Athiest's Lawsuit Fails...

[tomsnowman123]

But which one do you believe that it refers to?
Christianity? Judaism? Islam? Agnosticism? The "G" may be capitalised for the sake of the sentence, thus it does not signify a diety NAMED God, only A god that has it's name capitalised.

It COULD read "In Zeus We Trust". But it doesn't, only "In God We Trust". God can cover MANY differing religeons.

I am not saying it has to cover a specific religion. The constitution says "a religion" which I interperet as any religion. You are simply backing my position up by saying that it refers to some kind of religion.

 

[mdwh]

The belief in nothing is a religeon. Atheism is a religeous view, whether you believe it or not.

Atheism isn't a belief in nothing, and the guy wasn't asking for "In nothing we trust" to be placed on the money.

I fail to see how "not enforcing any belief upon others" is somehow equivalent to "enforcing a belief upon others". What next, black is white?

 

[mdwh]

But which one do you believe that it refers to?
Christianity? Judaism? Islam? Agnosticism? The "G" may be capitalised for the sake of the sentence, thus it does not signify a diety NAMED God, only A god that has it's name capitalised.

It COULD read "In Zeus We Trust". But it doesn't, only "In God We Trust". God can cover MANY differing religeons.

It doesn't cover polytheistic or atheistic religions.

 

[malclave]

But it wasn't the founders that put "In God We Trust" on the Money. Much like the addition of "Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance it was added in the 1950's...

Actually, it was added nearly a century earlier. It first appeared in 1864, but then was discontinued from use in 1883. It was reinstated in 1938.
http://www.treasury.gov/education/fact-sheets/currency/in-god-we-trust.shtml

But frankly, I'm wondering what Newdow's next lawsuit will be. It might be the national anthem:

Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”

BUt I'm really waiting for the suit where he wants to declare place names like San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. unconstitutional. Obviously, hearing and reading these names causes him great distress, right?

 

[.Shane.]

BUt I'm really waiting for the suit where he wants to declare place names like San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. unconstitutional. Obviously, hearing and reading these names causes him great distress, right?

No, but they give Pat Buchanon fits!

 

[Der Sensenmann]

Well, America wasnt founded by athiests sorry to say, thus it is not unreasonable for such things as "In God We Trust" to be on our coinage. Putting that statement on our money hardly equates to a "christian stranglehold" on America.

Is that true, though? I was under the impression that most of the US founders were either atheist or deist, and had quite a low opinion of religion.

 

[.Shane.]

Is that true, though? I was under the impression that most of the US founders were either atheist or deist, and had quite a low opinion of religion.

Its a very broad and tough subject to answer.

The US was founded by a wide range of people who came from a wide range of backgrounds in Europe. Primarily, the religions were almost all forms of Christianity, though at the time, many of them would've said the religions of many of their other countrymen were false.

As for the actual "FF"s, people like Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, etc... they too had a wide range of beliefs. I'd say they mostly fell into a deistic or naturalistic view of christianity, which was common during that era.

However, the documents the US was essentially "founded on" (the Declaration of Independence & the Constitution) are not religious at all in nature.

The problem is that in the modern US political dialogue there are many people for whom it suits their purposes to promote an image the US was founded by devout, neigh evangelical, Christians. Which is just not true.

Actually, let me rephrase that. Many of not most probably considered themselves some form of Christian. BUT, a simple read of the DoI or CotUSA indicates these are not religious documents. Madison, for example is seen as the principle architect of the Constitution, but his influences in that endeavor were Locke and Montesquiue (sp?). He was well read in political philosophy as well as the history of ancient democracies/republics. Hamilton was perhaps the next most influential and he was not devout at all. Although many hail him as an "arch conservative", his view of religion had a Marxist bent. Not in the sense of getting rid of it, but seeing it as a tool to be used to direct the masses. Jefferson, primary architect of the DoI (who did not have a role in the Con) was, essentially, a deist. He eschewed the then-mainstream Christianity. In fact, he made his own bible that was contained nothing that was not directly attributable to Christ and that he translated himself from, IIRC, Greek and Latin source material. He was above all a thinker, he viewed Christ as a philosopher and leader of men more than as divine.


THIS type of thinking, this line of inquiry is what informs the DoI and the CotUSA, not the bible. Though, again, there are people w/ political agendas who will swear otherwise.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Is that true, though? I was under the impression that most of the US founders were either atheist or deist, and had quite a low opinion of religion.

Jefferson had some very telling quotes on the subject:

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear." -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr


"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." -Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt


"Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short



But in the end Jefferson was an optimist:

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors." -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams


"All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman

Link.

 

[Der Sensenmann]

Its a very broad and tough subject to answer.

The US was founded by a wide range of people who came from a wide range of backgrounds in Europe. Primarily, the religions were almost all forms of Christianity, though at the time, many of them would've said the other's religion was false.

As for the actual "FF"s, people like Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, etc... they too had a wide range of beliefs. I'd say they mostly fell into a deistic or naturalistic view of christianity, which was common during that era.

However, the documents the US was essentially "founded on" (the Declaration of Independence & the Constitution) are not religious at all in nature.

The problem is that in the modern US political dialogue there are many people for whom it suits their purposes to promote an image the US was founded by devout, neigh evangelical, Christians. Which is just not true.

