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"Under God" in pledge of allegiance?

Should the words "Under God" be in the pledge of allegiance?


  • Total voters
    64
I need to lighten up? I was making a joke. There's a LOL smilie and everything.

So, do you want us to find you that hook-up or not? :2razz:

Sorry, missed that. :thumbs:
 
i think the notion of the pledge is anti-American to begin with but if we are taking things out we should take out "and liberty and justice for all" because it is lying.
 
I ususally just customize it by intoning "One nation,under the most unmerciful and terrible all potent God of the night Tezcatipoca, indivisible......". I just wish I didn't have to say it so fast when others are present as it deducts from its inherently melifluous qualities.
 
Since the words were not originally in the pledge until America got its collective panties in a twist over communism, I'd say the words should NOT be in there.

.

But those were Godless commies out to steal our precious bodily fluids,Dragonfly.

Don't forget that.
 
I don't think you proved your point though, assuming that your main point was that you:



I, and my family, are irreligious/agnostic.

My kid says the Pledge in school every single day.

He has yet to come home and insist we find religion, or engage me in a discussion of religion along any lines.

I think adults, primarily liberals/atheists find meaning in the Pledge that children just don't.

For children it's more a form of nationalistic indoctrination/acculturation: "I love my country".

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that when you're dealing with school children.

As kids get older, head off to college and decide they want to smoke dope, bathe in patchouli, worship "Che" Guevara, and curse American exceptionalism and soft empire, I say, more power to them.

But I think it's important that they love the country first, and then want to change it into something that more closely aligns with the philosophical ideal of "America" than that they're taught from the age of five onward that American is really only two steps removed from the Third Reich.

That doesn't mean it wasn't intended as indoctrination. You are simply arguing that it is ineffective indoctrination.
 
Dude, you need to lighten up. That was for militant atheist consumption in a thread that I find ridiculous and petty.

You sure did get militant and petty when I put the shoe on the other foot though. WOW!
 
That doesn't mean it wasn't intended as indoctrination. You are simply arguing that it is ineffective indoctrination.

You actually made two claims.

That it was intended to be indoctrination and that it amounts to exactly that:

Dezaad said:
...it amounts to exactly what the people who changed it intended it to be: indoctrination of children that proper Americans believe in god.

Even if we take your claim that it was intended to be indoctrination as true at face value (it may or may not be, I don't really know, but note that I am taking it as an assumption because you've not actually proven it) that still leaves your claim that it successfully amounts to indoctrination unproven, in my experience and in the experience of MANY other Americans:

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The bottom line is that you've failed to prove either point to any real degree of sufficiency.

As it stands you're simply making claims, not proving points.

Now, the claims you're making may be very true and very accurate for all I know.

I see things, and have experienced things contrary to your claims, but I don't insist that my anecdotal experience is absolute proof of anything.

But you've yet to prove them (note: making claims does not prove them as true, nor does insisting that they're true absent any supporting evidence prove the claims are true).
 
It was only added because the Soviet Union was very atheistic so we used religion to make kids even more anti-communist without them even knowing. Anyone who argues that it should be there is completely ignoring the constitution and the separation of the church and the sate. As other users have posted above, put any other religion was put in place and people would riot up in arms against it.
 
You actually made two claims.

That it was intended to be indoctrination and that it amounts to exactly that:



Even if we take your claim that it was intended to be indoctrination as true at face value (it may or may not be, I don't really know, but note that I am taking it as an assumption because you've not actually proven it) that still leaves your claim that it successfully amounts to indoctrination unproven, in my experience and in the experience of MANY other Americans:

View attachment 67167981

The bottom line is that you've failed to prove either point to any real degree of sufficiency.

As it stands you're simply making claims, not proving points.

Now, the claims you're making may be very true and very accurate for all I know.

I see things, and have experienced things contrary to your claims, but I don't insist that my anecdotal experience is absolute proof of anything.

But you've yet to prove them (note: making claims does not prove them as true, nor does insisting that they're true absent any supporting evidence prove the claims are true).

You may take me as having made the claim that children are being successfully indoctrinated. But, I have just told you that was not the claim I was trying to make. I really don't care to claim that it is effective, and it doesn't matter to me with regard to whether the words should be removed. If you insist that it is, and then continue to disprove what YOU say I meant, then you are merely addressing a straw man.

Again (in new, and probably better, words): The aim of the 'under god' words in the pledge were and are intended as indoctrination. A person can demonstrate this satisfactorily to themselves by both looking at the history of the addition and by doing a little bit of thought experimentation. Imagine replacing 'under god' with 'under no god'. The reaction from advocates of the 'under god' provision would be immediate and virulent. The best explanation for that inevitability would be that they know that the reason they want it in there is indoctrination, and just won't admit it until they are confronted with a stark alternative.

