My Google Fu is weak today, but I did find this NYT article from 2002. It discusses a little what transpired back in 1954.
So, it appears that no one really objected. Not that it would have been easy to do in that day. I do like the reasoning though, as it ties the pledge back to the DofI, in invoking God as a distinctive component of the U.S.
Evidently (there is not unanimous agreement on this), Lincoln also used the phrase (prior to the Pledge, of course) in his Gettysburg Address.
Here’s an interesting document, the speech given by Dr. George M. Docherty on Sunday, February 7, 1954, in front of Eisenhower, and which led directly to the bill he later signed.
Docherty says
All men of every religious faith. Other religions are fine, but you must be religious. He feels that this includes many faiths, but he casts only a small net, excluding many of the world’s religions:
But he vociferously desires to exclude atheists, saying
So, due to the (to me, ridiculous) assumption that “God” has brought us this continent, government and freedom, it logically follows that we should not ignore that God (look what happened to the Israelites!), and atheists are ungrateful wretches, unworthy of consideration.
I’ve been doing some research on newspapers from 1953-1954 on this subject. I haven’t been able to find any opposing views yet, but it is interesting to note that most of the articles are from religious publications or religious columns in general circulation papers, and all are couched in very obvious religious language. Here are just a few. (All are PDFs; bolding is mine, and typos are the result of OCR)
Let’s ignore, for the moment, I used the word “position” at all. The fact is, monotheism is religious in nature, and monotheism is a particular type of religious belief, separate and distinct from the religious belief of polytheism, paganism, etcetera. My point is, I do not think it is a very productive dialogue to debate monotheism in the manner you have in relation to the Establishment Clause. The better argument is acknowledging monotheism is religious, involves religion, but this is of no detrimental consequence when considering the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The reason why this is the better argument is because nobody is fooled by this idea monotheism is not a religion or a religious position quite simply because monotheism is still religious, belongs to the realm of religion and religious beliefs, and is, contrary to your assertion, a religious position. Nobody is persuaded by your remark of “Monotheism is a philosophical-theological position.” Monotheism is the belief in a single supreme deity, and the belief in a deity is a religious belief, belong to the realm of the religious, and is a particular kind of religious belief.
Look, you can believe whatever you’d like, and the throngs can agree with you. And I’m not trying to “fool” anyone, so you can relax. The fact is that monotheism is NOT a religion. Is it a way to describe some religions? Yes. But that is all. It is a philosophical-theoligical position, akin to polytheism, atheism, and agnosticism.
Nice research, Musicat. I’m not surprised you didn’t find much in the way of dissent. The country was more religious then, and add on the weight of fighting communism, and you’re not likely to find many people speaking out against both God and anti-comunism.
I was looking for newspapers slanted towards non-Christian and immigrant ethnic groups. Couldn’t find much; one problem is such material isn’t as well archived as larger pubs. Another problem is the search cost; google scholar uncovers some promising articles but it always leads to a pay site for the full text.
I know, I know, we’ve all read many contemporary articles on this by now, but here’s an especially good one by David Greenberg, from Slate, which includes this:
A long, somewhat rambling, but still interesting article on this topic, covering history of both the US mottos and the pledge.
Yes, there were organizations opposed to both changes, but they were weak, marginalized, non-mainstream socially and unable to convince the ACLU to join in the fight. Some of these were the American Humanism Association, American Ethical Union, the Freethinkers of America, American Jewish Congress and Madalyn O’Hare (American Atheists).
The ACLU was smarting from its apparent lack of respect for religion and getting caught in the red scare, where if you weren’t fanatically a God-fearing American, you were for sure a Communist, and deserved to be punished. They devoted their resources to other causes.
But this would be true for any kind of reasonable description of a religion/philosophical position. I mean, you could go on and on with incredibly specific descriptions of a particular god for pages on end, yet still end up with one with could, theoretically, describe myriad religions, all fitting the pattern yet conflicting with each other.
I never assserted monotheism was a religion. However, monotheism is a religious idea, belongs to the realm of the religious, and is a particular kind of religious notion. The fact monotheism may be, in part, philosophical does not remove the religious characteristics.
As a further aside, when Roger Williams first established Providence, his notion of separation of church and state was that an individual’s religious beliefs were far too important to allow the grimy hands of the state to get involved. In his mind, the 10 commandments were divided into two books; the civil laws, and those pertaining to God’s law. He wrote that there should be a “hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.”
Well, now i’m not sure. If i’m reading you right, you’re saying that monotheism in and of itself is not a religion, because there are many religions that incorporate monotheistic beliefs and yet disagree with each other on other points. Is that right?
Which of course contradicts the bible where God says he is a “jealous god” and that you should have no other gods before him. That clearly implies that he thinks he is one of many gods.
Maybe we should have the coins say “We trust in one of the gods”.
I think you’re making it much too complicated. It’s not a religion because someone can hold that philosophical position and you know nothing more about them. They’re are know additional “beliefs” that would dictate that they behave in a way that would be different than if they were a polytheist or an atheist. Does that help?
intent. My guess is, though, that there was merely silence.