Well, perhaps I think that famine is of greater concern, so I ask you, how can you invent something like global warming to get your panties all in a bunch about? You must live a free and easy life if you concern yourself with global warming.
We’ll you’ve convinced me Hentor the Barbarian, consider ignorance fought. Because we can all agree that the ramifications of not taking “In God We Trust” off a dollar bill and doing nothing about famine or global warming are the same.
So, do you ignore all your small battles to concentrate on THE BIG PROBLEM?
Great. Just so you know to be equally concerned about it, I also have an itch on my left nut.
Yes.
I really should have clarified that question by adding “…and for which side?”
Well, for one thing, we’ll have to do something in about 50 years or so, even if it’s too late to do much. But we don’t have to do anything about “In God We Trust”.
Also, there isn’t just one answer to the problem of Global Warming, as there is for taking “In God We Trust” off the currency.
That’s a great question, which I obviously don’t have the answer too. It’s clear that a big issue to you may not be a big one to me and vice versa. I do think (in my current American culture) that any transgression however slight or innocently intended, is grounds to get indignant, go to court and demand compensation or an apology nowhere near commensurate to the alleged transgression. And while I can sit back and chuckle at someone suing a dry cleaner for $65M over a lost pair of pants, or Budweiser for not getting one a beautiful women, these issues do tax our legal system and we all pay for that. And they do distract us from focusing on real issues such as the national debt, health care and the like and make people think their pet peeves are truly deserving of more attention than is (I believe) warranted.
They were being obnoxious - the polite thing would have been to shut up and go along with what they were “supposed” to do.
I would Agree with Bricker that the expense and hassle wouldn’t be worth it.
However, it’s definitely something that should be re-visited (and hopefully eliminated) when we update our currency. Which is down right primitive compared to other country’s.
I would imagine we’ll update the bills at some point in the future. That would be the time to make this a case.
I suppose it could be taken as acknowledgment that a fiat currency ultimately rests on faith.
Use of the phrase ‘In G-D we trust’ is a clear violation of the third commandment.
Crane
Maybe it was a misprint: “In Gold We Trust”.
According to the suggested alternatives as per this account at Treasury.gov, my reaction is “Well, I suppose it could have been worse.” Talk about arrogant supposition! Check out the letter that they cite as being the first appeal to godify the currency:
and also:
At the very least, our currency does not come out and state that the US is subordinate to god, which it potentially could have.
True.
After all, Muslims and Jews don’t believe in the God of Abraham.
FTR, I personally wish they’d never adopted it, but don’t really care whether its removed or not.
There is a difference between standing up for oneself politely and with civil disobedience and being obnoxious. King and Ghandi were not obnoxious and unfailingly polite and good examples. That was the why they were successful in their particular situations.
Dawkins, who seems to be the public leader on the atheism issue, seems to me to be polite and non-obnoxious, but not much of a political leader.
With all due respect, have you ever read up on any of those people or their movements?
The who point of both movements was to be polite while engaging in civil disobedience.
Why do you think that all the Civil Rights protesters were dressed up in their Sunday best?
Had the anti-Vietnam War protesters actually followed their model instead of dressing and behaving the way they did, perhaps they would have accomplished more than getting Nixon elected and causing the Vietnam War to be dragged out.
Not to the people being stood up to. Case in point:
And he’s constantly called obnoxious, impolite, arrogant, you name it. An atheist who wants to be called “polite” has to at the very least talk all the time about how miserable he is, about how he wishes he was religious, and about the moral superiority of religion. An atheist who refuses to grovel and express self hatred will never be considered polite by the believers.
We have to win that war on religion that all those christians are telling us we are fighting. The tough part is gonna be actually starting it.
But we can do it in small steps. We can start with battles against saints like Saint Patrick – convert it to a secular holiday like maybe “National Beer Day.” If the government gives out free beer on that day, Saint Patrick will be forgotten in about 5 minutes.
Hey, we atheists are in the same boat with gay people. We’re misunderstood, but we pretty much just want the same things everyone else wants.
We have families, we have jobs, pay our taxes, we go to church. Oh wait… we don’t do that last thing! 