Today in my communications class, the topic of the dollar bill came up. How we got there, I don’t know. Paying attention in that class has never been my strong point. But regardless, I was shocked as people around me started to argue that having “In God We Trust” on the back of the one dollar bill did not present any problem. They said, “it doesn’t say in Jesus we trust, so it’s not like we’re targeting one religion. It can apply to any belief” and “its monotheistic, and not many people are polytheistic so it doesn’t leave anyone out”. How about those of us who don’t believe in any god? We’re just supposed to suck it up so the majority of Americans can feel good about their money? Yes. Yes we are.
But when has the opinion of atheists ever influenced the decisions of politicians? As someone in my class brought up, as a counter to my separation of church and state argument, candidates always end speeches with “God bless you, and God bless America”; we don’t call for it in our constitution, but its there so your argument sucks.
Well excuse me. I thought the point of the first amendment was to ensure this kind of logic wouldn’t work. Sure it happens, but shouldn’t this be an argument to end the calling-on of God at the end of every speech as opposed to an argument against the bill of rights? Just because it’s happening doesn’t give it superiority to what my country was founded on.
