# A National God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2011, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979 "2011-11-05T19:33:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/61 "2011-11-07T13:46:00Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > It depends how you take that statement. I see it as in line with ‘one nation under God’, meaning God, not the US government, is in control. ‘In God we trust’ = Don’t trust the government, trust in God. > > Some may take that as trust in religion, but that’s not the motto and in my personal experience quite different. The problem is that it’s still the government issuing the statement, on the behalf of both it and the population. Which puts it in the same place as **magellan’s** “whims of the monarch”, since they would also claim exactly that. I think you have a good point about their being a difference between simply faith in a god and religion. However, this isn’t simple faith alone; this is trust, and trust requires knowledge of qualities. A declaration of trust requires some definition of that deity, and once you get into percieved attributes and worship you start gaining the trappings of religion. However, even if this wasn’t a matter of religion, it’s still problematic. Church/State seperation shouldn’t give leeway if it’s only a matter of faith. The point is not whether it’s a religion or not being promoted, at least for me; it’s whether the government in question is treating one idealogy as superior for non-secular reasons. Atheism isn’t a religion, for example, but if your government elected to make the motto “In no gods We Trust”, that would be equally bad. Out of interest, **kanicbird** - do you see the “God” in the motto as being your God specifically referred to? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/62 "2011-11-07T13:48:48Z")
Strangely I (like Obama) actually thought “E pluribus unum” _was_ our motto. According to Wikipedia I’m only 55 years out of date on that. > [@](#): > > The motto was suggested in 1776 to the committee responsible for the developing the seal by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere. > > Never codified by law, E pluribus unum was considered a de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when the United States Congress passed an act (H.J. Resolution 396), adopting “In God We Trust” as the official motto. Ah well. Live and learn. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/63 "2011-11-07T13:59:25Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Well, they could just replace it with a “God with US”, if you want to go PC at it. - Ich sehe was \*_du hier getan_ _hast_. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/64 "2011-11-07T15:49:35Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > The problem is that it’s still the government issuing the statement, on the behalf of both it and the population. Which puts it in the same place as **magellan’s** “whims of the monarch”, since they would also claim exactly that. > > I think you have a good point about their being a difference between simply faith in a god and religion. However, this isn’t simple faith alone; this is trust, and trust requires knowledge of qualities. A declaration of trust requires some definition of that deity, and once you get into percieved attributes and worship you start gaining the trappings of religion. > > However, even if this wasn’t a matter of religion, it’s still problematic. Church/State seperation shouldn’t give leeway if it’s only a matter of faith. The point is not whether it’s a religion or not being promoted, at least for me; it’s whether the government in question is treating one idealogy as superior for non-secular reasons. Atheism isn’t a religion, for example, but if your government elected to make the motto “In no gods We Trust”, that would be equally bad. > > Out of interest, **kanicbird** - do you see the “God” in the motto as being your God specifically referred to? I see it as a requirement by God to allow the US government to exist. There are limits and requirements that God sets on how much power the rulers can have over the ruled, we see this is Job where Satan is limited in what he can do with Job. In a similar vein , the US government, which is not the Kingdom of God, is allowed to rule only at the whim of God and God requires certain things, which has included the motto ‘In God we Trust’. There is no choice of the government once a ruling comes down like that, though their may appear to be in our ‘free democratic system’, though that is pretty much a illusion. So yes, it is the God who is over all and the creator of heaven and earth and is sovereign over all. The motto is not God just self aggrandizing, but it is a message to the ruled of how do deal with oppression from the rulers of the earth. It gives the ruled the ultimate power. