In God we Trust, why does a secular nation have this on their currency?

[MarkCharles]

What is unifying about that?


Better question: what would have happened to the Judaeo-Christian religions in the USA if any mention of a god, a religion, any endorsement of religious phrases, (e.g. "God Bless America") had been forbidden in speech by any government official?

Should we lie back and continue to allow for the erosion of secular American foundations by allowing our currency, or pledge of allegiance, and our Congress to be over-run by religious symbols and speech?

Final question for extra points, most important question, worth 70 of this test:

"What would the USA have been like if NO religion would have been acceptable, other then expressions of fee speech, for anyone involved in the conduct of of the government of the USA? Compare and contrast, use historical examples and watershed turning-points. Use effective argument with logic combined with fact. No other answers will be passable in this test.

Good luck and do your best.

[Major Nikon]

1. It was a 1950's thing

Changing the national motto to "In God we Trust" was seen as a symbolic gesture which would keep us all safe from the 'godless' reds.

[MarkCharles]

2. Yes, I get the history, I was in 5th grade when it happened. But not a single

politician running for President since then has challenged this silly assertion. We don't trust in god, we trust in money!

[Major Nikon]

4. Because taking on the religious establishment is not politically fruitful

Goldwater was the only one I know about that even tried.

[humblebum]

7. Actually, In God We Trust has been on US coins since the Civil War. nt

[Major Nikon]

9. It's had two serious challenges to the phrase on currency since the 50's

The courts have consistently referenced the phrases standing as the national motto in their decisions. The national motto was changed back in the 50's from "E pluribus unum" to "In God We Trust". The change had no secular purpose and was clearly a violation of the establishment clause, yet judges still to this day accept arguments to the contrary.

[struggle4progress]

12. ... the Coinage Act of 1864 added .. “In God We Trust” to the 2-cent coin ...

http://westlawinsider.com/today-in-legal-history/today-in-1864-in-god-we-trust-first-appears-on-u-s-currency/

http://www.us-coin-values-advisor.com.nyud.net:8090/images/1864-Two-Cents-obv.jpg
http://www.us-coin-values-advisor.com/civil-war-coins.html

[Major Nikon]

14. I get that

I understood the question as why does a secular nation have these phrases on our currency today? The reason why it appeared on coins in 1864 is because religious leaders petitioned the government to do so. Clearly this had no secular purpose. So the more relevant question in my mind is why are we still printing money in 2011 that bears the same phrase?

[BiggJawn]

18. So the Religious will think they actually run the country.

And by "Religious", I actually see I mean "The Christian", since they go on and on about how America is a "Christian Country" (like Saudi Arabia is a Muslim Country?) and they think they control everything.

Boy, most of them will be in for a rude-assed awakening if the Reconstructionist/Dominionists ever get their hands on the throttle, won't they?

THEN America will be like Saudi Arabia or Iran, just with a different book.

[Major Nikon]

23. They already do to a great extent

They are aready able to deny health care to half the population, teach nutty ideas to children, and start unprovoked wars of agression, just to name a few.

[humblebum]

19. Primarily, because the majority want it to remain, and it certainly does not

meet the standard of establishing a religion. Also, it harms no one.

[Major Nikon]

25. The majority wanted slavery at one point

Which was well supported by the religious establishment. Religion harms just about everyone in one way or another.

[humblebum]

28. Are you counting the slaves, too? And someone was hurt by that.nt

[Major Nikon]

29. Slaves never amounted to more than 10% of the population

So it really doesn't matter if you counted them or not. That's just one example of many. The point is the majority is not always right, and the founding fathers very much understood the concept. That's one of the biggest reasons why we have the bill of rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

[humblebum]

32. A little more than 10%.

During the Revolutionary War: "Estimated portion of the 2.5 million colonists during the Revolutionary War period who were black: 20% (about 500,000 men, women, and children)" - 20%

http://www.shmoop.com/american-revolution/statistics.html


At the dawn of the Civil War (1860), the US population was 31.2 million, 4 million were slaves, or 12.8% of the US population.

http://www.historyguy.com/civilwar/statistics_slave_population.html


However, during the Civil War, 95% of African-Americans lived in the South, comprising over 30% of the population there."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War


Considerably more than 10%, and over 30% in the Southern states.

Regardless, the seriousness of slavery dwarfs printed words on a dollar bill.

