No Gods to Trust

“In God We Trust”
“One Nation Under God”
“God Bless America”

Ok, kids. Time for a little Politics 101. Under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, which of those three statements are illegal for the government to endorse?

Think hard.

Give up?

All three.

Here is the entire text of the First, and most important (cause it protects your rights to fight for the others), Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That’s it. Those 45 words are what gaurantee your right to say what you want, publish what you want, think what you want, believe what you want. They also, notably, limit the government’s ability to stop you from doing those things or endorsing any one particular religion.

Look at those first few words again.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…

(emphasis added)

Now what does this mean in pratical terms? It means that it is illegal for the government to endorse any religious practices. That’s why it’s illegal to have teachers leading public school classrooms in prayer. That’s why we don’t start school days by reading Bible passages. That’s why intelligent design (aka: creationism wearing a suit and tie), is not taught in class.

It also means the government can’t tell you, “Bhudda is best”, say “Hooray for Hera!” or “Anubis is Awesome!”. It also means the government can’t say, “There is no god. Deal.” Yes, that’s right. The Constitution keeps the government from endorsing any specific religion, but it also keeps the government from saying there is no god.

Basically, the First Amendment forces the government to take a completely neutral position on all religion, and that’s exactly as it should be.

Now some people, almost always Christians, have this odd notion that this isn’t how things should be. They want God in everything, and want the backing of the government to put him there. To this end we have the first Thursday in May set aside as the National Day of Prayer. We have “In God We Trust” on our money. We had the Knights of Columbus pushing Eisenhower to add “One nation under God” to the Pledge of Alligence (which, btw, is a fairly odious little loyalty oath, but I’ll cover that in another article). In Alabama, they managed to get things set up so that you can have a liscence plate with the words “God Bless America” (why is it never “God Bless Humanity”, or “God Bless Us, Everyone”? Why is their desire for blessing limited to the United States?).

All of these things are clearly un-Constitutional in the extreme. But it would also be wrong to have “In No God Do We Trust”, “One Nation Under No God”, or “No Gods Exist to Bless America”. You also can’t have the government pushing “In Vishnu We Trust”, “One Nation Under Xemu”, or “Zoroaster Bless America”. Let me repeat: the position of government with regards to religion must be one of neutrality. To neither endorse nor deny.

The Founding Fathers, those mythical creatures who ascended to Earth like the Gods of Olympus to present us with the Holy Writ (or some might say), were men who were either born in Europe or had not-too-distant roots there. They knew full-well what happened when you mixed religion and government. You got warfare, persecution, tax dollars being used to prop up churches (faith-based initiatives, anyone?). If you were a Jew living in Christian nations, watch out! If you were a Catholic living in a Protestant land, or vice versa, really watch your ass!

Anyhow, most of the Founders were Deists, if not outright atheists. Certainly they made it very clear that religion and government were entirely different animals. In fact, when the Constitution was being assembled, there were protests from people who were unhappy about the fact that God is never mentioned and religion is only mentioned in the context of saying what the government can’t do about it. Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, etc, were not men who were big on cramming their faith, or lack of same, down everyone’s throats.

Of course, what those who want more religion in government really want is more of their religion in government (usually right-wing Christianity). They don’t want Bush to stand up and lead the nation in prayers to Thor. They want to use the government as a way to push their faith on everyone. They complain about the lack of faith in the public square, invent the “War on Christmas”, and push the agendas mentioned above, all in aid of getting government sanction for their god.

I recall reading once about Teddy Roosevelt’s opinions on God and politics. He basically thought politics were too dirty and too earthy to mix god in with them. If I were a theist, I think I could agree with that. Why would I want “In God We Trust” on our money? Why would I want to sully the name of God by bringing him down to the level of base commerce? Surely I would believe God unconcerned with our money, and think that putting his name on our papers and coins would rank up there with the moneylenders in the temple?

Besides, what does “In God We Trust” actually mean anyhow? At least “God Bless America” and “One Nation Under God”, foul though they are, make some logical sense. But what does “In God We Trust” have to do with money?

To those who winge on about how the United States is a Christian nation, and therefore non-Christians need to suck it up and deal, I would point to the 1796 treaty with Tripoli. This treaty was ratified without a single “no” vote in the Senate. No one even logged a simple protest vote. This is relevant because of what Article 11 says. You can read the text of the treaty here. For those who don’t want the whole thing, here’s the first sentence of the relevant article:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…

So one of our first treaties, ratified while John Adams was President and just about all the Founding Fathers were alive, states we are not a nation founded on the Christian religion. I think that should clearly shoot down the notion they meant us to be a Christian nation.

Besides, even if we were to be a Christian nation, which branch of Christianity would we be? I know the ACLU once teamed up with a group of Catholics to file a lawsuit trying to get prayer banned in school (I don’t remember the name of the case, sorry). The Catholics were involved because the version of prayer used was not theirs; it was a Protestant prayer. They were understandably inked about the government trying to push Protestantism down their kids throats. If you believe in God, what would you do if a teacher was trying to teach a different version of God to your kids?

Lastly, the government we have is not one even remotely similar to any found in the Bible. The nations in the Bible are all run by kings (or occasionally queens). They were tyranical, oppresive theocracies that allowed or even endorsed slavery, trial by ordeal, treating women as property and religious perseuction. These Jewish, and later Christian, nations were not in any sense founded on the United States’s tradition (if you’ll forgive the reference).

Really this couldn’t be any more clear or simple. We are not a Christian nation. We were not founded as a Christian nation. It is illegal for the government to take anything other than a neutral position on any religious issue. Hopefully our courts will soon wake up from the sleep they’ve been taking and start making some rulings to this effect.

(initially this article had said George Washington was president when the Treaty of Tripoli was signed. This was incorrect and has been changed)