This is why America is stuck treading water

[Louis VI the Fat]

For all the rightful mocking of the wannabe-theocratcs in the US of A, they really aren't any further off in their understanding of the constitution that todays New Atheists, who for some reason try to write french-style laicitie into the document. Sure laugh at O'Donnell, but what the so-called "secular humanists" etc are saying is no less ridiculous and dishonest from a historical perspective.

No, I'm afraid not. There is no double attack on America's history. There is an attack by religious fundamentalists.

There is a sustained attack to rewrite American constitutional and political history, to show that it has always been a theocracy. It simply hasn't. As regards the specific points about it in this thread, the motto 'E Pluribus Unum' was replaced in the 1950's with 'In god we trust'. To the pledge of allegiance to the flag was added 'one nation under God' in 1954. 'So help me God' was added as a suffix to the oaths of office. The presidents of old certainly not swore to God. On US money is printed since the 1950s 'In God we trust'.

Even allowing for the dominant role of religion in US history, these are all outrageous acts for a free republic. They belong to a theocracy. There is no modern parallel in the free world to it. Nowhere in Europe or in East Asia can one find a similar assault on religious freedom in the modern age. The likeminded religious revolution is in Iran a little later, where the newly installed Islamic Republic of the 1970s mirrored the Christian Republic of America.

And in Iran too, elected politicians will receive angry letters from religious politicians like this one, 'kindly' informing him he too must toe the religious line. Some fine freedom.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Basically they are sidestepping an argument for religion by making an argument for tradition. But it's not in the tradition of the country to sidestep your real argument because you can't back it up, not in any good tradition anyway :p

[PanzerJaeger]

Basically they are sidestepping an argument for religion by making an argument for tradition. But it's not in the tradition of the country to sidestep your real argument because you can't back it up, not in any good tradition anyway :p

For the record, I was arguing that the president should know basic American history, culture, and tradition - like the national motto, how many states there are in the union, and placing one's hand over one's heart during the playing of the national anthem. I'm not interested in the religious angle.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

For the record, I was arguing that the president should know basic American history, culture, and tradition - like the national motto, how many states there are in the union, and placing one's hand over one's heart during the playing of the national anthem. I'm not interested in the religious angle.

He does. But how can he go to indonesia and talk about "in god we trust" instead of "e pluribus unum"?

[Tellos Athenaios]

In God we trust has nothing to do with the Declaration of Indepence. If you are going to be all smug and point out how Obama got his motto's wrong (well, his tenses really), at the very least don't start making the exact same sort of mistake yourself.

[a completely inoffensive name]

For the record, I was arguing that the president should know basic American history, culture, and tradition - like the national motto, how many states there are in the union, and placing one's hand over one's heart during the playing of the national anthem. I'm not interested in the religious angle.

But that wasn't what was envisioned by America's founders! Putting your hand over your heart was put in place by that socialist FDR in 1942! America needs to go back to the real salute for the flag:

[PanzerJaeger]

He does. But how can he go to indonesia and talk about "in god we trust" instead of "e pluribus unum"?

Surely there any number of things the president can discuss in a speech in Indonesia without having to make things up? Why was he required to speak about the respective national mottos at all?

But that wasn't what was envisioned by America's founders! Putting your hand over your heart was put in place by that socialist FDR in 1942! America needs to go back to the real salute for the flag:

Fine by me.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Surely there any number of things the president can discuss in a speech in Indonesia without having to make things up? Why was he required to speak about the respective national mottos at all?

He's not making it up...it's a big part of american history, it's a huge part of the country.

"out of many, one" ... ... The united states of america

"Never codified by law, E pluribus unum was considered a de facto motto of the United States until 1956 when the United States Congress passed an act (H.J. Resolution 396), adopting In God We Trust as the official motto.[5] ...The first coins with this motto were dated 1786 and struck under the authorization of the State of New Jersey by Thomas Goadsby and Albion Cox in Rahway, New Jersey[7]"

[PanzerJaeger]

He's not making it up...

What is the national motto?

[Rhyfelwyr]

There is no double attack on America's history.

But there is. As you well know, France's vision of laicitie is rooted in the circumstances (notably the anticlericalism) surrounding its revolution. Every country has different models of church-state relations due to their historic circumstances. Those of the USA could not be more different to those of France. The US was founded on the ideals of freedom to religion, France on freedom from. In France, their vision of freedom and republicanism was rooted in the writings of atheists and deists. In the USA, it was rooted in a mix of Protestant theology and English constitutionalism.

To suggest that such different circumstances could have given rise to the same vision of secularism and church-state relations is completely dishonest and divorced from reality. French secularism means that the religous and political spheres are not only separate, it is seen as unacceptable for them to interact with each other. In the USA, while secularism means that there is an institutional separation fo church and state, that does not prevent individuals allowing their private faith to influence their political views. To an American (and to me) it seems tyrannical to not allow this to be the case.

For a Frenchman and a believer in laicite, any mention of religion in political life is seen as a threat to freedom. In Frenchland, the President could never say any of his political decisions were influenced by his private religious views, because then people woudl scream "laicitie!... Church and state are separate!"

US secularims means the separation of political and religious institutions, not the separation of political/religious views at the individual level. In France, it means separation at both the institutional and individual level. But in taking things to the individual level, this seems to me to infringe freedom of conscience.

[miotas]

No, I'm afraid not. There is no double attack on America's history. There is an attack by religious fundamentalists.