[Major Nikon]

37. You keep missing the point and trying to obfuscate

First of all, you're quoting references from 1860. Go back to 1776 and see what you come up with. Slaves were all over the north as well as the south and were fully supported by the majority and fully endorsed by the religious establishment. Regardless blacks were almost completely disenfranchised, which means including them in the context of tyranny of the majority is pointless.

If you want other examples, set your wiki to Jim Crow laws, segregation, women's suffrage, gay marriage, abortion rights, and the list goes on and on. All of these things were well supported by the religious establishment. Tyranny of the majority and religion go hand in hand to the detriment of us all.

Democracy requires minority rights. It's not a difficult concept to understand.

[cleanhippie]

38. That's how he operates. Nothing BUT obfuscation.

[humblebum]

43. If you notice I also listed the slave population at the time of the Revolution -20%

We are talking about words on money. That, in no way, can be considered in the same breath as the evils of slavery. Absolutely ridiculous.

[Major Nikon]

45. The relentless pursuit of the irrelevant is obfuscation

I've already explained to you why the black population be it 1 or 1 billion is completely irrelevant to the majority in this context. I'm not sure why you have so much trouble understanding, and if this concept is beyond you then there's little hope of explaining why democracy requires protection of the minority.

[humblebum]

48. Yes, we are speaking about democracy and protection of minorities.

If you can convince me that minority(ies)are being harmed by the words on money, I will take you seriously. Part of the establishment of democracy also has to do with people not being ruled by a minority, such as a king, nor a pope, nor the whims of a single faction. At NO time during US history has absolute separation existed. At the very time the Constitution and the subsequent Bill of Rights were being ratified, the entire Congress voted to install chaplains in the House and Senate. Who was being harmed? Plus the Bill of Rights did not even extend to state governments until the 14th Amendment was passed.

[darkstar3]

49. The number of people echoing Ronald Reagan simply for this bullshit alone should be enough,

but more importantly, you answered your own challenge while attempting to issue it and you don't even realize it.

[humblebum]

50. Talk about obfuscation! nt

[Major Nikon]

54. I'm not sure you can accurately say "we"

The words cause harm because it opens the floodgates to those who would turn the US into a theocracy. The initial petition to put the phrase on coinage was brought by the Christian religious establishment of the day in direct response to the de facto national motto of "E Pluribus Unum." So rather than embrace this national motto as one that seeks to unite the nation, the zealots would seek to divide it, and have been using that exact phrase ever since to do exactly that. The evidence of this can be traced to the effort to codify it as the national motto in the 50's, and as recently as this year when the GOPhers sponsored another resolution to affirm it as such.

As expected, you have a very limited understanding of why it's vitally important to protect the minority in a democracy. If you don't have laws respecting the rights of minorities, the majority will inevitably use their majority position to further their ideas and suppress those of the minority, which denies the minority the ability to ever become the majority. Thus democracy gives way to ochlocracy. If you can't understand these concepts because of your religious biases, imagine if a majority GOP legislative branch decided to put an image of the confederate battle flag on the back of a dollar bill. They could use your same argument that the majority wanted it there, and nobody was being harmed by it. They would be just as wrong.

It matters little to me if you take anything seriously. I don't spend much time worrying about whether those who refuse to be objective are convinced of anything.

[humblebum]

55. You are entitled to your opinion. nt

[cleanhippie]

57. Translation: I just got schooled.

[humblebum]

58. No. I mean that you are respectfully entitled to your opinion. We

obviously see this issue from two different perspectives.

[humblebum]

44. Who made the statement that slaves were no more than 10% of the population

at any time?

[Major Nikon]

47. Oh geez

I was all of 2.8% off (going from memory instead of running to wiki for every post). If that counts as obfuscation in your book you have a very different definition than mine.

[humblebum]

51. You did run to wiki and the difference between 20% and 10% is 10%, not 2.8%.

[Major Nikon]

52. And never mattered to begin with

It was simply a response to the poster who claimed slaves should have been counted to offset the majority. It was a completely ridiculous assertion to begin with because slaves couldn't vote. Now if you want to continue picking nits on a tangential subject, be my guest, but you'll have to do it without me because I'm done here. Feel free to have the last word as it appears quite important to you.

[humblebum]

53. "because slaves couldn't vote" - that has very much to do with the

subject of the denial of minority rights. And the result of which seriously harmed a minority.

[rrneck]

42. Why does it have to harm someone

to be unconstitutional?

