I haven’t read the essay yet, but again, as a Christian, I never said the pledge in school.  I thought it was stupid to be forced to say it.  I do agree that the phrase “under God” shouldn’t have to be in it, especially since it was tacked on and not in the original version, but that aside, I don’t like “pledging allegience”.
For Christians, this should cause a red flag because we’re not supposed to participate in Idol Worship. I know it’s not “worship” per se but it’s close, Christians have called far less such.  For me, being forced to say out loud that I will be devoted to an entity, whatever it’s form is ludicrous to me.  I love this country, I think it’s better than most out there, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still problems with it, and that’s the great thing, I have the freedom to discuss those problems.  So with the acception of being treasonous, why should we be forced to sware devotion to a peice of cloth?
I never said the pledge in school and I always got the “unpatriotic” thing.  So?  Doesn’t mean I root for the other guys, I’m just not one for school spirit and don’t want to be forced to go to the pep-rallies, is that so wrong?
If I said anything stupid I blame it on the frelling Time Change....loosing sleep grumble....

Certainly there are plenty of Christian denominations that ask for an exception to the Pledge for just that reason, Speaker.

For myself, it never seemed (and still doesn’t seem) that big a deal.  Having everyone say the Pledge together doesn’t bother me.  More and more, though, the inclusion of the religious phrase bothers me.

For me, it was that we HAD to say it.  I don’t mind it’s existence, and I don’t mind the National Anthem before events and such.  It’s the fact that from an early age, you have to say it every week day morning of your life.  They’re better now because you can be silent if you want, but still it seems to me like conditioning.  If you say it enough you’ll mean it sorta.
If kids didn’t have to say it every day I doubt people would care about the phrase. 
But still, kids are forced to Zieg Hail the flag every morning.  It just gives me 1984 heebie jeebies.  Perhaps I over analyze it, but still....

But still, kids are forced to Zieg Hail the flag every morning. It just gives me 1984 heebie jeebies. Perhaps I over analyze it, but still�.

Seig Heil? I think not. Here are some of the author’s words on the meaning of his pledge.

[list]The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the ‘republic for which it stands.’ ...And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?[/list]

For more information follow the link in my first 14 October post in this thread.

Cool - you read ‘The New Republic’ too, Les? It being such a small magazine, actually (and a small world too, it seems). TNR was the first time I ever paid for an online subscription.

VernR....
I apologize, I didn’t mean that the pledge was inherrently “Seig Hail” like...the fact that kids are forced to say it with their hands over their heart in forced devotion daily.  I know now you can be silent but when I was in school not too terribly long ago we go in trouble if we were silent. Some schools still force you to say it too....
That what was the metaphore was too, not to the words in the pledge by themselves.

Speaker, I think you made some valid points.  The “Under God” line is bad enough, but as Les pointed out, it’s basically an add-on for political reasons.  The pledge itself always seemed lame to me, if only because the school I went to (and I suspect many others, past & present) failed to explain civic and ethical concepts that would make the symbols of Pledge and Flag relevant to the kids in the classroom.  I think the pledge does have real meaning, but forcing kids to recite it without context day after day kills off any curiosity or interest they might have over the ideas that form the text.

It’s little facts like these that make this obsession with the pledge so wierd.

The original Pledge was recited while giving a stiff, uplifted right hand salute, criticized and discontinued during WWII.

from Here.

It’s all about tradition until the tradition is a little uncomfortable to deal with.

Thanks Brock, I was going to point out the fact that the Pledge was originally given while holding your hand in a position not unlike the Nazi’s famous gesture, but you beat me to it. Yes, it was changed to placing your hand over your heart once the Nazi’s started making asses of themselves.

Personally, I’ve never been a big ‘rah-rah’ type of guy in the first place, but if we’re going to pay lip-service to the idea that America is an all-inclusive society then we should ensure that our expressions of Patriotism don’t belie that claim.

