Posted on 03/26/2004 8:28:01 AM PST by Schatze
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Marie Alena Castle, a Minneapolis atheist, contends that the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is a hate crime.
Not one to stand idly by in the face of perceived injustice, the 77-year-old former Catholic has written a long brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of California atheist Michael Newdow, who urged the justices Wednesday to drop "under God" from the pledge.
Castle's brief is one of more than 50 that have been submitted in the case, which tests the constitutional prohibition on the official establishment of religion.
But Castle's is the only one that sets forth the thesis that Congress put "under God" into the pledge out of hostility toward atheists.
Supporters of the current pledge -- backed by the Bush administration -- argue that it merely reflects the role that religion has played in the nation's history and that it is more of a civic ritual than a religious one.
A retired business and technical writer with no background in law, Castle rests her argument on congressional records dating to 1954, at the height of the Cold War, when Congress inserted "under God" into the pledge.
She cites a speech by Congressman Louis Rabaut, the Michigan Democrat who sponsored the addition of the two-word phrase. He said: "You may argue from dawn to dusk about differing political, economic and social systems, but the fundamental issue which is the unbridgeable gap between America and Communist Russia is a belief in Almighty God . . ."
Given the level of hostility at the time, Castle said, "it is not an overstatement to call it a hate crime."
Castle's is the only atheist brief from Minnesota, the headquarters of a 300-member national group that she calls Atheists for Human Rights. She said the history of the pledge underscores how atheists have often been villified and attacked as "an unpopular group."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
My bad.
You really don't know your period. The Framers fully understood how previous governments had treaded on rights for religious reasons. Just read their writings and your history.
NRA headquarters is just down the street from me. I go shooting there sometimes. They hold a safety course that qualifies you for a CCW. Need to do that one of these days.
No, they take it as part of growing up and don't sue.
Which must be why they banned state religions.
Except for one small fact, they didn't.
Merriam-Webster. Here's a link to the online version:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=atheist&x=5&y=16
That's nice. That's subjective. I find that truth and facts don't work for a lot of people. Bill Clinton got two terms, didn't he?
i mean, people 100 years ago weren't any smarter than they are today...
What makes you think that? That's an assumption. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "smarter." We have more technological knowledge but less respect for humanity. We have digital data and we have lots of facial metal. We have computers everywhere and we have homosexual marriages. We have on line colleges and we have "not intended for human consumption" warning labels on about everything. Do we know more? Yes. Are we smarter? That isn't so certain.
i think that creation of a system of otherworldly deities and supernatural phenomenon is significantly more elaborate than the belief that what you see is what you get.
Good. How do you know which systems were created? How do you know which ones were distortions of already existing systems? Obviously Islam was created but what about Judaism? How do you know it was created? You don't. You assume it was. Your assumptions are only as good as the truth that supports them. If you assume evolution, of course religion is man made. If you believe, as our Founders did, that God created us, then atheism is the new idea, and atheism IS the new idea.
FYI, "what you see is what you get" does not describe the merchandise you're trying to pass of a genuine. You have a serious problem with the origin of matter and energy and space.
Even an atheist has a belief system.
I believe that we account for about 7-10% in the former case, though those numbers might be wobbly given the difficulty of getting people to speak openly about their religion. Figure roughly about 20-28 million Athiests in the US, x1.5 Agnostics. 40-50 million? It's a guesstimate but that sounds about right.
Your assertion is absurd, baseless and without proof. Do you think Christianity originated in 33 AD?
how is the idea that something does not exist more elaborate than the idea that something does exist?
| Because the profession that something does not exist removes the explanation that explains everything that does exist. |
| Atheism is a world view and a world view is a system of interpreting reality. |
This discussion is becoming Clintonesque, ("It all depends on what your definition of 'is' is.") And I'm not even religious.
I posted the article because I find it ridiculous to assert that the words "one nation, under God" constitute a hate crime.
... and see absolutely no evidence for the existence of any deity. In your view I'm blind, in my view you're hallucinating.
The fool--and perhaps children--say in their heart there is no God.
I simply don't believe, a childhood superstition that died as I grew up just like Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. Do you remember consciously rejecting either of the latter? I don't.
But as many use the word "reject" to say that my lack of belief implies my acknowledgement of existent and rejection in the face of that, remember this: A Christian rejects all the world's gods as false, save one, while an atheist simply rejects one more. In other words, if you want to use the "believes but rejects" argument, then you believe in all the worlds gods, yet reject them most.
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