Pledge of Allegiance in New Mexico schools...

[masterrig 1]

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No. It's not a word game at all. It's a fact of what their motivations where. Scroll back a few posts.

What I was getting at was how 'historians' word things differently where the reader could see it differently.


Chuck

[masterrig 1]

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I'm not saying anything you said is wrong. Just found it interesting, in light of what you and Nightingale said, George Washington instituted Thanksgiving as a national holiday for thanking God.

Yup!
Ben Franklin, possibly trying to be humorous (my guess) Wanted to make the turkey the national symbol. To think, the majestic eagle was only second choice!


Chuck

[downwardspiral 0]

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I'm not saying anything you said is wrong. Just found it interesting, in light of what you and Nightingale said, George Washington instituted Thanksgiving as a national holiday for thanking God.

Yup!
Ben Franklin, possibly trying to be humorous (my guess) Wanted to make the turkey the national symbol. To think, the majestic eagle was only second choice!


Chuck

Yeah he wasn't real fond of the eagle being a carrion bird.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[masterrig 1]

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I'm not saying anything you said is wrong. Just found it interesting, in light of what you and Nightingale said, George Washington instituted Thanksgiving as a national holiday for thanking God.

Yup!
Ben Franklin, possibly trying to be humorous (my guess) Wanted to make the turkey the national symbol. To think, the majestic eagle was only second choice!


Chuck

Yeah he wasn't real fond of the eagle being a carrion bird.

I guess, he couldn't see how they help keep streams clean of dead and rotting salmon. What does a turkey do... on the other hand, those suckers taste good, baked and stuffed!


Chuck

[Nightingale 0]

Washington was a deist, and deists do believe in a higher power.

Here's some more sources for you:


I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our country.

-- George Washington, responding to a group of clergymen who complained that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ, in 1789, Papers, Presidential Series, 4:274, the "Magna-Charta" here refers to the proposed United States Constitution

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

-- George Washington, letter to the congregation of Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island, August, 1790, in Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, Vol 1. p. 862

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.

-- George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom, also James A Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition ... In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.

-- George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793, in Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, Vol 1. p. 497, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists.

-- George Washington, letter to Tench Tilghman asking him to secure a carpenter and a bricklayer for his Mount Vernon estate, March 24, 1784, in Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963) p. 118, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

Among many other weighty objections to the Measure, it has been suggested, that it has a tendency to introduce religious disputes into the Army, which above all things should be avoided, and in many instances would compel men to a mode of Worship which they do not profess.

-- George Washington, to John Hancock, then president of Congress, expressing opposition to a congressional plan to appoint brigade chaplains in the Continental Army (1777), quoted from a letter to Cliff Walker from Doug Harper (2002)

I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.

-- George Washington, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, a Mennonite minister, May 28, 1788, in Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963) p. 118, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

"Dr. Rush told me (he had it from Asa Green) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice."

-- Thomas Jefferson, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572. (Asa Green "was probably the Reverend Ashbel Green, who was chaplain to congress during Washington's administration." -- Farrell Till in "The Christian Nation Myth.")

"I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did."

-- Thomas Jefferson, in his private journal, February, 1800, quoted from Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv., p. 572 ("Gouverneur Morris was the principal drafter of the Constitution of the United States; he was a member of the Continental Congress, a United States senator from New York, and minister to France. He accepted, to a considerable extent, the skeptical views of French Freethinkers." -- John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans.)


"Sir, Washington was a Deist."

-- The Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie, rector of the church Washington had attended with his wife, to The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, upon Wilson's having inquired of Abercrombie regarding Washington's religious beliefs, quoted from John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans

"With respect to the inquiry you make, I can only state the following facts: that as pastor of the Episcopal Church, observing that, on sacramental Sundays George Washington, immediately after the desk and pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the congregation -- always leaving Mrs. Washington with the other communicants -- she invariably being one -- I considered it my duty, in a sermon on public worship, to state the unhappy tendency of example, particularly of those in elevated stations, who uniformly turned their backs on the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the President; and as such he received it. A few days after, in conversation, I believe, with a Senator of the United States, he told me he had dined the day before with the President, who, in the course of conversation at the table, said that, on the previous Sunday, he had received a very just rebuke from the pulpit for always leaving the church before the administration of the sacrament; that he honored the preacher for his integrity and candor; that he had never sufficiently considered the influence of his example, and that he would not again give cause for the repetition of the reproof; and that, as he had never been a communicant, were he to become one then, it would be imputed to an ostentatious display of religious zeal, arising altogether from his elevated station. Accordingly, he never afterwards came on the morning of sacrament Sunday..."

