gilly54

I'm sure that several of us on this board have atheist teenagers. Teenagers who are old enough to understand their non-belief, unlike Newdow's 8 year-old. My husband, raised strict RC but who I would say is now a Deist, and I allowed our now 16 year old daughter to decide what she wanted to believe. I realized I have never asked her what she believed so I just did.
"I don't believe in anything." was her answer. I asked her if saying the Pledge with "under God" bothered her. She shrugged and said no, she just mumbles the words. She added "When the Pledge comes over the loud speaker,you can't hear it anyway because everyone is talking and the teacher doesn't care. Why do YOU care so much?"
I explained to her the "slippery slope" of religion being forced on us. Her interest perked up when I said that suppose 10% of your salary, money out of your pocket, was deducted in order to support a church. Even now, taxpayer dollars are going to a Congress Chaplain and the Supreme Court has just ruled that taxpayer dollars be given to religious schools. "That's why I care so much", I told her.

I was hoping I could get more of a rise out of her. My imagination was running away with me, thinking that if enough of our atheist teenagers also felt "injured" while saying the Pledge, we could file a class action lawsuit that would add to the merits of Newdow's case. Despite my admiration for him for filing this case,I must admit I thought he looked foolish and undermined the seriousness of the situation when he played the guitar and sang some protest song when he was interviewed by a Bay Area news station. And all this new publicity regarding his daugher attenting a fundy church isn't helping, IMO.

I hope that the lawyers and judges are able to ignore this "circus" atmosphere, and will judge according to Constitutional law.

Gilly

Oresta

Interesting post. During the late 60s and early 70s my teen age daughter would refuse to stand and say the pledge. It was more an anti-war statement at the time. She got some flack from a few kids who called her a Communist, but that didn't seem to bother her. She was an out-of-closet atheist at the time, but I wonder how overt about her convictions she would have been if the issue had been the god clause and the religious climate was as it is today.

DarkBronzePlant

I don't know if there's cause for concern. I don't know your teenager, of course, but remember that at that age, teenagers have a lot more important things to worry about... zits, dating, getting a driver's license, etc.

Oni

I guess I still count as a teenager (I'm 18 and I just graduated from high school in June), and I can say that the words "under god" in the pledge were significant to me. I stopped saying the pledge altogether in the first semester of junior year because of it, because at the time I was becoming more proud and aware of my being an atheist. Also, in my Calculus AP class in my last semester of high school, we actually had an atheist majority (yay!), and one kid refused to stand for the pledge, to our rather religious teacher's annoyance. So some of us do care. It's all in degrees of passion or outrage about the issues, I think. I can't necessarily assert that I'm the average teenager, but I'd like to think that these issues matter to a lot of us. I was certainly pleased with the ruling on the pledge, though I fear the pious have made enough of a stink about it to get their way.

gilly54

That was me also. Also,I wasn't citizen of the US then either,so I felt doubly defiant about not saying the Pledge. And I remember the scowls I got from fellow students and teachers.

Yeah, I know. She just got a car but can't drive it unless an adult is with her. I can't say it is relaxing having her chauffeur me around.

I hope my daughter and her classmates gain the maturity you have before she graduates, Oni.

Gilly

Krieger

I became an agnostic when I was eight and an atheist a few years later. I went to a private Xian school from K-12, and we never had to say the pledge there. The only time I remember them trying to get us to say the pledge was after 9-11, and I didn't say it then because no one else around me was, LOL (the only people that said it were the faculty and the freshmen, hehe). Besides having to put up with creationist "science" teachers, and a daily chapel (nap time), the place wasn't that bad.

I guess I can't understand what you public school atheists went through. I expected my school to do stupid things because it was Xian, but public schools should be better than that because they are meant to serve the public which is not all Xian-fundie (obviously).

Geeze, I must be a freak. I never was worried about any of the things you listed. For me its politics, history, astronomy and computer games.

Bokonon

In the homerooms that actually did the pledge (generally only about 50% bothered to turn on the TV for the morning announcements, of those, perhaps 50% paid attention enough to stand for the pledge), I would stand and recite it, just remaining silent during Under God. It always bothered me.

If I felt particularly betrayed by my country that week, I wouldn't bother reciting any of it.

gilly54

From your posts and my daughter's description, it seems like the Pledge isn't taken as seriously in the classrooms as we adults think! I get the impression that the kids of today regard the Pledge as a patriotic relic that is either ignored or mumbled. I can see why it is ignored in San Jose, but I'm surprised that the same attitude is in Pennsylvania, our nation's first capitol and home of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell!

I wonder what the national consensus would be if some media source like CNN held a poll directed at high school kids: Do you take the Pledge seriously YES or NO?

DarkBronzePlant

I didn't mean any offense to any high-school-aged infidels (or any others, for that matter.) Just trying to point out that, in general, priorities are different for folks of different ages, and those priorities will often change with time.