My aunt is a religious proselytiser who enjoys infusing politics and religion into some sort of righteous medley. Usually her perceptions of reality entertain such delightful elements as victimisation of the majority, alleged assaults on ‘america’ by vague groups, fear-mongering, dodgy statistics or claims (usually from debunked chain emails) that are easily refuted, championing the constitution whilst simultaneously disregarding its provisions, or some combination thereof.
While she is my aunt and I respect her, she constantly posts facebook statuses about God (and how we have to stop ‘obamacare’, sign petitions to stop obama, obama isn’t american, why the tea party is great, how we have to rise up and “take america back” (from whom, our fellow americans, the majority that voted Obama in?), why america is not a secular nation, why we should worship god’s glory, and other such babble).
One such status (which is mild in comparison to the norm) is as follows:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under GOD, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all. REPOST IF YOU THINK OUR COUNTRY AND OUR FLAG DESERVE RESPECT! Let’s see how many Americans will repost?“
My response to this mindset, which I encounter routinely and felt the need to reply to, went like this:
Hmm…Well, I certainly believe our country and flag deserve a great deal of respect. I’m not all too keen on flag burning, and I firmly support keeping the Pledge of Allegiance in schools.
However, I personally prefer the original Pledge of Allegiance written in 1892, i.e. the same thing as now, but without “under God” (which was added in 1954).
If the pledge is to be kept in schools, it should be returned to its original form. Its current form is wholly unconstitutional and essentially indoctrinates children from birth that 1) the US government advocates the existence of a god, 2) that belief in a god somehow makes one more American (which is precisely the reason it was added to the pledge in 1954, as a response to the Soviet Union’s rejection of religious dogma and to somehow make being Christian an intrinsically American endeavour, as I’m sure you know).
It’s bad enough that we all know that the god the pledge is referring to (or was meant to refer to when it was added in) is the Christian god. It clearly isn’t referring to Zeus, Krishna, or any of the major non-theistic (e.g. Buddhism) or polytheistic (e.g. Shintoism) religions. (To briefly digress, it is very confusing to understand how belief in the Christian god is considered patriotic. It’s a foreign Middle-Eastern god; why not pick one of the hundreds of Native American gods there are to choose from? lol ;) Just teasing, naturally, but it’s food for thought).
But what is worse is that tens of millions of Americans do not believe in any supreme being, and the government has no right to institutionalize such belief. It would certainly outrage Christians if the government changed the pledge to say “under no god” or to “under gods.” Likewise, when I have children, I don’t want them being told that this is a nation “under god” as that advocates that a god exists, for which there is no proof, and I don’t want my children being taught to believe in things without evidence.
Saying “under God” doesn’t offend or outrage me personally, but I believe that in principal it is wrong to have that in our nation’s pledge. As a conservative, I believe the original pledge should be reinstated to conserve our nation’s heritage of Separation of Church and State.
But that’s just what I feel. I’m curious to know what your opinions are regarding the constitutionality of having that in the pledge as I haven’t really discussed the issue before with someone who supports retaining that specific addendum. (I am obviously just assuming you support keeping those two words in the pledge, given that you have God spelled out in capitals…though pardon me if my assumption is incorrect lol).
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She hasn’t responded, I don’t know if it’s out of religious indignation or due to an inability to adequately rebut reality. Who cares though, if she feels the need to push her opinions incessantly on FB and clog my news feed with utter rubbish, surely I am entitled to give a (hopefully) rational, polite response lawlll.
In other news, I am dismayed that the new school year has so swiftly descended upon me! :(
Anyway, that’s all for today, peace out girlscout. :)
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