What is this “ceremonial deism?” It’s a threat, and an insult, and meant to be so from the beginning. It’s a way of saying that if you aren’t a Christian you aren’t a real American. That’s the real reasoning behind putting God on the pledge and the money. Just as a judge putting the Ten Commandments on his robe or on the wall of a courtroom is a way of saying that if you aren’t a Christian, you’ll find no justice there; a way of saying he’ll be looking for an excuse to rule against you if you don’t toe his religious line. This is all about the hatred of Christians for anyone who is not Christian, especially athiests.
Of course it was. Everyone knows that “God”, in a context like this means the Christian God. Not Hinduism, not Buddhism, not Islam. Christianity. Like the concept of “ceremonial deism”, the claim that “God” on the money or in the pledge refers to anything but Christianity is just an attempt to pretend the Constitution isn’t being violated. It was put there by Christians to push Christianity; not some other religion.
“God”, as opposed to “the gods” is not some generic religious concept. It’s barely a step short of putting a cross on our money and claiming that isn’t a Christian symbol but a generic religious one.
For the government to espouse religion does not violate the Constitution. For that to be true, the Constitution would need to say “The government shall not espouse religion” or words to that effect. Here’s a copy to read if you don’t believe me. As you can see it mentions religion only twice. Once, in Article VI, it says that there shall be no religious test for office; in other words, members of the government can practice whatever religion they want. The other time, in the First Amendment, says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” Clearly that means anyone can practice the religion they want when and how they want; it makes no exception for government employees are anyone else. The reason for that amendment was that in England only members of the church of England could vote, hold office, reach certain military posts, etc… The authors of the Constitution wanted to ensure that there would never be a Church of the United States of America holding similar powers. But they would be completely baffled by the claim that the First Amendment prohibits the government from espousing religion. That idea wasn’t invented until generations later.
And I agree with all those in this thread who say that “ceremonial deism” is garbage.
Actually, no. If they were “obviously and clearly explicitly Christian”, they would mention Christ, and not “God”. I’ll give you that Hindus probably were not given much thought, but with no mention of “Christ” or “The Lord” or “Our Savior”, the term “God” is relatively broad.
Well, it all comes down to what is meant by establishing religion. I’m not really trying to argue that one meaning is right and the other is wrong. I’m just pointing out that a strict, textualist or originalist reading of the Establishment Clause needn’t rule out either of those things. That was the original complaint made here:
“Separation of church and state” (technically “a wall of separation between church and state”) is a term used by President Thomas Jefferson in correspondence with the Danbury (CT) Baptist Church to describe the protections of citizens’ rights that are found there.
The statement you made is equivalent to saying that “strict and intermediate scrutiny and rational basis tests are found nowhere in the Constitution” – technically a true statement, but, as Bricker recently noted, they are a useful mode of effectuating the principles that are actually in the Constitution.
This is absurd - you are arguing that the Christians do not, and would not, refer to their god as “God”. This is obviously and provably false. I can’t believe that you’re arguing it with a straight face. Are you listening to yourself?
It’s not logically valid to conclude that if someone resorts to arguments that are completely and obviously ridiculous, then their position must be wrong. However if it were valid to conclude that, you would have just proven my position for me.
I’m not that up with the different flavors of constitutional interpretation; I just know that there isn’t any way to interpret a direct and explicit statement of trust in God on the currency, or a direct and explicit statement of subservience to God in the pledge, as not being in condradiction to the establishment clause, without making the text literally completely meaningless.
God can be ‘anything’ greater then ourselves. The God concept is what kept our country strong until atheists took offense and now we have traded in our beloved, “In God We Trust” for the almighty dollar and went bust! The founding fathers were smart because they knew corruption comes from within so we needed a power from above. In another thread they talk about everything going downhill in the 80’s and that is the same time Madeline Murray O’Hair was doing her best to separate church and state. She won, we as a nation lost.
The further we get from the Constitution the closer we get to our own demise. It will come from within if we don’t place our trust in a higher power that is incorruptible. If God was their standard why is money and greed now our standard? What got lost in the shuffle? Our freedom.
No, I’m not arguing that, because that’s not what you said earlier. You said the use of “God” was clearly a Christian reference. It isn’t.
If you’re not “up with the different flavors of constitutional interpretation”, then you shouldn’t make broad statements about constitutional interpretation. It is not unreasonable to interpret that clause as meaning that Congress cannot make a law creating a state (ie, government funded) religion-- which is what many of the states did in the early years of our republic, and which was commonly forced upon the colonies by England.
Yes, it is, without doubt. And this history leading up to the insertion of it in the pledge and on the dollar support this 100% - it wasn’t the deists or the muslims or the wiccans powering those movements.
I don’t have to be conversant with the different varieties of strawberry to recognize a lemon.
Well, that’s a different argument than you made earlier. But even still, it could just as well have been an attempt by Christians (who were clearly the majority in government) to give a nod to religion in the broadest way possible. An attempt to be inclusive of other religions, although clearly not inclusive of the non-religious.
You seem strangely confident that you know more about what my argument is than I do, despite my having already had to correct you in it in post #60. Regardless I’m not sure it matters what my prior argument was; you’re responding to my current posts, right?
