Hey all,
Just last night I saw something on my fb page that disturbed me. It was a post by one of my friends that posited* Do you believe there should be a pledge of Allegiance in schools that says "one nation under god?" What is so disturbing about that question? Nothing on the face of it. It was some of the responses to it that really disturbed me. A lot of the responses where to the effect of we were founded as a christian nation and if you do not like it get the f*** out. And one little gem said in effect. If we weren't founded as a christian nation then how come In God We Trust is on our money. Now the reason comments like this disturb me is it makes apparent that full grown adults have no idea about the history of this country, the pledge, and how In God We Trust came to be in our pledge and on our money at all. But yet these same "adults" are using their misconceptions (all or in part) to decide the fate of our country (you know by voting).
So let me give you my brief reply that I left on facebook and then I would like to go a little more into detail on the facts I posted there.
We were not founded with the words one nation under god. We were founded with a Document that begins We the People (called the constitution) and the constitution does not mention god one time. In fact the only times the constitution mentions religion is once in article VI, "but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States"
(link) And again in the first amendment where government is forbidden from establishing a religion
(link) And the phrase under god was not originally in the pledge of allegiance it was added in 1954 at the height of the red scare as a response to "godless communism" during the cold war.
(link)
And as an interesting side note, in god we trust was not added to coins until 1864 and was made mandatory on all coins and paper currency of the U.S. in 1955
(link) The founding fathers knew all to well the risk of mixing government and religion (from their experience with The Church of England). We were not founded as a religious country (that would be a theocracy not a democracy).
A well reasoned, polite response with plenty of sources to back up my statements right? Well as of right now over 12 hours later not one single response. I was expecting most of the responses to be along the lines of, "You godless anti-American scum get out of my country"!!! The people who posted the comments that disturbed me the most are not the type to actually listen to an opposing view and then check out those sources of information (facts do not really play a part in their world).
But lets go a little deeper into this subject than I could have in a simple facebook post.
The pledge of allegiance. Alright, show of hands. Who here can tell me (without googling it) who wrote the pledge, when it was written and the original text of the pledge? No one? Well don't worry when I graduated high school I could not have told you any of that info off of the top of my head either. But as I grew older and started following politics I researched many different aspects of the history of our country. The pledge being one of them.
The pledge of allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a minister (and a socialist one at that on noessssssssss the horror). As originally written the pledge was,
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
I'm looking real hard and I do not see under god anywhere there. Hmmmm. Then in 1923 it was altered to read,
"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."
Still no mention of god.
In fact it was not until 1954 during the cold war, red scare nonsense that was sweeping the the nation that President Eisenhower urged congress to once again change the pledge to,
"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."
(link)
And so, after adding under god to the pledge in 1954 in response to cold war fears over the spread of godless communism, the Soviet Union crumbled a mere 37 years later (December 1991).
(link)
TAKE THAT GODLESS COMMUNISM :P
Thank you for reading.
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Thank you.
myeivltwinskippy :P