-- The Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie, in a letter to a friend in 1833, Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. 5, p. 394, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 25-26

"I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges, himself as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more."

-- The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in an interview with Mr. Robert Dale Owen written on November 13, 1831, which was publlshed in New York two weeks later, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 27


"Unlike Thomas Jefferson -- and Thomas Paine, for that matter -- Washington never even got around to recording his belief that Christ was a great ethical teacher. His reticence on the subject was truly remarkable. Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence. But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear anywhere in his many letters to friends and associates throughout his life."

-- Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963) pp. 74-75, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church."


"Washington's religious belief was that of the enlightenment: deism. He practically never used the word 'God,' preferring the more impersonal word 'Providence.' How little he visualized Providence in personal form is shown by the fact that he interchangeably applied to that force all three possible pronouns: he, she, and it."

-- James Thomas Flexner, in George Washington: Anguish and Farewell (1793-1799) (1972) p. 490, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church"

"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity.... "Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."

-- The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a sermon preached in October, 1831, first sentence quoted in John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans, second sentence quoted in Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion, pp. 14-15

[downwardspiral 0]

I was just saying.

We don't like under God being in our Pledge of Allegiance yet every Thanksgiving we are suppose to be thanking God as a nation.

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[Andy9o8 0]

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I was just saying.

We don't like under God being in our Pledge of Allegiance yet every Thanksgiving we are suppose to be thanking God as a nation.

Depends on each family's tradition, I suppose. In a lot of families it's just a generic holiday from work where you pig out on turkey and related gluttony in the middle of the afternoon, watch some football, and there's little or no religious overtone.

[masterrig 1]

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I was just saying.

We don't like under God being in our Pledge of Allegiance yet every Thanksgiving we are suppose to be thanking God as a nation.

Depends on each family's tradition, I suppose. In a lot of families it's just a generic holiday from work where you pig out on turkey and related gluttony in the middle of the afternoon, watch some football, and there's little or no religious overtone.

The initial intent of our founding fathers was to thank God, one day a year, for what we have. The fact that man, over the years has changed it to what we know it today doesn't change the intent of the founding fathers. No matter how we try to change things, there is truth that Christianity and Free Masonry played a role in the formation of our nation.


Chuck

[bullin82 0]

i joining this really late and have only read a few posts so iim not sure what everyone has wrote but heres my view...

yes you should have th eoption on saying the pledge thats our right as Americans, last time i was home i was shocked to find if was forbidden in public schools because of the word "God" in it and that might offend people. While i visited my old school while i was on leave i noticed one of my ex-teachers (old school guy) didnt follow that rule and had his students say the pledge ith they so wished. The only thing that got my blood boiling is when the 1 student in the class was sitting (i have nothing against other races, religions, creeds or genders) the kid who was muslim decided it would be funny to throw stuff at the others while saying it. I am in the military and though ill defend his right to do that with no consiquence that did make me want to drag him out by his shirt collar. thats my 2 cents and a quick story so now ill sit back and see how bad i get flammed.

[quade 3]

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...last time i was home i was shocked to find if was forbidden in public schools because of the word "God" in it and that might offend people.

Where's this? Certainly nowhere I know of.

There have been movements to remove the phrase, "under God" and in some cases this is why some people do not recite it, but I don't know anywhere it's "forbidden" to recite "The Pledge" in any American school system.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[LyraM45 0]

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The right to choose is one thing, outright refusal for some unknown reason can be the building blocks of being one of the USA bashers we see frequently.

Thats a huge assumption all together, but on a smaller scale to assume that it's for some "unknown reason," is a little rediculous. There are plenty of reasons. I know as young as sixth or seventh grade I was not reciting the pledge because I was an agnostic and I envoked my right to not recite a pledge that included a god I did not believe in. Thats just for me personally, and I am sure there are many other's in those shoes. It didn't mean I wasn't patriotic, it just meant I was steadfast in what I believed spiritually and religiously.

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[Andy9o8 0]

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The right to choose is one thing, outright refusal for some unknown reason can be the building blocks of being one of the USA bashers we see frequently.

If you don't have the right to simply refuse outright, without being compelled to explain your reason, then you don't truly have the right to choose.

