NBC wants to hear your stance on whether or not “In God We Trust” belongs on our national currency.
If you have been reading my blog long, I am pretty sure you know how I voted.
Be heard HERE.
In God We Trust?
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.
the people (on both sides) who read too much into the use of the word “god” during the founding of the USA are patent retards. it’s almost always a period phrase – for example “one nation under god” is basically a big “up yours” to the english, saying without any uncertainty that the united states was not under the british monarchy. i am not familiar with the history of the US dollar, but i imagine “in god we trust” has similar, *almost* secular meaning.
given that the majority of founding fathers were masons, and that as an extreme example thomas jefferson was most definitely not a christian, it’s absurd to draw any more meaning from these phrases than the above mentioned. i’m agnostic, and i could care less if i’m carrying around some green pieces of paper that happen to have “the g word” on them.
don’t we have something more important to argue about?
Our founding fathers of this country established our freedom with Judeo-Christian principles. What a sad comment from the fwaggle. How odd that fwaggle reads the Christian blogs, unless fwaggle is really looking to find some faith is some odd way.
I vote to keep “In God We Trust” on our money!
I appreciate your mentioning this issue on your blog. I was raised under the principle that “you must stand for something or you will fall for anything.” The previous commentor seems rather passionate about nothing or maybe history rather. Even if you are agnostic, as the previous commentor, you could still be a believer of the foundations of this country. No matter what you might believe the reasoning of “in God we trust” is, the founders of our country obviously valued the phrase enough to have it on our currency. I do not think that we should arrogantly reverse what the founding fathers put into place on our currency. In this “Babylon” we are living in, I certainly will hold fast to my Savior and know without a shadow of a doubt that He is the one I CAN place my trust in!
Fwaggle –
I do not wish to begin an argument, but I would like to present a couple of points from my point of view.
I just have to point out that I know an Eastern Star (the female version of the Masons – their wives and female family members) and they do believe in the same God. They differ on other issues, much like other protestant denominations believe in the same God and differ in other beliefs. (I do not personally agree with the Masons or Easter Star, but they do claim to believe in the same God.)
I believe the forefathers most certainly added that phrase to the currency with intent and purpose. Many of the people who immigrated here did so to break away from the king’s church. Then came the break from the monarchy and our own independence. The original settlers undoubtedly passed on their beliefs to their children, or phrases like “In God We Trust” and “One nation under God” would not have been used.
I understand that we are now a very diverse nation with many different backgrounds and beliefs. But these phrases are a part of our history and symbolic of our nation’s heritage. It’s where we came from, and we cannot change the past.
To deny our history is to deny part of who we are – independent, steadfast in our beliefs, and willing to fight and die for them.
To strike these phrases from current use solely because of personal preference is to deny our history because of prejudice – which flies in the face of the very freedoms and rights our country was founded on.
Likewise, so does criticizing anyone for voting in favor of their personal beliefs. I would not expect you to do any less.
@fwaggle – re:”Don’t we have something more important to argue about?” It depends on what you consider important. Clearly you felt it was an important topic because you left a comment. Rock the vote – call your congressional representatives and ask them remove the text if its that important to you. I’ll call mine and request they vote to leave the text on there because
1) The money is not intrinsically valuable in and of itself [it isn’t even backed by gold]
2) The only way the money has any value philosophically is if God exists, thus giving everything in the universe value, including you
3) I believe I have the right to ask my representative to represent me as well
I guess I have been to busy to hear about this. What is this world coming to! I sure went and cast my vote. Thanks so much for bring this to our attention.
I voted! 🙂
Amber: believing in the christian God is not a central tenet of freemasonry – many of my extended family are involved in freemasonry, and i’d considered it purely from a business perspective (it opens many many doors, let’s put it that way). one of the basic mandates of freemasonry is that you believe in a “grand architect”, it needn’t necessarily be the christian god, and in fact many christians believe freemasonry to be in direct violation of christianity (if nothing else, just off the top of my head, the masonic rituals disregard Matthew 6:7-13).
i think you guys misunderstood me when i asked if we didn’t have something more important to argue about – i see absolutely nothing wrong with leaving the currency as it is. i saw nothing wrong with leaving the ten commandments in a court building, however i draw the line when christian (or any other religion’s) beliefs are used to enact laws which a constitutionally-sound government has no business enforcing (could you imagine if a muslim majority were elected into us government somehow and tried to enact islamic law? the constitution exists to protect us from exactly these things, you can’t expect protection from non-christian religions and allow christianity to slide through)… but you could hardly call having a plaque of the ten commandments in a courthouse that, nor could you call having “in god we trust” on our money that either.
again, these are period phrases. they were used because in those days it was never politically a question of whether there was a god. in about the same way as einstein (who wasn’t a christian, you’re misled if you thought he was) has said things like “god doesn’t play dice games with the universe”. it just fits well to describe the unexplainable, the unachievable.
