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One nation, under siege......
Jun. 27th, 2002 11:42 pmHeard about the court case in California that's threatening to throw out the Pledge of Allegiance out of the classroom. All because of two words -- "under God" -- that were added in 1954 thanks to a drive organized by the Knights of Columbus.
Here's the scuttlebutt, as I know it: An atheist father didn't want his 2nd-grade daughter to be exposed to religion in any form. And so he sued. 2 of the 3 judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with him. And he won.
And now the whole thing has become blown out of proportion. There's talk about a Pledge of Allegiance Amendment, there was a 99-0 vote in the Senate denouncing the ruling (Jesse Helms was home recuperating from heart surgery), and an overt prayer session. Kneejerk reactions, all of them. Laws should never be made in such a manner and attitude; the emotion of the moment clouds the logic of the situation.
As for me, I'm not an atheist. I think too much has happened here on Earth that cannot be explained by pure chance alone. But there is something out there that I can't prove is out there. Maybe there is one entity out there, or a collective.
I think it's rather unrealistic for someone to expect to not be exposed to belief systems other than their own. That's denying other people their freedom of speech. I view that as intolerance.
I'd be interested to hear what JMS (J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5), would have to say about this situation. He has said on numerous occasions that he is an atheist, but many of the characters that he created for the series have a sense of spirituality.
I would be amenable to removing those two words from the Pledge. But to throw out the entire thing is like cutting out a long-standing tradition.
Here's the scuttlebutt, as I know it: An atheist father didn't want his 2nd-grade daughter to be exposed to religion in any form. And so he sued. 2 of the 3 judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with him. And he won.
And now the whole thing has become blown out of proportion. There's talk about a Pledge of Allegiance Amendment, there was a 99-0 vote in the Senate denouncing the ruling (Jesse Helms was home recuperating from heart surgery), and an overt prayer session. Kneejerk reactions, all of them. Laws should never be made in such a manner and attitude; the emotion of the moment clouds the logic of the situation.
As for me, I'm not an atheist. I think too much has happened here on Earth that cannot be explained by pure chance alone. But there is something out there that I can't prove is out there. Maybe there is one entity out there, or a collective.
I think it's rather unrealistic for someone to expect to not be exposed to belief systems other than their own. That's denying other people their freedom of speech. I view that as intolerance.
I'd be interested to hear what JMS (J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5), would have to say about this situation. He has said on numerous occasions that he is an atheist, but many of the characters that he created for the series have a sense of spirituality.
I would be amenable to removing those two words from the Pledge. But to throw out the entire thing is like cutting out a long-standing tradition.
