Alonzo Fyfe
writes very eloquently on his blog Atheist Ethicist about an issue that I haven't followed very closely. Over the last couple years I've seen it in the news, I've received countless unsolicited e-mails from the conservative religious folks, but I could never get too worked up about it. The point seems to be, according to some, the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and the phrase "In God We Trust" on the money, are a problem.
The Pledge says that supporting a nation under God is as important – as American – as supporting a nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In doing so, it equates atheism with rebellion, tyranny, and injustice. The national motto simply says, "If you don't trust in God, you are not one of us."
In his statement Alonzo makes reference to fanatical comments made by President Bush about the kind of Supreme Court Judges he'd appoint, only ones who believe in God, and he mentions some extremist comments made at a Veteran's Day ceremony attended by his dad, a disabled vet.
But isn't taking issue with these traditional words equally extremist? Isn't saying that teaching children the Pledge of Allegiance encourages bigotry a bit of an exaggeration? When the religious right makes statements like only God-believing Americans are real Americans, shouldn't we just ignore them? Is it really necessary to remove these words? I don't think so. What about you?
Another idea that comes to me is perhaps we don't need to put a microscope on each and ever word in our traditional American writings. When "Liberty and Justice for all" was coined, we probably still had slavery and denied women the vote. Now, all of a sudden, we have to get so literal with the God phrases?
What's your opinion on this?
