{"id":3623,"date":"2011-06-20T16:02:05","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T20:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/?p=3623"},"modified":"2011-06-20T16:02:05","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T20:02:05","slug":"one-nation-easily-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2011\/06\/one-nation-easily-divided.html","title":{"rendered":"One nation, easily divided"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kids<\/a>Mashable reports<\/a>, “Soon after NBC aired a pre-taped segment for a golf tournament that twice omitted the words \u201cunder God\u201d from the United States Pledge of Allegiance, the Twittersphere erupted<\/a> into a fury of controversy.” (See the video here.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my better half wondered aloud<\/a> on her blog today why we consistently manufacture mountains out of mole hills.\u00a0 There’s little to suggest this was an overt message as much as a poor editing choice.\u00a0 As she notes, “one nation” and “indivisible” also get left out at points.\u00a0 And no one is screaming that NBC is advocating a new civil war.<\/p>\n

Yet I’d approach the question somewhat differently.\u00a0 What if NBC did do this on purpose?\u00a0 I doubt that’s the case, but so what if it is?\u00a0 The majority of the outrage seems to be coming from Christian groups who are apparently maligned, abused, and oppressed because the phrase “under God” was left out.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Just because you can’t force everyone to be like you doesn’t mean you’re being discriminated against.\u00a0 Despite Michele Bachmann’s efforts<\/a>, this is (not yet) a theocracy.\u00a0 The very fact the words “under God” are in the Pledge are a nod to the reality that some 90% of Americans worship God<\/a> in one form or another.\u00a0 But it’s not a requirement to be an American.<\/p>\n

Even as an atheist, I don’t and won’t advocate for the return of the Pledge to its pre-1954 godless state.\u00a0 This is primarily because “under God” is a harmless and somewhat meaningless phrase when spoken the the context of a mass pledge.\u00a0 It has personal meaning to many people when they say it because they know what they mean by it.\u00a0 Fine. No harm done.\u00a0 But hearing the person next to you say “under God” doesn’t remotely mean they share your meaning.\u00a0 By “God” they could be referring to Shiva, Odin, or the rabbit’s foot in their pocket they happen to worship.\u00a0 Or they might just be reciting it they way they learned in school and the words have no meaning whatsoever.\u00a0 It might be just a rote saying.\u00a0 And if hearing someone say something is meaningless, can it really be meaningful when they don’t?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t care if the Pledge says “under God” as it is a meaningless phrase. If hearing someone say something is meaningless, can it be meaningful when they don’t?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[131,22,85,15],"class_list":["post-3623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","tag-atheism","tag-political-ideology","tag-religious-right","tag-tea-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3623"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3634,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions\/3634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}