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Is theology the rightful basis of teaching in regards to secular schools? Is the word “God” a pleasantry that all people regardless of their faith or lack their of must be compelled to revere and uphold as something dignified and sacred? I speak to you not as a hater of Christians Jews or any group of people. I speak to you as one who feels the ideals of liberty are first and foremost essential to the idea of Americanism. To be a good and loyal patriot of this great nation of ours one does not have to be Christian Jewish Muslim Buddhist Hindu or of any other creed. To be a good and loyal patriot one simply needs to love dearly his nations ideals and wish with all his might to contribute to this nation, which should not at its very core make any distinctions based on religion. If the word “God” should not be offensive to good Americans who believe in theories apart from creationism then the word “Mohammed” should not be offensive to any Christians or Jews. Now before I continue let me clarify, of course the word “God” is not offensive to any well-intentioned atheist, as the word “Mohammed” is not offensive to any well-intentioned Christian or Jew; rather the previous sentence assumes we are speaking of the word God in an a public a public institution such as school and that the word is being tied and associated with patriotism. I suspect there would be much sympathy by the people so against the removal of the word “God” from the pledge of allegiance if the campaign were to remove a reference to a non-Christian symbol of faith. Let us imagine that the pledge of allegiance instead of referring to God contained the statement “One nation under Mohammed.” Now I it goes without saying that civil debate and dialogue regarding the issue of the removal of the word “Mohammed” would not be seen as anti-Islam or anti-religion. Civil debate and dialogue regarding the word “Mohammed” instead would be recognized as a campaign to make certain that the pledge of allegiance is inclusive and nondiscriminative to all of its great and admirable patriots.
-Patrick Jimenez
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Wooooo BOY! I can FEEL the heat coming from you. You are 'steaming' hot.
Evidently even though this is a couple years old I agree fully. Dude. Here's food for thought. You know what's appalling about this country? When the first Europeans immigrated into the New World and started colonizing, historically one of THE prime reasons why they immigrated was for f***ing religious freedom. Now, when the forefathers wrote the Constitution, there was a reason why they wanted to seperate church and state. They had complete doubts to keep it together. Jefferson I read was one. I have to recall the rest though...
Another thing I know is that since England, for instance, ran a constitutional monarchy, they saw that power exercised can be easily corrupted and manipulated. The church can 'forgive/pardon,' in the the name of god they are forgiven, and the power hungry megalomaniacs get away with it and I think that that first and foremost was the situation much needed to be avoided. So can we say precursor to a probable corrupt theocracy? And/or absolutism in the the name of the Christian god?
I do agree that today people do associate the word God with patriotic values to ones country. It shouldn'be be maintained. (In social psychology, what the above is called is symbolic functionalism: trying to associate values, etc. with symbols.) I view that it's detrimental to associate such. I mean in essence the American society is drawing away from what the original intent of the founding forefathers wanted: to keep church and state SEPARATE. And what do we f***ing do after having it? We bring back god into the state in the process overtime. Hypocritical, wouldn't you agree? And many people are not aware of what hypocrisy we've stepped on...
Hell. You wouldn't believe this but I've already encountered people who argued the f*** out of me just because I share similar views like you. All up in my face, s***. Meanwhile why they're preoccupied with trying "to be right" to them, I'm more concerned on DOING what is right. F***ing ignorant bastards. Keep it seperate! S***. Ah well. Screw them. (^_~)