Could he not just stand and not put his hand over his heart? If I were in a room with Muslims or Hindus praying, I would pray too, just to a different God. You stand out of respect for others and you DON'T draw attention to yourself.

Could he not just stand and not put his hand over his heart?

No, of course not. If he did that, he wouldn't be expressing his contempt for everyone else sufficiently to be noticed--and getting noticed is the whole point of the exercise.

If he can't say the Pledge he is not, by definition, allegiant to the core principles of America.

I'm wondering if there is a process where otherwise non-religious people decide to convert to Christianity, just to separate themselves from a**holes.

h-man:

As one - a non-religious person - I have been sorely tempted to find out.

This guy is obviously an arrogant jerk who has no concept of the need to respect other people, and he should be thrown out on his derriere. However, I never use the phrase 'under G-d' when I say the Pledge of Allegiance, preferring instead the original words written by Rev. Bellamy, not the grotesque addition put in by a McCarthyite Congress, at the behest of the Knights of Columbus, in an effort to create artificial divisions among Americans.

Bart:

They're not artificial divisions but the premise of the nation.

Nonsense. There is no reason an atheist can't be just as patriotic as any believer, and plenty are.

Bart:

Failure to believe in the self-evident truths and the express purposes of the Constitution makes them inherently un-American. Patriotism isn't allegiance.

And the Constitution requires Americans to be believers precisely where?

Rev. Bellamy specifically refused to include religious language in the Pledge of Allegiance because over a century ago, he understood that patriotism and love of country did not require a belief in the divine. It is amazing that you apparently do not understand this simple reality.

You may want to call Isaac Asimov un-American. I do not.

Bart: you can't be an atheist and believe in inalienable rights; if you don't believe in inalienable rights, you are a citizen of the world, certainly, but an irresolute patriot, at best.

Sure you can believe in the existence of inalienable rights and be an atheist, virtually all American atheists do. Those are simply rights inherent in the human condition that all human beings share.

" We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Asimov was unAmerican:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/749/

Bart: how the heck does an atheist cop to inalienable rights? How does an atheist reason his way to "rights inherent in the human condition"? There is zero proof of these rights' existence, zero. It is quite simply an article of faith that the image of God has certain baseline rights to enable it to live as God intended. Once you get God out of the mix, those rights fall away like a dandelion in front of a big sneeze and enabling the 20th Century to happen.

I never noticed that people who live in theocracies enjoy many, if any, rights, jim.

OJ,
Self evident truths don't require religious justification, they are self evident. Duh! You sell alliegance too cheaply if you think it can be bought with a religious oath. You shouldn't be worried about other people's allegiance, you should be doing all you can to prove your own allegiance. Why should anyone trust your allegiance?

Jim
How much sacramental wine do you have to swig before you learn to spout such unmitigated tripe? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard! Why don't you tell the family of Ted Williams, who did tours of duty in WWII and Korea that he was an irresolute patriot because he didn't believe in God.

If you have to believe in God to feel that you have a right to live your life in liberty, fine, good for you. Some of us don't need a cosmic permission slip to live our lives in a "self-evident" way that makes sense. Some of us don't need the promise of eternal life before we are ready to put our one life on the line out of allegiance for our country. You should have the decency to judge other by their behavior, not by some straw man athiest you keep tucked in your head. To judge people that you don't know in this way is slanderous.

Harry:

The Papal State has quite a few.

Robert:

Yes, they're self-evident because Judeo-Christianity is true. Without it you can't derive them. Ted Williams was a notorious jerk.

Of course you can derive them, what is so complicated about it? The Greeks had it 500 years before Christ was born. Christianity wasn't much help in rediscovering democracy, it took 1700 years to do so.

Why don't you call him ugly and say he had cooties while you're at it. A lot of patriots were jerks, what does that have to do with anything? It didn't stop George Patton from serving his country.

Greece had no rights--it had democracy, which denies them.

Robert:

Williams was brave and did his duty and beyond, and is to be admired for, as you say, his actions.

However, if you don't think rights are inalienable, you do not understand the molten, viral core of this country. Without a faith in God and in the dignity he wants for humans, there is no justification for thinking rights are not meted and doled-out by the government or some other mob. There is simply no evidence, beyond faith, that these rights are not human constructs.

I think, in America, unlike other countries, patriotism is not merely about love of the Fatherland, it is about understanding the essential underpinning of your Fatherland: inalienable rights and the God who created us with them.

Yours in "unmitigated tripe," and God Bless.

It might be useful to remember what the Declaration actually said:

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.

So, we are each created, and our Creator has gifted us with rights that we can neither give away nor be stripped of. Suggesting that you can remove the Creator from this concept, and yet still agree with it, is nuts.

What rights, OJ, did people in the Papal States have other than to have their children kidnapped by the State?

David,

The Constitution does not talk about Creators at all, and that is our founding document. It does however specifically state that 'no religious test shall ever be Required as a Qualification to any Office or Public Trust under these United States.'(Article VI)

Let's put the argument in strictly mathematical terms. If all Presidents of the US must be citizens of the US(see Article II), and since no holder of the office of President may be subject to a religious test as a qualification to that office(Article VI, supra), that a religious test cannot be a requirement for citizenship in the US.

The Oath of Office of the President, the highest office in the land is as follows:

I do solemnly swear(or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. (Article II, last paragraph).

Nothing about G-d in there.

Now, if you are going to try to argue that the President does not owe 'allegiance' to the United States, then you have a problem with the English language, not with American history.

Have. It's still a theocracy.

However, if you don't think rights are inalienable, you do not understand the molten, viral core of this country.

What I understand is that the rights mean nothing unless you are willing to protect them. You can declare that the Creator gave you rights until the cows come home, but unless you fight to preserve them, then they don't mean much. That is the "molten, vital core" of our country. As a veteran, I feel that I understand it quite well.

Without a faith in God and in the dignity he wants for humans, there is no justification for thinking rights are not meted and doled-out by the government or some other mob.

Nonsense. As I stated above, it is self evident to anyone that rights require active protection, there are no guarantees. If the World Police come to your door with guns and a warrant to drag you away to the reeducation camp for wayward believers, do you think your declaration if inalienable rights will sto them in their tracks?

There is simply no evidence, beyond faith, that these rights are not human constructs.

There is no evidence, beyond faith, that these rights are God given constructs. So what? I have faith that the American way of life is the best possible form of organizing our nation, and am willing to fight to preserve it. You have faith that God wants you to lead your life according to the constructs of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution. How are you different than I?

Robert:

To the contrary, even those who don't protect their rights have them/

Liberty is as Liberty does.

If we aren't willing to protect our rights, they cease to exist.

Bart:

Blacks had the same rights as the rest of us even when they were denied them. The kids we're aborting have them same which is why abortion is evil. Rights precede politics--they don't depend on it.

A right that you have but cannot use does not seem to be worth much.

The Papal State was not famous for any rights I cherish. Free thought, for example, was forbidden.

Freedom of conscience, too.

Harry:

Rights are eventually vindicated.