Under God or NOT
Close minded Americans or NOT
I recently saw a post on my friends profile about not buying Pepsi cans with the statue of liberty and the pledge of allegiance on it, his post said
"Don't buy the new Pepsi can coming out with pics of the Empire State building and the Pledge of Allegiance on them. Pepsi left out 2 little words in the pledge "Under God." Pepsi said they didn't want to offend anyone. So if we don't buy them, they won't be offended when they don't receive our money with the words "In God We Trust" on it. How fast can u re-post??".
This got me thinking for a while and my response was
"Funny how people complain about what our country allows for us to do! People forget or maybe they just do not know what the first amendment says.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This is even funnier because by the same argument I am presenting gives you the right to complain as well. So here is my complaint!!! If Church and state are supposed to be separate WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE or on our money?"
Our conversation got a few people involved some on the side that it Under God should not be in the pledge of allegiance and some on the side that it should be there. It was a tough conversation to keep under control including myself.
From this conversation I wondered why is "under god" there; I believe that church and state should be completely separate from our government and our money. People trying to escape religious persecution founded this country and we are still able to practice any religion we want today. This also means that if we don't want to practice one then we do not have to.
The people that were on the side of it being there argued that it was unpatriotic to not have "under god" there or that it would be sac religious to not have it there. I can see the sac religious side of the argument but then I point to the first amendment clause and how church and state are supposed to be separate. But how do my religious views have anything to do with my patriotism, I love this country. I support the troops or anyone that serves this country. But that was their argument to me.
My argument to them was that church and state are supposed to be separate and that my pledge to the flag does not come with my religious beliefs. And that because I say it with out my religious belief does not take my patriotism out of it. It is very obvious that this country has religion built into it no mater what we say or believe it is there, I know that, I was brought up as a catholic and I just chose not to be religious. This doesn't mean that I am not a good American; I can see that the religious people in this country have their views and their own thoughts on patriotism, but if they cannot see that there are other views then they are close-minded. How can we have one great document that says church and state are supposed to be separate and a pledge of allegiance that mentions god! One way is that we as Americans are generally open minded but I think some forget.