable revisionist rhetoric notwithstanding) is lost to fools like yourself, you can be assured that the liklihood of your particular brand of Christianity prevailing is very, very small. Much more likely you will find yourself oppressed along with the rest of us, by a version of Christianity that conflicts with your personal beliefs.
This is why people far wiser than you, who founded this country, insisted on the separation of Church and state. and why the radical agenda of people like Tim O'Reilly and yourself to insinuate religion into civil government is so profoundly dangerous
I could go on, but what is the point? It is unlikely in the extreme that you are listening, or willing to reevaluate your dogmatic world view. Perhaps, once today's current trends have run their ugly course, you will reevaluate your position. But, given that no one in Northern Ireland (or Ireland proper), or in the Middle East, seems willing to relinquish their notions of Church Ueber Alles despite the obvious and appalling suffering it has caused in those parts, I rather doubt even decades of oppression and deprivation will change the radical right's opinions or agenda in the least.
And why should it? Religion thrives best when people are suffering.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The objection to the pledge of allegiance is similar in atleast one respect to the objections christians have concerning the teaching of darwinian micro-evolution in public schools. The pledge is objected too because of the religious connotation contained in part of it's text. Micro-evolution was objected to for the same reasons, but those reasons were ignored because science is not a religion. So no church & state conflict. Christianity, Budhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and "science" all provide an individual with a world view and something to believe in (aka: faith). They all answer or provide insight into the same kinds of questions. Yet "science" is not considered a religion because "science" says that it is not a religion. It is the newest of the world views listed above. I put "science" in quotes because their is no actual "ism" word that defines the embodiment of world view components and ideals that make up this very new religion. When "science" is considered to be a religion like all the others, the separation of church and state idea seems to fall apart in terms of practicality. What subjects in school could be considered "world-view" free. Mathematics, Spelling/Grammar, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Music, those are the only two that come to mind. Written historical records could be examined. But when you study the history of any civilization, you are going to bump into multiple world-views. Most of what are traditionaly considered the sciences such as chemistry, biology, physics, etc. are based on experimental results and some theoretical work as well. Biology and History typically fall victim to having world-view issues dragged into the situation. If "science" is a world-view, then teaching it and excluding others doesn't make any sense. To favor one world-view over all the others is to force an idea on those who don't hold that point of view. Essentially instilling intolerance through the public educational system. That is unconstitutional. As with any world view, it doesn't do any good for one world-view to know nothing or very little about the others. How can you support your world-view if you don't know any thing about the other world views? The best approach would seem to be to teach all the world-views in school. I believe at this point the parent's/community the school resides in come into play. A community/parents may decide that they want only a subset of the world views mentioned above taught. As long as no ones opinion is excluded, that seems somewhat reasonable and already happens anyway.
In highschool, the textbooks we had were about 15 years old. The books had a lot of ideas from science that are now considered to be incorrect. This is evident in comparing the new books they purchased two years after I left (my sibling's books) with my old book. The "evidence" found and interpreted by science changes in many ways as time goes on. Sometimes the interpretation of the results is replaced. Sometimes the evidence itself is invalidated. What I don't understand is, if this stuff changes so much, why is it held in so high a regard? Micro-evolution has been all but abandoned in favor of Gould's explanation of the evolutionary process. Yet the material I was taught in highschool contained facts and theories whose conclusions were later invalidated and replaced. All the more reason to teach all the points of view. Science has been taught in schools as if it is *gospel* but it has all kinds of evidence and interpretation validations and major theory shift s every twenty years or so. It is great that mankind makes that kind of progress, but why are we teaching it as fact given the body of evidence surrounding it's evidently limited life span? "Science" is not being taught the way science would teach it. Current results are used to produce a world-view, but the very embodiment of the ideals in science argue against such an approach. I believe that "science" is actually a world-view/religion that arose out of the conflict between other world-views and science. Someday hopefully is will have it's own "ism" so that it is easier to separate science from "science" and clear up this whole mess once and for all.
