See, and please respond to, my post #538. They most emphatically DID intend such a break from tradition! It pissed a lot of people off, too.
That’s Post 538
Then, with respect, you know too little of American jurisprudence. Your view is quite mistaken. The courts have ruled consistently and frequently that any public policy or deed or anything else public that demonstrates a religious view or a preference for one religious viewpoint over another is a violation of the Establishment Clause, even though these do not even hint at establishing a official religion!
There is no question but that the phrase “under God” is both a religious view and shows a undisputable religous preference for monotheism.
Scientists have tentative explanations for the beginning of EVERYTHING that do not require a God, a god, an intelligence, or even a prime mover, and they’re almost infinitely more rational and justifiable than any religious belief, even if they must remain (at least for the moment) tentative. No God required, or even useful. And most importantly, one can accept that the Universe just “is” without any belief one way or the other.
Nonsense. Soft Atheism (and I am a soft atheist as well as an agnostic) is simply like checking the “no opinion” column of a religious questionairre. You CANNOT tramsmute a lack of faith in to a “belief system”, no matter how much specious rationalization is performed.
Philosophical agnosticism is also, contrary to most people’s casual misunderstanding, a position that is the absence of an belief. It simply acknowledges the philosophical/theological definition of “transcendence” (a nearly uniform attribute of “God”) and admits that the unknowable is the unknowable and leaves it there.
I agree that the Constitution is somewhat anti-royalist. But not just from the language. In 1783 Washiington’s men (and I think others) had proposed to make Washiington King. Imitatiing one of his heroes, Cinncinatus, Washington declined. I also think that the “We the people…” was partly a practical decision. They had no President, no ruler to act as a figurehead. A few sentences back I said "somewhat anti-royalist. I qualified my answer only because I think their is so little to go on. The document is 99.99% legal meat, leaving very little opportunity for exposition. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I see it as a very practical document.
Now, I’d offer that reading anti-royalty into the document is much easier than reading anti-religion into it. Royalty was something that the victorious populace had strong ill-feeling toward. Religion (Christianity or Deism) was embraced by all. Or, certainly, all with power, with the possible exception of Paine. Additionally, I guess some would read religiosity into the “Blessings of Liberty” phrase, but I’d say that would be a stretch.
No disrespect intended, but is what you want so important? Granted what you want maybe be absolutely terrific. But what if Bob wants something else? And Jim? And Judy? And Sue? Isn’t the question, “What did the Founders intend?” For me this must be answered and answered honestly. That doesn’t mean we have to stick with what they wanted, they even gave us the mechanism to deviate from the best of their thinking. But I think it is important to understand not only what they did, but why they did it.
Everything I’ve read of their writing shows a reverence and respect if not for Christianity, for a Supreme Being. They thought it (the belief) instrumental in what they were able to create. Is it possible, I ask myself, that they could have accomplished something equivalent without the philosophical outlook that they had (which included the recognition of a Grand Architect)? They seem to think not. So I am not so quick to oust a core belief of theirs. I would say that it is not only possible, but probable, that without the acknowledgement of a Higher Order that there would have been no Declaration of Independence—or certainly one with its weight. There would have been a revolutionary war, but beyond that, who knows…
Where you see intentional secularism I see pure practicality, and a little accidental secularism. The document was not intended to lay down a philosophical framework, it was intended to codify law. It would be hard to imagine a shorter preamble that would state the purpose of the document so well and sound so pleasant to the ear.
Matter/energy ultimately acts according to quantum principles, which are non-causal at root. They operate outside the laws of causality. Yes, quantum theory stipulates uncaused causes (even if that aspect bothers me immensely, it is the truth).
First, I repeat that the Universe is acausal in its basic structure, so it is relatively easy to accept that the beginning of the Universe was acausal and uncaused. I sympathize that such is impossible for the human mind to fully accept, yet quantum theory is BY FAR the most well-proved scientific fact there is. And that is almost infinitely better proved than the God hypothesis.
Again, you don’t seem to be grasping the distinction between being anti-religious and supporting a government which is limited to secular affairs. The Founders could certainly be devout, and even believe that religion promoted virtue and morality, and still want the government to stay out of religion. James Madison said “I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together”; note that he expresses concern for the “purity” of both government and religion.
