Tales of the Heliosphere

A group of Boulder, Colorado, high school students is protesting against the Pledge of Allegiance. The specific gripe is with the words "under God." The Bad Astronomer agreed with the protest in a recent blog post.

"The truth is, no matter how you slice it, is that [sic] America is not 'one nation under God'. It just isn’t. We have a Mormon running for President, and we’ve had a Catholic and various other flavors of Christians as President. They would disagree quite strongly over the nature of God. Moreover, we have Muslims in this country, and Jews, and (gasp) non-believers too.

So, which God is it we’re united under?" (Here.)

The question doesn't really seek an answer because it's posed as a rhetorical device to illustrate the blogger's point that religion divides Americans. But here's the answer, anyway, direct from Thomas Jefferson and the Founders in the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ..." (Here.)

The truth is, the mainstream of American political thought from the Founders to the present has held that our political rights come from a divine Creator. The phrase "under God" in the Pledge is merely an expression of that mainstream American thought.

Deal with it.

-tdr

Technorati: religion, Pledge of Allegiance.

Labels: America, Politics, Religion