Stones Cry Out

Yeah, God's gonna be pretty angry when we take God's name off our money. Our founding treasury sure knew how to honor God, didn't they?

God's name on the money isn't an article of faith with me, flippant remarks notwithstanding. However, I see it as one of the many ways that folks are attempting to discredit, downplay or ignore the religious nature of the founding of this country. If they can chip away the historical foundation, they can replace it in their image.

Newdow wants to get rid of Congressional chaplains as well, even though the guys who wrote the Constitution instituted them. This is not about equal treatment, regardless of how it's presented. This is about reinterpreting the First Amendment.

Remind me again... we think "In God We Trust" needs to be written on all our coins and bills to serve what pragmatic purpose?

Dan and S9, the issue isn't whether or not "In God We Trust" should or should not be on our money. The issue is whether or not life tenured un-elected judges should be able to determine whether or not it should be on our money when our elected representatives put it there.

Taken in context of the who de-religion-izing of America, it seems this removal is, as I said, one further step to sweep away the real, historical religous nature of the founding of this country. Such as it is, it serves the purpose of reminding us of our roots, and to Newdow et. al., this is somehow dangerous.

I will allow that it's nothing more than a motto and serves no "pragmatic purpose", but it is he who wishes to make a change, and by your comments you seem to agree with him. You, then, need to make the case that this change must be made. How will life in America be somehow better if your change is effected? We've had this for over 140 years. It's not been overturned, and in fact the Supreme Court has set precedent in the past for keeping these small elements of religion in society once they've become part of the cultural tradition. What is your "pragmatic purpose" to change it now? (Heck, Roe v Wade has far less time on it, and Democrats consider it "settled law".)

I like that phrase "life tenured un-elected judges" you've got there. Why, it almost sounds like the voters didn't have anything to say about how those positions are filled. So when we are kvetching about what and who our elected representatives should be permitted to put where, it would be nice to be able remember how the process works and which purposes are served by what.

So, remind me again what pragmatic purpose is served when the un-elected Secretary of the Treasury decides— as Salmon P. Chase did in 1861— to direct the Mint to put the words "In God We Trust" on the money. Remind me what pragmatic purpose would be served by not subjecting the Coinage Act of 1864 to judicial review.

Why dodge the question? It shouldn't be hard to answer. What pragmatic purpose is served by keeping the words "In God We Trust" on the money?

Didn't dodge the question. Answered it quite plainly. The question asked of you, however, goes entirely unanswered.

You've hopelessly misrepresented Chase's role. Google is your friend. According to the Treasure Deparatment, Chase approved of some proposed designs, but it was an act of Congress (i.e. the legislature, those elected to actually pass laws) that put the motto on the currency.

This topic is no huge deal for me, either. I'm just saying that, as a person of faith, I find it offensive to have "In God We Trust" printed on our money.

Can you imagine Jesus suggesting they add "Jehovah Is God" under Caesar's picture?

On the topic of de-religionizing America, I'm fine with getting Jesus out of the hands of our politicians, and let's get him out of the commercials, too, while we're at it.

Dan, I appreciate your comments; however, your anology isn't great. Rome was not Judea-Christian in its foundation. America is. "In God We Trust" is simply acknowledging our nation's roots.

Caesar was in effect a Roman diety. Your analogy of placing "Jehovah is God" under Caesar's picture is akin to placing "Allahu Akbar" under a picture of Christ, not to placing an acknowledgement of "God" on money bearing presidents of a nation upon which God was instrumental in its founding.

I've presented my argument for why it should be on our money. But I understand that if I am out-voted, I am out-voted. So be it. You've presented your argument for why it shouldn't be on the money. If you are out-voted, I suspect you will accept that. My problem is with those like Newdow and s9 who seem to love democracy when it works in their favor and hate it when it works against them.

s9. you clearly hold a different judicial philosophy than I do. No problem. The Judicial Branch is established below the Legislative and below the Executive in the Constitution for a reason. Judicial power, in my view, should be wielded very cautiously. Can you tell me why Marbury v Madison was so important? If you can answer that, then you will have no problem with me stating that the Constituion sets the Judicial Branch below the Legislative and Executive.

