The only thing I will say about this is this country was founded on God. What gives Atheists the right to have everything cater to thier beliefs? What about the flip of the coin. No different than smokers smoking in a non-smokers face inside or outside. If you want to do your lungs in I'm all for it but you don't have the right to take me with you!
i dont want anything to cater to atheists, i dont want schools to teach atheism. i want them to stop teaching theism and teach nothing. pledging to a country "under god" is saying that god exists, which is clearly a religious statement, and is of indeterminate truth value. all i ask is that religion is not taught to children, and they are granted freedom from the beliefs of others, and left to be told by their parents or themselves if they would like to believe in god.
Last time I checked they don't teach religion in schools. I don't see whats wrong with saying the pledge. This country was founded "under god" since the beginning of its time. Why does that offend people when it hasn't for 200 years? All of this garbage just started happening in the mid 80's. Pretty soon they are going to have to change the name of Los Angeles because it means city of angels. They already are removing the seals with a little cross through it. LOL, pretty soon they will have to change how many more things? California Angels? Why not call them the California Crazies? just a minute.... I just had to go check my wallet, I have 3 $5's and a $1. They all still say "In god we trust" I'm sure that will change in a few years. :thumb:
rfalco makes some very good points, one of which is that the term "under God" is a generic term. However the problem with this is that America is generally regarded to be Christian faith based. As we know, people are prone to teach/ speak what they believe and the majority of Americans believe in Jesus and Christianity. I wonder if the Christians would be content to have "In Allah We Trust" or "In Buddha We Trust" on our money or "One nation under Allah" or "One Nation under Siva". I doubt it because our nation is generally regarded to be based on Biblical and Christian principles. The same with the portrayals he depicts on the Supreme Court building. Would we be okay with portrayals from the Koran or the Torah? So even though in theory the term is generic it still can be and is interpreted in a certain way. The same for organized prayer in schools. Even though the class may be made up of many ethnicities, the prevailing majority will probably be Christian and the teacher/administrator leading the prayer will probably be Christian and that philosophy will be "taught". This does a great disservice to those that have different beliefs or no beliefs at all. I personally don't feel that in matters such as this that the principle of majority rule applies. In matters of individual thought, what everybody else thinks should take a back seat. Contrary to what Sourdough thinks, this is NOT revising history. No one can change the fact that our founding fathers based our gov't. on those principles. But at the time, America was not made up of the diverse cultures it is now. It is easy to say to someone, if you want to live in America then you must adopt American ways but not so easy to do it. If you are Christian and for whatever reason moved to Iraq or Pakistan, would you be willing to give up your faith because the predominant religion is Muslim? I doubt it. You would say that your religious views are personal. You wouldn't be happy with your child being subjected to teachings or prayers from the Koran. The only logical arguemant that can be made for having these things is that one group of persons is trying to force their beliefs on others. The only say that the gov't should have in this matter is virtually none at all other than to protect the rights of its citizens to believe or not believe whatever they want. Cal Ripken once said, and I can't remember the exact quote, " A child is like a blank tape. What goes on my childs tape are things that I want him to know and I will be comfortable with. I'm not about to leave it to strangers to imprint that tape with stuff I don't agree with." And so it should be with every parent. When it comes to things such as religion and morals and values and other personal stuff, why would you want to surrender that all important power to some stranger(s)? If you don't have your child grounded in your home beliefs and practices, then what they are subjected to in school will either take root or have no effect at all. Either way you have failed as a parent by allowing the school/gov't. to supplant you as the moral authority in your childs life. Are you comfortable with that?
The downfall of our country has been happening for years and history will be revised. Most immigrants when coming to this country wanted to be Americans but not anymore. You have Mexicans from the south bringing thier language and culture with them. That is why spanish is becoming a second language. That is why when I go to a fast food restaurant I sometimes have trouble communitcating with the workers. I used this as an example because the immigrants of today are so different then they use to be and we continue to let this happen. George Bush wants to give them drivers license, i don't even know why we call them illegal immigrants anymore because they want to give them all priviledges of this country that we have. Based upon all of these facts, America's culture will change right along with history.
