Doing my part to taint the Headlines.

©

If we just got rid of the Pledge of Allegiance all together, we wouldn't have to waste all this time debating about a small part of it.

I loved Underdog.

Back on subject, why do we swear on the Bible in court? That'll be next. Hell in a handbasket I tell ya.

so Scalia recuses himself from this one, but not Cheney's energy task force case?

yah. that makes perfect sense.

When I was in public school here in California we never said the under god part. I just wasn't done. Then I went to religious private schools and there it was. I always said under blob and no one seemed to care or notice. All in all much ado about nothing. Now having to vote with religious crap all over the polling place, that's where I draw the line.

Actually I'm kind of surprised kids even say the pledge anymore. I mean education has become so useless in the USA it is a wonder they remember it or were taught it.

   Oh god, not another one!

Can't we just sing a commercial jingle, or corporate fight song before we start our 1st period class ?

Here we go again with another 900000 post message...

I see this () in the near future.

I do not understand why some schools make children give a loyalty oath to their government every morning. Oaths are supposed to be a very somber ceremonies. Daily, rote utterances do nothing but void the words of all meaning. It would not be unlike my wife and me repeating our marriage vows every single morning. Most kids don't come out of high school with a fundamental understanding of civics, and we are fighting in court over two words in a cockamamie pledge that few of these kids take seriously to begin with. Yeesh.

That () was supposed to be the infinity sign. Guess only FARK can post that.

/whatever

I don't want to live in a (real or implied) theocracy and don't think the pledge should be said in school at all. But here are some thoughts:

Should we also queue up a case against the word "indivisible"? When have ever demonstrated this? Ever?

Or, how about one for the phrase "with liberty and justice for all"? This one is suspect as well.

Or, one for pledging allegiance to a flag that represents the nation. This is clearly idol worship and goes against the 10 commandments. Perhaps, even pledging allegiance to the nation is as well.

flubby
Most kids don't come out of high school with a fundamental understanding of civics, and we are fighting in court over two words in a cockamamie pledge that few of these kids take seriously to begin with.

Excellent point and I agree.

The pledge should not be a requirement anywhere, with or without the "God" phrase in there. Forcing students to recite it is just a lame attempt at thought control. The only proper provenance of our government is action control, not thought control. Compelled speech is certainly against free speech as well. And while many schools allow the student to merely stand and not say a word, this option is by itself not enough, as demonstrated by its use when school prayer was under consideration.

All that said, this will likely be thrown out because of custody issues, IMHO.

Thank God they are doing something about that.

From the article no one will bother reading:

God was not part of the original pledge written in 1892. Congress inserted it in 1954, after lobbying by religious leaders during the Cold War. Since then, it has become a familiar part of life for a generation of students.

What was wrong with the classic pledge? Nothing. Time to bring it back and end the religion's influence over every minute part of our lives. If people didn't think it was necessary at a time when religion was more prevalent, why do we need it now?

"It's not a popularity contest. If something is wrong, it should be corrected. No matter how many people support it," he said.

Damn skippy!

Religion has no place in our government or on our currency.

"Almost nine in 10 people said the reference to God belongs in the pledge despite constitutional questions about the separation of church and state, according to an Associated Press poll."

I wonder how many people are able to differentiate between something they want to be part of the pledge, and something they think others should be forced to do against their will.

That being said, I think flubby has already won the thread. Good post.

The pledge is a silly thing to begin with, but if we're going to 'coerce' our children into saying it (ie. have the teacher lead the pledge every morning) they oughta leave God out of it.

Hello, friends. Donald O'Connor here.

You know, we live in a great country, don't we? It's a place where men and women of different races, creeds and, in some parts of the country outside the rural, backwards South, even people of different sexual orientations can live and work together in perfect harmony.

And that's a beautiful thing!

But every now and then, just as people can get riled up over politics, they can get riled up over religion. Take something as simple and straightforward as our Pledge of Allegiance. You may be asking, "How is it possible that the Pledge of Allegiance can engender such disagreement between people of good reason?"

I admit, it is a bit head scratching!

After all, what could be more pure than the sight of a bright, beaming public school child, hand over heart, reciting from rote memorization a mandatory pledge of unwavering fealty to a governmental system? I mean, an American public school child. Not a German one. That's just scary!

No, friends, our compulsory oath of loyalty has something that sets us apart from those demanded of its citizens by governments of other countries: God. I mean, a Christian God. Not a Muslim one.

And really, doesn't that make us better? Doesn't it?

So, friends, before you post a fiery hot comment denouncing the Pledge of Allegiance, think of that smiling school child--No, no, not that insolent Jehovah's Witness kid sitting there, the one to his right, the clean-cut lad standing like a good boy--and remember one thing.

At the end of the day we are, after all, people of different religious backgrounds and beliefs who all come together as Americans! Even the athiests!

Happy threading! And God bless you!

You are all missing the big picture here. If children don't pledge allegiance to God and to country each and every weekday (excluding holidays, of course), they'll turn into dirty, faithless commies, or worse, terriss. So unless you want your kids to be terriss, you better teach them to love God.

If they don't pledge, they'll go to Hell. Won't people think of the children?!

The pledge is a silly thing to begin with, but if we're going to 'coerce' our children into saying it (ie. have the teacher lead the pledge every morning) they oughta leave God out of it.

My sentiments exactly.

