America isn’t sliding anywhere, there has always been a strong religious presence in this country.
That there are higher laws than the laws of kings. That all men are equal. That men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights. That there is one God.
I’ll leave it those with a greater familiarity with the Bible to cite rationale, if they so choose, for fighting for what is right as opposed to being passive and continually turning the other cheek. As far as the free exercise of religion, I think there is support in Christianity, as it regards free will. It acknowledges that one cannot be forced into piety. Without free will, the act of faith required to become a believer in God becomes impossible.
I had to laugh when I read this post. So, if I agree with you then I am not violent and not flouting American and Christian ideals, I am amazed at the way you can twist words and meanings to say what you want them to say. No one is trampling on your rights, it is not mandatory to say the pledge Tom. There are thousands of things in this country that are by choice in the religious realm. To go, or not to go to church, to eat or not to eat pork, to pray or not to pray, this pledge is just another of those choices.
Oh, yes, American and Christian ideals approve of leaving “under God” in the pledge.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t getting stronger. I don’t care what the average person believes; I care that wannabe theocrats are taking political power.
It may not be officially mandatory, but that doesn’t mean the teachers and kids won’t put you through hell. American ideals approve because the majority are Christian; Christian ideals approve because they are the ideals of a tyrant. “Obey or burn forever” has always been the fundamentel ideal of Christianity.
Wow! I don’t how we got from a point of such disagreement to one of almost complete concord. I agree with everything you’ve said above with the small exception of the point of oyur first sentence. I think the most accurate statement would fall between to markers you have offered. While this country was not founded to be an arm of Protestanism, implying that the beliefs of the founders were merely incidental to what they created seems to go to far.
The USA was not, and never has been based on Judeo Christian or any other religious tradition. It borrowed heavily from English common law, Greek Democracy, and the Roman Republican systems. It could be possible that there is some trace of the Iriquois Confederacy in there too. Being that the Founders were brought up in various Christian faiths, there is probably some influence, as a matter of course, but it is not deliberate or intended. They (the Founders) were well aware of the problems that the commingling of state and religion had caused in Europe, and wanted to avoid those problems here.
Some of the words of some Founders look anti-religious or take a “hands off” approach at least, as far as organized relgion goes.
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, <U>religion</U>, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” - Robert H. Jackson
“… of the liberty of conscience in matters of <U>religious faith</U>, of speech and of the press; of the trail by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms… If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny.” - James Monroe
“For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta. This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and <U>Christianity no part of it</U>.” - Thomas Jefferson
The constitution has its “nonestablishment” clause, what we sometimes call “separation of church and state”. Once again, it say the Government will not establish or sponsor any sort of state religon. Each citizen can believe and worship as they choose. Each citizen can not believe and not worship as they choose. However, that implies that the Government will also not abolish or outlaw religion, or prohibit it.
This looks like an All Or Nothing game. On one side are the would be theocrats who want to drag everyone into their church (theirs is the only true one of course). On the other side are the “antis” who want to remove all traces of any religion, everywhere (because it’s evil or offensive or just nasty bad stuff). Neither is what the Founders or the Constitution said or meant. To borrow from yet another religion, they were saying “<B>an it harm no one, do what ye will</B>”. It is not the Government’s place to foster OR prohibit religion or religious displays. It is not Government’s function to legitimize or legalize <B>either</B> group’s petty bigotries and intolerances.
I have not twisted anything. I have pointed out historical reality. I have also not claimed that one has to agree with me in order to avoid violence or the flouting of ideals. However, your repeated appeals to the tyranny of the majority to bolster your position–and only to the tyranny of the majority–does nothing to persuade me that I am mistaken.
Utter nonsense. Some of the more ignoble traditions embraced by both Americans and Christians certainly support putting “under God” in the Pledge. However, there is no ideal that is supported by imposing a particularly religious phrase on a purportedly secular ritual–and it clearly flies in the face of the admonition of Jesus in Matthew 6:5.
