I am biased against my tax dollars endorsing or supporting any religious sect, as in inscribing “In God We Trust” on public buildings at taxpayer expense. It favors Christianity, and it violates the first amendment, and I do not want to be compelled (through taxes) to pay for such nonsense. It was a fear driven mistake of the sheeple of the time to endorse that motto and to add “under God” to an otherwise acceptable pledge of allegiance in the mid 50’s as a weak response to “The Godless Communists in Russia”. Even an apologetic like yourself has to admit that the McCarthy era in this country was not exactly the cradle of enlightened forward thinking in the world.

As far as stamping out religion goes, I think that whatever you want to believe in your home and churches is fine, as long as the churches stay out of public policy making efforts (and therefore become taxed like every other PAC in this country), peaceful coexistence between superstition and secularism will be the result. As for individuals, vote however your god (or the man who does the interpreting for your god) commands. I will vote based on facts and what our society needs at each juncture. I can guarantee you that I will not be voting on anything based on the sexual activities or preferences of others, can you say the same?

George Washington said that a culture or society that does not have a moral foundation to it will soon fall apart– and he referenced Christianity as the moral fabric of the nation.

I can illustrate this with your comment.

I do not believe that religion has any business influencing public life…

Aside from the argument about whether secular humanism is a religion, which I’ll put aside for the time being, why should the government be prejudiced against a person choosing to vote or do something in a specific way as guided by religion. The First Amendment prevents Congress from prohibiting the free exercise of religion, and the Constitution prohibits a religious test.

You are biased against religion, and prefer your worldview over those that have religion, and you wish to usurp your belief over those with a belief in a deity. This is the beginnings of the very same religious persecution that our Founding Fathers left England over– the fact that they were not welcomed in discourse because of their faith.

Just because our country used to be certain ways and endorse certain things, is not an excuse for things that are not right to continue. Slavery was part of our history as well as discrimination against minorities and all women. While I do not wish to rewrite that history, I am glad that we have realized that those things infringed on the victims’ rights and are no longer tolerated.

The same concept applies to the current secular / religious tension. Just because something was part of our history, it has no bearing on what we decide is right and reasonable today. I do not believe that religion has any business influencing public life, and as such, I think references to one sect should not be in anyone’s face when the public enter public buildings, or spend our currency.

I doubt that you would have many supporters of keeping pro slavery or anti women’s rights references in the same places, even though those things were endorsed by our society at one time and played a significant role in our history.

To reevaluate those things and make adjustments based upon further and further enlightenment is a sign of a progressive self aware society. It also makes the statement, that we do continue to grow and learn and that we will not be fettered by the mistakes of our past.

Removing “God” from all these locations would indicate no deference to God at all– which flies in the face of this country’s history. It could actually be seen as supporting atheism or secularism.

Debbie, historically there were Quakers, Christians and Deists. However, all paid recognition to God in the law and their meetings. Franklin stated that he thought the first thing the Constitutional Convention should do would be to pray– and even though they did not at that point, they did appoint a salaried position for a chaplain.

If you really researched what the government did in early days– from Thanksgiving Proclamations to rules subsidizing the evangelization of the American Indian, you’d see a very different picture than you’re trying to paint.

It is discriminatory, and it favors one religion over others, or none. It goes directly against what the framers of the constitution had in mind when they specifically set up the separation of church and state. They were running from religious persecution from the British Monarchy, and they wanted to make sure that faith based pressures would never influence the government.