Ah, cheers for the clarifications, Shane, sahkunder. I did mean the FFs, by the way, since MobBoss was talking about the US specifically, not the colonies that formed it, some of which actually had been based on religion. I'd always thought of the US founders as having wanted to keep religion a private and personal matter, not the business of the state. So it would seem that the message the state implicitly sends by having the God reference on its currency is that it is does not honour some of its own founding principles.

That said, I do agree that arguing over the reference on coins is a bit trivial with regard to the wider problems the secular state has in remaining secular in the face of the theocrats.

 

[.Shane.]

Ah, cheers for the clarification, Shane. I did mean the FFs, by the way, since MobBoss was talking about the US specifically, not the colonies that formed it.

I know, I was just going into the broader background a little...

 

[Mr Moron]

In all honestly it probably shouldn't be on the money. But It's just such a small thing it isn't worth sweating.

 

[mdwh]

But frankly, I'm wondering what Newdow's next lawsuit will be. It might be the national anthem:

BUt I'm really waiting for the suit where he wants to declare place names like San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. unconstitutional. Obviously, hearing and reading these names causes him great distress, right?

And I'm wondering what the Christian fundamentalists will do next - perhaps require tattooing "We believe in God" on our heads, or forcing young children to recite from the Bible every morning?

 

[The Yankee]

And obviously we MUST have such statements on our currency, lest we falter under an ATHEIST STRANGEHOLD on America.

First, it's removing religious statements from coinage, next it's killing baptized children! LOOK OUT!

I'm sorry, MobBoss; I fully agree with you that this message on our coins doesn't harm anyone, but I also don't see why you really care too much if they're removed---that doesn't harm anyone either. If having religious messages on coins doesn't force religion on people, then obviously having no religious messages doesn't foce atheism on anyone.

I agree. Now if "God doesn't exist" were on the money, then there would be a solid case of forced atheism. But if there's nothing there, then there's nothing there. It's neutral. The way it's supposed to be.

Not that I'll behave any differently, but I won't start a PAC trying to put it back there if it were removed. I'm more scared about how the money looks with these recent designs.

 

[malclave]

And I'm wondering what the Christian fundamentalists will do next - perhaps require tattooing "We believe in God" on our heads, or forcing young children to recite from the Bible every morning?

Very doubtful, IMO, as that would obviously conflict with the Constitution.

Newdow, OTOH, does not appear to me to be interested in others' Constitutional rights. For example, in his lawsuit against the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance (http://207.41.18.73/caed/DOCUMENTS/Opinions/Karlton/05-17.pdf), he argued that others reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at school board meetings violated his rights. However, even if one accepts that the inclusion of the words "under God" turns the Pledge of Allegiance into a religious affirmation, the First Amendment clearly allows people to make religious affirmations, and the Plege was not mandatory at those meetings.

 

[MobBoss]

Is that true, though? I was under the impression that most of the US founders were either atheist or deist, and had quite a low opinion of religion.

Uhm....nope. The vast majority of them were christian...with a bare handfull of deists and no atheists that I can recall at all.

 

[MobBoss]

Jefferson had some very telling quotes on the subject:

You need to heed Jefferson's own advice concerning his religion:

Thomas Jefferson: Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

 

[.Shane.]

You need to heed Jefferson's own advice concerning his religion:

Not sure I understand. The quote simply affirms everything that Sahk implied and I said about Jefferson. He was religious, in his own way, and he believed it was a matter for him and god alone. Study of his writings, correspondence, etc.. confirms he was, essentially, diestic in his views.

 

[MobBoss]

Not sure I understand. The quote simply affirms everything that Sahk implied and I said about Jefferson. He was religious, in his own way, and he believed it was a matter for him and god alone. Study of his writings, correspondence, etc.. confirms he was, essentially, diestic in his views.

The point is, Jefferson was only one man. Even being a deist, he was in a minority among the founders in his views. But, he is quoted ad nauseum on this topic as if he were the sole arbiter of the issue. Why do we pay him so much attention as opposed to the founders that were christians that had slightly different views of Jefferson?

 

[.Shane.]

The point is, Jefferson was only one man. Even being a deist, he was in a minority among the founders in his views. But, he is quoted ad nauseum on this topic as if he were the sole arbiter of the issue. Why do we pay him so much attention as opposed to the founders that were christians that had slightly different views of Jefferson?

I agree that there's a cult of Jefferson. While he is rightly credited as the primary author of the DoI, he was in France when the Constitution was written.

I would disagree that he was a minority. Many (maybe even most) well educated men of the day (higher education was not at all common then) were children of the Enlightenment and were very influenced by the rationalist mindest. Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, etc... were much more influenced by rationalism than Christianity in terms of their political philosophy.

But, the idea that the FF were rabid Christians (not that you're saying that) and that somehow this is therefore a Christian nation (in the sense of the political legacy, I'm not talking about the social) is ridiculous. The Constitution doesn't reflect that at all. Nor does the DoI. And other, lesser relevant documents from the late 1700s don't reflect this either. It wasn't reflected in the govt. that existed under the Articles of Confederation.

 

[.Shane.]

Here's a great quote from Madison that gets to the heart of what I'm saying. Notice his use of "unenlightened"

The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity (Letter to F.L. Schaeffer, Dec 3, 1821).

THIS LETTER further demonstrates Madison's perspective on church/state. Its a fascinating read.