We The Christians

The following was posted as a reply to a message thread on the Starlight Cafe website. A nice site devoted to poetry. Check it out.

Any way, I stumbled upon one of my pet peeve topics and had to thrown in my usual 20 cents worth. When I was finished, I realized that this was basically another article. So here it is for all of you to read.

Okay, let’s get things back on track here shall we?

The pledge.

I get so tired of hearing how Christian our founding fathers were. Many of them were Deists, and almost all of them warned, and were greatly concerned about mixing religion and government.

During the mid 1950’s, and the height of the McCarthy Era, was when most of this God nonsense showed up on everything. We were fighting Communism at the time, and a large majority of Communists were Atheists. So the Christian cults (yes, cults) saw the opening and took it. This is when “In God We Trust” replaced “E Pluribus Unum (One From Many or One From Many Parts)” as the countries motto. It is also when that motto was placed on all paper currency, and coins (although it did appear on some coins earlier on).

It’s a common misconception that all of this God stuff we see today began when the country did. This is fundamentally, and across the board, not true.

The original pledge, which was crafted by a Baptist minister, contained no reference to God.

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Although the pledge had undergone other changes throughout the years, “under God” was not added until 1954 when Christian cults petitioned to have it added. Again, during the McCarthy Era nobody dared speak up against God for fear of being suspected as a communist. It was not spiritual revelation; it was fear from a people at war! A cold war, but war nonetheless.

Some other tidbits to consider…

The U.S. Constitution does not refer to God.

The FIRST Amendment, read it!

U.S. Treaty with Tripoli states, “…the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”

And I could go on and on.

I have many articles on my website covering what this country WAS founded on, and that’s freedom for everyone. There is no mistaking why the Constitution begins with “We the people…” and not “We the Christians…”

I suggest you all actually learn about this country, before you try to argue the points with your own misconceptions.

- Rick