God and the Oath of Office

Mendrol, some Christians want someone with their religious values in the White House because they are concerned that the non-Christian might impose their views on them. They notice Atheist trying to remove religion from the public square. Non-Christians renaming Christmas break now Winter break. The met Mormons going door to door looking for converts. They hear about our government getting a little too involved with Israel. They have plenty of evidence of non-Christians imposing their views in government and feel alienated. If we want a Jewish or Atheist president, we have to convince them that non-Christians are similar to them and have similar values. This is actually the truth, but a loud portion of the non-Christians don't support this. This is why Atheist need to stop trying to remove "God" from the Oath of Office. To convince the Christians that Atheist respect their religion and elect Atheist to high office.

Shush everyone the Goddess is getting a headache from all of your fighting.

Now I'm no Harvard Law grad (or Yale or Virginia, or any other) but last time I checked, the 1st only protected individuals from being subjected to LAWS made by Congress. I believe that each indivudial, elected offical or--dare I use a religious metaphor--"politcal lay-person" has the right and priviledge to express their beliefs, concerns, hopes and dreams for their nation (publicly, I might add) as they wish. And since the Constitution (along with the 20th Amendment), as the author pointed out, provides little guidance as to how a presidential inauguration is to proceed (in fact, there is no direction on the inaguration itself, only that the Oath be taken "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office" and that his term begin at noon on the 20th of January) it becomes a rather personal day, with 99% of the details specified by tradition and personal choice. So if you'd like to complain about anything, complain about Mr. Obama's decision to include "religion" in his ceremony not the legal framework for what will proceed on January 20th 2009.

And can we at least show a bit of intelligence by keeping the discussion about the article? Everyone gets so huffy puffy. Christians can make me so angry. And I'm a Christian!

How long have we the people have been putting our hands on the Bible saying So Help me God !!!
It should stay as is.....You get a handful of people who want to change what was there since heaven knows when...
Leave it Be !! It has always been and should always Be

No there aren't fundamentailist Christians abroad promoting terrorism. They're all right here at home blowing up buildings in Oklahoma and doctor's offices nationwide, killing many innocent people in the process. Why is it that Christiian fundamentalists feel they are only bound by certain portions of the Constitution and not others? Apparently "the right to bear arms" is OK for everyone, but "separation of Church and State" is not. And "freedom of speech" only applies to them! Go figure...

Funny how it tends to be the Christians saying the President should have the "freedom" to say "whatever he wants," as long as whatever he wants as the stamp of this government's approval is the religion they share. Despite the baseless twisted history spouted by the right wing, this is NOT a Christian nation, and never has been. It's a SECULAR nation, and anything done in the name of it should be done without the taint of the supernatural. Pray - you all have an iron-clad right to pray, which I will defend with all the fierceness I can muster. Just don't do it in the name of my beloved secular native land.

Freedom of religion! Everyone should be able to express his or her commitment to anything in the way that they most value. For elected officials ... their values or perceived values are what got them elected. If some devil worshiper wishes to take his or her oath over a slaughtered goat, they have that right.

It is unfortunate the so very many citizens are so misinformed on the subject of religion and the government of the United States of America. The vast majority of the emphasis on God in matters of state, from the Pledge of Allegiance to our currency, was imposed during the twentieth century, not at the beginning. This effect was, in fact, likely very much driven by mass media, as it began to really gain steam during the age of radio. Certain mid twentieth century religious evangelical leaders took great advantage of the media and primed to population to expect this, and managed to convince them that this was indeed the vision of the founders of our nation, when it most assuredly was not.

No doubt a significant number of the men who participated in our nations founding were men of great faith, but just as many were not, at least not in the way we currently view this. Such men as George Washington held religious beliefs that would today be considered non-denominational at the very least and probably agnostic by many. They had observed the kinds of abuses which result when governmental policy is based on any religious dogma, and worked very hard to prevent this from happening in the United States, and knew very well how easily it could happen.

I must agree with deadhorse that Atheists can be every bit as condescending and arrogant in their beliefs as any religious zealot. Religion belongs in a house of worship and not in government, and government belongs in our institutions of government and not in the pulpit. There will always be a strong pull to allow the two to intermingle. If history teaches us anything, it is the lesson of just how dangerous it is to allow these two to ride in the same cart. A quick glance at Afghanistan should remind those who might have forgotten, and it does matter in what name one calls Deity, let us all work to prevent this from happening here. Those who proclaim that the United States was a nation founded on fundamentalist Christianity must have this nation confused with another. And that nation is a place where I have no desire to live.

