Posted on 06/16/2004 7:26:18 PM PDT by asmith92008
Edited on 06/16/2004 7:28:14 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
The battle over the Pledge of Allegiance has stimulated vigorous controversy on an issue central to America's identity. Opponents of "under God" (which was added to the pledge in 1954) argue that the United States is a secular country, that the First Amendment prohibits rhetorical or material state support for religion, and that people should be able to pledge allegiance to their country without implicitly also affirming a belief in God. Supporters point out that the phrase is perfectly consonant with the views of the framers of the Constitution, that Lincoln had used these words in the Gettysburg Address, and that the Supreme Court -- which on Monday sidestepped a challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance -- has long held that no one could be compelled to say the pledge. The atheist who brought the court challenge, Michael Newdow, asked this question: "Why should I be made to feel like an outsider?" Earlier, the Court of Appeals in San Francisco had agreed that the words "under God" sent "a message to unbelievers that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community." Although the Supreme Court did not address the question directly, Mr. Newdow got it right: Atheists are "outsiders" in the American community.
Americans are one of the most religious people in the world, particularly compared with the peoples of other highly industrialized democracies. But they nonetheless tolerate and respect the rights of atheists and nonbelievers. Unbelievers do not have to recite the pledge, or engage in any religiously tainted practice of which they disapprove. They also, however, do not have the right to impose their atheism on all those Americans whose beliefs now and historically have defined America as a religious nation. Statistics say America is not only a religious nation but also a Christian one.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Atheism is fundamentally incompatible with freedom. If you doubt that, just look at Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Pol Pot's Cambodia and Mao's China. When a people abandon God, they seal their own fate.
Amen, Brother!
Why do we have to bow to the lowest common denominator because they "feel like an outsider"? They are and will be an outsider in the Day of His coming. They will be out in the dark with wailing and gnashing of teeth. If we take out the words "under God", does that symbolize we are now OVER God? We are under God whether the atheists like it or not.
Because you are. As the Bill Ingvall routine goes; "Here's, your SIGN!"
"If so, then society can decide that another arrangement, ignoring our rights, might be even more convenient"
And like that hasn't ever happened before?
I am visiting NYC for business. Michael Newdow should move here; this place is jam packed full of athiests, America-haters, super-liberals, and such. Knuckleheads who slap "Bush is to blame for 9/11" bumper stickers on the subway walls. Tour guides who harp over how Timothy McVeigh blew up that federal building in Oklahoma, but who refer to the World Trade Center terrorist attack as the "World Trade Center collapse". People who were covered in the very dust and ashes of death brought to them by Osama Bin Laden. These people, or at least the ones I've come across, seem terrified to mention the word "Islam". Except to point out with glowing prasie the Islamic center in Greenwich Village. I've never seen so much pure hatred for America as we know it. Newdow wants to fit in? He should move to Manhattan immediately. It's all his, he can have it.
The Citizen: Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society
by Thomas Hobbes (1651)
De Officio Hominis Et Civis Juxta Legem Naturalem Libri Duo
by Samuel Pufendorf (1673)
Natural Rights on the Threshold of the Scottish Enlightenment
The Writings of Gershom Carmichael
Discourses Concerning Government
by Algernon Sidney (1698)
The Principles of Natural and Politic Law (Two Volumes)
by J. J. Burlamaqui (1748)
Discourse on Davila XV
by John Adams (1776)
Of the Natural Rights of Individuals
by James Wilson (1790-91)
Why should he move? He lives in LaLaLand now. In the SF area of CA.
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