To the news of a peer’s death in an automobile accident, one interviewed teenager said, “It’s fate. When your time comes, it comes.” Another tearily added, “God called him home.” Apparently, as far as you know, your time could be up at any moment. Nothing you can do about it.

This is sloppy and dangerous thinking. Perhaps it could contribute to such things as reckless driving. Hey, nothing you can do about it; it’s fate. If it’s not in the divine plans for you to be “called home” just yet, you can avoid questioning your own behavior. Or feeling distressed by the often unpredictable, impersonal, “non-caring” nature of calamity.

If all incidents of extreme bad fortune, and good, are in a god’s hands, you can additionally maintain the delusion that nothing happens without a reason. A significant reason. A personal reason.

What is the true cost of this superficial, sloppy thinking? I don’t know. I’m sure it depends upon the situation. In terms of athletes making a sign of the cross before competing or pointing to the sky after success, little cost. (Little obvious cost? There may be a diffuse cost in the modeling of superstitious behavior to young fans.)

In terms of a parent who believes that their child is sick because of sin or the devil or simply an un-elaborated “god’s will” (a form of partially rectifiable fate, via acts of repentance?) rather than due to, say, bacterial infection, and that prayer, rather than antibiotics, is the answer — well, this is very costly sloppy thinking.

The believer’s slip-shod “just because” (i.e. it is beyond my understanding and in the hands of divine forces) is a cul-de-sac on the road to knowledge and effective action. Not a god, but knowledge provides real power in terms of the ability to exercise control over our lives.

Few educated people believe the voodoo of ‘evil spirits cause disease.’ In those regions of the world where it persists, you will find both bottom-drawer education and inadequate health care systems. In our country, with its good health care and fairly decent education, gods have been pushed out of the physician’s black bag. Pretty much. And our society is better for it.

I am convinced that we should keep pushing talk of gods out of our explanations of how the universe operates. They’re in the way. Gods limit our vision. Sure, some people may want to prop gods in front of those annoying uncertainties for which we have no clear answers, but I’d rather not. I am one who prefers the leaden “I don’t know” answer to the believer’s airy “just because.”

[first posted earlier today here]

Related posts:

1. Why We Believe in Gods

In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Black, held:

The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this:

• Neither the state nor the Federal Government can set up a church.
• Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.
• Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.
• No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non attendance.
• No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.
• Neither state nor Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs or any religious organizations or groups and vice versa.

In the words of Jefferson, the clause against the establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and State.

For a very long time there has been much controversy and debating about the constitutionality of the national motto “In God We Trust” and the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Are they a breech of the separation of Church and State and the clause against the establishment of religion put forth by Thomas Jefferson? This dilemma may never be settled because of the many different interpretations of Jefferson’s words and their meaning.

The following is my interpretation of how these phrases came to be. It should shed light on whether or not these terms are of religious intent and prefer one religion over all others. The Supreme Court has most often ruled that this not the case.

On July 4, 1776 congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to prepare a design for the Great Seal of the United States. In August their first design was submitted to Congress with the motto “E Pluribus Unum,” which means out of many, one. The design was rejected (not the motto), as were five other designs over the next five years.

In 1782 Congress asked Mr. Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, to complete the project. He and his friend Mr. Barton produced a design of an eagle with a heart-shaped shield, holding arrows and an olive branch in its claws. The motto “E Pluribus Unum” was on the scroll held in the eagle’s beak. The design has been modified slightly in that the shield is not heart shaped and there are thirteen stars for the thirteen colonies over the eagles head. This motto was never made into a law but was considered the de facto motto of the United States for 174 years, until 1956. The motto was used on some federal coins beginning in 1795.

In 1812 our young nation, still struggling after the Revolution, found itself at war once again. In 1814 prisoner of war Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner during a very difficult time. His song, as we all know, eventually became our national anthem. The final stanza initially read:

And this be our motto,’In God is our trust.’
And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’re the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Many believe this is where the idea for the present US motto came from. This seems to be the first usage of such a phrase but was not applied to anything pertaining to the government until 1864. It has never been used by Jews or Muslims or any other monotheistic or polytheistic religion with the exception of Christianity.

At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, a group of Protestants started a campaign to add references to God to the U.S. Constitution and other federal documents, an process that continues to this day. The Reverend M.R. Watkinson, a Baptist minister,  wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase promoting the concept. It wasn’t until 1863 that Mr. Chase asked James Pollock, the Director of the Mint, to come up with a suitable motto for Union coins. After considering several different wordings, he picked “In God We Trust” and Congress passed the legislation in 1864. It took another Act of congress to have the motto placed on other U.S. coins between 1886 and 1916. “In God We Trust” has been in continuous use on the one-cent coin since 1909 and on the ten-cent coin since 1916. It has also appeared on all gold coins and silver dollar coins, half-dollar coins, and quarter-dollar coins since 1908. But at that point it was still not on paper currency.

