One nation, "under God" by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

One nation, "under God"

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 12:59
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Monday, September 9, 2013 2:07 PM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I'm sure most of us have heard about the lawsuit in Massachusetts challenging the use of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance because it is a violation of the Constitutional principle of separation of church and state as well as a violation of the Massachusetts state Constitution.

Were you aware that the original pledge didn't mention God? The original pledge, written in 1892, was “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” For the next 62 years, new words were added to the pledge by Democratic-controlled and Republican-controlled Congresses alike. None of them ever added a reference to God. Louis A. Bowman, an attorney from Illinois, was the first to initiate the addition of "under God" to the Pledge in 1948, as Chaplain of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. In 1951, the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization, also began including the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Prior to February 1954, no endeavor to get the Pledge officially amended succeeded. The final successful push came from Pastor George MacPherson Docherty, after a sermon he gave with Eisenhower present and in a conversation following the service. The phrase "under God" was incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance June 14, 1954, by a Joint Resolution of Congress.

So we've only been saying "under God" since 1954, it wasn't part of our original pledge to our country. Our country was founded on the concept of religious FREEDOM, and separation of church and state. How can all religions be equal if the government sponsors the deity of a particular religion on our money and pledge? Non-believers certainly cannot be. America is a more diverse nation now than ever before in history. Christianity is not the only religion practiced in this country. Even the founders had diverse religious beliefs. That’s why they never included God, Jesus, or Christianity in the Constitution, so that America would be governed by reason and the rule of law instead of religious doctrine. They knew that religious doctrine is a threat to the civil government that is charged with protecting our rights. Thus, the founders built a wall of separation between church and state. That wall doesn’t just give people freedom of religion, it also gives people freedom FROM religion.

Not Dana Perino, of FauxNews. She's "tired of them", the people who don't want "Christianity" shoved down their throats. She says "If these people really don’t like it, they don’t have to live here". Amen, FauxNews!

I'll let one of those Founding Fathers which FauxNews so adores to wave in our faces have the last word:

Quote:
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.”
~President Thomas Jefferson, Speech to the Virginia Baptists, 1808

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Tuesday, September 10, 2013 8:31 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Oh, you'll never see the pledge SCRAPPED!, that would never do! Would be nice if, like you, we saved our "pledge" of the military and stuff, and let our kids sing "America the Beautiful" or something at school instead, but we're not that highly evolved just yet... ;o)

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Tuesday, September 10, 2013 9:41 AM

DEVERSE

Hey, Ive been in a firefight before! Well, I was in a fire. Actually, I was fired from a fry-cook opportunity.

Brenda, don't you recite the pledge on July 1?

I, [name], do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. So help me God.

The "So help me God" part is optional in case of religious beliefs.

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face;
With stars to fill my dream;
I am a traveler of both time and space;
To be where I have been

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Tuesday, September 10, 2013 11:05 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Well, they don't make their CHILDREN recite it every school morning, which I do think is over the top...jmho

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Tuesday, September 10, 2013 5:49 PM