Thanks for your informative reply. First of all, IANAS(cientist), so my terminology may not be accurate, but if you present any argument, I'll do my best to answer to the best of my ability, with whatever research is necessary. If I can't find a defense of my point, then I'll concede it. Anyway...
:)]
[disclaimer: This is really, really long. Just a warning
As for hypothesis vs. theory, when it comes to something being true, and something essentially being true, I still find great distinction between the two. Whether creation is a hypothesis and evolution a theory, in my eyes - neither are provable in any form. Both can only be presented as a collection of observations and explanations, which to any degree may help support or disprove its respective stance. The 'scientific world' may consider evolution a theory now because there appears to be so much evidence that supports the position, but science, in any form, cannot say evolution is a fact, and can never, since any research done regarding past unrecorded time periods is purely extrapolation based on mathematical possibilities. It can't take into account unknown factors. As I'm sure you've heard before, no one was there, so no one knows for sure. This goes the same for creationism. There can be no absolute scientific proof one way or the other.
For me - hypothesis = theory. Yes, it's the theory of gravity. Science still doesn't fully understand what gravity is. What I know for a fact is that I'm pulled down towards the earth, being large and highly dense. Why? *shrug* science is still searching for that answer. But I know gravity exists.
I'll guarantee you, and I'm not afraid to, that any point you can find that you believe supports only the theory of evolution, AND therefore disproves the 'hypothesis' of creation, cannot be completely faultless or accurate. That, therefore, leaves only points that supposedly support evolution, but can also be explained by the creation model.
Hypothesis propose testable results. In the case of creationism/ID, there are none. Prove god exist, scientifically - Can't be done. Prove the earth was created 6000 years ago (young earth creationism) - Demonstratably false. Creationism has no tests that cannot be applied to it, so it fails to be even a hypothesis.
Prove the evolutionary chain, in any method - can't be done. And I don't mean prove it as a theory, I mean prove it as the only means of our, and the universe's, existence. Prove the earth evolved over millions and millions of years - Demonstatably false. Evolution has no tests that can be applied to it, so it must fail to be a hypothesis as well. Science can demonstrate tests in our modern physical world, and extrapolate from the results based on the foundation of evolution, finding a way for those results to support evolution. I can say that any observation you come across through science in our modern physical world can also be used to support the creation model. As of now, there is no scientific observation that cannot be used in some way to support the creation model.
Evolution: Theory. Not only does it have results we can test the validity of (example: result from hypothesis: birds should have more genes in common to other birds than bacteria. Test: Found to be true. Therefore, theory holds up)
How does this prove evolution and disprove creation? This isn't evidence that evolution occurred, it's simply evidence that similar animals should have more similar genese with each other than with different species. Even here there are so many variations between species in the gene pool, both by similarities and numbers, that it can't be extrapolated that the number of similar genes indicates its position in the evolutionary scale, as some scientists believe. It's simply a scientific observation.
Even where evolution has 'bugs', it's not in the overarching theory, but in the details. In the large sense, evolution is TRUE.
Exactly th
You are talking about denominations. All denominations (or if you prefer to nitpick I will say "most" to be safe) still believe God is the pinnacle of the Christian religion and believe in the Bible. If they do not then they are not a Christian religion/denomation. So the point is that we are not talking about here anything that would delve into the details separating the different denominations so the question of which "brand" of Christianity could be endorsed is irrelevant because saying "under God", for example, does not favor one "brand" over another because they all believe in the God aspect of the religion. There is no sense in getting into the denominational details and asking which brand I would want the gov't to "endorse" as they are all still one Christian religion.
You tell me I have a problem seeing the bigger picture here if religion is not cut out of the public place or gov't but you fail to see what happens (or actually what is happening) when it is cut out.
Having a religion never hurt anyone as long as you are not a fanatic about it and think Allah/God tells you to kill someone. But you have a problem with just because the government is making religious references that it's just such a bad thing. Why is such a bad thing to have faith in something? I know, it isn't your faith. Well, would it help if the gov't made references to every religion everytime they did something along those lines? Not that they will though. I know you don't want the gov't to favor one religion and they are not. They are reflecting what the public as a majority favors as their religion and as the main religion throughout this country's history. Favoring a religion would mean they are telling you to have this certain religion and if you didn't you would lose something because of it. That isn't happening. Your rights have not been violated and mine haven't either actually.
