Ask yourselves, fellow Congressmen, who would pledge allegiance to such a country? A Godless country? There’s a reason this phrase was put into our Pledge of Allegiance, there’s something that it means, and there’s something that this country stands for that’s represented by this Pledge. It is for these reasons that I stand in FIRM negation of the bill to Strike the Words “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Fellow Congressmen, my first contention is that we must not forget the reason that we changed our Pledge to read “Under God”. IT was not always so! During the Cold War, It was implemented to separate us from the Godless, Communist Russians, the oppressive dictatorship that forbade religious icons, prayer, and worship. We set ourselves apart, then, as a nation that accepted ALL religions, that allowed for ALL worship, a safe haven for Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Buddhists, a nation of freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

Have we changed our minds?

Will we strike it now, and put ourselves back at that same level as the oppressive regime of Stalin, Lenin, Hitler? Deny our constituents and fellow citizens the things we, as a government, once set out to protect? Do we… COULD we, ask them to Pledge their Allegiance to a nation like that? I think not. I think, I BELIEVE, I have FAITH that you WILL make the right decision. I have faith, that you will vote to negate this so-called bill to “Amend” the Pledge of Allegiance. I, for one, will NOT abandon those who elected ME to represent them! For these reasons, I NEGATE this bill to Strike “Under God” from the pledge of Allegiance.

<Also wonders when Abyss became a congressman, but chooses not to ask.>

My main issue is that I don't believe taking it out is the same as never having put it in. Just because the wording after the fact would be the same, doesn't mean these would be identical solutions.

I don't think it should have been put in -- but I wasn't alive then, and I can't really understand the impact it had back then. However, I don't think it should just be removed, with the assumption that "reverting to its the original text" will wind the clock back 50 years and make everything hunky-dory. As I said before, it could be like the Cub Scout Promise -- there's a point where each person inserts his own name. Nobody needs to be offended that someone else is saying something different. So make the pledge have that moment, where one can say "under God," "under Muhammed," "under hydrogen," or remain silent, or whatever the heck else they might want to say.

The first amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," and that has been interpreted as a "separation of church and state," a phrase of which agreement on a definition is entirely absent. Because of that phrase, I think it was inappropriate to put the words "under God" in the pledge.

However, the amendment continues with "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," which I think precludes the subsequent removal of the phrase, at least without raising myriad questions (which it has).

But hey, I'm no lawyer.

So is optimism an undesirable trait?

It's not necessarily undesirable, but it certainly shouldn't be used to justify law.

The Allah of the Muslims is no more like the Jesus of the Christians than the Yahweh of the Jews. They share certain ancient texts and a Zoroastrian view of the afterlife, but that's about it.

I could just as easily say that I would find removing "under God" unnecessary and mildly offensive. That proves nothing.

Yes, it is. It's legally established as our national pledge of allegiance, in the same way that "In God We Trust" is legally -- and wrongly -- stamped all over our money.

Whether or not you find the REMOVAL offensive, frankly, isn't the issue; you wouldn't've had occasion to find it offensive if Congress hadn't pandered to the masses by sticking it in there in the first place.

Kinda stupid ain't it? So was your point

Edit: I was referencing jon boy, not tom...

"Whether or not you find the REMOVAL offensive, frankly, isn't the issue."
To quote somedeadguy, thank you for killing your own point.

On a side note, I find it funny that critics of the "under God" clause find nothing wrong with pledging allegiance to a flag.

And by the way, somedeadguy, please try to avoid red herrings and ad hominem attacks in your arguments.

Anyway, it's been fun, guys, but I can see that this argument is going nowhere. You cannot convince me that I'm wrong, and I can't convince you that you're wrong.

[This message has been edited by Jon Boy (edited October 22, 2002).]

Again, consider how you'd feel if you had to pledge allegiance to one country under Satan. Sure, you aren't FORCED to forswear the Christian God, but wouldn't you be a little ticked?

-------

As for sources on whether "under God" was designed to ostracize non-Christians: there are LOADS. Do a quick Web search, actually, and you'll find dozens of documents -- including the original memos calling for the motto "In God We Trust" AND the addition of "under God" to the pledge. You'll find that the basic STATED intention was to re-emphasize the role of America as a Christian society in an era when "godless Communism" was seen as a major threat -- and to deliberately ostracize those "dangerous" separatists who, by virtue of not belonging to the majority religion, could be assumed by inference to sympathize with the "enemy."

You know the fundamental problem with all arguments? It's almost entirely a game of semantics, not of logic. You find the term "god" non-universal. That's your perception of the word. I think most people would define "god" far more universally than you do.

But here's why those phrases should be left in. Removing all reference to deity in anything associated with the government would in fact be an establishment of atheism. As long as the American people are a (mostly) God-fearing people, the government of the nation, being an entity created by the people, will reflect the beliefs of the people. Religion cannot be separated from the government. That would establish a national atheist "church" in all but name. But the government must also draw a line and not single out a specific religion for endorsement or persecution, as I have pointed out several times before.

Easy.

1) Documents written by the people behind the original addition of the phrase make it clear that they intended to endorse a certain perception of god. Furthermore, the term "god" in the most obvious sense refers specifically to a monotheistic god, which limits the application here to a very narrow subset of religions -- and, even if you're willing to define the term broadly to include polytheistic pantheons, excludes animist, spiritualist, and humanistic traditions.

2) The pledge did not originally contain the phrase "under god." In that form, no one considered it an endorsement of atheism. The removal of an endorsement for a philosophy does NOT constitute the promotion of an opposite philosophy, especially when several alternative philosophies that are NOT opposites are equally available.

I understand that this last point is difficult for you to understand, as one of your premises -- a false one -- is that the absence of a state-promoted religion constitutes a promotion of atheism. This is a common argument among the zealous, who fail to understand the distinction -- and who perceive "atheism" as a form of coherent religious philosophy opposed to their own way of life.

I'll admit that I never expected to change your mind; from the very beginning of this thread, I attempted to refer people to earlier and more cogent threads on the other side of this forum, where this topic was discussed at greater length and, frankly, depth -- mainly because it's been my experience that those who care deeply about the presence of the phrase "under god" do so because they perceive it, against all logic, as one of the last bulwarks of religious civilization in a world drowned in anti-theistic bile. Since these are internally-supported beliefs and don't rely on any actual evidence, they're impossible to counter.

Just on the off-chance, however, I figured I'd give it a shot.

2. You completely missed my point on this one. If the government hunts down and removes any reference to god or religion, then it has become an atheistic government.

Lastly, thank you once again for proving that atheists, who think they need nothing more than logic, are still prone to all the same logical fallacies as the rest of the world. Thank you for assuming I don't understand you. Thank you for calling me "zealous." Thank you for assuming that you know my perceptions of atheism better than I do. And most importantly, thank you for illustrating once again how logic can be used to attack or support any belief, regardless of whether that belief is correct.

And yes, intent DOES matter -- at least according to the courts, who really do have the final say.

2) The government does not need to hunt down or remove all references to god or religion, and neither am I asking it to do so; it can simply remove the ones that it artificially and wrongly added during a period of shameful zealotry, and I'd be happy to call it a day. There are already PLENTY of references to god and religion in American society; I shouldn't worry about suddenly becoming an oppressed minority any time soon.