cycloneworld said:
Because our country was founded based on religious principles. It's unnecessary to "know where you came from"?? That's the problem nowadays, people ARE forgetting.
As has been said before, Christianity is what the country was founded on...
I'm not sure what exactly you mean when you say "founded on." If you are just saying that most of the founding father's were Christian then I agree with you. I don't think this justifies putting under God on a bunch of stuff, but we may simply disagree on that. If you mean that the Christian religion was somehow a core part of our government then I would disagree with you. If everyone suddenly converted to something else our government would function just fine. Contrast that with Iran, where the government really is founded on a religion. If everyone converted it would require a political revolution.
...and separation of church and state does not mean that there can't be any religion involved in government, but rather no government interference with religion. If somebody wants to be Muslim, they're free to be Muslim. If Hindu is their thing, let them be Hindu. But the major religion in America is Christianity.
I agree with the idea that there cannot be government interference in religion. I probably also disagree in part though. There has been a lot of separation of church and state talk so I figure someone should post the actual part of the constitution being discussed.
The First Amendment of the Constitution said:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Everyone pretty much agrees that the second part of the Amendment means that the government cannot interfere with religion, which was the view you expressed. The first part, usually referred to as the establishment clause, is much more contentious. Some contend that it only prohibits the government from establishing an official state religion. Others would argue that it requires that the government not give any official preference to one religion over another. I find myself in the later camp. As there are religions that do not recognize a god, putting "under God" on stuff is giving preference to one religion over another.
If I went to India, I wouldn't be up in arms that everybody talks about Hinduism, and I wouldn't flip out that Ghandi is on the currency there either. That's the major religion of their country, so it's their privilege to celebrate it.
What would your opinion be if you were a native Indian who converted to Christianity, and as part of your children's education they regularly recited a pledge saying "one nation, under Shiva?" If you truly would not care then there is just a fundamental difference between us on this issue.
In the same way, do you think that we should not have any writing on our currency either since it's written in English and not everybody in America considers themselves "English"? I know a lot of people have compared the civil rights movement to the gay rights movement, and to point out the insanity of that, do you think that black people are offended that we have guys like George Washington and Abe Lincoln on our currency since not everybody in America is white? Just a couple things I was thinking about. Not trying to be a jerk and preach at anybody, but that's how I see it.
The short answer is no, but I don't think your examples are analogous to the "under God" situation. As far as the english part, some language has to be used, and english is the most prevalent. By contrast, there does not have to be anything on our money involving God. The use of english also does not imply that other languages are inferior. A more analogous situation would be a little caption on our money that says "Our language is the best."
The presence of dead presidents on our money also does not imply anything about black people. It is more difficult to think of a really analogous situtation, but perhaps if our money said "Founded by great white people." The "white" part is unnecessary and would imply that whites are somehow superior.