Bzzzzt!
1) The "Star-Spangled Banner" was written in 1814. Its fourth verse contains the phrase "And this be our motto: "In God is Our Trust."
2) The phrase was placed on US coinage by act of Congress in December of 1863. In fact, the letter from Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase requesting said legislation might prove illustrative:
Dear Sir: No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.
You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.
Thanks for playing. No home edition of the game for you.
It replaced the much more accurate and magnificent E Pluribus Unum.
Bzzzzt. Another loser. "E Pluribus Unum" is still used on American currency. It is part of the Great Seal of the United States.
The DoI is not a "framing document" for the US. That would be the Constitution.
The document that literally asserted the independence of this nation, detaching it forever from the sovereignty of Great Britain and establishing a "new order of Nature" is not a framing document? Then the title to your car does not confer ownership of the vehicle.
By the way, I don't recall any mention of forbidding Wicca in the Constitution either.
I don't recall saying anything about forbidding Wacka ... er, excuse me, Wicca. I said that the Board was free to select the Moonbat ... er, I mean, "priestess" for the invocation, then leave the room. Or would you have them chained to their chairs so that they could experience the joys of "tolerance"?
Which was derived from *Saxon* common law.
Alright, since you seem to want to fixate on this trivial aspect of law, let's look into it a bit. It is arguable that Saxon law was defined by the Capitulary of Charlemagne (the HOLY ROMAN EMPORER Charlemagne, that is) in 775 A.D. (that's an abbreviation for the Latin Anno Domini, "in the year of Our Lord," an odd designation for a culture not founded on Judeo-Christian tenets). That Capitulary lists at least two dozen laws that define punishment (up to and including death) for participation in pagan rituals. It prescribes that infants shall be baptized within a year of birth. It allows priests to issue a final judgement on capital cases. It requires the death penalty for murder of a bishop, priest, or deacon. And is spares the life of penitents "on account of the honor due to God and the saints, and the reverence due to the church itself." Doesn't sound like Saxon law was exactly divorced from Christian influence, does it? If you'd like, we can go back even further, to Mosaic or Hammurabic law to root out the Judaic contribution. But you already know that, don't you?
All of which is only slightly germane, since a culture is far more than just its laws. Your Saxon diversion notwithstanding, we are a Christian nation. Period.
You're not French, are you?
No. I'm American by the grace of God, German by heritage. You're not an idiot, are you?
That would be the *Roman* empire, with a lot of help from the Greeks, Scandihoovians and Germans. Buncha pagans.
Well, it can probably be said that everyone was a "pagan" at one time or another. Most civilized cultures overcame that shortcoming a few millennia ago. Shame not all of them did ...
> 2) The phrase was placed on US coinage by act of Congress in December of 1863.
I should have been more explicit. The lame "In God We Trust" was made the national motto in 1956 (guess what: a poem does not define national mottos), and it didn't show up permanently on paper money till '57.
>> It replaced the much more accurate and magnificent E Pluribus Unum.
> Bzzzzt. Another loser. "E Pluribus Unum" is still used on American currency.
BZZZZT, wrong again: "IGWT" repalced "EPU" as national motto in '56. The fact that EPU is still occaisionally used does not change the fact that it was usurped by something far, far lamer.
> The document that literally asserted the independence of this nation, detaching it forever from the sovereignty of Great Britain and establishing a "new order of Nature" is not a framing document?
It is not. It in no way defines what sort of nation the US would be, how it would be governed, what the laws and rights were... nothing.
> I said that the Board was free to select the Moonbat ... er, I mean, "priestess" for the invocation, then leave the room.
Then they should nto be let in. if the prayer is an official part of the proceedings, then they should attend, or give up their taxpayer-funded jobs. If it's *not* an official part of the proceedings.... then they should *pay* for the priveledge of using their time for personal purposes.
> since you seem to want to fixate on this trivial aspect of law
Where things coem from is *not* trival. Would you complain if Muslims started spouting that all of Western Civ was cribbed from the Caliphate?
To claim that the law came from a purely or even largely Christian basis is simply a *lie.* It's bearing false witness. I seem to recall that some religions frown on that.
> It is arguable that Saxon law was defined by the Capitulary of Charlemagne (the HOLY ROMAN EMPORER Charlemagne, that is) in 775 A.D.
Irrelevant. We're talking about England, and the introduction of Saxon law in the 500's. But you already know that, don't you?
> You're not an idiot, are you?
Nope. Not been suckered in by the same ideology that you have.
> Your Saxon diversion notwithstanding, we are a Christian nation. Period.
OK. Where is that laid out in the Constitution?
> Well, it can probably be said that everyone was a "pagan" at one time or another. Most civilized cultures overcame that shortcoming a few millennia ago.
And then discovered the "civilized" practice of holy war, inquisition, and fraudulently claiming that the achievements of pagans before them are actually their own.
There's a funny bit to that. Chase did this after receiving a letter from a preacher asking for it. In the letter, one of the main reasons for putting IGWT on coins was the fear that some later society might dig up our remains, and he was afraid that we'd be seen as godless heathens.
The funny part is that whenever we dig up an old society, we always think "What funny gods they worshipped, how quaint." A future society will probably think the same of us. I say save us the future embarrassment and get it off the money.
That's civil (codified or statutory) law, not common (traditional) law. Our system is based on common law, started by the non-Christian Saxons before the Christian conquest of England. Other countries use civil law, usually based on Roman Law. Louisiana also uses civil law (the French lineage probably). Other codified law also predates the 10 Commandments by about a thousand years (Urukagina's Code), and the 10 Commandments pretty much mirrors earlier law.