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/65 "2011-11-07T17:16:32Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > I think you have a good point about their being a difference between simply faith in a god and religion. Yes. A distinction I’ve made a hundred times on these boards. > [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > However, this isn’t simple faith alone; this is trust, and trust requires knowledge of qualities. A declaration of trust requires some definition of that deity, and once you get into percieved attributes and worship you start gaining the trappings of religion. No it doesn’t any such knowledge. It simply requires faith—of an areligious flavor. You’re conflating “trust” with “worship” and/or “religion”. Do you trust that when you jump onto your bed that gravity will prevent you from hitting the ceiling? > [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > However, even if this wasn’t a matter of religion, it’s still problematic. Church/State seperation shouldn’t give leeway if it’s only a matter of faith. The point is not whether it’s a religion or not being promoted, at least for me; it’s whether the government in question is treating one idealogy as superior for non-secular reasons. Atheism isn’t a religion, for example, but if your government elected to make the motto “In no gods We Trust”, that would be equally bad. The point is that the Founders created a country in which there would be no national _establishment_ of religion. Not one in which religion would not play a role, even at the national level. There was/is nothing stopping a group of people from founding a country on atheism. But that’s not was done. Over 200 years ago a bench of smart guys crafted a country out of nothing and dis so in a way that made the most sense to them. Now, we can debate the degree to which we should adhere to their thinking, but their thinking was pretty clear as far as them believing there is a God. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/66 "2011-11-07T17:36:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > No it doesn’t any such knowledge. It simply requires faith—of an areligious flavor. You’re conflating “trust” with “worship” and/or “religion”. Do you trust that when you jump onto your bed that gravity will prevent you from hitting the ceiling? Trust requires knowledge of qualities. I don’t trust every person I meet. I don’t trust the people I _do_ trust to the same extent. And the measure by which I evaluate the extent to which I trust requires knowledge of them. Which works both ways, of course; it might be that a greater extent of knowledge leads me to be prepared to offer less trust, as well as more. But my trust requires knowledge, and the more I am willing to trust, the more knowledge is required. If I say that I trust you, for example, I would need to know about your honesty, your disposition of character, your history, how you’ve treated people in similar situations in the past, even your current situation, among other things. Likewise, if I were to trust a deity, I would need to know about it to know that it is worthy of my trust. This is why I do in fact conflate “trust” and “worship” in this regard (I don’t conflate “trust” and “religion”, per se, but consider that the extent to which a deities qualities’ are required to be known, plus trust on top of that, to be approaching religion). Trust requires knowledge of good qualities, and faith, whether it’s applied to a deity or a person. When it comes to a deity, however, I don’t feel it is unreasonable to say that a declaration of trust (with implied recognition of good qualities), practically applied, is a form of worship. What is worship, except to actively praise the excellence of some deity’s nature? > [@](#): > > The point is that the Founders created a country in which there would be no national _establishment_ of religion. Not one in which religion would not play a role, even at the national level. I agree. I have no problem with the President, for example, declaring that he is a Christian. Or with particular members of Congress declaring so, or that they’re Jewish, or Muslim, or whatever they happen to be. I have no issue with the President declaring that he trusts in God, even if he is so specifically meaning it to be the particular formation of the Christian God he believes in. I have no problem with a lawmaker using his faith to map his actions (I might have a problem with those actions, but it’s not inherently because of that faith, nor would I seek to censor it). That’s fine. I wouldn’t ask people to abrogate their faith while serving in government. What isn’t fine is the government declaring, on behalf of themselves and the nation at large, what it believes in. If nothing else, it’s not true. > [@](#): > > There was/is nothing stopping a group of people from founding a country on atheism. But that’s not was done. Over 200 years ago a bench of smart guys crafted a country out of nothing and dis so in a way that made the most sense to them. Now, we can debate the degree to which we should adhere to their thinking, but their thinking was pretty clear as far as them believing there is a God. I entirely agree. But _which_ God? It seems to me it would be reasonable, when looking to see what qualities they felt this God had that led them to trust it, to see how they lived their lives. Some of the founding father were slaveowners, for example. This seems to me to mean that the God that those particular founders believed in was a God that felt slavery was acceptable. Which is problematic, because if we’re then to say that the God as defined isn’t as _they_ defined it, we’re stuck with a situation no different from the whims of a monarch. It’s just the whims of the people. Moreover, the point of the DofI is that faith, itself, is not required. It’s not “these rights are held to be inalienable, so long as people believe in God”. It’s alienable for me (if I were American) as much as it is for **kanicbird**. “In God we Trust” misses the point. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/67 "2011-11-07T17:48:45Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I will just say this, to all of the folks trying to strip _every_ trace of religion out of _every_ conceivable thing: keep at it if you want Republicans to keep getting elected. Dude, only 9 Democrats voted against the resolution! And then of course Fox News sicced the right-wing smear machine on them. And why does everything have to be about the next election with you? Winning a popularity contest doesn’t make you a good person. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/68 "2011-11-07T21:06:14Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Do you consider the declaration of a government that that nation believes in God, and that it trusts in that God, to be a merely aesthetic decision? > > I ask because that’s not what’s born out by your quotes. To the contrary, the quotes you cite from Washington, Adams and Lincoln suggest they would consider a merely aesthetic decision to be entirely inappropriate and not worshipful enough. If anything, they would seem to be in agreement with those systems in England at the time to have an established religion. I wasn’t implying that what Washington, Adams, and Lincoln said was purely aesthetic, although looking back on my post I see that I could have more clearly separated the first and second paragraphs. Some groups have insisted that the establishment clause be used to censor aesthetic decisions such as creche scenes or crosses on public land. I merely sought to point out that the founding fathers would be baffled by such an interpretation. In fact, the founders were quite all right with using their government positions to call on the American people to pray and give thanks to God. If anyone at the time disputed the rightness of doing so on Constitutional grounds, I’m not aware of it. However they didn’t, to my knowledge, ever call single out any denomination in any of their pronouncements, Thus, as I see it, their position on the meaning of the establishment clause must have matched what I said in my first post. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/69 "2011-11-07T23:00:12Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I wasn’t implying that what Washington, Adams, and Lincoln said was purely aesthetic, although looking back on my post I see that I could have more clearly separated the first and second paragraphs. Some groups have insisted that the establishment clause be used to censor aesthetic decisions such as creche scenes or crosses on public land. I merely sought to point out that the founding fathers would be baffled by such an interpretation. Those don’t necessarily seem to be merely aesthetic decisions either. I suppose it depends on who put them up, where, and what else might be put up there. > [@](#): > > In fact, the founders were quite all right with using their government positions to call on the American people to pray and give thanks to God. If anyone at the time disputed the rightness of doing so on Constitutional grounds, I’m not aware of it. However they didn’t, to my knowledge, ever call single out any denomination in any of their pronouncements, Thus, as I see it, their position on the meaning of the establishment clause must have matched what I said in my first post. That seems specious. I’ll say again that based on those writings, merely using their stations to promote their religion (as, indeed, do Presidents in the current time) seems to me to be the very\* least _of what those particular notables would like. If we know from their writings that they believed in a particular form of the Christian God, and from their writings they appeared to have little problem with the concept of established religion, it seems a fair assumption that when they called on God they were calling on their God. IOW, the burden of proof is in proving that they weren’t referring to a particular god, not that they were. Even if they did merely mean a general God - let’s even say a Deistic god, rather than a Christian one - that still, in conjunction with the writings you cite, suggests that what they were after was a state very much tied into their religion. It may have been a very_ inclusive\* religion (for Christians, anyway); but that’s still a problem for, well, everyone else. Also Christians, I would hope. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/70 "2011-11-07T23:16:26Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Separation of Church and State doesn’t mean pretending religion and/or God doesn’t exist in the public sphere. Really? Then why do you think a nonperson needs a god? I have no problem with you or anybody else coming out and saying that you trust god. Knock yourself out. I will defend your ability to come out and claim some personal connection with god. The country is not a single person, and can have no belief. Get the concept of believing in some perhaps nonexistant sky being conceptualized by a bunch of desert nomads out of my politics thanks. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/71 "2011-11-07T23:17:31Z")