[struggle4progress]

46. The courts prefer not to rule on philosophical points: they want some material issue involved

Otherwise the courts would be clogged with cases arguing that Congress didn't have the power to designate the 7-day period ending on the last Friday before Memorial Day as National Safe Boating Week, or to proclaim the rose as the National Floral Emblem of the United States

[rrneck]

59. Ah. Of course. nt

[tabatha]

3. It's all propaganda.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

5. It's pure bs and needs to be removed. nt

[humblebum]

6. If by secular, you mean absolute separation of C&S, then your premise is false.

At no time in this country's history has such a condition existed.

[Major Nikon]

10. It's simply a question of whether it violates the establishment clause or not

The USSC has ruled it doesn't, but in so ruling it had to accept the argument that the phrase is secular when clearly it isn't. The arguments presented by congress to change the national motto back in the 50's clearly listed references to religious belief and can be found in the congressional register.

[darkstar3]

39. Thank you, Ron Paul.

[LARED]

8. Dr. Chuck;

In case you missed the obvious the USA has become more secularized over time, not less. The "secular American foundation" was based on a government not tied to a specific religion, not the removal of God from all expressions emanating from the government. In fact a brief tour of the architecture around DC, and history of political speeches and thought from our founding tells us we were practically "over-run by religious symbols and speech" on an ongoing basis over most of our governments history.

There is no erosion, in fact the only erosion seen today is a continuing and widening separation from religion and the public square.

[freshwest]

16. Appreciate the quote the sentiment expressed, that human rights transcend any government. The reason

For the term 'inalienable' rights mentioned by the Founders. It was the reason I fell on the 'religious' side of the debates over using the term 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Granting that governments can and should be changed, that there is, in the heart of all that lives, something more important than force or coercion to think, live and be other than what one knows is right. In the case of the abolitionists they respected a 'Spirit' that informed their hearts that the laws upholding slavery should be broken, that even a government that supported it, should likewise be broken.

This part of the 'Holy' or merely 'Human' Spirit or Soul, as people argue is not fully covered by such terms as 'In God We Trust.' Its retention on coinage and dollar bills means no more to me than the custom of throwing salt over one's shoulder to repel the devil is. It is however being used as dog whistle by the right.

While we argue this point, they are buying the commons, so I do not agree with your statement that we are becoming more secular. We are covertly through privatization of education and social services across the country, handing over once secularly rated and accountable functions that were to benefit all of whatever belief without prejudice, other than an determination of need.

We are funding through taxpayer dollars a balkanization and the fiefdom of those who are making rules as numerous threads here on DU have referenced, that persons will be diverted to places where they must agree with the religion of the vendors or as they are called agencies. They claim to be non-profit, but they aren't, and they demand a person surrender their belief system at the door or receive no government service as they expected to get.

So the secular is losing and this is the reason for the cries against the religious forces. But let's not comb our hair by trying to pull a comb across our reflection in the mirror. What is being stolen is always money and power, being funneled away from all into a few hands under various names. All in the name of religion which is almost always insistent on the person giving up the whole to accept their doctrines.

[LeftishBrit]

11. In Britain, the coins portray the Queen and give her the title of 'Fid Def' or 'FD'

This stands for 'Fidei Defensor' or 'Defender of the Faith' and is a title that the Pope gave to Henry VIII for his staunch defence of Catholicism. A few years later - Ooops!- but Britain's monarchs have retained the title ever since and so it's on all the coins.

I don't really care personally what's written on the coins; there are more important things to worry about re the economy at the moment! But I'd like to throw a question back at the religious people here:

Isn't it from a religious point of view somewhat inappropriate, even bordering on sacrilegious, to put religious messages on coins, given that Jesus said that you cannot serve God and Mammon, and that the Commandments forbid you to take God's name in vain? Isn't it taking God's name in vain to use it casually in the context of commercial activities? As an atheist, this doesn't bother me personally; but I wonder why religious people don't have a problem with it?

[humblebum]

20. "I wonder why religious people don't have a problem with it?"- maybe

they simply don't hold your point of view.

[LeftishBrit]

22. Obviously. But I am slightly curious about this - that's all,

It may be relevant that my ancestral religion is Jewish, and religious Jews tend to take this particular commandment rather seriously and literally.

Nobody needs to answer, and I don't really care about the particular issue. Just a bit of curiosity, nothing more.

[humblebum]

27. There's nothing wrong with being curious, and it helps to ask

questions.

[Goblinmonger]

41. You'd care if it said

In Allah We Trust.

