Yet Another Revisionist, and a rare case of me contesting

[Haruko]

Yeah, at another forum I go to, there's this fucktard who didn't even bother to read the arguments presented by Goturuge. Here's the blithering idiot:

Now, I didnt read the rest of this, just the first two posts, so if i am mirroring someone, sorry.

America was founded under God. Simple as that. The Pledge of Alegiance was not meant to convert people to Christianity, nor was it meant to dictate the religion of an entire country. It is just stating a fact. I am really tired of people getting all emotionally distraught about things that dont really have any effect on them.

If they don't like the fact that our nation was founded under the Christian God, then they can just leave. Just because one person claims that it offends their religion, doesn't mean that they have the right to change something thats been around for hundreds of years.

Another point is that the complainers are the ones who are predominately atheistic! It shouldn't bother them if there is the word god in our pledge since they dont believe in one. There are countless others in our nation who believe in a different god or gods who have no complaint over it. They accept the fact that our nation was founded by a group of Christians, or at least they keep their mouth shut about it.

bah, i dont have a good conclusion to this rant, but seriously, people should just shut up about things that really dont have that great of an effect in their lives.

Here's my response:

America was founded under God.

Maybe he's not that important as an authority to this matter, but here's a Founder who would like to contest your claim:

"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature ... [In] the formation of the American governments ... it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven ... These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."
-- John Adams, second President of the United States, quoted from A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1788

The only exertion of the religion of some of the Founders was exhibited in The Declaration of Independence, which, from my understanding, is not a legal document. I'm unaware if you're aware, but many of the Founders were Deists, and others were greatly influenced by Enlightenment principles, and one of those principles was the seperation of religion and politics.

I thought I might mention one more little thing...

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
-- Joel Barlow; Treaty of Tripoli

And some info about the above quote:

The preliminary treaty began with a signing on 4 November, 1796 (the end of George Washington's last term as president). Joel Barlow, the American diplomat served as counsel to Algiers and held responsibility for the treaty negotiations. Barlow had once served under Washington as a chaplain in the revolutionary army. He became good friends with Paine, Jefferson, and read Enlightenment literature. Later he abandoned Christian orthodoxy for rationalism and became an advocate of secular government. Barlow, along with his associate, Captain Richard O'Brien, et al, translated and modified the Arabic version of the treaty into English. From this came the added Amendment 11. Barlow forwarded the treaty to U.S. legislators for approval in 1797. Timothy Pickering, the secretary of state, endorsed it and John Adams concurred (now during his presidency), sending the document on to the Senate. The Senate approved the treaty on June 7, 1797, and officially ratified by the Senate with John Adams signature on 10 June, 1797. All during this multi-review process, the wording of Article 11 never raised the slightest concern. The treaty even became public through its publication in The Philadelphia Gazette on 17 June 1797.

Hm... Such blasphemy being exhibited by a government wanting to exert a particular religious deity rather than secularism.

There are a ton of quotes by the Founders denouncing Christianity, and what mention they make of religion, they speak of Nature and Reason: the Deistic way of following God, the way of which even many non-Deists shared at the time, embracing and therefore allowing for the establishment of a society with pluralism and neutrality in regards to how religion is seen in the "eye" of the State.

nor was it meant to dictate the religion of an entire country.

Those responsible for the amdending of the Pledge obviously wanted to establish that this is a nation under God, and they damn well didn't mean Allah or Zeus, as they were Christian special interest groups who pushed hard for it, and the following quoted dispells the notion that they meant to be inclusive regarding deities, as I already implied, since Secularism (the principle of being inclusive and indifferent towards religion, hence pluralism) and Deism, among other beliefs, were lumped together as ideologies to be opposed by the American people:

Yeah I do know the context. After WWI people were flocking back to religion and the government had passed laws against evolution etc. etc.

The phrase "under God" was added in 1954 by an act of Congress under political pressure from a special interest group who lumped in atheism, agnosticism, and deism along with communism as ideas which must be opposed by all Americans.

In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.

(source)

And the explicit reason for this campaign was that the Knights of Columbus believed all "patriotic Americans" must oppose secularism and deism: in other words, they must oppose the principles of many of the Founding Fathers. Right.

In the 1950's the Fourth Degree believed that a patriotic American should be a person of religious faith and one who opposed communism, socialism, secularism, deism, agnosticism and atheism. In the 1950's the Knights opposed communism in eastern Europe, Latin America, and Vietnam. It suported Senator Joseph McCarthy is his early campaign against communist subversion in the United States.

In April 1951 its Board of Directors adopted a resolution mandating that "under God" be added in the recitation of the Pledge by each of the 750 Fourth Degre assemblies. In 1952 its Supreme Council passed a resoution urging Congress to add the words, "under God," to the Pledge.

(source)

I am really tired of people getting all emotionally distraught about things that dont really have any effect on them.

Nor would it have much of an effect on the religious people if the Pledge said "under no God", but they make it matter because it's a personal thing. Atheists are no different in this respect, as they don't want to feel discriminated against in society. Yes, they're just words, but they're words that are negative towards non-believers that are placed on a Pledge to the Nation they grew up in and respect.

If it really didn't matter to those who say it doesn't matter, they wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail verbally against those who want it removed. The phrase should have never been added in the first place, as the original was fine as it was, and could be recited by all patriots, regardless of their beliefs.

If they don't like the fact that our nation was founded under the Christian God, then they can just leave.