It wasn’t me Les, it was Brooks who pointed out that interesting fact - thanks a lot, because now I feel I owe you an interesting fact!

Those damned Nazis ... they ruined all sorts of keen ritual symbolism, not to mention black uniforms ...

Oops! Sorry about that Brooks! I was in a hurry and only glanced at the name. Proper credit where it’s due. Thanks for pointing out my mistake, Brock.

That’s OK, you don’t need to give me credit. I take everyone else’s credit all day long around here.

I also like how they changed the word MY flag because they didn’t want immigrants thinking of the flag of their homeland when reciting the pledge.

That’s not the ONLY thing the Nazi’s ruined, *** Dave.  They ALSO comPLETELY ruined the whole mustache look that Hitler had!  I mean, come on!  All kinds of people used to have those rediculous looking things!  Wouldn’t it be great if we coulda still had those today?  They’re so goofy lookin’.  But he just HAD to wear it when he started the Holocaust.  Like a douchebag.  A damned Nazi douchebag…

More good stuff relating to the second paragraph in Les’s quote.

Yesterday Diane Rehm interviewed Susan Jacoby who was making the rounds to promote her new book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. Based on (most of) the first chapter it appears to be a worthwhile book.

The chapter titles provide an overview of the thrust of Jacoby’s book. It’s not the usual slant on American history and I look forward to filling some of the numerous gaps in my knowledge.

1.Revolutionary Secularism
2.The Age of Reason and Unreason
3.Lost Connections: Anticlericism, Abolutionism, and Feminism
4.The Belief and Unbelief of Abraham Lincoln
5.Evolution and Its Discontents
6.The Great Agnostic and the Golden Age of Freethought
7.Darwin and the Culture Wars
8.Unholy Trinity: Atheists, Reds, and Darwinists
9.Onward, Christian Soldiers
10.The Best Years of Our Lives
11.Culture Wars Redux
12.Reason Embattled

Here is part of her closing paragraph.

American secularists have trouble deciding what to call themselves today, in part because the term has been so denigrated by the right and in part because identifying oneself as secular humanist�unlike, say calling oneself a Jew, a Catholic, or a Baptist�has a vaguely bureaucratic ring. It is time to revive the evocative and honorable freethinker, with its insistence that American think for themselves instead of relying on received opinion. The combination of free and thought embodies every ideal that still hold out to a nation founded on the best human hopes for a more just earth.

Just to keep the record straight, I am receiving some opinion from this quote, but it resonates.

I agree that “secular humanist” is a pretty clunky term.  My concern over “freethinker” is twofold:

1. Everyone at least draws on some “received opinion.” Even if it’s just looking for a quote about secularists that resonates, as you note. 

2.  It perpetuates the idea that non-secular folks (say, “a Jew, a Catholic, or a Baptist") is simply a little religious automaton, being fed pablum through the ears and regurgitating it, unexamined, back out the mouth.  While I can think of some apparent examples of that, there are many religious folk I know who examine critically the “received opinions” that are handed to them, to see if they are congruent (or resonate) with their own reason, feeling, and experience.

***Dave,

How could I not agree? A good part of the education process consists of receiving opinion�hopefully less and less the further one goes. As to your second observation, that could well happen. Although, when I made the post, I was not thinking of Jew, Catholic, or Baptist as being pejorative terms.

The conservative right is very successful in tagging people and issues* with a label that establishes a negative image. Their use of the term secular humanist is just one example. I became enthusiastic about Jacoby’s ending because use of the term free thinker (or an appropriate equivalent) appeared to be an in-your-face way for liberals to constructively use of the same technique.

* On 12 February did posted a link in another thread that points to an NPR piece called ‘Framing’ Political Arguments.

In my “book” it’s all about “the identicalness of religion and politics”
for many years already I argue that religion(s) should be treated like any (other) political movement: apart from personal reflection and inspiration, -that is not anyone else�s business-, religions are about how people interact, about goals for society at large, acceptable means to reach them etc
From my own experience in and with political parties I know that for many (I think most) members their membership implicitly or even explicitly implies some kind of division between �us� and �them� or even good and bad.