> [@Jaledin](#): > > Awesome. I pick one of those big stone heads from that island. Stolen from that comic strip “Red Meat,” but it would be killer awesome to have one of those. > > I’;m assuming “we” could buy one, chopper it into DC. It wouldn’t have to do anything, just be like a mascot or something. > > Reconstruct Ozymandias according to the standards of the NEA is a _very_ weak second place. Besides the militia would be all like “sic semper tyrannus” and all that jazz, whereas the head is just a big head. Zardoz? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/72 "2011-11-07T23:31:49Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > People don’t understand how good they’ve got it. Nobody’s being forced to believe in a religion or else lose their citizenship or legal status; nobody’s being forced to ride in the back of the bus here. Nobody’s being deprived of their rights, arrested, beaten, or executed based on their religion. At the very most, this is something that _annoys_ you. /me mentally goes back to the Bible Belt land of Pat Robertson in the mid and late 80s You obviously live up an ivory tower somewhere if you never had to deal with fundies while not being one of them \ I lost a job specifically because I wasn’t the right religion after breaking up with the boyfriend who was [I got hired to work at a company owned by a member of his church after 9 months of working there all of a sudden I ‘wasn’t working out’] and having 3 different landlords refusing to rent to my BF and I because we were neither engaged nor married and had no plans for either happening. I refuse to bother googling for religious persecution in the US, you will claim I am cherry picking random happenings. It isn’t just us agnostics, and atheists, there is jew beating there is muslim beating. There is persecution based on people thinking anybody who is middle eastern looking is one of them evil muslims. Just keep your eyes closed and think of Jebus and be comfy in your ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/73 "2011-11-07T23:41:58Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > No it doesn’t any such knowledge. It simply requires faith—of an areligious flavor. You’re conflating “trust” with “worship” and/or “religion”. Do you trust that when you jump onto your bed that gravity will prevent you from hitting the ceiling? Preposterous. Trust in a supreme being implies belief in the existence of a supreme being that intervenes in human affairs. By this point we’re already firmly in religious territory. And you’re using gravity as an analogy to prove the existence and trustworthiness of God. > [@](#): > > The point is that the Founders created a country in which there would be no national _establishment_ of religion. Not one in which religion would not play a role, even at the national level. But to give religion (defined as any beliefs about active supernatural forces) a national role is to create a national establishment of religion. Unless, that is, the role it’s playing is similar to that of baseball or McDonald’s: technically part of the private sector but highly prominent in our culture, yet lacking any government endorsement. > [@](#): > > There was/is nothing stopping a group of people from founding a country on atheism. But that’s not was done. Over 200 years ago a bench of smart guys crafted a country out of nothing and dis so in a way that made the most sense to them. Now, we can debate the degree to which we should adhere to their thinking, but their thinking was pretty clear as far as them believing there is a God. Founding schmounding! It’s an abstract metaphorical concept. No matter how many religious quotes you can mine from the FFs, if you can’t show how they made it into the Constitution and became part of the structure of our governmental system, you got nothin’. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/74 "2011-11-08T00:37:27Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > It depends how you take that statement. I see it as in line with ‘one nation under God’, meaning God, not the US government, is in control. ‘In God we trust’ = Don’t trust the government, trust in God. > > Some may take that as trust in religion, but that’s not the motto and in my personal experience quite different. Now we’re getting somewhere. Is God in control? I see no evidence for that and it’s been 200+ years. Usually the entity that’s in control of a society is the most visible. You see, **Kanicbird** , this isn’t about you and your personal experience, nor anyone else’s, not even the Founding Fathers’. Public truths must be proven with facts and logic. I started this thread because I couldn’t help notice that our national motto is a LIE! We \*can’t[i/] trust in God and we _don’t_ trust in God. We couldn’t trust God not stop some of his most ardent followers from flying airliners into our skyscrapers and we didn’t trust God to do something about it. We trusted our troops. War is quite the secular endeavor. They say there are no atheists in foxholes, well there are no snake-handlers in the Pentagon. The other secular government endeavors include…_all_ of them! That’s what the government is there for, to deal with real-world problems that affect the American people as a group, and deal with them in a real-world fashion. The role of religion in society is to have free reign in the private sector. By “private” of course I don’t mean kept behind closed doors. After all, businesses are “private” and yet their products and advertising are highly visible in public. But speaking of advertising, it wouldn’t be appropriate for the government to engage in commercial endorsements, would it? Likewise it wouldn’t be appropriate for the government to decree what clothing and hairstyles are fashionable, or to offer tips on how to score with the opposite sex, or to root for the Packers. Likewise with beliefs about God. