Mightily_Oats

A Quickie: Does enforcing the "before God" part of the pledge constitute a breach of the Third Commandment?

I'm not an American so I don't fully understand what the deal is with the "Pledge" debate, but I understand that the preamble involves the phrase "Under God" regardless of the beliefs of who is saying it?

Exodus 20:7 (The third of the ten commandments) "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."

To my mind making an oath in the name of a God you don't believe in would constitute a "misuse" of that name. By forcing Atheists to do so wouldn't the US Government be enforcing a breach of the commandment? Has anyone raised this objection before?

ycantibu

You'd think fundamentalist christians would be more cautious against promoting the pledge. Isn't pledging your allegiance to a piece of cloth idolatry?

Thor Q. Mada

This has nothing to do with being fundamentalist or not, but just with lack of education and resulting backwardness. And the worst, it is not dark Africa, but the US of A.
As if they are trying to be at the same level as the Talib which they were fighting.

Alonzo Fyfe

There are sects in America who refuse to say the pledge of allegiance because they say that doing so is idoltry; that their allegiance must always be to God and never to a piece of cloth no matter what it stands for.

It is not the most common interpretation.

abe smith

Those refuser-sects mentioned foregoing^^^^, of whom the Jehovahs Witnesses are the most conspicuous, HAVE BEEN to the SUPREME Court about that issue (that for them -- as for any thinking person, believer or non-believer --- that stuff constitutes *IDOLATRY*; as all kinds of worshipping of man-made stuff do. e.g. worshipping "the Church"). The matter has been adjudicated; and >>>> no-one can be made to violate his/her/its conscience by being forced to salute the Flag, etc. You can look it up. Notorious stuff. I too find the JWs at-least annoying; but they're the folks who've taken the heat about a lot of this stuff. Give'em credit.

abe smith

And of course! worshipping "the BIBLE", or the Pope , or anything else human/man-made, you name it , is IDOLATRY. We can tell them this, but will they listen?

Toto

I am an American and there is nothing to understand, if you are looking for logic. The point of "under God" in the Pledge is that all Americans must believe in God, not that non-believers are forced to swear to something they don't believe in. The people who put those words there thought that only "godless Communists" would choke on the words, so anyone who had a problem with the Pledge should just go back to Russia.

It was not a high point in American history.