Ernya.com

I think it's more of a cultural thing rather than religious, honestly...
And I think you're talking about the "Pledge of Allegiance" not the National Anthem.

But as I said, I think the Pledge is more a cultural thing, as it's been tradition in our country to say it before school begins and before a big sports game. It's more for tradition. That, and since most of America is generally Christian, (or Catholic, or some other branch of Christianity), America will most likely be expected to favor said belief. That, and the forefathers who discovered America had built the country based on their Christian beliefs.

And "Under God" is very vague. Most of the major religions in the world worship a single God. The Pledge never says, "Under the God of Christianity" or "Under the God of Islam". "God" could easily represent any God a person chooses it be.

It's cultural. And no matter how to look into it, America as well as any other nation even though secular have strong religious background to culture.

Technically it's unconstitutional, because of the non-establishment clause. Which was put there because our forefathers primarily left England because of religious persecution, so they wanted to create a country that would allow people to have any religion they wished (so long as they did not infringe on the rights of others), or no religion at all. There can never and will never be an official state or national church, nor a state or national religion. There should not be references to religion (any religion at all) on our currency, in a pledge our children are forced to say, or on anything related to or created by the government.

The one time it was brought to the US Supreme Court they copped out of deciding on it because the person who brought it to them was the step-father or something of the child in question, not her legal guardian, and therefore did not have grounds to petition the courts on her behalf. So even they don't want to have to deal with it.

Since public schools are funded by the government, the pledge they make children say should not involve any religious figure, because that defies the non-establishment clause and should at the very least be grounds for them to lose funding (because as everyone should know, secular schools do not receive government funding, or if they do, only for busing) if they do not either remove that section of the pledge or cease teaching it to very young children who deserve the option to think about religion on their own when they're older instead of having it drilled into them by our own government.

Sanguine_Woods wrote:

Rawiyah wrote:
And "Under God" is very vague. Most of the major religions in the world worship a single God. The Pledge never says, "Under the God of Christianity" or "Under the God of Islam". "God" could easily represent any God a person chooses it be.

Only 3 religions worship a single god, if I have my facts straight.

Those three are the three major religions of the world.
Which, is why I said "Most of the major religions". But I still think that it's a cultural thing for America rather than religious.

=_= There are many things that have been "cultural" things in America that were later ruled unconstitutional, and that now we view as undeniably wrong. People other than white men not having rights, for one, or slavery...You know, just some "cultural" things that really had no significance and didn't seem remotely wrong to those who practiced them or were not cut down by them. .__________________.

While those are some much more severe examples, the principle idea is the same. Just because something is a cultural practice does not make it right, or even LEGAL in the country it is being practiced. The Pledge of Allegiance is, quite frankly, an infringement on the rights of children who do not believe in the Muslim or Judeo-Christian religions, or children who do not believe in any higher power at all. It's also an infringement on the rights of children who have not decided on their religious denomination.

Simply by saying "under god" every day they are in school (this is well over a thousand days for most students) children are taught that in America the only way to be patriotic is to believe in a higher power, and that it must be only one god. That's vastly inappropriate, ignoring that it's unconstitutional.

Pfffft-

The idea of people of multiple faiths being completely united on something is laughable. In fact, the idea of a mass group of people as large as the American people with a single-minded goal is laughable. It will never happen. Not to be off-topic, but look at an issue we SHOULD all be able to agree on if everyone in this country had more than 3 braincells to perform thought functions not related to facebook or twitter: Social Security. Social Security is possibly the most unsustainable program to ever exist for as long as it has. It will single-handedly destroy our economy in another 30-40 years, if not sooner, ignoring all the other unsustainable programs out there. Yet there is only a small segment of our population that is for getting rid of it before it gets rid of us. It's hilarious how how separate a nation (under Singular Deity or not) we really are considering how much we preach about unity. There is very little that is united about the United States.

lateralus es helica wrote:It's perfectly possible, all it takes is a shift in attitude and a re-consideration of what's important. For instance, look at the various types of people flocking to the Occupy protests and the amounts that sympathize with them. You have people of all types with all different sorts of stories and religious/political views. But they've all managed to come together to raise their voices in a common cause, and they're all constantly growing with more and more such protests showing up over the GLOBE, not just the United States.

The opposite attitude is prevalent in government. Look at the standstill between Republicans and Democrats. They've finally come to the conclusion that something has to be done to reduce our national debt but they refuse to work together, adopting an "It's my way or else" attitude all the while fighting and slandering one another instead of getting anything done.

Again, that's not everyone, in fact it's not even a significant segment of our population. More power to the people protesting, I've been following the protests since their first week and I'm happy it's catching on. However, there are still millions and millions of people who either disagree or don't give a fuck. That's the way humanity works, not everyone is ever going to agree with any one idea.

When I was in school I just skipped the under god part. :D

but we did have to stand whether you actually said it or not was your choice at my school, and for the teachers I had any way, cant speak for the whole building.