As to the Pledge, itself, I have not even taken a specific stand on the issue in this thread, except in passing. I do not object to saying it. I simply object to the false claims that anyone is free to not recite it, particularly in a classroom, when anyone who with an ounce of honesty knows that a child who actually abstains will be tormented. I think it is the worst sort of hypocritical malice to place children in a position where they will be coerced into performing a ritual which may be in conflict with their familial beliefs.
I would have been happy to ignore this thread completely if you had not posted your distortion of history along with your claims of warfare. And, of course, the latter ties in with your disingenuous claim that no one is forced to participate, as the people who have been persecuted for choosing to not say the Pledge or choosing to not pray in schools (or to say the “wrong” prayers) have consistently been persecuted throughout the history of this nation, despite your hollow claims of “religious freedom.”
The “under God” words in the pldge did not exist until the 20th century. It was a political ploy, to make us all feel better during the Cold War - we were better than those godless Commies. Before that, there was no “under God”. It had nothing to do with any religous ideals or American ideals. It was a primitive form of jingoism, a cheap sales slogan. Now that the Red menace is gone, what reason is there for keeping it, other than “tradition”?
Which makes me wonder why the Founders weren’t patriotic enough to put it there in the first place.
Perhaps because the Founding Fathers did not write a Pledge of Allegiance, would probably have felt it to smack of the British ceremonialism they had just fought to get free from, and the Pledge itself was written in the late 1800s and formally adopted by Congress in the early 20th century?
Patriotism consists in loving what one’s country stands for, not in showing how patriotic you are in the streets and at the city gate.
Probably none. Petition your Congressman to have it removed-- Congress can delete it any time they (representing us) want.
I’ve gone to public schools since seventh grade, which makes this my 6th and final year. At roughly once a day and 180 days per year, I’ll hear the pledge just over 1,000 times, which is only around half of the number for kids who go to public schools from grades 1-12. So, how long does it take, you ask? Less than a month, I’d say.
Now, it sounds to me like one long string of mumbles and seemingly arbitrary and awkwardly long pauses. As you probably recall (I assume the locations of the pauses haven’t changed since other Dopers in this thread were in high school), they go after the words “allegiance,” “flag,” “America,” “republic,” “stands,” “nation,” “God,” and “indivisible,” with a slight pause after “liberty,” as well. For some reason, “indivisible” gets sandwiched between two pauses.
Something else mumbled to the same rhythm as the Pledge would probably “sound like” the pledge to me, and to most students, I’d guess. (“I trudge malfeasance… through the swag… of the divided crates of diphtheria…”)
However, the following probably wouldn’t:
So, yes, it is rendered meaningless.
I’m just curious, how many of the people who talk so authoritatively of student reactions to the pledge are actually classroom teachers? In my 10 years of teaching (mostly in middle school), reciting the Pledge tends to be the exception and not the rule.
In particular I’d be very interested in hearing how many years of classroom experience these people have with today’s students:
tomndebb (see above)
catsix
Der Trihs
I’m aware of that. I was just trying to point out that religion and education has been explicitly linked in Michigan since 1963. Would that then somehow imply discrimination to atheists in the educational system?
Oh by the way, you never did give the citation of the courts equating voluntary participation with coersion.
When the Pledge is recited, someone is always required to say it: the teacher. Maybe a teacher should take it to the Supremes.
I am a firm believer in the non-establishment restriction. That is for the benefit of the state, the religious, and the non-religious.
Lekatt, one of the good things about not having the majority get their way in this is that when the majority is no longer Christian, you will still have your rights protected.
Having Bible readings and publicly lead prayers and sermons come to an end during my teaching experience was a relief to me. The religious education on the job was much more fundamental than what I felt comfortable with. I was also chastised by some of my more fundamental colleagues for my liberal beliefs.
I can’t imagine how the Jews and atheists were treated.
Well, if all those kids have been cowed into accepting it in the years before you saw them, you will not have seen any objections, will you? And yet, you seem to have actually had some objections despite the pressure exerted in the years before they became your students.