Now, this does not of course constitute proof in a social science sense. Nevertheless, it is a worthy way to examine the matter. When someone trots in here and doesn't address your point, but instead acts like an ass, you are within the rights of social discourse to assume you have proven your point sufficiently with regard to that person's sensibilities, and that they are just pissed off about it. Doing what I did was a common, and warranted, reaction. Basically I was telling him that I take his foolishness as conceding the point. That assessment still stands.

As to your points: I concede that successful indoctrination is not proven. I comment again that I don't care, as it really isn't part of my point. I still contend that there is plenty of evidence to tentatively accept that the intent is indoctrination.
 
Who forced anyone to say the pledge?

Why are we talking about BS like this when a lot of important things are going on?

If anyone knows, I'd like to know.

My teachers in K-12 school for 13 years.

Kids should not be required to do ritual recitations of loyalty that they don't even understand.

Rewrite: I pledge allegiance to the ideal of liberty and justice for all.
 
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Legally no one can make you say the prayer, but if you're the kid not saying the prayer, it's as awkward as Rosa in the front if the bus. Kids aren't going to think for themselves, they're going to do what everyone else is doing. And by the time that they can think for them self the pledge is already ingrained into their mind.
 
My teachers in K-12 school for 13 years.

Kids should not be required to do ritual recitations of loyalty that they don't even understand.

Rewrite: I pledge allegiance to the ideal of liberty and justice for all.




I agree and I like your version a lot more than the original.
 
"God" to the Founders was whatever or whomever anybody wished to make of it, and was reference to the power, intelligence, or universal truth of the source of all that humankind was intended to be. Historically it was the power drawn on to do great things, to claim the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unopposed by any despot, dictator, monarch, feudal lord, pope, or any other who would assign the rights to the people. And the Founders, pretty much to a man, even the Atheists, believed the Constitution would not work for any other than a mostly moral and religious people.

So the concept, sans any mandate of how one much view God and sans any mandate of how one must express his/her religious beliefs, is firmly entrenched in our foundations, our history, our motto, and our heritage. And for that reason, I have no problem with it being in the Pledge of Allegiance. Nor do I have any problem with the Pledge itself, because without allegiance to our language, borders, culture, we cease to be the America that the Founders intended.
 
"God" to the Founders was whatever or whomever anybody wished to make of it, and was reference to the power, intelligence, or universal truth of the source of all that humankind was intended to be. Historically it was the power drawn on to do great things, to claim the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unopposed by any despot, dictator, monarch, feudal lord, pope, or any other who would assign the rights to the people. And the Founders, pretty much to a man, even the Atheists, believed the Constitution would not work for any other than a mostly moral and religious people.

So the concept, sans any mandate of how one much view God and sans any mandate of how one must express his/her religious beliefs, is firmly entrenched in our foundations, our history, our motto, and our heritage. And for that reason, I have no problem with it being in the Pledge of Allegiance. Nor do I have any problem with the Pledge itself, because without allegiance to our language, borders, culture, we cease to be the America that the Founders intended.

Nope the pledge of allegiance refers to a Christian god and was added in the 80's to be anti soviet. There's no way around that.
 
My vote should read "Hell No"
 
I am somewhat opposed to the pledge (as a whole) for religious reasons; I am concerned that it might be a form of idolatry to pledge allegiance to an inanimate object.


But as long as no one is compelled to recite it, no big deal.
 
I voted no, I am really starting to despise Christians and all their hypocrisy and sensitivity about everything. So I am starting to believe that this crap they are adamant about should be stamped out.

Why the attack on Christians? It says one nation under God not one nation under Jesus Christ our lord and savior. "God" is a pretty generic term.
 
Nope the pledge of allegiance refers to a Christian god and was added in the 80's to be anti soviet. There's no way around that.

It might have meant that to some when it was added in 1954, just nine years after the original Pledge was adopted, not the 80's, but there was absolutely no requirement of any kind that you were required to see it as either Christian or anti-soviet or anything else. All 50 state Constitutions, 48 or 49 in their Preambles, refer to God or a Creator/higher power, again in reference to the historical concept of a universal truth that the nation was founded on. Nobody is required to believe that such God is a person or to worship that God in any way, shape, or form. Nor is anybody allowed to be forbidden to do so.

It is a historical concept, not a principle of religious belief.
 
Nope. It shouldnt be there. Hell, it was only put there in the 1950's (i believe) because of fear of communism.
 
If the words 'under God' are in the pledge and anyone is forced to say it, that's a violation of the 1st Amendment.

You could make that point and be probably correct(though I doubt SCOTUS would agree), but it comes back to my point about picking battles. Wasting time on a probably futile effort to get 2 words out of the pledge that probably have almost no effect on any one is not really a good idea. I think that time would be better spent on efforts to keep creationism out of science classes and other efforts to inject god where he isn't. Just because you are in the right on an issue does not make that issue worth pursuing.
 
I agree, I was just trying to make that point.

I won't be wasting any time on this, I have a lot of better things to do.
 
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