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/75 "2011-11-08T00:47:23Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > /me mentally goes back to the Bible Belt land of Pat Robertson in the mid and late 80s > > You obviously live up an ivory tower somewhere if you never had to deal with fundies while not being one of them \ I lost a job specifically because I wasn’t the right religion after breaking up with the boyfriend who was [I got hired to work at a company owned by a member of his church after 9 months of working there all of a sudden I ‘wasn’t working out’] and having 3 different landlords refusing to rent to my BF and I because we were neither engaged nor married and had no plans for either happening. I refuse to bother googling for religious persecution in the US, you will claim I am cherry picking random happenings. It isn’t just us agnostics, and atheists, there is jew beating there is muslim beating. There is persecution based on people thinking anybody who is middle eastern looking is one of them evil muslims. Just keep your eyes closed and think of Jebus and be comfy in your ignorance. None of what you described is official government policy! It’s the act of individual people bullying you. Nor is the “Jew beating and Muslim beating” being carried out or endorsed by the government. I guess I should have clarified when I said “Nobody’s being deprived of their rights, arrested, beaten, or executed based on their religion” that I meant, nobody is having these things done to them by the law. They may experience persecution, but it’s the act of individual bad people. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/76 "2011-11-08T00:47:42Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I refuse to bother googling for religious persecution in the US, you will claim I am cherry picking random happenings. It isn’t just us agnostics, and atheists, there is jew beating there is muslim beating. There is persecution based on people thinking anybody who is middle eastern looking is one of them evil muslims. Just keep your eyes closed and think of Jebus and be comfy in your ignorance. I think his point was that there’s no State mandated nor State defended persecution. It’s still a rather terrible point, I’ll grant you that. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/77 "2011-11-08T01:10:16Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Likewise with beliefs about God. Read my followup post #64. It is not the US government who wants that motto, as it is actually contrary to their control, it is God who requires it of the US government for them to continue to exist and it not in the power of the US government to remove it, only God. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/78 "2011-11-08T02:00:21Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I think his point was that there’s no State mandated nor State defended persecution. It’s still a rather terrible point, I’ll grant you that. It’s also inaccurate. > [@kanicbird](#): > > Read my followup post #64. > > It is not the US government who wants that motto, as it is actually contrary to their control, it is God who requires it of the US government for them to continue to exist and it not in the power of the US government to remove it, only God. Nonsense. The US government can do whatever it wants and give God the finger, since he doesn’t actually exist and can’t do anything about it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/79 "2011-11-08T02:14:14Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Read my followup post #64. > > It is not the US government who wants that motto, as it is actually contrary to their control, it is God who requires it of the US government for them to continue to exist and it not in the power of the US government to remove it, only God. Cite that God requires this of the United States of America. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979/80 "2011-11-08T03:07:40Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > It is not. In England in the 18th century there was an established religion, namely the Church of England, meaning that one members of that church could vote, hold office, teach at university, or exercise certain other rights, all over Britain. This fact was a sore point for many of the groups that fled to the colonies and later founded the United States. To ensure that the federal government wouldn’t restrict the right of individuals based on their religious beliefs or states based on their religious policies, the establishment clause was placed in the Bill of Rights, but those who wrote it would be baffled by claims that it was intended to censor aesthetic decisions such as what can be displayed in or on government buildings. I doubt they were so intellectually lightweight that they would experience such bafflement. They were politicians, who usually have a good insight into realpolitik. They would have no difficulty at all in understanding that one can have no official law against something but have unwritten cultural “laws” that have the same effect. They would I think be baffled by the naivety of the suggestion that religious symbolism and mottos are mere aesthetics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-national-god/601979.md?page=5)