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I need to lighten up? I was making a joke. There's a LOL smilie and everything.
So, do you want us to find you that hook-up or not? :2razz:
Since the words were not originally in the pledge until America got its collective panties in a twist over communism, I'd say the words should NOT be in there.
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I don't think you proved your point though, assuming that your main point was that you:
I, and my family, are irreligious/agnostic.
My kid says the Pledge in school every single day.
He has yet to come home and insist we find religion, or engage me in a discussion of religion along any lines.
I think adults, primarily liberals/atheists find meaning in the Pledge that children just don't.
For children it's more a form of nationalistic indoctrination/acculturation: "I love my country".
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that when you're dealing with school children.
As kids get older, head off to college and decide they want to smoke dope, bathe in patchouli, worship "Che" Guevara, and curse American exceptionalism and soft empire, I say, more power to them.
But I think it's important that they love the country first, and then want to change it into something that more closely aligns with the philosophical ideal of "America" than that they're taught from the age of five onward that American is really only two steps removed from the Third Reich.
Dude, you need to lighten up. That was for militant atheist consumption in a thread that I find ridiculous and petty.
That doesn't mean it wasn't intended as indoctrination. You are simply arguing that it is ineffective indoctrination.
Dezaad said:...it amounts to exactly what the people who changed it intended it to be: indoctrination of children that proper Americans believe in god.
?How is whether the pledge is forced or not relevant to it having the words "under God" or not??
You actually made two claims.
That it was intended to be indoctrination and that it amounts to exactly that:
Even if we take your claim that it was intended to be indoctrination as true at face value (it may or may not be, I don't really know, but note that I am taking it as an assumption because you've not actually proven it) that still leaves your claim that it successfully amounts to indoctrination unproven, in my experience and in the experience of MANY other Americans:
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The bottom line is that you've failed to prove either point to any real degree of sufficiency.
As it stands you're simply making claims, not proving points.
Now, the claims you're making may be very true and very accurate for all I know.
I see things, and have experienced things contrary to your claims, but I don't insist that my anecdotal experience is absolute proof of anything.
But you've yet to prove them (note: making claims does not prove them as true, nor does insisting that they're true absent any supporting evidence prove the claims are true).
Who forced anyone to say the pledge?
Why are we talking about BS like this when a lot of important things are going on?
If anyone knows, I'd like to know.
My teachers in K-12 school for 13 years.
Kids should not be required to do ritual recitations of loyalty that they don't even understand.
Rewrite: I pledge allegiance to the ideal of liberty and justice for all.
I agree and I like your version a lot more than the original.
"God" to the Founders was whatever or whomever anybody wished to make of it, and was reference to the power, intelligence, or universal truth of the source of all that humankind was intended to be. Historically it was the power drawn on to do great things, to claim the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unopposed by any despot, dictator, monarch, feudal lord, pope, or any other who would assign the rights to the people. And the Founders, pretty much to a man, even the Atheists, believed the Constitution would not work for any other than a mostly moral and religious people.
So the concept, sans any mandate of how one much view God and sans any mandate of how one must express his/her religious beliefs, is firmly entrenched in our foundations, our history, our motto, and our heritage. And for that reason, I have no problem with it being in the Pledge of Allegiance. Nor do I have any problem with the Pledge itself, because without allegiance to our language, borders, culture, we cease to be the America that the Founders intended.
I voted no, I am really starting to despise Christians and all their hypocrisy and sensitivity about everything. So I am starting to believe that this crap they are adamant about should be stamped out.
Nope the pledge of allegiance refers to a Christian god and was added in the 80's to be anti soviet. There's no way around that.
If kids can't legally consent to anything they shouldn't be forced to make any sort of pledge.
If the words 'under God' are in the pledge and anyone is forced to say it, that's a violation of the 1st Amendment.
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