Not really. It can easily be removed by an act of Congress. Just not by the courts.
The question is not whether it CAN be removed, but whether it MUST it be removed.
No, I think the real question is why can’t it be removed…and at least a partial answer to that can be found when you take stock of those who fight it’s removal.
No, no, and yes.
And arguably there should be an asterisk on the second answer.
While it’s true that Catholic Mass is very similar from week to week, it’s by no means identical. There is a Liturgy of the Word, in which different Scriptural readings are given, and a homily, even more unique to each celebrant.
The Rosary deserves an asterisk because it undoubtedly does, for some people, become a mantra, and thereby loses meaning. It shouldn’t – this is why the mysteries of the Rosary change daily – the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, for example, and Saint John Paul II’s introduction of the Luminous Mysteries for Thursdays are examples of measures taken to avoid that danger.
But the Pledge certainly falls into that category. No effort is taken, as a rule, to stop and think about what is being said, or to elevate the words above a string of continually repeated syllables. More’s the pity.
I think you’re mistaken. I say the Second Circuit decided correctly because inclusion of the phrase is not unconstitutional. That is not hotly defending the phrase – that is hotly defending the proper interpretation of the Constitution.
If you were to argue that Congress should act to remove the phrase, I would only ask that we craft something suitably solemn, historically accurate, or suitably aspiration all to replace it.
It’s not an “empty” phrase. It’s empty of religious endorsement, yes, but not of solemn historical significance.
We already did.
E Pluribus Unum-“Out of many, one”.
Fair enough. My point was merely that Jews would not have any claim to exclusion from whatever group is represented by “in God we trust.” I award you 10 nitbucks.
If, as some have claimed in this thread, “God” refers to “The Christian God”, then they do. Christians like to say they worship the same God as Jews, but Jews don’t worship Jesus and they don’t worship The Holy Ghost. I can see where Muslims and Jews can claim to worship the same God, but the Christian God is not the Jewish God- He’s got too much baggage what with His two conjoined twins.
Oh, I dunno. The Christians who like to go around putting religious mottoes on our money seem to be much more interested in the God of the Old Testament than the New.
Sure, that’s an excellent example. My only slight gripe would be that the Latin makes it impenetrable to an unfortunately large minority of the population, but that’s just a personal gripe, not a real objection. I would have no problem with Congress swapping E Pluribus Unum for “In God We Trust.”
The phrase can mean one thing in the context of government recogniton of our heritage and another in the context of religion. It’s a false dichotomy your propose–our choice is only a secular government and a secular religion, or a religious government and religious religion, choose one, because we cannot have a secular government and religious religion under this requirement.
I suspect an unfortunately large minority of the population would find “in God we trust” impenetrable, at least to the extent of finding a meaningless nod to our shared history in there.
Could be taken religiously, just as you take “In God We Trust” to be religious.
Christians believe that they are all part of the body of Christ, and thus, “Out of Many, One.”
Did you read that before you posted it?
Not seeing how that even matters, but… really??? They seem to be awfully interested in Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior.
And we have used it for that purpose before without any great hue and cry from the general populace that they couldn’t understand it.
Again, this is just a personal gripe, not any sort of fatal flaw. But the lack of hue and cry simply means that people didn’t understand it and didn’t care that they didn’t understand it.
They are interested in throwing his name around, and in End Times fantasies about a bloodthirsty version of him coming back, sucking them into heaven & slaughtering all the non-Christians; that’s pretty much where their interest ends. Their actual beliefs and agendas revolve around the Old Testament and the Apocalypse.
So if you have two such phrases to choose from, and one of those phases is seen as religious and/or discriminatory by a percentage of the populace…
Even if that’s true (and I don’t accept it as true) it still doesn’t make the Christian God and the Jewish God the same. In order for that to be true, Jews would have to accept Jesus as God, which would make them Christians, not Jews.
It was a joke. Look, even if we accept that it’s a different god, I don’t think we can say, “well, it’s okay because the Jewish members of the legislature didn’t mind.” Having said that, I accept the argument you were actually making, which was that it wasn’t just Christians who voted for this (the second time, anyway.)