The bigger picture if this elimination of religion continues that you fail to see is that more immoral and sinful things will happen. Murders will rise, children will be more violent and not have any sense of what is right and wrong. That's just the beginning. It doesn't take a genius. WHen you have a religion, whichever one it is, it gives a sense of faith and a moral set of rules. Okay, so you don't want a moral set of rules but don't stop someone else from having any and having the gov't sort of keep that religion out there gives the people a good feeling like they aren't alone out there. Those who do not share the same views do not have to join and they will not be punished because of it. If you were punished then your rights would be violated but as it stands nothing like that is going on.The freedom of religion is still out there. You just don't want to see it because you are too worried about making sure someone else's religion is kept in check. Where is the freedom of religion for those people?
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
It is. Our government is expressly forbidden from taking any side in this particular debate. They certainly may not expect pupils to chant that our country is "under God" a few thousand times during their formative years.
"The crops aren't growing--time to slaughter another virgin." "My child is sick--must be punishment by evil spirits for something they did wrong." "The king is an inbred idiot who can have any of us killed--his family has been chosen." "The planets sure move oddly--there must be invisible gears up there with us at the center."
When people have faith in the answers they've been given, they stop looking for better answers or even asking the questions. Not to mention the totalitarianism and corruption that become possible when you can threaten people with tortures worse than anything that could possibly happen to them during their life.
You want to keep religion in society, fine, work on that. But you can't use the government to do it--that has been off limits since day one.
Yup, they bought the TVs back when they had money, and then had no money left when told to purchase flags.
SAILING MISHAP
You repeatedly assert that all of the evidence available works for both evolution and Creationism. How about empirical evidence that leaves little doubt that the world was not created 6000 years ago? Carbon dating, among other things, though not accurate to a very specific degree, is indeed accurate enough to place the first life on earth far before 6000 years ago.
"Disregarding any religious aspects of the document, it's just as valid as a scientific source as Darwin's ideals for evolution, for those who still use him as a source or inspiration for their research."
Disregarding any religious aspects of the document would leave you almost nothing. If you are referring to the histories of the Old Testament, I might remind you that people often lived 400 years in those histories.
Also, "Darwin's ideals" is a phrase that bothers me to no end. He was a good Christian that observed the present evidence which all but proved that natural selection exists. His ideals had nothing to do with it. He merely wrote down what he observed.
"If I made the enormous claim that we were all burped up from the belly of an enormous glob of jelly, and that glob is living 10 zillion light years away now, sure, that hypothesis would be debunked in a snap..."
No, your argument could be applied in its entirety to the glob of jelly. There would be absolutely no way to patently disprove the theory, so by your argument, it should be taught on equal ground with your Creationism.
"For me - hypothesis = theory."
Hypothesis does not = theory by any stretch of the imagination. You only say this to blur the distinction between the arguments for Creationism and evolution. You repeatedly say that all of the evidence present can be used in Creationism as well as evolution, but it can not. The world was not created 6000 years ago, we have evidence of that. How can that be equally applied to both? Creationism is only still viable in some people's minds because as you put it, it can't be patently disproven. The evidence does not point to each equally, it points nearly without fail to evolution. You can go dig up fossils of animals that don't exist any more, and you can find similar but distinct counterparts still living for which you can find no remains from the same time period as the other remains.
"What I know for a fact is that I'm pulled down towards the earth, being large and highly dense."
But you can't prove for all cases that you will get pulled down to the earth because you have mass. I could propose that gravity quits applying to people if they survive on a diet of only pebbles and cyanide for a year, and you couldn't patently disprove it, so by your own arguments, you can't know that gravity works for a fact. It is only a theory and shouldn't be taught in schools unless my theory is taught as an alternative.
We don't have to teach every hypothesis that comes along to justify teaching the ones that all evidence points to. If we did, we would either learn nothing in school or never finish. And despite your claims that Creationism has as much scientific merit as evolution, all of our evidence points to evolution, and in many cases patently not to Creationism.
