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Originally posted by ashibaka:
I agree.

Undercurrent

Puh-leez. Only for christians is the proper name of their cheif deity the intensly uncreative "God". If an extension to all monotheistic religions was truly meant, it would say "one nation, under a god". If it was meant to include all religions, it would say, "one nation, under a higher power."

"one nation, under God", where the absense of an article indicates a proper noun, clearly refers to the christian god, and any extension to other monotheistic faiths, like the Jews and Muslims, is a rationalization after the fact.

m.

bluefugue

I believe "Allah" is no more or less than an Arabic word for "God." Like saying "Gott," or "Dieu," or "Deus." Correct me if I'm wrong; but if I'm not wrong, then it seems to me the phrase "Under God," at the very least, does not privilege Christianity over Islam or Judaism. And, if you want to get technical about it, you probably already know that "God" is not the proper name for the Christian deity. He, like the Jewish deity, has no proper name, but the closest thing to it is "Jehovah" or "Yahweh," which is based on the acronym of the phrase "I Am That Am" or something along those lines...

I don't think it "clearly" refers to the Christian God at all. It may well have been intended to, but I am looking at the phrase itself, not the intent of those who included it in 1954. The word "God," even as a proper noun, does not belong only to Christians. I have heard Muslims use the word "God" rather than "Allah" and I believe from their perspective the two words are as interchangeable as "Dieu" and "Gott." Jews obviously use the word "God" so I can't possibly see how "Under God" excludes them either. I am looking at the phrase alone, not at any context surrounding the phrase.

[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: IesusDomini ]</p>

RufusAtticus

The problem is that the same Politicians and public figures who say that the Pledge apples to Muslims, have been saying that "Allah is not God."

bluefugue

It becomes a semantical problem -- different types of terminology crossing their wires. Because the word "Allah" has been associated with Islam, it has a specific connotation that "Dieu" and "Gott" and "Deus" and so forth don't have... and certainly nobody would go for adding "Under Allah" to the Pledge, though I think that the objection could, with a certain amount of tunnel vision, still be made purely on linguistic grounds, that saying "Under Allah" would merely be as nonsensical, in an English-speaking country, as saying "Under Dieu" or "Under Gott." Yet, obviously, there is an Islamic connotation to the word "Allah."

Setting all this aside, I have definitely heard Muslims refer to their deity as "God." It seems to me that for some of them at least the words are interchangeable -- though the interchangeability, from an American perspective, apparently goes only one way. (I.e. a Muslim might say God, but a Christian would not say Allah. Then again, what do Christians who speak Arabic say? What is their word for "God"? And what are the etymological origins of the term "Allah" anyway?...) To get a better sense about it, you would have to ask some Muslims how they feel...

I still don't see how "Under God" excludes Jews, however. Or deists for that matter -- unless deists have come up with a different word for their deity, or if they object to being considered "under" a being who merely set the universe in motion a la the Clockmaker. "God," in English, is still a default word, a general word, though it also doubles for the casual (not formal) names of the Christian and Jewish (and sometimes Muslim) deities...

[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: IesusDomini ]</p>

RufusAtticus

Arab Christians do use "Allah" to refer to God. Allah is litterally al lah or "the god."

Buffman

Toto

The Evergreen state is Washington State.

Spazmatic

So, in summary, I didn't really say much except open your eyes and look around. Nothing is ever black and white.

Hmmmmm? I think you said a great deal. However, that does not mean that I necessarily agree with it. You believe in a supernatural God. I do not. I can find no grey there. It seems black and white to me. If you aim a gun at someone and fire it at them with the intent to do them bodily harm, I can find little grey in that deed. It seems black and white to me.

However, in support of your train of thought, might I recommend that you read "Origins of the Bill of Rights" by Leonard W. Levy. Yale University Press. New Haven. 1999.

MrDarwin

I had hoped to get more responses from theists. I think this would be better off in Miscellaneous Religion Discussions.

abe smith

ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH! Geowge W. Bush is our EMPLOYEE, yours & mine. He took an Inaugural Oath {Of wh/ I am ashamed to say I forget the exact wording: baddog! Smith} to defend ? and well you can look it up... the Constitution of the United States; and THAT is what he's supposed to do; and apart from that his own personal opinions have absolutely no more weight than yours & mine or the guy/woman down the street. Write the White House &gt;&gt; D.C. 20010 ? and TELL HIM THAT!

Kevin Dorner

I haven't posted anything in a long time, because there are so many good ideas flying around this board that I usually just enjoy reading and have nothing to add that hasn't already been said better than I could. But I do now.

I get tired of hearing that rights are "derived from God" too, especially since all the biblical governments seem to be divinely appointed theocratic kingdoms, or imperial Rome in the NT. There's not a single democracy to be found, because the word itself and the concept is Greek. We're also talking about the same book that advocates killing people for being homosexuals or having different religions, and whose god slaughtered over forty children for laughing at a bald man. So here's a hypothetical thought experiment for you:

Most humans eat the meat of cattle. Our justification for this is that cattle aren't sentient beings, and they sure are tasty as well.

What if, some time in the future, it was found that cattle were actually as intelligent as we, and they learned to communicate with humans, and told us to stop slaughtering them?

How many of us would still eat beef? Wear leather?

Probably very few, knowing that we were killing an intelligent species. There would probably be groups who lobbied for the rights of cattle. Cattle would be eventually be protected by many of the same laws as we are, would have the rights of property, and would eventually either integrate themselves into human society as citizens or form a society of their own (Cattleonia? Cownada? )

The same thing would happen if we ever were introduced to an intelligent race of extraterrestrials. Few people would claim that it was acceptable to slaughter them, just because their rights weren't spelled out in the Bible.

So the source of our rights seems to be mind, sentience, consciousness: the ability to object to violations of our person and property, to communicate this objection, and to realize that others also have the same expectation, and this understanding is the basis of law. To object to someone hurting you is obvious; to respect that all other persons have that same objection should be equally so, and it doesn't take a supernatural being to say so.

One could argue that it was the supernatural being that gave us the mind to conceptualize rights and laws, and thus indirectly are our rights and laws "god-given" but this becomes a different issue entirely as a question of whether this was an intended side-effect.

[ June 28, 2002: Message edited by: Kevin Dorner ]</p>