HEy "obvious"...my IQ is 170 and I'm an engineer.

I also believe in God.

Keep your hatred and bigotry to yourself.

Another thing: religion is responsible for the majority of warfare over the last few millenia; and when religion isn't responsible, cultural beliefs are.

Religion is simply the hangover from the drunken beliefs our ancestors had to explaing natural phenomena. We have scince today for all that. We do not need mystic beiefs in the supernatural (communion?) to tether us today; we can and should be grounded an a firm grasp of reality. Spirits have no place (except ina mixed drink)

Spirituality and Religion are two completely opposed ideologies. Religion tries, forever, to control spirituality which it never will.

Spirituality is a particular term which actually means dealing with intuition.

In the theistic tradition there is a notion of clinging into a word, a certain act is regarded as displeasing to a godly principle.

In the non-theistic tradition it is very direct that the case history are not particularly important - what is important is HERE and NOW: this very moment, nothing mystical just simple straight forward a NOW. From this NOW arises a sense of intelligence, always, that you are constant interacting with the reality one by one - spot by spot ??? constantly we actually experience always fantastic precision. We are threatened by the NOW. Paying attention to the materials that exist in our lives all these choices take place all the time -none is regarded as good or bad - it just exists and we experience a hassle "waiting to be death". That is the problem and it is not trusting the NOW. This is so powerful that we cannot face it; therefore we invite the past and the future and invent/give birth to Religion.

Hope this helps to make the distinction in future writings.

As for Theology and the god-experts out there:
"Theology: The Sublime Degree awarded by/to the pompous arrogant ignorant who claims to know what he doesn't know. They even invented a PH.D. in this Delusional Grandeur"

Too bad he didn't tell you about how to use the spellchecker, Facilitator.

I'm not that concerned about the "so help me god" bit, as it's more of a personal utterance. I'd be more concerned if it was mandatory, like Congress' oath, although I'm sure there, like citizenship and military oaths, it's optional too (only nobody tries to tell the people that it's option before swearing). The prayers though, those are troubling because they're inherently divisive. Water them down so it's all generic "god", and fundamentalists of all persuasions get upset. Don't water it down, and the non-Christians get upset. Do any prayer, and atheists, agnostics, and anyone else who cares about the separation of church and state get upset. It just seems at odds with a campaign of change and unity to start off your term with such polarizing divisiveness. I agree with mksh that "he is going to need all the help he can get to lead us out of the messes that we currently are in", so why start off causing another mess?

Logres stats are incorrect. The Barna group shows born again Christians have the same likelihood of divorce as do non-Christians. Look it up. The life span stat is also false.

FIRST AMENDMENT - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ... Congress isn't allowed to create and official Religion AND isn't allowed to prohibit our freedom to practice our Religion of choice. Therefore if WE want to jump through Hoops of Fire or Swear on a Bible or Speak in Tongues or put up monuments of Ten Commandments or Nativity Scenes in OUR public places - the Government has no G*d D*mn right saying WE can't.

I believe that Obama has every right to say "So help me God" if he wants. I would like to see someone tell the president-elect that he cannot express his freedom of speech. And as for seperation of church and state, educate yourself. No where in the US constitution does it call for a seperation of church and state. I really pity the ignorant who reject belief of God.

Mendrol, I really don't think the comment about Christians confusing denominations with different religions is accurate. Any Christian I know considers "different religions" to mean Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Hindu, etc., not Baptist, Methodist and such.

If that's the case, then you have a point, and in the case of Obama's inauguration probably accurate as I haven't heard of his plans to have anyone of any different faiths speak (I think he should, however).

Attention Christians: for years, you have been operating under an incorrect assumption. By making your "official" prayers at these sorts of functions non-denominational, you think you are avoiding the "seperation of church and state" issue. This is false. You're still praying to a God (offending the sensibilities of athiests), and a Christian one at that (offending people like myself, who are deeply religious but don't worship anything like YOUR God). It's like offering 37 flavors of ice cream to someone who is lactose-intolerant: you think you are being generous, but you're still causing someone else pain...