There have been roughly a dozen posters to the SDMB or other MBs where I post who have attested to having been subjected to peer pressure and to harrassment from teachers and administrators for choosing to not say the Pledge. And this despite a WWII ruling by the Supreme Court that no student may be compelled to recite it.
In some ways, this really is a tempest in a teapot because the vast majority of kids really don’t care about what they mumble at the start of the day. It only becomes an issue because various adults insist on making this loyalty test a matter of such importance that any child who does choose to abstain gets caught in the crossfire of totalitarian-supporting loyalty freaks and anarchy-supporting independence freaks.
I am always amused by the fact that the U.S. is the only “democracy” that actually indulges in daily loyalty oaths. The “under God” supporters simply frost the cake by trying to add theocracy to compulsory fealty.
So you don’t know **of your own knowledge ** what the environment is like in terms of reciting the Pledge in today’s classrooms? And those kids have NOT been cowed into accepting the recitation - they simply don’t say it. In fact, a student actually reciting the Pledge is the odd one out.
Yes, God’s law, not the “consent of the governed”. There is much greater Biblical support for the divine right of kings than there is for any “Right of the People to alter or to abolish” their form of government (as for example the passage from Romans I linked to). According to the Bible, there is a higher law than the laws of kings, but God, not “the people” is the one who appoints kings to enforce that law, and it is to God, not the people, that rulers are accountable.
It’s not at all clear these are particularly Biblical or Christian ideas. Christianity co-existed for centuries perfectly happily with aristocracy, absolutist monarchies, serfdom, and slavery.
Christian but hardly uniquely Christian, or even Judeo-Christian. The Deists also believed in one God. (In fact, the Deists would have said they were better monotheists than the Trinitarian Christians.) And even monotheism as against polytheism or atheism does not receive any particular protection or favor under the Constitution.
You are aware that it’s the words of Jesus according to the Gospels which specifically demand that we be passive and continually turn the other cheek?
There is not a single passage in the Bible that says the freedom to worship whatever God or gods one pleases in the manner one sees fit is something we ought to uphold, and many passages directly to the contrary.
1 The pledge IS NOT one of the founding documents.
2 It was written by Reverend Francis Bellamy in 1892
3 It was not until 1942 that Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
4 In 1954, Congress added the words, ‘under God,’ to the Pledge.
5 During his life Bellamy protested changes to his words.
LEADERS IN THE MOVEMENT TO ADD “UNDER GOD” TO THE PLEDGE,
1948TO 1954
In an 1955 Affidavit before a Notary Public of Cook County, Illinois, Louis A. Bowman (1872 - 1959) officially claimed to be the first person to initiate the practice of reciting “under God” in the Pledge. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and served as its Chaplin. He lived in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago.
On Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12, 1948, at a meeting of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, he lead them in repeating the Pledge with the added two words, “under God,” after “one nation.” The National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution and its Chicago Chapter gave him an Award of Merit as the originator of this idea.
Bowman explained to the Society that in adding the words, “under God,” they were following the precedent established by Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address. At the end of this Address, Lincoln said, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that, government of the. people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Lincoln inserted the words, “under God,” extemporaneously, for they do not appear in his written draft.)
Bowman also repeated this revised Pledge at several other meeting of the Society. At one 1952 meeting of his SAR, a member, John F. McKillip, was inspired to write to his former Employer and Editor-in-Chief of the Hearst Papers, William R. Hearst Jr., about this new change. The Hearst Newspapers began a campaign that eventually helped result in the “under God” legislation, which was adopted by the US House and Senate in 1954 and signed by President Eisenhower on Flag Day, 1954.
Bowman repeated his revised Pledge on other occasions - as a guest speaker at a Chicago post of the American Legion in 1952 and at a YMCA dedication in 1953. Meanwhile, in April 1951, the Knights of Columbus began a campaign for the Pledge to be amended by Congress to include the words, “under God.” The Hearst Newspapers and the American Legion joined this campaign.
