I wonder if the economy should crash (our money is now worth the same as Canadian money for cripes sake — Canadian!!!) will God rescue the dollar as a courtesy for putting His name on it? I mean shouldn’t we get something out of offending the atheists and non-theists and those who believe in multiple gods and those religious people who feel it’s sacrilege to put His name on our grubby, root-of-all-evil money? Perhaps Pat Condell is right that Jesus and God are myths and it doesn’t matter. Anyway, Happy Birthday, four words!
Fifty Years of “In God We Trust”
It’s been 50 years since “In God We Trust” first appeared on U.S. paper currency, and those four little words have proven to be the source of big debate in the courts.
Michael Newdow, the California atheist known for trying to strip “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to declare “In God We Trust” an unconstitutional mingling of church and state. In Indiana, the American Civil Liberties Union has gone to district court, arguing that it’s unfair for the state not to charge administrative fees for “In God We Trust” license plates when a plate advocating for the environment carries extra fees.
Why, decades after the words were made the nation’s official motto and printed on our dollar bills, do they still inspire ire?
“A great many Americans are angry … when the government promotes religion and a great many other Americans believe that this is not promoting religion — they’re just representing who we are as a nation,” said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center.
Thanks Hop!
#89 wizard writes… “The fact of the matter is this nation was founded by people who wanted religious freedom. That is why they started the reveloution [sic]. That is historical fact.”
Not true really — you must have gotten your “facts” from your clergyman. Granted, many colonists came to the new world to escape religious repression in Europe. But that has nothing to do with the American Revolution, which was started because of the insistence by both King George III and the Parliament that they had the ultimate rights of governance in the colonies. Read about the Declaratory Act, the “Intolerable Acts,” and the Stamp Act, to name a few items of interest.
You should also read the Declaration of Independence again. Although there’s a long list of grievances against the King, there’s a remarkable absence of anything regarding religious repression. The revolution was fought over taxation, trade and import duties, forced quartering of soldiers, trial procedures, etc. If anyone told you the main reason for the revolution was religion, that person is a liar.
Interestingly, the god worshiped by many of the people in America never even supported democracy, only kings. The Israelites of the Old Testament were always ruled by an authoritarian figure, often with the full support of your god, who never showed any democratic tendencies. Maybe this whole American democracy experiment is really inspired by Satan, making a special ironic mockery of our motto “In God We Trust.”
>>Such as the grandeur of Mother nature?
I dunno, OFTLO, you’re sounding an awful lot like a Wiccan (I hope you’re not going to dispute that Wicca is a religion!)
From the book “Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World”
“The deities of Wicca are understood as embodiments of a life-force manifest in nature. The Goddess and God are seen as complementary polarities and this balance is seen in nature. ”
Or if you just mean that “the leaves changing in the autumn are darned pretty”, I wouldn’t call that spiritual. Any more than the HD-o-phile who’s all hepped up about the quality of actresses’ nipples in high-def is “spiritual”.
As to the double parkers, I am net-neutral on that. I’ve never tried the guy’s pies; I used to get my pizza in the area between Oldtown and the south side. Rogers Park was for Jamaican beef patties. If those Rogers Park whiners want to see double (and triple and quadruple) parking, they should visit Broad St. in Philly. Any complaining, and they’ll put a 9mm cap in your ass.
In Global Warming We Trust.
Bwhahahahaha….
#102 – I dunno, OFTLO, you’re sounding an awful lot like a Wiccan (I hope you’re not going to dispute that Wicca is a religion!)
Dude… You really are assumption driven… I said “as just one example that involves no supernatural element.” I never said that’s what I am spiritual about…
And since post #100 Some Mother Fucker Stole The License Plates Off My Van!
FUCK!
The Darwin Fish wasn’t enough for you bastards!
>>I never said that’s what I am spiritual about…
Heh heh. I guess that remains a secret. I guess you don’t have the cojones to take the kind of abuse I do for my love of Jesus. Tsk. Who’da thunk that the mighty OFTLO was a pussy?
I just hope it’s not the nipples on that girl in the HD soft-core porn flick. That’s so junior high…
>>And since post #100 Some Mother Fucker Stole The License
>>Plates Off My Van!
I thought you lived in Indiana. They have criminals in Indiana? I never saw any. You must have been born under a bad sign, son. Maybe it’s time to pray…..
#105, 107,
Maybe it is time to prey.