Posted by slimp_dawg
Lakia, in what world do you live in in which religion is being oppressed by the atheists? From what I can tell, that isn't happening. In fact, it seems to me that Christian faith is actually doin some of the oppressing. Imagine if Obama, or even Bush for that matter, stood up on the podium during their campaigns and said, I don't believe in God, religion or the after life. Do you think they'd be accepted. Nope. And is it a big deal their Christian. NOPE. But it is a big deal if they can't keep their religion separate from their job. Because it's not just atheist vs Christians. There are many other forms of religion and spirituality that live in America, work in America, contribute to society in America, and pay American taxes.

Addition of the words "under God"

The Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization, in New York City felt that the pledge was incomplete without any reference to a deity.^[4] Appealing to the authority of Abraham Lincoln, the Knights felt that the words "under God" which were from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address were most appropriate to add to the Pledge.^{[citation needed]} In New York City on April 30, 1951, the Board of Directors of the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution to amend their recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at the opening of each of the meetings of the 800 Fourth Degree Assemblies of the Knights of Columbus by addition of the words "under God" after the words "one nation." In the following two years, the idea spread throughout Knights of Columbus organizations nationwide. On August 21, 1952, the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus at its annual meeting adopted a resolution urging that the change be made universal and copies of this resolution were sent to the President, the Vice President (as Presiding Officer of the Senate) and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The National Fraternal Congress meeting in Boston on September 24, 1952, adopted a similar resolution upon the recommendation of its President, Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart. Several State Fraternal Congresses acted likewise almost immediately thereafter. This campaign led to several official attempts to prompt Congress to adopt the Knights of Columbus’ policy for the entire nation. These attempts failed.

In 1952, Holger Christian Langmack wrote a letter to President Truman suggesting the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Langmack was a Danish Philosopher and Educator who came to America in 1911. He was one of the originators of the Prayer Breakfast, and a religious leader in Washington DC. President Truman responded to Mr.Langmack, and agreed to meet him along with several others to discuss the inclusion of "under God" and also "love" just before "Liberty and Justice". This meeting took place in 1952, and the seed was planted for the inclusion of "under God".^{[citation needed]}

The Knights of Columbus tried repeatedly, but they were unsuccessful in their attempts to persuade the United States government to amend the pledge. Bills were introduced as early as 1953, when Representative Louis C. Rabaut of Michigan sponsored a resolution at the suggestion of a correspondent. It was a Presbyterian minister who made the difference in 1954 by preaching a sermon about Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The minister was George MacPherson Docherty, a native of Scotland who was called to succeed Peter Marshall as pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church near the White House, where, in 1863, the same year as the address, Lincoln attended and even rented a pew. After Lincoln’s death, the pew that he rented became something of a national monument. It became customary for later United States presidents to attend services at the church and sit in the Lincoln pew on the Sunday closest to Lincoln’s birthday (February 12) each year.

As Lincoln Sunday (February 7, 1954) approached, Rev. Docherty knew not only that President Dwight Eisenhower was to be in attendance, but that it was more than just an annual ritual for him. While raised a Jehovah's Witness, Eisenhower had been baptized a Presbyterian just a year earlier. Docherty's sermon focused on the Gettysburg Address, drawing its title from the address, "A New Birth of Freedom."

Docherty’s message began with a comparison of the United States to ancient Sparta. Docherty noted that a traveler to ancient Sparta was amazed by the fact that the Spartans’ national might was not to be found in their walls, their shields, or their weapons, but in their spirit. Likewise, said Docherty, the might of the United States should not be thought of as emanating from their newly developed atomic weapons, but in their spirit, the "American way of life". In the remainder of the sermon Docherty sought to define as succinctly as possible the essence of the American spirit and way of life. To do so, Docherty appealed to those two words in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. According to Docherty, what has made the United States both unique and strong was her sense of being the nation that Lincoln described: a nation "under God." Docherty took the opportunity to tell a story of a conversation with his children about the Pledge of Allegiance. Docherty was troubled by the fact that it did not include any reference to the deity. Without such reference, Docherty insisted that the Pledge could apply to just about any nation. He felt that the pledge should reflect the American spirit and way of life as defined by Lincoln.