(By the way, Thomas Paine wasn’t anti-religious either. He was pretty strongly opposed to orthodox Christianity, as were a number of the Founders, though Paine was probably more publically outspoken about it, but he was also a Deist with a belief in a Creator God.)
If you believe that religion is essential to the virtue and morality needed to sustain a republic, then entreat your fellow citizens to be more religious. I would disagree with you on the point, but I would absolutely defend your right to do so. But using the power of the state is an un-American way to promote religion; putting “under God” in a governmentally-recognized and sponsored expression of patriotic unity, however petty a violation it may be, is not the right way to do it.
In a discussion earlier in this thread we talked about whether atheism is a belief or not. In general atheistsm is a lack of belief in God although “strong” atheist may be said to have a belief that God does not exist. I think you raise some interesting points about atheists having some belief system. IMO eveyone has some belief system that they operate by. However, the term atheist, by itself doesn’t describe their belief system but merely one small aspect of it. In a similar way a belief in God is one small aspect of someone’s belief system. I think you raise another good point that in this culture it at least for many, it takes a concious choice to not believe in God, at at some point.
I think atheists will describe different experiences to the same as any believers. I’ve heard several stories on tyhe SDMB of folks who were raised in a religious enviorment and gradually moved away from belief. My own belief system has evolved quite a bit from a non religious upbringing, to being a member of a church, to being an independent who chooses not to be called Christian.
Once again this has already been pointed out and I agreed. As to my specific wording, how the courts have ruled since then doesn’t speak my beliefs on the intention of the original document. I’d be interested in reading about any specific cases that rule as you describe. Any suggestions? I did appreciate your input about the Enlightenment and plan to do some more reading on that. Interesting how so many people aren’t aware of that part of our history. Our touted educational system needs some improvement.
If you like. Frankly, I don’t see the need for wavering. Are you “agnostic” about leprechauns, fairies, elves, and gnomes? Science doesn’t deal in absolutes about what doesn’t exist. If that makes me agnostic, so be it.
A multiverse could be eternal. It doesn’t have to have a beginning. No beginning = no first cause.
It isn’t necessary to know how the universe began in order to be unpersuaded that Yaweh “created” it anyway. Just because you don’t know the answer to a question doesn’t mean a wizard did it, and the possibility of the Abrahamic concept of God creating the universe is inherently no more plausible by default than an infinite number of other gods, combinations of gods, or the Matrix.
Considering the reciting the Pledge of Allegiance never once instilled any sense of loyalty in anybody, I don’t see why this is a problem.
Just drop the damn thing, & quit wasting schooltime.
Not just from the language? The Constitution is nothing but language.
If Washington had accepted a crown, he would have been overthrowing the government of the U.S. and installing himself as King.
He should have taken the crown, and beaten them about the head and neck with it, screaming “what part of what we’re trying to do here don’t you get”
The founders had created a framework of laws that clearly set out how we would chose who would govern the nation.
Washington was well aware of this.
The Constitution could have no meaning, or purpose in a Kingdom.
Your kidding right? A practical decision?
We, the people is THE most dangerous phrase ever written!
Imagine those words being spoken somewhere else in the world.
We, the people have decided to overthrow the current ruling order. No war, no argument, no discussion. King, Czar, junta, etc, the power you claim, is not yours, it belongs to us. Pack your bags, your fired!
That’s what the founders did. We, the people will choose how we will be governed. An end to the hereditary, divine right of kings.
I (insert name and title here) of the United States…do ordain and establish this…changes the act of a group, into the act of an individual. It would have turned the constitution into a claim to power. We, the people is a declaration of where the authority to govern comes from.
MMM, legal meat, and it smells like royalty they got cooking!!! 
You may have read it ,but I don’t think you get it.
“So little going on”
It creates the congress and senate who must be elected by the people, and how those elected can be expelled from office.
It creates an executive, with limited powers, who requires advice and consent, and who’s vetoes can be overridden by a simple two thirds vote. And it gives the power, to the elected representatives of the people, to impeach and remove the executive from office. Try doing that to a King!