Why is such a bad thing to have faith in something?
There's nothing wrong with having faith in something. The government, however, cannot be allowed to make laws telling me which things to have faith in. Like the Bible, for instance.
I know, it isn't your faith. Well, would it help if the gov't made references to every religion everytime they did something along those lines?
That's a funny idea, but no, I don't think it's practical. I think a far better, and easier way to do it is for the government to not make laws that reference any religions, specifically.
Not that they will though. I know you don't want the gov't to favor one religion and they are not. They are reflecting what the public as a majority favors as their religion and as the main religion throughout this country's history.
Please, re-read your paragraph, there. You state that they're not "favoring" one religion, and then you say that they're "reflecting" the majority religion, Christianity.
That is favoring Christianity. The logic of your statement is pretty confused. It doesn't matter what most people believe - we don't vote on whether Elvis is alive.
Favoring a religion would mean they are telling you to have this certain religion and if you didn't you would lose something because of it. That isn't happening. Your rights have not been violated and mine haven't either actually.
Again, as in my previous post on the topic, you state that my rights have not been violated. In fact they have. I have listed numerous arguments about how you might understand the violation of my rights, and you have not directly responded to ANY of them.
Please reference all of my other posts in this discussion for the arguments about why my rights have been violated.
Real quickly, if the laws of this nation forced you to say something like "God does not exist," you'd be pretty pissed.
I'm pretty pissed by a law that forces me to say something like "God does exist."
Specifically if it's the Christian God, but in fact, any God will do - I don't believe in any of them.
Seriously, contemplate, "God does not exist." Would you still think that nobody's rights were being violated?
ANSWER MY QUESTION.
The bigger picture if this elimination of religion continues that you fail to see is that more immoral and sinful things will happen.
See, it's exactly this kind of rationalization that pisses me off. You're stating that government doesn't "favor one religion", except that it "reflects [Christianity]", and then you tell me that if I "eliminate [Christianity]... that more immoral and sinful things will happen."
To shorten that all, it is your belief that if the government doesn't "reflect [Christianity], more immoral and sinful things will happen."
You use this as a (theoretically) "logical" argument about why the government should (make laws that) "reflect [Christianity.]"
Replace the word "Christianity" with "Islam," and replace the country "America" with "Afghanistan," and I think that you'll find that the exact opposite has happened. In fact, because or possibly inspite of the fact that the government of Afghanistan made more laws that "reflect Islam, more immoral and sinful things did happen."
And I'm not just talking about September 11th. I'm talking about killing human beings who broke the laws of man (leave the judging up to God, okay?). I'm talking about a country whose largest export is opium.
Now, you're going to hop in and call the entire nation of Afghanistan, or at least the people who lead it "a fanatic."
Well, I'm saying that's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. You're saying that if the government doesn't "reflect [Christianity], more immoral and sinful things will happen." That's fanatical belief in Christianity. And it's ignoring the history of Christianity, as the grand-parent post pointed out. A few religious wars, most of which
Education is the silver bullet.
I like America. Ok, sorry just had to get that increasingly unpopular idea out of the way. When I was attending my own personal institute of liberal education I recited the pledge on Friday's, the law in my state being that someone, anyone, must recite the pledge, over the intercom, once a week. Despite my participation in this I would like to point out that THIS SYSTEM IS LUDICROUS!!! A better idea would be to hold a referandum of the schools students to determine whether the pledge should be recited, at any time. The words "under God" must be removed for the pledge to attain any kind of constitutional legality, I suggest replacing them with the words "under a higher power" since that can be interpreted in a number of religious and non-religous ways Their is no question that it is a student, or anyone elses right, to recite the pledge of Allegiance, if they choose to. It is conversly the right of anyone else to refuse to do so. I recite the pledge not out of Allegiance to the American goverment, but out of loyalty to the dream that is America. I could just as easily be saying "I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." The flag just happens to be a handy symbol. I would also like to point out that those laws which "require the pledge to be recited" do not require participation, plenty of people talked and read during our pledge in those far-off days, I bet they do the same thing today... Just something to think about...