And you’re now trying to argue that the Christans in the 50s were deliberately not referring to their own god, but instead being deliberately and mindfully inclusive of non-christian religions, when they referred to their god by the proper name “God” like they always did when referring to Him exclusively. Convincing argument there. Might I also suggest that you argue that all the christians and priests who were pushing for the idea were actually Taoist monks, in disguise; that being similarly likely. Taoist monks from Venus.
Yes, I know. And Jefferson famously played a key role in writing the DoI, he was in France when the the BoR was being proposed. And so, I don’t take his musing to have any more significance on the issue than any of the hundreds of legislators who had to actually vote on them.
Except when people claim, or imply, that either of those things are actually in the text of the constitution, then it is appropriate to bring up the fact that they aren’t.
No, I’m simply at a disadvantage because I’m only aware of what you actually post, not what you think you are saying.
Well, not if you keep moving the goal posts.
Please read what I wrote, and don’t read what you THINK I must be thinking. I’m not arguing that I know one way or the other what was in their minds-- you’re the one making bold, broad statements about the motivation of people you have never met. I’m merely suggesting that what is “obvious” to you, is not necessarily The Truth, and am offering another possible scenario.
I don’t know where you’re getting all this stuff about Taoists or whatever. The people who screamed to get “under God” in the pledge were largely Christian. Whether or not they were trying to impose Christianity on, for example, Jews by putting that in the pledge is another questions altogether.
Putting aside the pointless noise about how cryptic and incomprehensible we both suddenly apparently are, your argument is that you can propose crazy, ridiculous, completely inconceivable possibilities that be both know are not the case but are still theoretically possible presuming you take enough drugs and/or ignore enough reality. And because I am unable to prove that these wild and crazy theories are physically impossible, this somehow undermines my position.
This is quite the approach. Of course, it’s the approach used traditionally to support ceremonial deism, so I guess I can’t fault you for using it; you have tradition on your side.
It proves exactly as much as your bald “Bad Analogy” assertion.
I’ll give you a nod for this point. It’s true that Roe creates detailed restrictions and guidelines and calls them constitutional when the the constitution is completely silent on the matter, and ceremonial deism excuses laws made when the constitution says “no laws.”
There are principled opponents of Roe that still think we ought to have legal abortion. And there are plenty of people, myself included, that think “Under God” in the pledge is wise social policy but admit that it falls afoul of a fair reading of the Establishment Clause.
I don’t care about results as much as I care about method.
No, not at all. I don’t think the scenario I’m proposing is crazy. I’ll go so far as to say that “God” = “the Judeo-Christian God” in that context. But that’s not the same thing. It’s not obvious, as you claim, that “God” = “Christ”.
You lost me. The textualist argument I have been referencing is not the argument used to support ceremonial deism.
I thought it was “obvious” why it was a bad analogy.
But if you think it’s a good one, why don’t you explain why comparing a berry to a fruit has any relation to interpreting the constitution. Of course, if you just trying to make a witty remark, then we can just chalk it up to a witty remark, and not an actual debate argument.
You’ve been floating at least two arguments - the one about textualism, which I have largely not been engaging with you on, since I think it’s a red herring, and the arguments you’ve been making about how when they put God on the currency and in the pledge, they didn’t really mean God. (Which is to say of course the god that’s referenced in the bible by the name “God”.) The latter argument is the one I’ve been focusing on, and you’ve been engaging because you need the examples of ceremonial deism in question to be ambiguous in order for your arguments on textualism to matter at all. Because if the ceremonial deism is not general and vague, then the various ways to validly interpret the constitution are different flavors of strawberries, and the kind of interpretation it would take to justify slapping the ten commandments on a federal courthouse or “In God we trust” on currency are a fruit of an entirely different color.
You said it was Christian. It needn’t be limited to that religion.
It was a post about that which started this whole discussion. If that’s red herring, then I’m just not sure what that terms means anymore.
Again, you’re moving the goal posts. The “God” of the bible is much more than just the Christian God. That God is the God of Christians, Jews and Muslims. If you want to argue that that group constitutes one religion, then that would be an odd argument indeed.
No, because there is no such religion as Judeo-Christain-Muslim, and so the gov’t would not be establishing a state religion. The establishment clause needn’t be narrowly construed to mean that the federal gov’t must not acknowledge religion in any way shape or form. That’s one interpretation, but not the only on.
In this context as in most others, "“God” clearly means the God of the Bible.
You do realize that “In God We Trust” is a late addition? And it’s ON the dollar. Nor has belief in God kept the country strong, rather the opposite; it’s held the country back in many ways.
God on the money and in the pledge has nothing to do with the founding fathers. As for corruption; given that they allowed slavery and genocide, and in many cases owned slaves, they were already vile and corrupt human beings. Not a group that should be looked up to as moral leaders.
Yeah, sure. I’m sure all the people who didn’t want someone else to ram their religion down their children’s throats “lost”.
It always was. God is not protection from corruption; God IS corruption. God is a self indulgent fantasy and nothing more. The corrupt, greedy people you complain about are typically believers, like most of the population. Far from making them less greedy, being believers means they can excuse every act they make with “God wants me to do it”. God isn’t going to correct them, because he doesn’t exist.
Yet amusingly, to an outside observer, all it does is make the US look like communist China, Nazi Germany or Soviet-era Russia with rows of kids all pledging their allegiance to the state.
Are there any other western countries that have anything close to this utterly bizarre practice?