(Frans:) that religion(s) should be treated like any (other) political movement

There is the ultimate reason why I formally resigned my membership in the Protestant church.

From the Netherlands no less.

This time I mostly disagree. In my book it’s all about separation of Church and State. It was in our Constitution because the deists and evangelical Protestants found it mutually beneficial to have it that way.  The founders wanted separation because of the abuses that they saw in the European systems of government. They didn’t slip it under the door in the dark of night. During the ratification process the issue was openly and heatedly debated by the several state assemblies.

Us vs them is a long standing part of the human condition. In many American Indian’s native languages the tribal name often meant ‘The People’. Anyone else not in the tribe was an outsider�sometimes an enemy, sometimes not.

eldwe…

For my part, churches should lose their tax exempt status.

For my part, churches should lose their tax exempt status.

Absolutely! I couldn’t agree more. But could that ever happen, and how could we bring it about?

hi
Out of left field again.
A great deal of time is spent debating what we think about these issue of religion and in particular church and state,this is perfectly natural.However the language and logic required to debate is a left brain hemisphere activity.
I am tending to feel more and more that the reason religion flounders in the face of logic and rational is that it is a right brain hemisphere activity ie intuitive.
If genuine spiritual revelation is intuitive then it is impossible to refute it using logic.
The interpretation of this revelation as god or whatever is problamatic,and, since the only language we have is a rational construct that despite all the effort of philosophers,poets etc,will allways fall short of the actual experience.No way for it to be conveyed to rationalists.
If it is true that religion stems from intuition then it has no place alongside politics which is a rational? construct.
This begs the question,If half of our total perception of reality is based on the proccesing based on intuition how do we apply this intuitive knowledge in a world dominated by rational and logic.
I have a nagging doubt that the more I try to pursue knowledge about the human condition using just logic and rationale.The further i drift from the true nature of the condition which is 50%intuition. 
I am sorry if this goes of tangent.I just can’t help thinking that if we are to diffuse the terrible potency that religion has aquired then we need to understand the epistemology as well as taking practical political action.

Absolutely! I couldn�t agree more. But could that ever happen, and how could we bring it about?

Oh, the tough questions of feasibility.

[list]Not any time soon--if ever.[/list]

[list]I haven’t a clue.[/list]

There’s a fallacy in assuming that intuition “comes out of thin air” or “out of the mysterious right brain” and is not simply a less-than-conscious response to real observations.  Most people who claim intuition can be taught to become more aware of the concrete things that led them to their conclusions (such as verbal and nonverbal cues), and will readily acknowledge that if you take away those inputs, their intuition also vanishes.  There’s nothing magical about intuition.  It’s a skill—not one that everyone has, any more than everyone is good at dancing—and it can be developed and sharpened with education and practice.

Not the intuition i’m thinking of.
Rationality logic is also plucked out of thin air of the mysterious left brain unless you know of some mechanism to describe the process.
“The rational mind,specialised for language and verbal thought seems to operate analytically,much like a computer,following the digital laws of logic.The intuitive mind however,is analogic and therefore much more difficult to describe.Its most important feature,one which cannot be modelled in logical terms is its ability to grasp things whole.The intuitive mind is capable of dealing in conceptual wholeness.It spies pattern or form,shapes in our visual field,sounds in our aural field,meaning in our linguistic field.
Intuitive understanding is indeed more of a feeling than a knowing,paying more attention to context than detail.It is an understanding that allways appears fuzzy at the edges because our rational mind can never analyse it with its logic.
All our deepest profound wisdom falls into this category.
If we consider our understanding of colour,space and time,beauty,love or understanding itself,it becomes apparent that all these fundemantal concepts are essentially experiential,repulsing rational,verbal thought.They cannot legitimately be reduced.They can only be ingested whole.”