Next week, fellow blogger Mike Waters is going to be teaming up with me on the first of our Great Debates.Mike is a dedicated Tea Party advocate, a committed Christian and a conservative with a capital 'C' - pretty much everything I'm not! Read his blog here.
But he's also a gentleman; even on the Internet (something I have a tendency not to be.)
Over the past few months, we've batted forth about various topics on Twitter and while we rarely agree on anything, he's always been a thoroughly class act throughout our disagreements.
To that end, we thought readers of both our blogs might enjoy watching us bump heads on a controversial topic - which we're going to simultaneously do this Monday.
We'll each be posting our opposing views on a topic we feel strongly about:
"Is it appropriate for the United States Pledge of Allegiance to contain the words 'under God' in it?"Unsurprisingly, I'll be taking the 'no' position - as it's something I've been thinking about recently. When I became a U.S. Citizen, I had to repeat the phrase 'under God' in both the Oath of Citizenship and the Pledge of Allegiance - which I found challenging because of the fact that I don't believe in God.
I won't go into my reasoning for objecting to the 'under God' part of the pledge - or the reasons why I think it should be removed. You'll have to wait until Monday for that.
But do tune in. I think it'll be interesting reading, whatever your take on the subject!
3 comments:
Although I'm an atheist also, I don't have a problem with "under God" in the pledge. I see it as vague enough that it falls well within the tradition of ceremonial deism that has been part of the U.S. since its founding. The same goes for things like "in God we trust" on the coinage. But maybe you'll address the harmless ceremonial deism argument in your debate.
I am looking forward to this, Roland. In case you have not noticed, you are changing somewhat.
Oh, and even if you do not believe in God, He believes in you, dude.
I'm looking forward to this one. Like you I have no belief in God for my own reasons.
My problem with "Under God" in the pledge to the flag is that it's a pledge to our nation and not a pledge to God and for that reason alone I believe that the mention of God needs to be stripped from that pledge.
If I want to pledge to God I'd go to church, but I don't.
The very mention of God in the pledge walks a very fine line of the seperation between church and state debate: people like me will say that it's mingling the two and the conservatives will say that there's no violation.
So we shall see how this plays out and if the conservatives can swing the liberals like myself or push us farther away.
Good luck Roland!!
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