Another 40 years passed.

On July 20, 1956  the 84th Congress passed a law, approved by President Dwight Eisenhower, declaring “In God We Trust” the national motto of the United States, usurping the de facto “E Pluribus Unum.” It was first used on paper money in 1957 and was on all money by 1966.

This law was, in part, due to the state of our nation. The McCarthy communist witch hunt was rampant; it was the height of the Cold War. People were fearful and distrustful. This atmosphere was ripe for religious fervor to thrive. Paramount on the minds of many was having God on our side to fight the godless communists. The phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance during this same period, authorized by the President.

What interests me is those who insist the motto and phrase are not religious and do not promote one particular religion. Yet it is the religious and those of the Christian faith in particular who were responsible for, and the most vocal about, adding the terms to our currency and pledge. Christian believers today are lobbying to have “In God We Trust” inscribed on federal and state buildings and state license plates, etc.

What would these people of Christian faith, most of whom also proclaim allegiance to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to our Constitution, do if the Muslim community insisted that we have “In Allah We Trust” added to the currency and other prominent places? Allah and God are separate deities worshiped by two different religious groups in America where freedom of religion is protected. Would Muslims have the right to lobby for this? How would Christians respond to this?

What about Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other religious minorities? And atheist agnostics, secular humanists who reside in America? Could they lobby for their own phrases, according to their beliefs or nonbeliefs, to be included on currency and elsewhere? Wouldn’t that be fair?

What mottos might these groups want included on our currency and government buildings? “In God We Trust, But Not In Jesus”, “In Braham, Vishnu, and Shiva We Trust”, “In The Buddha And Inner Peace We Trust”, and “In Reason, Secularism And Enlightenment We Trust?” The list could go on. Who do you think would be in opposition to any and all of these additions?

“In God We Trust” and “under God” are Christian in origin and represent only one religious faith. While Christianity is the religion of the majority of Americans, this does not mean Christians have cornered the market on God, faith, and belief. Nor do they have the right to silence the voices of other believers or nonbelievers in opposition to these phrases by insisting that the majority rules and that the motto and phrase are neutral, patriotic and inclusive. Plainly, they are not.

A better idea might be to consider reinstating the original motto of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin;  E Pluribus Unum - Out Of Many, One.

(to be continued in Part 2)

Related posts:

1. In God We Trust? – Part 2

“It is humanity’s unique blessing and peculiar curse to be the only species on Earth, as far as we know, that worries so obsessively and at such great expense about where we came from and why we’re here.” (Epilogue, pg. 339)

Pulitizer Prize winning journalist Edward Humes is a consummate storyteller. In Monkey Girl, he paints a vivid picture of everyone involved in the 2005 court case, Kitzmiller. vs. Dover Area School District, showing how the U.S. divide between evolution and Intelligent Design dramatically played out in one small Pennsylvania town.  Along the way, he sets the trial’s story in the context of the historical evolution-creationism debate in this country.

The thinking (or lack thereof) and incompetent behavior of the creationist members of the Dover School Board borders on ludicrous. It’s apparent they cared less for the public education of their students than for standing up for a “man who died on a cross 2000 years ago.” Humes writes a page-turner as he traces their bungling skullduggery in trying to get Intelligent Design taught in the school’s biology class.

Perhaps the most disturbing facts that emerged from the trial were the chain of events that clearly showed how School Board members who call themselves believers lied to try to impose their religious beliefs on others, then lied under oath to try to cover it up.

It’s also uncomfortable to watch how the School Board pitted Christian against Christian in their zeal to have their way. Board members, parents, and students who favored the separation of Church and State were publicly criticized for not being Christian enough, or for being atheists. At the trial’s end, when the presiding judge, a Conservative Bush appointee, ruled that Intelligent Design is not science, the creationist Board and its supporters accused him of being a liberal judicial activist for defending the Constitution.

The Dover trial is a sad reminder of how many US citizens are unaware of what the US Constitution means. The men who forged that document had a profound understanding of the importance of the separation of church and state, based on experience, not conjecture. Their founding of our new country grew directly out of the anguish and turmoil of centuries of European religious wars in which persecution often meant lengthy incarceration or death.

Unfortunately for the US, it seems the battle to discredit evolution and replace it with creationism is not over. We can only hope that concerned citizens like those in Dover, PA, will continue to speak out and take legal means where necessary and judges like John E. Jones will continue to rule fairly to protect our Constitutional rights.

Related posts:

1. Book Review – Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them)