Under God

Every week or so, an e-mail is forwarded to me with some sort of ultra-right propaganda. Don’t get me wrong, I am clearly conservative in my political views, but like anything, carried to an extreme, it gets ridiculous. The latest was against those who are trying to have the phrase “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Who? Tell me which of my elected officials are backing this legislation and they'll lose my vote.  I suppose there may be some radical group out there wanting this, but are they making enough headway to even be known? Or is this some sort of contrived “boogeyman” to give chest-beating conservatives an easy target? “Liberals want to ban radio transmissions of religious content” or “They want to outlaw puppies, laughter, and Popsicles.” If you don’t forward this E-mail to at least 100 people, you are anti-puppy. (As a personal policy, I never forward any e-mail that provides distribution encouragement and warns me of dire consequence if I don’t.)

I’m proud of the fact that our Founding Fathers recognized the hand of God in the establishment of our nation, and I am glad they memorialized it in on coins, pledges, etc. I recognize that there may be some people who may disagree, who don’t believe in a Supreme Being, but I realize that people who have different views from mine have just as much right to live in this country as I do. I believe in freedom, even for those that deny the divine assistance that helped create that freedom. What if, in the name of tolerance, the “under God” was removed from the pledge? Would God be mad? Would He send more natural disasters? Would he allow Canada to overthrow our government? (Would we then be called U.S.eH?) Sorry.

Seriously, would be begin to forget God? If so, we’re already doomed. By that I mean, if those three syllables are all that is keeping us from godlessness, it’s already too late, even if that E-mail is sent to everyone on earth 1,000 times. I believe the threat to becoming a godless people is exponentially greater from blindness to our own pride, greed, dishonesty, irresponsibility, intolerance and other shortcomings. I mean, let’s keep the “under God” but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that doing so somehow fulfils our responsibility for personal devotion.

p.s. I'm not saying that people who write, pass-along, or enjoy these E-mails are myopic to the virtue, I'm just saying that before we burst a vein over an evil that may or may not be out there, let's just take the time to make fun of Canadians.