How about just recognizing the Christian underpinnings of the nation? Something wrong with that? It sounds as if you seem to think so.

Well, it still is the official motto of the country. He has a point if they specifically went out of their way to avoid the pledge and the motto in order to avoid having to say “God.”

And having “In God We Trust” displayed on an official state document or the coins in your pocket hardly counts as proselytizing, nor would it fall in the same category as the flat earth and young earth theories you posted. I’m a bit puzzled as to why you’d be so passionately against the idea (at least as it appears you are).

Dan-

As Bill says, his profession of faith is that there is NOT a G-d, it seems. I admit I am reading between the lines here. What has happened in this country is that in rejecting the Christian underpinnings of the nation by misinterpreting the ‘no official religion’ language to mean that there is a ’separation of church and state’ in it’s most restrictive form is that some would reject all religious expression wholesale. What the founders seemed to say is that there is ‘freedom of religion’ not freedom from religion as the progressive interpretation would have us believe.

As Bill says, his profession of faith is that there is NOT a G-d, it seems.

Actually, that is not a profession of my “faith,” because not having a faith is not a faith. And people who make the claim that lack of faith is faith are, well, silly.

In the real world, existence is. Via our consciousness, we perceive existence. And a thing is itself. We don’t perceive gods in the real world, and hence must embrace their existence purely through faith. Saying that my lack of faith is itself a faith is like saying that my acceptance of the real world is a “faith.” It may make an interesting debate point, but it is meaningless.

As I noted elsewhere: I am not the one positing omniscient, omnipotent creator entities that violate every natural law we have ever discovered. If you are, I think it is incumbent upon you to offer a bit of evidence for these entities, before calling my refusal to accept their existence a “faith.”

Of course, believers can’t do this, and it drives them nuts when faced with their inability to do so - and leads them to call those asking for some evidence before accepting their beliefs as being “believers just like us.”

What the founders seemed to say is that there is ‘freedom of religion’ not freedom from religion as the progressive interpretation would have us believe.

What in the hell do you think this means?

I don’t have the right to be free from religion? How so? Does that mean you don’t have the right to be free from, say, Islam, and should, therefore, submit if Islam takes over?

Poppycock and twaddle from the tyranny of god crowd.

Interesting. It seems to take it for granted that everyone worships in some way.

Not necessarily, Jack.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion(…)

There is no inference, that I can see, presupposing the existence of religion in that statement. It merely states that the government shall play no role in the establishment of a religion. Doesn’t mean that one exists. However, should an interested party wish to to establish one, then the government may not say, “Yay or Nay,” in regards to the establishment of said religion. Following this, the obverse would hold true; that the absence of religion is also not the concern of the government. The government, in the form of the Constitution, is required to pretty much STFU where the religions of the populous, or lack thereof, are concerned.

If one takes the time to study the history of the first amendment one would find that the logic behind it was that there were many sects of Christianity in the colonies and each purported to be the one and only and persecuted those who refused to agree with them.

The first amendment was added to give each and all the freedom to worship as they please..or not of they so please.

And by the way, for all of you radicals of the Christian right wing..it reads “In God We Trust”…not “In Jesus We Trust”. And that could be that contrary to the belief of the Christian right wing some of the founders were avowed Deists and some of the leading citizens of the new country happened to be practicing Jews.

Yeah, it is about freedom of as well as freedom from religion.

More power to you, as long as you don’t want to build an altar to the FSM in the lobby of my local courthouse! Or have the government enforce the tenets of your religion on me.

The FSM can be worshiped here and here, so there’s no need for an alter in the courthouse.

Won’t argue with that. IIRC, a few years back someone objected to the ten commandments being included in a display of early laws at a courthouse.

Noodles?