[bullin82 0]

i am from a small town in WI (to close to liberal Madison) and they will not allow them to say it, because of complaints from non christian families that say its offensive because of the the word "God"

[quade 3]

If you could please name the town. I'd love to look into it.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[rhaig 0]

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the kid who was muslim decided it would be funny to throw stuff at the others while saying it.

That's just flat disrespect for fellow students.

--
Rob

[Andy9o8 0]

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the kid who was muslim decided it would be funny to throw stuff at the others while saying it.

That's just flat disrespect for fellow students.

If it happened.
Sounds tasty, so people, well, gobble it up.
Smells like chain e-mail poop to me.
Yeah, I know, our new "friend" bullin82 claims he saw it. What can I say? I can't disprove it, of course, but you know what? - I just don't believe him. Oh, well.

[quade 3]

Well, Madison is the home of the FFRF so there -may- have been a local dust up about the "under God" at some point and in the numerous retellings the "Muslim" part was added for flavor.

bullin82 isn't exactly "new" here. Take a look at the creation date on the account; Dec 25, 2006. If we take him at his word and assume he's been out of the country for a few years, the story sort of makes sense. Not that he witnessed it himself, but that it's something he was told by someone else.

However, my guess is that there's no chance in hell reciting "The Pledge" is in any way "forbidden" anywhere in the US. It's possible that some school district has told their folks to tone down the rhetoric surrounding the "under God" part and not force anyone to recite it, but that's completely different than being "forbidden" (which would obviously be unconstitutional and I'm nearly certain there would be better documentation of the case).

In fact, as recently as August 2006, the Madison School District was very actively promoting kids memorizing "The Pledge" in a contest. See; STAR-SPANGLED BANNER CHALLENGE

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[bullin82 0]

You can believe me ornot but i was there i seenthis happen. the muslim wasnt just put in there for "flavor". he was in deed muslim (i dont have anything aganst muslims) its just what he was. this also happened a few years ago while i was home on leave like i stated before. oh and BTW the town was Jefferson and at the time it wasnt allowed, far as i know now its still not said. so like i said believe me or not whatever i just wanted to tell you it.

[quade 3]

So much for trying to help a guy out.

Can you show me -anything- that indicates saying "The Pledge" is "forbidden" in the School District of Jefferson? Here, I'll even give you a head start and the link to their web site.
http://www.jefferson.k12.wi.us/do/index.html

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[bullin82 0]

Like i stated before this happened a few years ago, is it possibe that the teacher gave me bad intel....maybe. but i just told you what i was told while i was there on a visit and seen what i did while i was there.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Like i stated before this happened a few years ago, is it possibe that the teacher gave me bad intel....maybe. but i just told you what i was told while i was there on a visit and seen what i did while i was there.

I'd love to see you on a witness stand in front of a jury of ordinary, sensible citizens. They wouldn't be able to keep themselves from laughing out loud.

[nerdgirl 0]

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Duck and Cover! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixy5FBLnh7o

Thanks for that one!

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[Tolgak 0]

I don't think any patriotism should be taught in schools. To do so is indoctrination, and it's not beneficial to society to have indoctrinated people around.

Students should be taught a no-bullshit history of this country and the world without leaving out important things. For example, I had no clue what a pilgrim was until late middle school. I just thought they were people with funny hats. We celebrated them and we had no clue about them.

Only when a person knows fully about his country and can make an intellectual decision about his allegiance to it can he start being called a patriot. Now, one must go beyond simple allegiance and conduct himself as a helpful member of society if he wishes to honestly call himself a patriot.

You can say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, remove your hat for every witnessing of the Anthem, offer your seat on the bus to every soldier, and raise the American flag every day in front of your house. If you don't understand at least the basic points of the Constitution, if you don't vote, if you haven't done something to contribute to this nation*, you are NOT a patriot.

I'm tired of all these nutjob jingoists screaming about putting hands over hearts or wearing flag pins or all that other ceremonial crap.

Patriotism must come from knowledge and true love of country, not indoctrination and certainly not by forced recitals of the Pledge every morning (whether or not it has "under god" in it.

*Contributions do not have to be of public service nature. By this, I mean to pay your taxes, contribute to your economy if possible (work!), and maybe do some volunteering. Skydiving too... good people skydive.

Dropzones are terrible places for inspiration. What does one think when one looks up for a sign only to see a bunch of people falling?