Rick, thanks for your response and yes, my analogy may not be great but I don't think it's bad either. If you think our country is Judeo-Christian in nature now (however you wish to view our founding), then we're not reading the same newspaper or Bible one or the other.

I can say without the slightest hesitation that if Jesus were here today (and he is) and he were to speak, he'd be appalled at our gov't's appropriation of his "image" for their own use. Seems to me.

Okay. I can accept that you don't want to think about what pragmatic purpose is served by printing the words "In God We Trust" on our money.

Apparently, though— you don't want to argue about whether the Coinage Act of 1864 should be subject to judicial review. (There is a reason I mentioned it in my previous comment. Did you even notice?) You just want to prattle at me about Marbury v. Madison and push some bizarre interpretation of that ruling completely at odds with history.

Marbury v. Madison established judicial review. It sets the precedent that the U.S. Supreme Court can overturn legislation. So, why do you believe the Coinage Act of 1864 should not be subject to review?

For the record, I can tell you what pragmatic purpose will be served by subjecting the part of the Coinage Act of 1864 that provides for the national motto to be inscribed on U.S. currency.

It will invite the U.S. Supreme Court to establish a precedent that the national motto is not a religious statement, i.e. that the word 'God' is not a sign for any particular religion or even religious practice in general.

I think it would be a very good thing for the U.S. Supreme Court to establish this precedent. With each and every little step like this one, we secular humanists, free thinkers, agnostics, atheists and various other similar folk achieve more of our broader objective, i.e. the systematic dilution of the meaning of religious symbols in the public space.

I'm hoping that Newdow is successful at bringing this case to the U.S. Supreme Court. I'm also hoping that the Court refuses to overturn the law and remove the motto from the currency. That would only inflame passions and possibly lead to a setback. If the Court reaffirms the law after judicial review, then God will have become just a little bit less supernatural and a little bit more entangled with U.S. civil religion.

I would think that Christians would be other side from me on this. Alas, it would appear not.

s9, you're doing it again; you're not reading my answers. You asked:

...we think "In God We Trust" needs to be written on all our coins and bills to serve what pragmatic purpose?

My response was:

I will allow that it's nothing more than a motto and serves no "pragmatic purpose"....

You call that plain answer a "dodge" and say that I don't want to think about it. I outright agreed that your assessment of it is right. I don't really understand what the comprehension issue is here.

I think you're merging some of Rick's responses with mine, which is understandable. I'll let hime pick up the Marbury issue.

However, please don't pretend that all that the "free thinkers" want to do is dilute religious symbolism. Taking a small cross--a symbol of the religious history of a California town--off of their seal is not just diluting; it's excising. The ACLU is on a crusade to remove any mention of religion from the public square.

So here's a question: Since you hope that the religious motto stays, do you then oppose the ACLU's actions? If you are pro-dilution, are you then anti-removal? If you support the ACLU, then your argument is just a "heads I win, tails you lose" game.

Doug Payton writes: "So here's a question: Since you hope that the religious motto stays, do you then oppose the ACLU's actions? If you are pro-dilution, are you then anti-removal? If you support the ACLU, then your argument is just a "heads I win, tails you lose" game."

Of course I don't oppose the ACLU's actions. My argument is definitely "heads I win, tails you lose" in nature. That's my freakin' point.

For my side to win, all I have to do is make you choose between 1) keeping the symbol and allowing all meaning to be diluted from it, and 2) keeping the meaning in the symbol and removing it from the public space. You can't have both.

The amusing thing, for me, is that so many of you supposed Christians don't recognize what we're doing. Very few of you are willing to come out and proudly say what you want to do: you want the symbol to keep its meaning and its official government display in the public space. That's fundamentally dishonest, if you ask me— and by your fruits, we shall know you.

You can't have both.

