Quick alteration of subject line:

This sub was probably using the Pledge as a gauge to spot trouble makers for the lesson. Teachers are people too. (Some of them are tools)

Grant, I would like to point out that regardless of what principles the U.S. was founded on, it was also founded on the principle of freedom of religion. By the words "under God" being in the Pledge and whatever else, that's support for theists by the government, whether you want to interpret "under God" to be strictly Christian as it was originally designated for or a broader interpretation.

They hell they are. Are all inhabitants of the U.S. of Christian faith? No. Do we have freedom of religion? Yes.


Bull****. Most of the founding fathers were deists. Thomas Paine wrote one of the most scathing attacks on Christianity of all time in The Age of Reason. Nothing in the constitution is taken from Christianity. Our laws were derived from English common law. The founding fathers didn't have Christianity in mind at all when they founded the country.



Shiva is from Hinduism you ignorant clod.


What the hell are you babbling about? Who is talking about changing the US because it doesn't conform to "mulsim" beliefs?


The phrase "under God" was added in 1954 by a bunch of fear-mongering *******s. You don't know what you're talking about.

Get out.

Told.

I think the Anthem is a ridiculous ritual, but I am further appalled by the sudden inclusion of "under God" into it. I've said as much before.


FALSE


You sound angry about something unrelated...


It didn't originally have the words "under god" in it. You'd just like to believe that, because it pushes your religion above others in our nation. There is no officially sanctioned state religion. (Yes, that includes atheism.) The Pledge of Allegiance was never intended to be a religious pledge, but instead a pledge to the concepts of American freedom and liberties. To uphold them.

The very amendment to that pledge violates its original intention of justice and liberty. The allegiance isn't intended to be specifically inclusive, so an argument can't be made that it's 'including' religious people.

And those of you who don't think it's a big deal, and think we're stupid for caring piss me off even more. At some point in our history, people stopped caring about symbolism, icons, and seals. We decided that they were for branding and sales, not for meaning or intent.

I am concerned for my freedoms when people clearly do not see a problem with inserting Christian submission statements into pledges, or on our money. It's what those things represent that bothers me, and scares me, not the things themselves. I don't really care about pledges. I don't really care about money. I care more that someone else cared enough to insert those religious concepts into non-religious, nationalized things, and got away with it.

Shiva frowns on this thread's shenanigans.

Careful, fishstickz. You don't want the Hindus to get all Confucius on your Lao Tzu ***.

You aren't free until you're 18, and even then you're only slightly more free. Get used to it. Get over it.

Yeah they did. Jefferson wrote an awful lot on the subject of the importance of religion to society. They might not have been concerned which religion (But I doubt that, considering the majority of them were church-going non believers), but the spirit of the philosophy is definitely supported by the constitution.

You guys are right that 'under God' has no business being in the pledge. But I don't actually care, cause if everyone actually was Christian, and I don't mean our modern brand of 'reborn pseudo-Christian', the world would be a better place (Though exceedingly boring.)

Then we could celebrate taochristmahannuballah

I'm not a patriot.

It has nothing to do with the country I live in, I wouldn't be a patriot anywhere.

Sure, I love some of the aspects of my own country, it's only natural. But just because this is the country where I was born doesn't mean I should honour it in any way. I might have been born anywhere in the world.

But more importantly, my parents taught me to be wary of flag waving, anthem singing, allegiance pledging bull****. It's scary. WW2 is -still- fresh in our memories. Patriotism brings out ugly things in people. I only need to see Wilders on TV and his fear of 'islamization' to be reminded of this.

WW2 is still fresh in your memory? I'm sorry but how many people do you know were around during WW2? I'm not saying you dont, but seriously it's not fresh in our memories.

Whats so wrong about hanging a flag outside and singing the national anthem? A lot of why I do it is to pay respect for those who have fought for my country.

FYI, I am from the Netherlands. Almost everyone here has grandparents who were in the war, either deported, killed, forced to work for the Germans, or working for the resistance. My family is no exception. History lessons in school spend a lot of time on WW2. Maybe it's different on your side of the ocean, but we have all but forgotten. Although seeing how many people are voting for Wilders admittedly makes me wonder.

There's nothing wrong with hanging a flag outside. It's just silly. It gets scary when people get more and more patriotic. I've seen enough examples of this, and more and more recently. Hence why I'm wary of this sort of thing altogether.

