"God of our Farther" being played by the military band following the

[rodeodance]

speech

[musette_sf]

1. not a big deal

we used to have to sing that every morning in NYC public school in the early 60s. If they start playing "Onward Christian Soldiers", let me know.

[Zenlitened]

2. Maybe they meant "God of our Fuhrer" ?

:shrug:

[nickinSTL]

3. that's when I turned it off

I had enough of the religion in the speech.

The whole ceremony is like some evangelical Christian meeting.

[pelagius]

4. You may not know this, but we have a "National Hymn"

and here it is:

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/f/gfathers.htm

Not explicitly Christian, but definitely theist. But it's a national hymn only by tradition, I believe.

However, the ever-helpful Senator Sam Brownback has proposed legislation that Congress designate "God Bless America" as our official national hymn.

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/089758.htm

I'm opposed to this not only on grounds of church/state separation, but because "God Bless America" is a bit of smarmy sentimentalism of dubious artistic merit.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. Exactly -- "smarmy sentimentalism of dubious artistic merit" describes

"God Bless America."

What we need is not a national hymn, but a national anthem we can all sing, like "America the Beautiful." Or "This Land Is Your Land." :7 One that doesn't glorify war or empire. Unfortunately, about half the country apparently approves of war and imperialism.

[immoderate]

5. God is not just for orgasms.

Every civilization has its mythology. Why shouldn't we use ours? This stuff helps us create those moments of piety, that gives a feeling of importance to contrived events.

To a degree, I'm a sucker for some of that my self. That is, I'm in favor of "sanctifying" events with the addition of ritual. (As long as it doesn't go over 45 seconds.)

Similarly, I was surprised by my friend, who is more militantly atheist than myself, asking his father in law to say grace at a family dinner. He explained, "I just like for someone to say the words."

Confession: I did some cross country traveling with one of my old buddies. We would sometimes burst into song on the way. "God Bless America" was certainly one of our favorites. You can belt it out, vocalize the trumpet flourishes, really beat it to death. Oh, I know there are those who was rhapsodic of those bottles on the wall. What was in them?

As far as there being an official hymn, or anything else, one of the jobs government should not have is issuing endorsements. No official language, no official sneaker, no official condiment, you get the idea.

--IMM