Ok, moderators, be cool, I am.

Dario, is there something evil about aetheist beliefs (or should I say lack thereof?) Or are they just not yours?

When you say "Our Judeo-Christian basis" you don't include me. Despite never going to church and being an atheist I have managed to not rob, rape, steal, pillage or anything else in my life. (well, ok, some reckless driving in the Stook I'll admit to!)

I do agree that morals are going down the tubes but that has nothing to do with what religion you are. Look at the Catholic Church and all its sexual abuse lately? These are even the priests, supposedly the most moral of all people? Obviously it is not religion or lack of that will fix things, it is something else.

My two cents.

 

This whole God business is a farce anyway. "One nation, under God...", and just what God would that be? This nation is too full of itself in my opinion..."our this is better than your that, our God is the God, yours is just an imitator (nevermind the fact that your God is thousands of years older than mine)". If you want to believe in God, fine, great, do your whole seperation of this and that because you believe differently than the next guy....

Leave this crap out of everything hat MUST be recited, I don't belive in YOUR God, and I resent having to say such.

Just my 2.0

Andrew

 

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Go ahead, say it... sounds pretty good, right? I have not said "under God" in the pledge of allegiance for at least 10 years, but I still say the pledge because I agree with every other word in it (in its standard form). I'm not sure why this is such a hard concept, but some people have trouble thinking with a truly open mind.

Who exactly is "our"? Religion is a personal thing, not a government thing. Government(s) establishes laws for all who live under that government, while religion(s) establishes beliefs for all those who follow that religion.

As senor Stevens explained, our country does not have a "state" religion. I resent anyone shoving their Christian beliefs down my throat (and let's be honest - most Christians do not consider Judaism to be an equal). I don't believe in it, I made that choice, just like millions of other non-Christian American citizens. Just because a majority believe in some flavor of Christianity does not mean that we as a country should accept it as fact.

Anyway, I'll shut up before I get the thread locked...

 

Finally, they do away with this fascist spiel I had to recite every "God"-forsaken morning. I just stopped saying it in high school, when I began to wield my freedom as an American!!

Pleding allegiance belongs to frivolous third world military/junta nations, not our freedom loving country. But I guess this nations is the ultimate governing paradox... preach freedom equal opportunity while waging war everywhere else with innocents dying daily

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TrojanHorse
[B]

Ok, moderators, be cool, I am.

Dario, is there something evil about aetheist beliefs (or should I say lack thereof?)

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by S2Kguy
[B]This whole God business is a farce anyway.

 

The pledge without "under God (or god)"sounds perfectly fine and it is as it was intended. It is unfortunate that for some, the maintenance of the seperation of church and state is seen as a root cause for the moral and ethical decline that we seem to all see happening within our society. With or without the phrase "under God", I still will remember the symbolism of what our flag stands for, especially with Independence Day fast approaching.

On a side note, isn't pledging an allegiance to a flag kind of a form of worshipping a" false idol" ?

 

With the possible exception of Buddhism, since the Buddha was a mortal, the word "God" or "god" could be general enough to imply any of the world's major religions. Nowhere in the Pledge does it say the God of Abraham nor does it say a God of Hindu extraction. It simply says "God"... it has been taken over by zealots, IMO, who have an agenda and given it the implied meaning of the Christian God.

To those who say the founding fathers were devout and Christians, etc...there were several who were atheist and agnostic. Also, the whole idea of getting out of England to escape the religious persecution going on there does not mean they wanted to get out to practice their OWN religion, some wanted out because they didn't want to be forced to practice the 'state' reglion in GB - the Church of England (again, if memory serves) What they wanted was not only freedom OF religion, but freedom FROM religion. It works both ways...

I think many people have such a cursory knowledge of history that it's easy to make assumptions and generatlizations that amount to little more than the kind of truth one finds in an urban legend. The founding fathers held within them a very wide range of beliefs and practices. Some religious, some not.

As I said in my first post, the whole notion was posited to *protect* religion from government...I think leaving it out of government on that basis alone sounds like a good idea. But at the same time, I don't think any real harm is done by leaving it in, either.

But this suit was brought by an attention-whore who wanted his 15 minutes. It's bad that, especially during these difficult times, things like this come up and only divide people. No real good will come of this, except this clown will get his 15 minutes, his case is sure to be overturned on appeal, skirmishes will arise among people who got along fine previously and then it will be forgotten until the next zealot (yes, there are non-religious zealots, too!) comes along with another attention-seeking thing, the media will jump all over it and the cycle will repeat itself.

What a waste of time...

 

Hahaha! My point was this, and I was being sarcastic...
These things usually start with a small topic then tend to grow out of proportions then we see people trying to pass stupid opinions into law and try to force others to believe the same.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by yu888
[B]The pledge without "under God (or god)"sounds perfectly fine and it is as it was intended.