as i said, i’m no scholar when it comes to the history of us currency, but it seems to me that “in god we trust” probably has something to do with not having the british monarchy involved in the free trade of currency. “one nation under god” basically means “there’s god, then there’s us, there is no british monarchy in between”. it’s just a word they used to describe the philosophical ultimate power, it is not necessarily implying that the founding fathers specifically chose the christian god to be it.
the reason this is true is if you look at the notion of separation of church and state. no official religion. i don’t understand why you’d argue with *me* over this, because i’m giving you guys a way out. if you keep arguing it definitely means the christian god, and argue to keep it there, you’re cutting the limb you’re sitting on. you can’t have both, and still abide by the principles this country was founded on. if you claim that a phrase on an official currency refers to a specific god, then it certainly violates freedom of religion. i don’t believe it does (in either sense).
randy: money has value for the same reason gold has value (and no, i don’t believe it’s because god said so) – it has value because of your ability to convince others they want it, and society does a fantastic job of convincing people they *need* money.
since society can certainly do that with or without god, i think it’s irrelevant to even mention something like that as a good reason to keep the phrase there, if for no other reason than it’s an argument easily shot down.
i’ll reiterate: i’m in favor of leaving the phrase there simply because it’s a huge waste of resources to re-print every bill over something so trivial. call it tradition, and call it a day.
Fwaggle:
For the sake of a good discussion..
I think you misunderstood me on a point, and I’d like to address a couple of other things as well.
First of all, I do not personally consider freemasonry to be what I would call “christians” and was not trying to claim that in any way. My point was simply that the ones I know think/say they are and claim to believe in the same God I do. If that is the case and if it is the case that many forefathers were also freemasons (I do not personally know much on that matter) – their being freemasons does not automatically rule out their believing in and referring to the Christian God.
I still believe our forefathers chose these phrases with intention. One nation under God DOES seem to imply that they are accountable to God alone and not the monarchy, however they could have said that some other way without including God’s name if they did not also believe they were accountable to God. One would put a great amount of thought into scripting a pledge of allegiance for their new country, don’t you think? I’m sure they didn’t take it lightly.
Also, perhaps you mistake me for the type who argues for my religious (Christian) rights and yet against the religious rights of others? As I mentioned in my first comment, one of this country’s foundations was religious freedom. The waters have muddied a little since then, but it is still something we claim to have in this country. I don’t argue that we change that.
Yes, I WOULD like the phrase “In God We Trust” remain on our currency. Yes, I would like “One nation under God” to remain in our pledge. Reason number one as I mentioned is that it is symbolic of our country’s origins and fight for freedom of religion. Therefore not only a reminder to me of my freedom to worship God, but everybody’s freedom to choose, really. The forefathers may have had certain religious beliefs, but the point was that you didn’t have to. They did not want the government dictating religion to the people, as was the case with the monarchy. Reason #2 is that I am a Christian, yes. However, as I said, I do realize that we are now more religiously diverse than we were when these phrases were put into place. If we, as a country, voted majorally to replace these phrases because they are no longer accurate or fitting or whatever- well, I would be disappointed but I would accept it knowing that is how democracy works. ON THE OTHER HAND – if leaders in this country choose to remove those phrases STRICTLY BECAUSE THEY ARE CHRISTIAN PHRASES,.. then that is where my disagreement would lay. There would be no way around the fact that would be prejudicial and intolerant (prejudice and intolerance being things this country “claims” not to tolerate.)
At this point in time, America is still viewed (by other countries and many people in America) as a Christian country. At this point in time, (though I don’t know how long that will last) when polled a majority still claims to believe in the Christian God. Would it be right to deny our national heritage, would it be right to deny the majority vote, for the sake of the minority? Is that how democracy works?
When the day comes that we vote on issues like these and the majority no longer votes in favor of these Christian phrases, then so be it. The majority will win, and that’s how democracy works. That’s how democracy should work.
It may sound like I am ranting, but I am really not. I am actually quite calm over here. But I am going to vote for and stand for what I believe in, because I also believe that is part of what we are supposed to do, as Christians and as citizens both. By that I mean it is my right as an American citizen to vote for my preferences, and it is my duty to my faith to stand for what I believe in.
I encourage each person to do the same.
I voted to keep it on there,of course, and I also blogged about this and gave you credit for bringing it to my attention. 🙂
I believe that the history of “In God We Trust” comes not from the founding, but the mid-1900s when we were in the cold war with the Russians. As an atheist empire, Congress at the time went through a period of making sure that everyone know that America was based on a worldview that did believe in a God.
It was at this time that “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag.
So it’s not like it’s something that was in there since the founding– it’s a modern construct.
That being said, I believe that it does not have the meaning it once did– for now it’s not “the Christian God” which was probably the original implication, but it’s the modern “God” meaning any and every god you may believe in. That, and that this country is far more secular humanist influenced by post-Christianity than it is Christian… but that’s a whole other comment. 🙂