After the service concluded, Docherty had opportunity to converse with Eisenhower about the substance of the sermon. The President expressed his enthusiastic concurrence with Docherty’s view, and the very next day, Eisenhower had the wheels turning in Congress to incorporate Docherty’s suggestion into law. On February 8, 1954, Rep. Charles Oakman (R-Mich.), introduced a bill to that effect. On Lincoln’s birthday, four days later, Oakman made the following speech on the floor of the House:

Rev. Dr. George MacPherson Docherty (left) and President Eisenhower (second from left) on the morning of February 7, 1954 at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church; the morning Eisenhower was convinced that the pledge needed to be amended

Last Sunday, the President of the United States and his family occupied the pew where Abraham Lincoln worshipped. The pastor, the Reverend George M. Docherty, suggested the change in our Pledge of Allegiance that I have offered [as a bill]. Dr. Docherty delivered a wise sermon. He said that as a native of Scotland come to these shores he could appreciate the pledge as something more than a hollow verse taught to children for memory. I would like to quote from his words. He said, 'there was something missing in the pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life.' Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Docherty hit the nail square on the head.

Senator Homer Ferguson, in his report to the Congress on March 10, 1954, said, "The introduction of this joint resolution was suggested to me by a sermon given recently by the Rev. George M. Docherty, of Washington, D.C., who is pastor of the church at which Lincoln worshipped." This time Congress concurred with the Oakman-Ferguson resolution, and Eisenhower opted to sign the bill into law on Flag Day (June 14, 1954). The fact that Eisenhower clearly had Docherty’s rationale in mind as he initiated and consummated this measure is apparent in a letter he wrote in August, 1954. Paraphrasing Docherty’s sermon, Eisenhower said

These words [“under God”] will remind Americans that despite our great physical strength we must remain humble. They will help us to keep constantly in our minds and hearts the spiritual and moral principles which alone give dignity to man, and upon which our way of life is founded.

Docherty’s sermon was published by Harper & Bros. in New York in 1958 and President Eisenhower took the opportunity to write to Dr. Docherty with gratitude for the opportunity to once again read the sermon.

Criticism of requiring or promoting the Pledge

Main article: Criticism of the Pledge of Allegiance

Government requiring or promoting of the Pledge has drawn criticism and legal challenges on several grounds. Prominent legal challenges have been based on the contention that state-sponsored requiring or promoting of the Pledge is unconstitutional because it violates one or both of the religion clauses in the First Amendment.

Central to challenges in the 1940s were Jehovah's Witnesses, a group whose beliefs preclude swearing loyalty to any power lesser than God, and who objected to policies in public schools requiring students to recite the Pledge. They objected on the grounds that their rights to freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment were being violated by such requirements.

Other objections have been raised since the addition of the phrase "under God" to the Pledge in 1954. Many critics contend that a government requiring or promoting this phrase violates protections against establishment of religion guaranteed in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

In a 2002 case brought by atheist Michael Newdow, whose daughter was being taught the Pledge in school, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the phrase "under God" an unconstitutional endorsement of monotheism when the Pledge was promoted in public school. In 2004, the Supreme Court heard Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, an appeal of the ruling, and rejected Newdow's claim on the grounds that he was not the custodial parent, and therefore lacked standing, thus avoiding ruling on the merits of whether the phrase was constitutional in a school-sponsored recitation. On January 3, 2005, a new suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California on behalf of three unnamed families. On September 14, 2005, District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled in their favor. Citing the precedent of the 2002 ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Karlton issued an Order stating that, upon proper motion, he will enjoin the school district defendants from continuing their practices of leading children in pledging allegiance to "one Nation under God".^[5]

In 2004, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg criticized the addition of "under God" for a different reason. The original supporters of the addition thought that they were simply quoting Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. However, Nunberg said that to Lincoln and his contemporaries, "under God" meant "God willing" and they would have found its use in the Pledge of Allegiance grammatically incorrect.^[6][7]