In this successful campaign, the Knights of Columbus worked closely with Representative Louis Rabout, a democratic congressman from the Detroit area. He was a long time member of the House Appropriation Committee. He was a devout Roman Catholic. One of his sons became a Jesuit priest and two of his daughters became catholic nuns.
The Knights of Columbus were founded in 1882 by Father Michael McGivney in New Haven, Connecticut. (he probably will be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint in the next ten or twenty years.) Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus as a fraternal order for Roman Catholic men. It provided family insurance and meeting halls around the nation for its members.
In 1900 the Fourth degree of the Knights of Columbus were formed. This “higher order” was founded to do good works, help the Roman Catholic Church, and to promote American patriotism. The Knights has worked closely with the Holly See in the Vatican over the last century.
In the 1950’s the Fourth Degree believed that a patriotic American should be a person of religious faith and one who opposed communism, socialism, secularism, deism, agnosticism and atheism. In the 1950’s the Knights opposed communism in eastern Europe, Latin America, and Vietnam. It supported Senator Joseph McCarthy is his early campaign against communist subversion in the United States.
In April 1951 its Board of Directors adopted a resolution mandating that “under God” be added in the recitation of the Pledge by each of the 750 Fourth Degree assemblies. In 1952 its Supreme Council passed a resolution urging Congress to add the words, “under God,” to the Pledge.
Many other groups joined in the campaign. One was the Washington Pilgrimage group (now known as the Religious Heritage of America group), a patriotic-religious group founded in 1951, began promoting this addition. In 1952 the Reverend Dr. George M. Docherty, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, preached in favor of adding “under God” to the Pledge. His point was that a Soviet atheist could easily recite the Pledge without compunction by substituting the “Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics” for the 'United States".
In 1953 Rep Louis Rabaut from Michigan received a letter from H. Joseph Mahoney, Brooklyn, NY, suggesting this addition. Rabaut’s 1953 House bill eventually was passed. Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan filed a Senate bill that was passed by Congress. President Eisenhower signed the bill on Flag Day, June 14, 1954.
Now IF you could ask ANY of the people mentioned above, WHO is this god fellow,they would have said "GOD you know JESUS’S DAD ! These were not talking about an unknowable mystery,theism,Buddha,or ANY other more complex definition of “GOD” (Christianity ONLY has one god and ALL other “gods” are simply Satan in disguise !)
Therefor the congress added an explicit reference to the biblical,Christian god, in clear violation of the first amendment !http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=6587420&subscription=0#
smack
Any one care to disagree ?
Sources
www.usflag.org
http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm
http://pledgeqanda.com/
It is my recollection that soon after Jesus, the idea of divine ruler began to come to an end, then was resurrected again in the Middle Ages. I’m sure one can find support for the concept in the bible. My guess is that the teachings of Jesus provide much ammunition for counter-argument.
If the bar is set so high as to omit any and all ideas that are not exclusively Christian, you are probably correct, as anything that doesn’t revolve around the actual life of Jesus can probably be found elsewhere as well. Although I hardly think that a fair threshold.
My command of the Bible is woefully poor, but not that poor. I seem to recall something about Just War Theory and the need for peace between nations. But I recall (I think) that was St. Augustine or St Thomas More. The only justification I can see in the Bible is in the Old Testament. God delivered the plagues upon Egypt, then departed the sea and destroyed Pharoah’s army which was in pursuit. (Or was that last part only in The Ten Commandments?)
I just found this article by a Navy Chaplain examining the issue: http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/demy.html
I think you misunderstood my meaning. Or I mistake yours. I meant that becoming a follower of Christ cannot be the result of coercion. It must be an act of faith, a belief of the heart, and therefore, freely commited.
MEBuckner, I apologize for my command of the Bible not being up to the task of engaging you more fully. Ironically, you’ve caused me to want to find my Bible and spend some time with it. Still, I have enjoyed the exchange.