Oh, okay, so you do believe that this nation was founded under the Christian God. Let me play the bullshit game with you and say that Pol Pot and Stalin were not Atheists.

I'd like to see your proof. Provide a historical document and/or sourced quotes that back this claim.

Let me provide for you a few quotes by the Founders and other early figures:

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 363.

"[The] manifest object of the men who framed the institution of this country, was to have a State without religion and a Church without politics--that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for the purposes of the other.... For that they built up a wall of complete partition between the two."
-- Jeremiah S. Black, noted constitutional advocate, Essays and Speeches, D. Appleton and Co., 1885. As quoted by Leo Pfeffer, "The Establishment Clause: The Never-Ending Conflict," in Ronald C. White and Albright G. Zimmerman, An Unsettled Arena: Religion and the Bill of Rights, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990, p. 72.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
-- The U.S. Constitution; Amendment I

"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles. The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S."
-- James Madison, being outvoted in the bill to establish the office of Congressional Chaplain, from the "Detached Memoranda"

"[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
-- Thomas Jefferson; <i>Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom</i> (1779), quoted from Merrill D. Peterson, ed., <i>Thomas Jefferson: Writings</i> (1984), p. 347

"Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

"We have solved ... the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries."
-- Thomas Jefferson, as quoted in the Letter to the Virginia Baptists (1808). This is his second use of the term "wall of separation," here quoting his own use in the Danbury Baptist letter. This wording was cited several times by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause: Reynolds (98 U.S. at 164, 1879); Everson (330 U.S. at 59, 1947); McCollum (333 U.S. at 232, 1948).

"A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office of public trust under the United States."
-- Edmund Randolph, American founding father's address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 10, 1788, quoted in The Founders' Constitution, 1987, quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

I also recommend the reading of Ed Buckner's It’s a free country, not a Christian nation and Jim Walker's The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion.

Notice how I well-sourced every single one. Please do the same if you wish to support your argument through quotation. And in regards to the First Amendment quote, notice how it speaks of the prohibition towards the practice of abridging freedom of speech. How can this principle be upheld if this is a nation founded under Christian principles? The Bible does not tolerate the behavior of "heathen" beliefs. Remember what Moses did when those people were worshipping the golden calf? Remember that part of the 10 Commandments that speaks of the not worshipping of other deities? What principles that are unique to the Christian religion do we see in our government?

Just because one person claims that it offends their religion, doesn't mean that they have the right to change something thats been around for hundreds of years.

Are you talking about the "under God" portion of the Pledge?

If so, Literacy 1, Raxis 0.

Outright lie: the "under God" portion hasn't been in place for even one hundred years.

And why does something being around for so long make it right? Slavery was legal in the U.S. for a long time. Did that justify slavery one bit? No.

Another point is that the complainers are the ones who are predominately atheistic!

You have any proof? And define "atheistic". Would you consider anyone who questions God, whatever their God may be, to be "atheistic"? If so, would someone who's not "atheistic" therefore be a fundamentalist?

I know that, compared to many people here, my response is mediocre and not nearly as agressive and well-put, but I'm under the impression that it's decent.

I'm wondering what advice people here may have as to what I should point out, et cetera. Maybe I said something false, commited a fallacy, et cetera.

[Haruko]

Oh, and the link to that place: http://www.animescores.com/forum/viewto ... &start=100

[Mal_Reynolds]

[quote=Miscellaneous Buffoon]Another point is that the complainers are the ones who are predominately atheistic! It shouldn't bother them if there is the word god in our pledge since they dont believe in one.[/quote]

And if that's all there was to it, just that extra word being there, no one would raise a fuss. But the fact is, that ain't so. That word was packed in the mix by men who made their judgements based on it, and the men and women who want it to stay make their own judgements on the same. It's bad enough we got people trying to make decisions they've got no call to, but when they do it on the say-so of a cosmic maniac with a thirst for blood and a talent for lyin', we have ourselves a difficulty.

[brianeyci]

That dipshit who's going "the main point is that everybody is getting too worked up" is a retard. Why doesn't somebody ask him what he gets "worked up" about, and ridicule him for it. And he's a pessimist too, if you stop caring where your country is headed, you just become another one of the mindless sheep who don't give a damn about anything except his own selfish needs. That's the definition of unpatriotic, not opposing a war based on a lie, but stopping caring because you don't care where your country is headed, and worse yet criticizing those who do care.

It's an anime board, why not dredge up some of his anime posts and accuse him of getting too "worked up" about something. Words are not just words, they represent promises/values/commitments/decisions. The chicken fucker who says it's okay because it's not a legal agreement is missing the entire point. Sure you can do things like let creationism into the classroom, but once you give one inch you've lost, they have a foot in the door and will never let go. Pledge first, who knows what's next.

Brian

[Nephtys]

Another point is that the complainers are the ones who are predominately african! It shouldn't bother them if we supported slavery if they aren't slaves.

[Coalition]

Another point is that the complainers are the ones who are predominately atheistic! It shouldn't bother them if there is the word god in our pledge since they dont believe in one.

Would a rephrase of the above help:

It shouldn't bother them if there is no word of god in our pledge since they do believe in one.

P.S. Nice one, Nephtys

[wolveraptor]

What if the words "and God sucks dicks" were in the Pledge? That's okay, right? Just words.

Really, atheists usually are less worked up about shit because for us, nothing is really "sacred". There is only harmful and harmless, and no one criticizes people for getting worked up about murder.