There is a sustained attack to rewrite American constitutional and political history, to show that it has always been a theocracy. It simply hasn't. As regards the specific points about it in this thread, the motto 'E Pluribus Unum' was replaced in the 1950's with 'In god we trust'. To the pledge of allegiance to the flag was added 'one nation under God' in 1954. 'So help me God' was added as a suffix to the oaths of office. The presidents of old certainly not swore to God. On US money is printed since the 1950s 'In God we trust'.

Well a quick google tells me that it's been on currency since the 1860's and has been on all currency since the 1930's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust

I think you americans should use "E Pluribus Unum" as your motto. That is an awesome motto, "In God We Trust" just makes you look superstitious.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Rhy, I understand America has its own traditions. There's no point in projecting a different history on it.

Still America's history is not one of Protestant fundamentalism. Even if one understands that the religious element is a constant in American history, one can still see that religious fundamentalism has encroached upon the state and the public sphere in the past century. America's political and constitutional history are being rewritten by fundamentalist blogs, scientists, lawyers. It is all quite dismaying. Political and legal science are under attack from fundamentalists just as much as biology.

(Whereas in France, which I don't mistake for America, this religious encroachment, the perennial attacks on the third Republic by Catholicism, plus the outcry over the depravity of the religious right during the Dreyfus affair, led to the very twentieth century(!) solution of laïcité.)

Well a quick google tells me that it's been on currency since the 1860's and has been on all currency since the 1930's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust

I've been had!

Nevertheless, even that quick wiki tells the familiar story, that of encroaching religionisation, in this case of America's coin and paper money. When the Romans wished to trap Jesus, they showed him a coin bearing the likeness of Caesar. They hadn't counted on Jesus' modesty: 'Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's!'

No such separation for the American clerics. No such modesty for the American Taleban. Unlike the man they worship, they would not rest until their god was printed on every coin and bill:

The motto IN GOD WE TRUST first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin, followed in 1866 by the 5 cent nickel (1866–1883), quarter dollar, half dollar, silver dollar and gold dollars.[1][3] It is codified as federal law in the United States Code at 36 U.S.C. § 302, which provides: "'In God we trust' is the national motto."


Use of the motto on circulating coinage is required by law. A March 3, 1865 law allowed the motto to be used on coins.[4] The use of the motto was permitted, but not required, by an 1873 law. While several laws come into play, the act of May 18, 1908,[5] is most often cited as requiring the motto (even though the cent and nickel were excluded from that law, and the nickel did not have the motto added until 1938). Since 1938, all coins have borne the motto. On July 11, 1955 it became required on all coins and currency by Act of Congress.[6] The motto was added to paper money over a period from 1957 to 1966.[1]

[Rhyfelwyr]

Rhy, I understand America has its own traditions. There's no point in projecting a different history on it.

Still America's history is not one of Protestant fundamentalism. Even if one understands that the religious element is a constant in American history, one can still see that religious fundamentalism has encroached upon the state and the public sphere in the past century. America's political and constitutional history are being rewritten by fundamentalist blogs, scientists, lawyers. It is all quite dismaying. Political and legal science are under attack from fundamentalists just as much as biology.

As I said I don't deny it, America is not a theocracy, and never had been. Indeed, there are some of a fundamentalist persuasion that seem to think being a theocracy is an American value, and they are wrong.

But... to exlude religion from the political sphere completely (a la laicite) is not, and never has been, the American way of doing things. Certainly, religious institutions/values are in no way institutionalised into the political system. That would make the US a theocracy. But for the ordinary voter to allow his religious beliefs to influence his political views does not mean he is a theocrat. To deny him the right to do this is to deny his liberty of conscience. And yet this is what laicite and the New Atheists demand - that people keep their political and religious views seperate.

Of course, fundamentally, the very idea of singling out religious beliefs, based on the fact that they are rooted in a belief in a deity, is pretty arbitrary. So if I want to ban abortion because of my secular humanist values, thats OK. But if I want to do it because of my religious values... no, laicite!

[gaelic cowboy]

I love they way this stupid thing about a national motto is soooo important but the reason or location for the speech is not.

America is gonna need friends in Asia in the future but you all prefer to worry that Obama is gonna burn churches or set up a mosque in the Whitehouse.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Indonesia - ask our two patrons from there - is under siege from Islamism. Terrorism, encroaching sharia, trampled rights of non-Muslims in this most diverse country. The last thing democratic and pluralist Indonesia needs is support from the US president for theocracy.

Obama did very well to showcase America's plurality, its tradition of embracing different people of different bakcground, its liberty. This supports democracy in Indonesia, bolsters anti-Islamicist groups, inspires those students. Obama's speech is the equivalent of 'Ich bin ein Baliner'.*

If Indonesians want to hear theocratic mottos, they can just turn on their state radio.





* There must be people at the NYT or the Guardian who would sell their mother in exchange for that genius headline, which you fine gentlemen at this cult games forum get for free.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...The presidents of old certainly not swore to God....

Actually, the Presidential Oath of Office has never required any reference to God, though the oaths of some judicial offices do. The text, as mandated by the Constitution, makes no reference to Deity in any fashion. However, tradition asserts that Washington himself appended the phrase "so help me God" to the oath -- a common verbal convention of his era. There is no specific documentary proof to suggest that he did or did not, only the tradition. There is written evidence that Chester Arthur used that phrasing in his oath of office and we have specific recordings of that phrasing having been used by all Presidents from and including Franklin Roosevelt to the present. It seems likely that the tradition predate Arthur, though there is no distinct evidence either way.