Tuesday, March 08, 2011

"In God We Trust"

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday chose not to hear an appeal by atheist Michael Newdow from a decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the national motto, "In God We Trust," as found on currency and elsewhere, violates Newdow's Constitutional rights.

Religion Clause: Cert. Denied In Challenge To "In God We Trust" Motto

The Appeals Court decision was rendered by a different panel of 9th Circuit judges than the one that ruled in favor of Newdow's attack on the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, only to have it denounced by Congress and thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004 on a technicality.

Long before these 21st-century cases, the 9th Circuit ruled back in 1970 that words like "God" in the Pledge and judicial oaths has no "theological" meaning, that is, does not refer to "the Supreme Judge of the World," or "The Great Lord and Ruler of Nations," or the God of the Bible, but is a secular term, "ceremonial" and "patriotic," designed to inculcate obedience to the State.

History shows, however, that America's Founding Fathers placed their trust in the God of the Bible, not a secular State.

Courts today, imposing the religion of Secular Humanism on our nation, are afraid to say that "In God We Trust" does not refer to God, or that it does and it's "unconstitutional," so they usually resort to technicalities to avoid hearing the case.

Those courts which have been brave enough to take the case, but hypocritical enough to uphold such references to the God of the Bible by calling them instances of "ceremonial deism," forget earlier cases in which "deism" was held to be inconsistent with the founding ideals of this "Christian nation" (e.g., Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 43 U.S. 127 (1844)).

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