College OTR: wanderingin

wanderingin

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Atheists Want "So Help Me God," Out of Inauguration. Rest of Country Points and Laughs, Shouting "Way To Pick Your Battles!"

Oh, there's definitely a will, and a way to be found for it. Your article gave me the impression you thought the way was straightforward and not full of rocks, that's all, so I wanted to clarify the situation. ;)

As for the pledge - to be honest, I find it kind of creepy even independently of the "under God" part. I grew up in the Soviet Union, during its last years. Want to know how many times I had to pledge allegiance to the state/flag/Dear Leader at the elementary or middle school level? Zero. (My family moved to the States when I was in eighth grade, so I can't tell you much about the years past that, but from what my parents tell me there was no pledge there either. Just a course on the history of the Communist Party.)

I just can't shake the feeling that overt political indoctrination in school is fundamentally wrong, and when you add religion to that and make me face the fact that when I have children, they will be expected to do this every day...yeah. I'm not happy about this. Posted 01/04/2009 1:36 PM

Atheists Want "So Help Me God," Out of Inauguration. Rest of Country Points and Laughs, Shouting "Way To Pick Your Battles!"

wanderingin says,

Bah, copypasted from an earlier draft and lost my edits to the first paragraph. -_- Just wanted to add a request to the commenters here to cut out the insults. Again, civil discussion is the idea. We're not talking to Pat Robertson here. Posted 01/04/2009 12:25 PM

Atheists Want "So Help Me God," Out of Inauguration. Rest of Country Points and Laughs, Shouting "Way To Pick Your Battles!"

wanderingin says,

#1, 2 and 4 - chill. I know you think you're in the right. So do I; I'm an atheist too. But if you want to have the possibility of a civil dialogue with people on the other side, and to leave that possibility open for the rest of us, don't walk in here guns blazing. This is a question of policy and not a theological debate, so please don't start out by dragging theology into this no matter how right you are.

That said - Red, as has been pointed out, there's a very good reason to doubt the claim about Washington. I find it additionally dubious because there's considerable evidence that Washington was a deist, not a Christian, and would not have believed in an interventionist god to help him.

That's not the main point in the objections to this, of course. But it's a part of it. The story of Washington's "so help me God" is not as well-known as the story of his cherry tree, but it's just as much a part of this nation's folklore, and those who like it there don't seem to much care for the evidence.

Do you know how "In God We Trust" came to be on our money and "under God" made its way into the Pledge of Allegiance, Red? I've lost count of how many times Christians have pointed to those two things and told me that this proves the Founding Fathers wanted America to be a Christian nation - and my inner historian dies a little every time. (Being told afterwards to get out of here if I don't like it doesn't much endear that line of thought to me either.) After all, both were added in the 1950s - with the explicit intention of making a religious statement and to establish the States as a *spiritual* as well as temporal opponent to the Soviet Union.

It worked quite well towards that purpose. Atheism came to be seen as equivalent to communism, and branded as antithetical to the American way of life. Today, in the country where Washington once wrote "If they be good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe; they may be Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists", half the people say the would not vote for a well-qualified atheistic presidential candidate. Because, aside from their religion's views on atheism, in just half a century it became part of this nation's tradition that they shouldn't. Do you think it would not matter to you if for the past fifty years children throughout this nation had to declare allegiance to "one nation under no god", Red? And that the impact of such a policy would not go beyond mere individual offense to some believers?

You say that we should elect more people like Pete Stark to represent us? I'd love to. Problem is, our support is a kiss of death to a candidate - anyone we openly support will actually lose votes. Stark can afford to declare his atheism because he's represented his district for so long that his seat is his for the taking so long as he wants it. A new Representative would not be able to get away with that - and that means that we must choose blindly, poring over each candidate's record and trying to make an educated guess as they do their political song and dance to please the Christians in the audience.

For example, have you followed the whole Hagan/Dole debacle? Many, many atheists wrote to Hagan to express their support after the first ad from Dole. After Hagan went with a "How DARE you accuse me of being one of those people? I'm a Christian!" response instead of doing a Colin Powell and asking "So what if I were an atheist?", quite a few wrote to ask what her position on atheists was. Privately, she assured them that she would look out for the rights of all of her constituents, atheists included. But in public? Well after the election, she continues to respond to Republican wheedling by saying that she's a Christian and that she would never take money from atheists.

Never. And she's supposed to be one of the good guys.

If you have some suggestions on how to elect atheist candidates in this kind of political climate, Red, I'd love to hear them. Posted 01/04/2009 12:20 PM