I dunno, the whole point of it was to reaffirm the US's faith against what was seen as godless communism. I personally don't really care. My daughter will go to school here in about a year, and I don't really think that two words in a robotic citing of a long phrase will skew her belief system either way. I personally am agnostic, I thought about being the flamebait of this thread, but I don't have the time or the energy.

/By the way, communism is a good idea, but it has to be absolute, the ruskies fell apart because they still had a ruling class.

//Go proletariat!!!

Maybe the solution is not to remove the phrase, but to expand upon it.

A simple "Th" at the beginning should do nicely.

GraphicAddiction:
If you don't believe in God, (great, wonderful, we are all so happy for you and support you in your decision) you just need to get over the fact that most humans do.

I think I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that most people believe in some kind of supernatural deity. I only ask that you make it a personal thing, and not ask little kids to affirm your belief by repetitive oaths. It seems like is someone really needs for others to constantly reaffirm the existence of God, they are the ones who need to get over themselves.

first the pledge...then off money. We don't need government supported religion, nor do we need phrases added in during the height of the stop communism era.

If you don't believe in God, (great, wonderful, we are all so happy for you and support you in your decision) you just need to get over the fact that most humans do.

That has nothing to do with this. I'm "over" the fact that most people believe in god(s)...however, that doesn't matter either way with regard to US law on the separation of church and state.

If you don't believe in God, (great, wonderful, we are all so happy for you and support you in your decision) you just need to get over the fact that most humans do.

Most humans, however, are not Christians.

Adherents of world religions (including Atheism, which is not and never will be a religion, and Scientology, which has no religious aspect) as of Sept. 2002:

Christianity: 2 billion
Islam: 1.3 billion
Hinduism: 900 million
Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million
Buddhism: 360 million
Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
primal-indigenous: 150 million
African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million
Sikhism: 23 million
Juche: 19 million
Spiritism: 14 million
Judaism: 14 million
Baha'i: 6 million
Jainism: 4 million
Shinto: 4 million
Cao Dai: 3 million
Tenrikyo: 2.4 million
Neo-Paganism: 1 million
Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
Rastafarianism: 700 thousand
Scientology: 600 thousand
Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand
subGenius: no figures at this time.

Which God are you under?

/usual disclaimer about accuracy
//agnostic

Cosmic_Music

Where on "Bob"'s green earth did you find numbers that included subGenius among the worlds religions? Where is Discordian on that list? Eris will probably be upset. We all know how she gets when she feels that she's left out...

Equating the POA with a religious ceremony is stretching it a bit.

...I said that.....where?

Get rid of it. Period. It is constitutionally unsound, and the fact that at most schools kids are scolded for not saying the pledge, especially when it contains that phrase, is preposterous.

If you do not feel loyal to the United States, you shouldn't have to say it. If you do not believe in God, you shouldn't have to say it. But the most important part here is that if the Pledge of Allegiance is a constitutionally recognized piece of "literature" (if you will), then it should undoubtedly not contain anything pertaining to religion. It's the Separation of Church and State, plain as day.

Get rid of it. Once we can get that out of there, we may soon be able to get the world off of God. If we could finally get rid of religion, we could get rid of damn near 100% of all the wars in our world.

Unfortunately, I am going to have to accept that this will never happen, because eternal life is an easy sell, and people are too stupid to use logic instead of faith. It really is ridiculous when it all boils down.

Ultimately, this is a simple matter of free will. Everyone has an inherent choice to be as close or distant from God as they wish. Just know, everyone will also answer for the choices they've made. Forcing faith on the unfaithful is not the way, just as removing faith from the public arena is also not the way.

When talking about God in public becomes taboo, only then, will the extreme left be satisfied. Thankfully, this will not happen in our lifetime.

If you are not equating the POA with religious ceremony, tell me please, why does it need to be changed to keep the seperation of church and state?

There was no secular reasoning behind the 1954 legislation that added the phrase to the constitution; it was a purely religious act. It is not the government's place to take a stance on the existence of God, particularly in oaths that our nation's schoolchildren are coerced into reciting morning after morning. The original pledge should never have been changed.

On second thought nevermind. I've wasted too much time on this utterly ridiculous topic already.

Bye bye.

"We" being the people who actually make use of logic and reasoning. According to Cosmic_Music, there are 850 million of "us" here on Planet Earth, a place where not many of you are in touch with. That's the "we" I'm referring to. "Shoving" my particular "religion" down "everyone"'s throat? I'm merely taking a stand and bluntly stating what I believe, isn't that what everyone else is doing? Religion? I believe in the absence of religion. Everyone? As far as I can see, most people in this thread so far have been against Under God in the POA in the first place.

Sure, what I say is quite to the point and in your face, but if you're not a dick about something, who is going to listen to you? Especially when the topic at hand is religion.

Leave it alone. It's just gives the fundies something to take the spotlight off of the punk in the White House.

There are bigger things to tend to.

Oh. Wait. This is the ANTI GOD thread. My mistake. You all go ahead and have some fun.

I was looking for the ARGUMENTS thread down the hall.

Yeesh...you'd probably enjoy this thread if you'd just calm down a little bit. You've gotten several arguments in response to your post and very little "anti-God" rhetoric. No one has overreacted or been abrasive in response to your posts. Debate can be fun, but you need to check your emotions at the door, especially if you're quick to anger.