Poll: "In God We Trust" on coins?

What you are forgetting here is that we ARE a secular country. Secularism is not a religious belief system of any kind and quite the opposite it is the concept that government or other entities should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs. Nor can you call secularism the "promotion of the lack of God". Those who push religious agendas frequently mischaracterize the concept of a secular government as being the polar opposite of what they promote. It just isn't true. If on the other hand, I wanted the government to promote the idea that God doesn't exist, I wouldn't be a secularist, I'd be a nontheist pushing my beliefs on others and using the government to promote my agenda. In that instance coins would then say "In Thy Self Trust" but they don't say that do they? They do say "In God We Trust" implying all of us even the people that do not believe in any kind of God. Many of the people in this country are saddled with a motto that clearly doesn't represent them or their beliefs but because they are currently out numbered or even just less vocal, they are expected to not rock the boat. In a land of individual freedom, why must the few tow the party line of the many?

 

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Absolute hogwash. Sorry, but this is blatantly false. Many of the founding fathers were Deists and many of them despised Christians. This is just propaganda echoed from the pulpit to your ears and I'm willing to bet that you have never questioned what you've been told. If you actually read the letters of people like Jefferson, Franklin, and other thinkers from that period, you'd realize that they had very little in common with Christians of their day. This country would be a far, far better place to live if Christians stayed in their churches and out of our government.

 

...And probably less in common with most modern religious people of most types.

Certainly there was a lot of Christianity amoung the people of that day and this certainly inclusded many, even most, of our founders. But it was most assuredly not christianity nor a deity of any type upon which this country was founded.

It was founded upon the concept that man is and ought to be free. Our founding was upon pragmatism and individual rights.

 

I'd point out our coins said "LIBERTY" right from the very beginning. It was only after we began losing sight of our origins that "In God We Trust" was added. Some might claim it was a change for the better but I merely claim it was a change.

 

Remember "tempus fugit", "don't tread on me", mind your business", "e pluribus unum", and "we are one". Most of the coins that actually circulated here made no references to deities but to pragmatic issues and rights of the individual. This applies to all the US mint issues. These are the coins our founders used and not politically expedient junk that costs more to mint than they are worth with each attempting to imply that every American not only trusts in God but finds it appropriate to say so right on coins.

Coins merely reflect those who use them and our coins are a poor reflection on modern Americans in my opinion.

 

The vote is going against the removal.

 

My prediction of 275 posts has now been surpased........no new predictions, but this thread may go on for a while. As said, it has been civil which is a credit to the people here at CT!!!!!

 

well i am a conservative,so i say keep it and the other party to stop trying to vex us,that is my take on it

 

I'm unaware of any, but Christians tend to tolerate such things as long as their not encouraged or required to condone or pay for those things. Then all he.. double hockey sticks.. breaks out.

Atheists (at least the activists), on the other hand, just continually look for a fight where none exists before their involvement.

 

I know this question was put to Moen, but I'm not sure I understand it. White supremacists(or any individuals regardless of belief) have the same individual rights as all others. They just can't violate the rights of another individual. As individuals, what right(s) do they not have?

 

I think it was a point that was already made...

 

Here is the most recent challenge to both the motto and the pledge from both the 9th circuit and the Supreme Court regarding the use of the term God. We could all learn a little something from this and the limitations on what was actually ruled on.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/11/BAS71CEC9F.DTL&tsp=1

 

It wasn't originally on our money, it was placed there almost 100 years after the founding of our country. It also was not put there by mandate. The people had to choice about it.

I also didn't exist in the pledge of Allegiance until the 1950s when it was added for political reasons.

These are poor examples.

as for Christmas displays, they are also legal. In 1933 the federal government declared Christmas a national holiday. Hannukkah is not, nor is Ramadan, etc.

The local governments have placed religious symbols in public places during Christmas time and they have a perfect right to. It's a national holiday.

My point is that the people of this country really never had a say in the whole IGWT thing. That's where my main issue is with it, but I stand by my earlier statement, that removal of all of these icons from public life is more difficult than one would imagine.

My larger objection is people use the current examples as precedent to install more of their own. i.e.- the courthouse with the marble "sculpture" in Mississippi or Alabama with the 10 commandments on it.

People are pushing more towards the Judeo-Christian roots of this country to satisfy what has been a more Christian leaning population in this country. My assertion is that as the religious demographics change in this country, if we continue to allow the intrusion of the "one word God" further into our government, we will move closer to government endorsed religion simply by the core beliefs of the population moving away from what they currently are and differing more and more from the government espoused view.

 

even in the ruling they admitted that the words "under God" do have religious meaning, but they don't turn the pledge into a prayer.

 

I don't see how it's the same. Those who want the motto off aren't violating the rights of other individuals.

 

This is definitely a hot button issue with many points of view, and yes, Doug, I agree.

I will defend the rights of even the criminally stupid to speak their point of view. Everyone has one, and in this country they have a right to have it.

This is NOT pointed at anyone but more a blanket statement, so nobody think that I am saying anything about any particular person.

I will agree with what was said earlier, this is the most civil discussion of such an inflammatory issue I have ever seen.