Why not? Who says? Religious symbols with their meanings, as part of the public square, including government, isn't dishonest, unless you consider all our Founding Fathers dishonest. Chaplains in Congress are both.

Very few of you are willing to come out and proudly say what you want to do: you want the symbol to keep its meaning and its official government display in the public space.

Hey, all of us here are pretty much 'out' about that, don't you think?

However, you do have a point. The anti-religious have indeed changed the playing field. I don't think folks aren't proud of what they want, but they do have to work in this judicial climate.

However, this situation has been created by twisting the First Amendment and deliberately misreading it. We "can't have both" because of this "living document" doctrine, and the Constitution means only what the liberal Supreme Court justice thinks it means...this week. I do hope you realize that by doing this on this issue, you've essentially made the Constitution meaningless. We have "legislation from the bench" because of the "penumbras" and "eminations" and such. When you find the Constitution no longer protects you from government the way it says it does, you'll have only yourselves to blame.

What's dishonest is pretending you don't want religious symbols to carry their full religious meaning when deployed for official purposes by the State.

When you argue that no such religious meaning is transmitted by these symbols when they are displayed in public by the State— which is the argument you must make to keep from running afoul of not just the establishment clause, but also a long and distinguished series of precedent— you are either 1) helping to dilute the meaning of those symbols, or 2) lying through your sanctimonious teeth.

Which is it with you, Doug? (I'm betting it's the latter, but I'll take the former and count you as one of mine, if you're sincere.)

False choice. The very guys who wrote the First Amendment also instituted Congressional chaplains. Chaplains! Religious guys! Lots of "transmitted religious meaning" there. Most of the precedent you refer to has come far more recently than "In God We Trust" did. So I don't think any of this runs afoul of the Establishment Clause, with or without "transmitted religous meaning" unless, as I said, you deliberately misread it.

So my answer is that expressions of religion, historical (as with the cross on the California county seal) or that carry meaning ("In God We Trust", creches on government property during Christmas, even having Christmas as an official federal holiday) do not, in any sense, create an officially established religion. If you think it does, you don't know what an established religion is.

The very guys who wrote the First Amendment also instituted Congressional chaplains. Chaplains! Religious guys! Lots of "transmitted religious meaning" there.

All you're telling me is that we've been having this discussion for a long time. We're probably going to continue having it for awhile yet. Your point?

I don't see how you have shown this to be a false choice. The precedent is there; the establishment clause says what it does; the equal protection clause is there as well; you've got a long way to go before you can argue with a straight face that the State should be able to use religious symbols in their official business without either 1) bleeding them dry of their religious meaning, or 2) violating the Constitution and the rights of religious minorities.

Feel free to contend that you aren't diluting the meanings of your religious symbols, but don't then try to hand me a stinking line of bullscat about how you aren't interested in stepping on the rights of religious minorities.

If that's how it is, then you are interested in that. You hate them with body and soul, and nothing would please you more than to see them segregated and repressed from full participation in public society— unless perhaps the violent elimination of them in a systematic policy of religious cleansing.

Oh, I'm sorry. Is that too harsh? Yes, it's too harsh. Sorry about that. I'm sure you're really only interested in tempering the extremists among your cohorts by helping to dilute the meaning and power of their religious symbols. They'll be so much more docile after the government gets through turning Christ into just another secular icon for marketing communications.

I understand your religious extremists better than you do. I'm trying to marginalize them. Why are you trying to mainstream them?

All you're telling me is that we've been having this discussion for a long time. We're probably going to continue having it for awhile yet. Your point?

Ever luvin' man, read what you're quoting. It plainly shows that the Establishment Clause doesn't mean what you think it means, as witnessed by the actions of the very men who wrote it. I've been saying that constantly here and you still haven't picked up my point. The rest of your tirade is meaningless without an understand of this. By your definition, this country was founded by a bunch of religious radicals whose ideas we really ought to be marginalizing. I don't buy that, and I find it highly ironic that someone with that sort of view would wish to appeal to the document those guys wrote.

And since you can't seem to pick up my plain answers and positions, I must (again) quit trying.