Ah. I had originally read your post a little differently. I dont mean to offend you of course, I just thought you were saying that as an "I was there" kind of statement.

And yes, bandwagon patriots are scary x_x

Ah, no problem. I can see how my post could be read differently. Sorry about that.

Pledge of allegiance? What kind of dump nazi american bs is that?

Just googled what that was about.

God damn burgerboys.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, (insert religious bs), indivisible, so my president can **** our people over equally and bring war to foreign countries.

Wewt

When I was in grade 4 and 5 I never stood for the pledge of allegiance..

Then again I was the only Canuck in my class of Americans. Thank god I came back to Canada, where I got droned with the National Anthem every day

Maybe its just the area I live in, but we're all loyal to canada in a sense, yet we never did anything like this silly pledge or playing the national anthem everyday in schools. I guess we just don't need that kind of brainwashing stupidity.

This thread needs more George Bernard Shaw

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I've long believed that the only sensible reason to be proud of America is that I was born here.

Jefferson thought religion was a private matter for each individual to contemplate alone and strongly believed in keeping church and state affairs separate.

I wouldn't be bothered by having to say "under God". It's just two rather hollow words. It could be "under Mickey Mouse" or "under an umbrella" and I'd say it anyway if I really had to.

Only if it was "under the Terminator", of course. Mmmmm.

Next time this happens, look your teacher straight in the eye and cite West Virginia v. Barnette.

Some take the view that singing the anthem or speaking the pledge is merely a sign of respect for those that helped shape their country rather than blind patriotism itself. This is kinda okay as an argument except there are probably people from other countries (probably more in fact) who are equally deserving of this respect, surely it would make sense to collect a list of all the countries who have at some point had people who've contributed to the success of your own and sing their anthems and pledge allegiance to them as well.

Surely we need some sort of generic international honour anthemic pledge so we don't miss anyone out.

I'm just kidding, but only a bit.

That is an entirely orthogonal issue, and thus does not change the validity of what I said.

Thomas Jefferson


Thomas Jefferson


Thomas Jefferson

You say the Founding Fathers had Christianity in mind, then brought up Jefferson and how he thought religion was important. Jefferson was against organized religion and wanted church and state separate. He felt logic and reason to be the best tools for planning and observing. It is not orthogonal. You weren't specific enough with the rest of your post for me to comment on anything else.

Can I get some references on Jefferson writing about the importance of religion to society? Not necessarily textual, I can read the texts myself, just some papers that might have said such a thing.

Also, if he believed in separation of church and state vehemently, how could he believe that church was important to the state?

I'd like to make the obvious statement that JM constantly talks out his rectum.

Actually, he has a random fact generator that spews forth random information from all bodily orifices.

Random Thomas Jefferson fact: Thomas Jefferson's tears can cure cancer. Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson can't cry.

Because he's dead.

Dang, you must have one hell of a bunch in your panties.

Because I know what I'm talking about?

I gag everytime someone says this.

As I've said countless times before: That statement is flat out false. The majority of the founding fathers were Presbyterian.

If you're gonna disprove something, allow for sources please.

Also, if I remember right, they were practicing christians but didn't truly believe in christianity and DEFINITELY didn't want it worked into the government.

...is not always synonymous with sounding like a belligerent douchebag?



Alright, how about some facts and statistics, shall we? There were a few definite deists in there, but there was also a much larger number of fairly devout Christians from various denominations. I imagine that a pretty good majority of the founding fathers took religion a good deal less seriously than tradition would have us believe, but the fact remains that even though Jefferson and Franklin were pretty strongly against traditional Christianity, and they all at least identified with some denomination, and held to many Christan principals. Even so, I think it's clear that the founding fathers were, on the whole, strong proponents of the Separation of Church and state, which is the real issue here.

Thinking of the founding fathers and a group of strongly fundamentalist Christians is obviously a gross mistake, but painting them as a bunch of atheistic idealists is equally naive. There were certainly some very anti-Christian people in there, but they were a pretty small minority. They all certainly lived in a far more staunchly "Christianized" culture than we have today. As usual, a black and white interpretation is history is totally inappropriate.

Fine, most of the prominent founding fathers were deists.

I addressed what Grant was talking about. Are you making a point or are you just attacking me because you don't have anything better to contribute to the discussion?

http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=63

Also you'll notice I never said CHRISTIANITY. I said religion.