The first amendment of the constitution talks about freedom of expression and religion, and is based on the fact that many of the first American settlers were fleeing religious persecution in certain parts of Europe. Although “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” there are still many parts of the government that contain Christian sayings and ideology. “In god we trust” is written on American dollar bills, and god is also mentioned in the Pledge of Allegiance, which is used in American public schools. What do you think about the constitutionality of these phrases, and where would you personally draw the line on the separation of church and state?
Most mention towards a “Creator” or “God” within American documents (and money, like you mentioned) I don’t think are exclusive of other religions–or at least not of monotheistic religions (this may be false too; for example, Aristotle was a pantheist but he often referred to “God” as a singular Person). A Creator God is similar between all three of the major monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. So, I’m not so certain mentioning of “God” as such is the establishment of a religion–but I think the Founders recognized something indispensable. Objective morality, inherent dignity and equality, and eternal principles of value are impossible with God as a grounding–humanism, rationalism, and empiricism all cannot account for objective moral principles. The Founders understood this, and understood that we must be endowed with rights, created by God, in order to be considered inviolable–or else, relativistic morality reigns, which is a horrible, chaotic, and, quite frankly, unlivable phenomenon. So, I’m not too concerned with this being a violation of separation of church and state–atheists are not treated differently under the law, and neither or religious peoples.
I believe these phrases are not bad for country, because they don’t affect how people are treated. However, I do think they fail to represent our nation and what it stands for. Many people in America don’t believe in God, and our government is entirely separated from any religion. For these reason, I believe the saying, “In God we trust” is inaccurate for our country, but again, I don’t believe it causes any harm either.
I agree with David in that saying God can mean a lot of things, not simply the traditional Christian God from the Bible. If the dollar bill said “In the Bible, we trust”, then that would be an imposition of Christian values on society which is crossing the line between the church and state. I think the only instance where this is challenged is federal holidays, which neglect to give days off to non-Christian holidays. But, at the same time, there isn’t an easy solution to this problem as work schedules are built around the Christmas holiday and giving days off to account for every single holiday would mean we would all hardly work at all.