AlbqOwl said:
I didn't say that you said religion is illegal. I was addressing the post. If you don't like the way I express myself, please feel free to ignore the expressions.
You say that the words 'under God' included in the last of several amended Pledges of Allegiance--I did rewrite your sentence a bit here to make it more accurate--violates the establishment clause. You say that I know that perfectly well. Well, no I don't know that perfectly well. In order to show that it violates the establishment clause, you would have to show that every state Constitution is illegal because children of the respective states are expected to study their state constitutions and history.
Very well, I slightly mis-interpreted your post. Happens to everyone. Won't fight over that.
No. The United States Constitution not bounded by any state constitution. Quite the reverse. Nor is it necessary to demonstrate the lawfulness or lack thereof of any or all state constitutions to show that a federal act is in violation of the federal Constitution. Your harping on state constitutions is totally irrelevent and quite the stylish non sequitur.
AlbqOwl said:
You would further have to show what religion is being established. What God is being referred to? What doctrine is being taught? What forms of worship are being required. What is the reward for supporting these beliefs? What are the consequences if you do not? Is this being presented as religious faith? Or as a voluntary patriotic exercise?
It establishes the religion that God exists.
It refers to any God, or all gods.
It teaches that there is a god, and the the United States is subservient to It.
It requires all forms or worship, or none. That is irrelevant. I just now invented a religion that establishes worship by saying the word "god". He's the Pledge God. The Pledge God will arrive on Earth when his name is said a trillion trillion times. Every failure to utter His Holy Name delays the day of his arrival.
I can invent a religion as easily as Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Joseph Smith Jr, Charles Manson, L. Ron Hubbard, and Pat Roberston. I just did.
The reward of the Pledge God is one's satisfaction that one's complied with Federal Law and brought the day of His arrival that much closer.
The consequence of not worshipping the Pledge God as ordained is guilty knowledge that you have failed Him and delayed the day of His Coming.
The utterance of the Holy Word in the Pledge is now part of a religious faith.
It can't be a voluntary patriotic excercise when the form of that excercise is defined by federal law.
AlbqOwl said:
And finally you would have to show how this is any way harmful to any person. You would have to show that somebody's livelihood, safety, security, or any unalienable right is being violated. The idea that the non-believing child might not like to have to hear the Pledge simply won't wash. Any child may have to hear any manner of things in school they don't like to hear, but there is no implied constiuttional right to be able to hear only what you like. If there was, schools wouldn't be able to teach much of anything.
That's an easy one. My child is harmed because while I'm trying to teach her to use her mind, and she has a most excellent and sharp mind; while I'm trying to teach her to deal with the real world and understand how the real world operates, she's receiving conflicting signals from persons in authority she's been instructed to respect, her teachers.
Thus she recieves, every morning at school, indoctrination from the government that God exists. So instead of teaching her about the right way to get the Charizard to battle the Pikachu on her Ninentdo, I have to take time to explain to her that God is no more real, but a lot less fun, than a Togepi.
Now, you may not consider that teaching my child how best to defeat imaginary monsters is a good use of time. I could be spending the time teaching her about trees, or improving her dodgeball skills, or whatever, that's not the point. It's not your time. It's my time. It's her time.
And any time lost because it's wasted by superstitious belief, is time lost forever, and that's harm. That's real, measurable, harm.
Sure, I have to deprogram her from because she gets infections from her friends who are victims of their own parents superstitions. There's absolutely no reason why I should have to also fight the federal government, not when the federal constitution forbids exactly that kind of establishment.
And that's because I said so. It is MY time.