fidiot

I've been arguing about the church and state separation, and the "In God we trust" came up. Apparently, some people think that it is not a big deal, and pretty much that it has nothing to do with separation of church and state. I think otherwise, however, I couldn't argue against it because I don't know enough about the whole issue. So my question is: is having "In god we trust" on the currency a church-state separation issue, and if so, why?

crazyfingers

Here are some background items for you.

In God we Trust

And on the money

My opinion is that it does not pass the Lemon test (described in the second link above) because 1: I do not believe that its there for a secular purpose and 2: that it is used by fundies to advance their own religion by claiming that it makes us a Christian nation.

That whole site linked above has a lot of info on the separation of church and state. It's worth reviewing.

Table of Contents

Shake

Exactly! Thanks for the excellent link, cf!

fidiot, what you may also run into, and this is related to the whole "under God" pledge flap, is the old, "Well, no one really thinks of it as religious" spiel. IOW, they've become so commonplace so as to have lost any religious meaning. To which most of us non-theists would respond, "Well then, why not just remove these offending words?" But of course, they'll never go for that, even if it should get to the SCotUS and they rule (correctly) to remove them.

My vote is to return to (only) E Pluribus Unum!

Toto

Great smilie:



from

http://www.clicksmilies.com/

Alonzo Fyfe

You will find my take on this issue here, in the attachment to the first post of the referenced thread.

fidiot

Thanks for the links and information, everybody!