[struggle4progress]

56. dunno what it's like on your side of the pond, but inappropriateness has never stopped

our politicians; if anything, it merely encourages them towards greater excess

[struggle4progress]

13. Aronow v US (432 F2d 242)

Stefan Ray ARONOW, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES of America et al., Defendants-Appellees
No. 23444
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
October 6, 1970

... The District Court ruled that plaintiff, as a taxpayer and citizen, lacked standing to challenge the validity of the statutes and that the merits of the claim of unconstitutionality were insubstantial. Inasmuch as we agree on the insignificance of the charge of unconstitutionality, we do not reach the question of standing ...

It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency "In God We Trust" has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. Its use is of a patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise ...

It is not easy to discern any religious significance attendant the payment of a bill with coin or currency on which has been imprinted "In God We Trust" or the study of a government publication or document bearing that slogan. In fact, such secular uses of the motto was viewed as sacrilegious and irreverent by President Theodore Roosevelt. Yet, Congress has directed such uses. While "ceremonial" and "patriotic" may not be particularly apt words to describe the category of the national motto, it is excluded from First Amendment significance because the motto has no theological or ritualistic impact ...

http://openjurist.org/432/f2d/242/aronow-v-united-states

[Odin2005]

15. Because TEH EVUL COMMIE SOVIETS were ATHEISTS!!!

OMG!!!

[BiggJawn]

21. It was a safeguard.

The Powers were concerned about "creeping Communism" coming into America. Now, EVERYBODY knows Communists are Atheists (and vice versa) So one way to keep the bad Commies out would be to deny them the ability to buy and sell.

They got the idea to put "In GAWD We Trust" on the money, because every good Murrikan KNOWS that if a Commie tried to touch the money, it would burn them, much in the same way that if they tried to recite the Pledge of Allegiance their tongues would explode and flames would shoot out their nostrils when they got to the part "...Under GAWD..."...

[Igel]

17. Because "secular nation" has at least two meanings.

And there's a lot of tension between them. Most people don't see the two meanings, and many would prefer that the two meanings coexist because it's easier to assert that a polysemous word only has a single meaning than to get everybody to explicitly agree on what the governing meaning of a word in a given context should mean.

Atheists are on one side of the divide. A lot of conservative Xians are on the other. They didn't produce the tension.

A secular nation is one with a religion, much less many religions. If a nation, a people, a country is secular, then its population is secular. The US population, however, is not secular. The US is not and never has been a secular nation in that sense. It has historically been a Xian nation, much like Iraq, Turkey, and Albania are Muslim nations and India is primarily a Hindu nation.

A secular nation is one whose government--since "nation" is metonomic with "government"--expresses no religion. This is two-way ambiguous in itself, and may mean that the government simply fails to express a religion or that it actively expresses the absence of religion. The first is incidental; the latter, core and intentional. The founders intended the former. Many atheists insist on the latter. (This is another source of tension, of course.) Why do atheists insist on the latter? Because it's an issue important to them and the government, esp. if it's important in society, had damned well better reflect their priorities.

For many people their religion is important to them. Getting a citizenry that allows the government to remain passive and apparently oblivious to their is seldom going to happenGetting a citizenry to long-term allow a government to actively work against their religion is even less likely. Why? Because it's an issue important to them and the government, esp. if it's important in society, had damned well better reflect their priorities.

In this, at least, the two sides are nicely symmetrical.

[Humanist_Activist]

24. Can you give an example of the atheist side, because it looks like you constructed a stawman...

So, put up or shut up.

[BiggJawn]

31. The Atheist side of What?

And who's the strawman I built, the Christian who thinks America is a "Christian nation", the Wahabi Saudi, or the Dominionists?

[MarkCharles]

26. Honestly, whoever put this thread up here, (OH, that was ME!) never thought that

this would result in so many responses.

To tell the truth, it was a rather banal thought. The least of concerns for atheists is the U.S. currency. What's more important, is the hypocrisy in a nation founded so as to separate the church from the state, while granting full rights to all religious believers, and clearly stating that in many ways in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

[Angry Dragon]

30. So many Gods out there ----------- which one to trust

[NMMNG]

40. Whichever one makes you feel best

or offers you the most, I suppose.

[WolverineDG]

33. To show that we're better than the Commies

I think it's stupid, but there are other battles to fight.

dg

[darkstar3]

34. Oh yes, we should all "keep our powder dry" for the big stuff.

One of these days people are going to realize that all they're going to have left is dry powder...

[WolverineDG]

35. I have bigger battles to fight in my own personal life

You want to spend time & effort fixating on a coin, go right ahead.

dg

[darkstar3]

36. "go right ahead" is not the attitude you take when you mock or belittle those who do so.