A bill — H.R. 2389 — was introduced in Congress in 2005 which, if enacted into law, would have stripped the Supreme Court and most federal courts of the power to consider any legal challenges to government requiring or promoting of the Pledge of Allegiance. H.R. 2389 was passed by the House of Representatives in July 2006, but failed due to the Senate's not taking it up. Even if a similar bill is enacted, its practical effect may not be clear: proponents of the bill have argued that it is a valid exercise of Congress's power to regulate the jurisdiction of the federal courts under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, but opponents question whether Congress has the authority to prevent the Supreme Court from hearing claims based on the Bill of Rights (since amendments postdate the original text of the Constitution and may thus implicitly limit the scope of Article III, Section 2).

In 2006, in the Florida case Frazier v. Alexandre, No. 05-81142 (S.D. Fla. May 31, 2006) "A federal district court in Florida has ruled that a 1942 state law requiring students to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.^[8][9]

tan tan... i find the biggest flaw in your arguement to be factual information. 

is it considered force feeding when you teach a kid math?.. no?.. hmm.. why?... because its factual information which has scientific backing.  what if that 10 year old doesn't believe in integers... does that mean we have to respect his right to believe what he wants or do we tell him to stop being an idiot and figure out the multiplication table?

 

you can't start calling a guy/kid/whatever an idiot for not beliving the same non-factual information.  you have absolutely no right to tell someone else what to believe without factual proof that what you say is true.

Posted by aussiebacon
Very over dramatic.

Something I would expect to see in a Jerry Bruckheimer film.

or for that matter Mel Gibson film

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedoooooooooooooom.

This is my friendly way of saying thanks for stating the bleeding obvious
[Edited by aussiebacon on 16/03/2009 at 05:30]

but it is close enough in all probability for it to be reasonably considered 'factual'.

 

also, the most salient distinction between scientific and theological banter, is that the boffins in white coats constantly fight by dissecting each other's hypotheses until agreement is unavoidable, whereas those in the pretty frocks are inclined to 'sing from the same hymn sheet' so that disagreement is impossible!

You haven't changed a bit. While I still have no interest engaging the brick wall that you represent, I find it funny that you start lashing out in this thread once you think I'm gone. This response is really more for the others than it is for you, since we already know your response.

Marc nailed the point on the head, actually. A proposal to removing science classes, or integrate them with religion, is the same as doing so with other classes, mathematics being the best example.

First of all, when you stated "science isnt even fact", you really expose your ignorance. "Science" isn't a piece of knowledge. It is a methodological approach that focuses on empirical examination. So, in a way, you are right when you say it isn't a "fact", but it also isn't fiction. Neither claim makes sense.

You can say that certain fields of science specialize in theoretical constructs, but evolutionary biology, the one that religious fundamentalists focus on, is by no means one of those. The scientific community, including the medical community that you rely on to keep you in good health, fully recognize the overwhelming evidence for evolution.

SOME laymen may continue to say otherwise, but there is no current research out that that has been presented and has stood up to the same empirical approach that every research program, be it private or federal, engages in.

 

There is nothing wrong with being a layman. We all are in many areas of life. But if you are a layman and you dismiss the word of an expert in the field, you should certainly have a better reason than faith (which, by the way, can only very loosely be considered a "reason") or "becase my pastor said so".

And Christians aren't arguing "theory". A theory is something that people are willing to question and accept as incorrect if evidence shows otherwise. When "God is Truth" and demands that you do not question God of the Bible are commonly thrown around, I don't think I need to spell out the problem with that claim. And as far as the Bible being a "historical record", that is only true in the same way that any historical record that was written by man: the only certainty is that someone put pen to paper...beyond that it can contain any number of truths or falsehoods. And I won't even go into how ridiculous it is to compare a single book written in a time that predated a refined empirical method to the massive amounts of research that have since been completed by millions, if not billions, of people since then.

People like me are very tolerant, but we aren't pushovers. If people want to force their beliefs or religion on us, be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Scientology, BigMacology, whatever, we will state the facts. To call us "intolerant" because we will not politely sit down and accept your dogma is, as I originally stated, ridiculous.