It then claims what had been the rights of royalty (collecting taxes, coining money, raising armies, declaring war, and making laws) and gives these powers to the elected representatives of the people.
While all this isn’t explicitly anti-royalist, this is,
Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
http://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm
This clause was designed to end the aristocratic tendencies that the American Revolution had been fought against. Federal officials must turn over to the government all but minimal gifts from foreign nations.
Thomas Paine, Reflections on Titles
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_9_8s2.html
James Madison to Thomas Jefferson
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_9_8s8.html
Benjamin Franklin to Sarah Bache
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_9_8s4.html
You missed “ordain” and “in the year of our lord”
It would be a lot more than a stretch.It would be grasping at straws.
No the word for someone who doesn’t “believe” in Thor is (drum roll please) atheist.
Of course, the constitution wouldn’t exist for another 6 years…
Presumably, most fundamentalist christians don’t believe in Thor. That doesn’t make them atheists.
What we can reasonably expect from humans? I expect a LOT from my fellow Americans. I mean, we live in general peace, side by side, and usually don’t kill each other over minor disagreements. Not trying to enforce our religious views on others is NOT something that seems beyond the reach of humanity.
No, as it’s not an example. It’s a hypothetical analogy.
Who said I thought it was very clear? You’ll note, if you go back and read everything I’ve posted in this thread, that my consistent position has been that I think it’s unconstitutional, but I am certain that it’s Wrong.
Again, given that you agree so precisely with my position, what the heck have we been arguing about?
Again, we agree
Ahh, so NOW I see your position… it’s that we should just not interfere with the delicate balance of religious freedom over a relatively minor issue, lest it inflame passions which lead to less freedom, overall?
Again, we agree. And is focussing on people’s actions rather than beliefs or lack of them helped or hindered by having religious pronouncements built into quasi-mandatory loyalty oaths?
I don’t agree with your premise. But this has been covered in other threads and as I ve stated, I’d rather not hijack this one.
When using “God” in this thread it was in the sense of “Creator”, which would fit all of your examples.
Please bear with me. I do see your point and I would be in agreement if I felt “under God” promoted a specific religion, or even religion in general. I do not see that it necessarily does so. The Founders believed primarily in what I see as two philosophical positions (particularly the first one). 1) The world/universe was intentionally created. 2) That Supreme Entity (“Creator”, “Supreme Being”, “God”, Grand Architect") is, by definition, singular.
Now if we stop there, there is as of yet no hint of religion. Yes, polytheism is excluded, as is Atheism. But I see these also as philosophical positions. Is there any God? One God? Or many Gods? One can answer yes or no to any of these questions and not ascribe to “religion” an any sense. For instance, I can believe that there is a Creator and never act on that belief in any way. Maybe I think my “Creator” would be offended by any acknowledgement, or that the way he/she/it wants me to pay homage to him is to put to best use the greatest gift he has given me—my mind—and for me to act in a purely rational manner in every instance. Or maybe I never give God an additional thought at all—ever—and devote my entire time on the earth to try to come up with a formula for prime numbers… Surely you wouldn’t say that I was religious in ANY way, would you?
Therefore, I do not see “under God” as an example of the state using its power to promote religion. And the idea it communicates is the polar opposite of un-American, it is the absolute foundation on which the Founders erected our nation.
Now, even if the Founders believed these philosophical positions that they held to be indespensable to both a good governement (and a good life), this is not to say that they wished to ban any other notions. In fact, they built in a specific right for you to say anything you want (and therefore, think, which I wish they would have specifically protected). You can even peacably assemble with others of like mind, either in public or private, and talk about or worship Jesus, Ra, warlocks, the previous visitors from another galaxy, Odin, Darwin, Pi, whatever you like. Even if it’s nothing.
So including their foundational belief in a Pledge seems not only OK, but like a good idea. That the phrase “under God” was added at a later date is, I think you would agree, immaterial. If there was no patriotic Pledge until today and we had to craft one, I think including something so fundemantal to the birthing of the country is entirely fitting, proper, respectful, and called for.
If this doesn’t have anything to do with “religion”, then why do we keep going off on all these tangents about whether or not the Constitution was intended establish “a government totally divorced from religion”?
