Our Nation

And now a little post about who founded this country.

To set things straight, while many religions certainly arrived with our forefathers as settlers/rapers of this continent, there is little doubt that the people who cobbled together our constitution, the 'founding fathers' and original patriots were decidedly against mixing politics and religion.

Please see also the Monotheism site , a site expressly devoted to illustrating some very precise quotations from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, among others. Further concise information on this topic can be found here, and here- adherents.com is considered an authority on religion, and here- even a christian institution has such an informational page. And here, just for sake of contrast, is a page explaining how many of those same founding fathers were pretty religious.

Our money has "In god we trust" on it- how did that get there?

According to Wikipedia, "The motto In God We Trust was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the American Civil War." -but, strangely enough, a law wasn't made placing it on all money until 1956.

But... our pledge of allegiance has "One nation, under god" in it- how did that get there?

Again, according to wikipedia, "Though the Knights of Columbus tried, they were unsuccessful in their attempts to persuade the United States government to amend the pledge. It was a Presbyterian minister who made the difference in 1954 by preaching a sermon about Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address." ...pretty close to when the money got changed, too. Hmm.

...so, I would have to assume that those who are not Presbyterian would have to take great offense at the idea that we're asked to call our nation one under their god.

My final question here would have to be- the surefire way to rile up the right is to threaten that the left is out to take away their freedom (never mind that all the freedoms the right has were fought for by the left). Is it possible that the current upswing in fear by the left that the right is out to take away their freedom unfounded? Is it sensationalist media and diversionist tactic? Are we being suckered?

...or is there indeed a movement of people so un-american* that they would take away the freedoms of others by passing their religious beliefs into law?