I would probably agree that one can speculate about an intelligence creating the universe without this necessarily being “religious”, but as you say, the Deism of the Founders went beyond that; they clearly believed that there are some things God wants us to do (cultivate liberty of thought for ourselves, defend it for others) and things God does not want us to do (be slaves, enslave others), and saying “This is what God wants us to do” is a classic hallmark of religious thought. Now, certainly the moral imperatives of Deism are a heck of a lot better than “death to the infidels” or “women must be kept in proper subjection to men”, but I still argue that having the state meddle in the business of answering the question of what (if anything) God or the gods want(s) us to do or not do is dangerous.
In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders expressed their philosophical and religious views; but when they had the opportunity to make those views the Established State Doctrine by at least mentioning them in the Constitution (“We the People, under God…in order to secure the blessings of Liberty with which we have been endowed by the Creator”) they signally failed to do so. I don’t think that was just a fit of absentmindedness.
That Madison quote again: “religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together”. Do you really think “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance really promotes lofty ideals about God-granted natural rights? Most of the time, it’s just meaningless noise which goes in one ear of a bunch of grade-schoolers and right out the other; but when it does mean anything, I suspect it’s used far more often to justify “Christian Nation” bigotry and religio-political intolerance–which I also suspect is far more in keeping with Congressman Rabaut’s true original intent; “An atheistic American is a contradiction in terms” certainly doesn’t sound to me like a ringing endorsement of my equal endowment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness alongside my theistic neighbors.
True, but no one thought a formal constitution was really even needed until 1787. But I was thinking more down this line;
The Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress (1774)
[INDENT]4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council…they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity…
- It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative power in several colonies, by a council appointed, during pleasure, by the crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous and destructive to the freedom of American legislation. All and each of which the aforesaid deputies, in behalf of themselves, and their constituents, do claim, demand, and insist on, as their indubitable rights and liberties, which cannot be legally taken from them, altered or abridged by any power whatever, without their own consent, by their representatives in their several provincial legislature.[/INDENT]
So even before the DoI the founders are rejecting a “king” who’s powers are not limited by a representative system of government based on a constitution.
The Articles of Confederation (Agreed to 1777 Ratified 1781)
[INDENT]VI…nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any King, Prince or foreign State; nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility.[/INDENT]
The Articles of Confederation was the “Constitution” at the time GW refused the crown (the CotUS is, in effect, simply an amended version of the AoC). As Washington’s use of the word in his letter to Nicola would seem to indicate.
[INDENT]To Lewis Nicola
Newburgh, May 22, 1782
Sir: With a mixture of great surprise and astonishment I have read with attention the Sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured Sir, no occurrence in the course of the War, has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the Army as you have expressed, and I must view with abhorrence, and reprehend with severety. For the present, the communication of them will rest in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of the matter, shall make a disclosure necessary.
I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable; at the same time in justice to my own feelings I must add, that no Man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice done to the Army than I do, and as far as my powers and influence, in a constitutional way extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it, should there be any occasion. Let me conjure you then, if you have any regard for your Country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your Mind, and never communicate, as from yourself, or any one else, a sentiment of the like Nature.
With esteem I am.
George Washington[/INDENT]
Charlton Heston reading Washington’s letter to Nicola.
A detailed analysis of Nicola and his letter to GW (pdf).
All this, just to make the point to magellan01 that GW, the founders (assuming there’s no evidence to the contrary), the AoC and the CotUS are not “somewhat anti-royalist” but explicitly anti-royalist.
If what the founders meant in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 is up for debate, “reading anti-royalty into the document”, then understanding their intent in the establishment clause is impossible.
And my fear is great.
Cite, please.
I went back Madison’s notes on the debates the framers had while crafting the Constitution to refresh my memory, and there seems to be very little discussion on the issue. In fact, there are suprisingly few mentions of the issue. I found:
Creator: 1 mention
God: 2 mentions
Religion: 6 mentions
Of course, I could be wrong (which is a nice attitude for at least one party in a debate to possess). Or perhaps you did not mean to imply that the discussions occured before the final document was offered for ratification, only during the ratification process. But then, that wouldn’t really be the framers fighting tooth and nail. I will be happy to review any cite you might provide.