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aimee
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another excellent post,gilliam…I agree
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Fitz
Guest
I have been trying to compose a post for this thread, but it always got too sarcastic. You said it very nicely gilliam, so I will just support your point. I agree totally!
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pear
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Elaine’s Cross – It’s a shame you let your political opinions overwhelm your love of country. Not very nice message to all the men and women in our Armed Forces, either. If you don’t agree with the war, fine, but it’s pretty selfish to say you won’t honor our nation’s flag. Think of all the people who have died defending our country and what our flag represents – you may not mean it that way, but it’s a slap in the face to all of them. Not very nice.
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AleGenoa
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NO, you shouldn’t!!
Sometimes living in a different environment helps people see things from a different perspective. Let an outsider warn you, the problem with America is that you can’t perceive the difference between what makes sense and what is customary in the USA, albeit unthinkable in the rest of the world.
That article quoted at the beginning of the thread doesn’t tell me something unexpected.
This pledge was meant to be a substitute for prayer.
There are a lot of good reasons not to recite it, and not a single one to continue this practice.
But for someone who believes in God, the choice between prayer and this pledge is decisive.
Sometimes living in a different environment helps people see things from a different perspective. Let an outsider warn you, the problem with America is that you can’t perceive the difference between what makes sense and what is customary in the USA, albeit unthinkable in the rest of the world.
That article quoted at the beginning of the thread doesn’t tell me something unexpected.
This pledge was meant to be a substitute for prayer.
There are a lot of good reasons not to recite it, and not a single one to continue this practice.
But for someone who believes in God, the choice between prayer and this pledge is decisive.
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gilliam
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You do not know what you are saying. When we in America say one nation under God, we mean, well, one nation under God.
We don’t mean whatever you are thinking we mean. I guess you have to be here to understand.
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777
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Anyway you all say it, it’s all confusing
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AleGenoa
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In order to understand things you need NOT to be involved. This is a general rule.You do not know what you are saying. When we in America say one nation under God, we mean, well, one nation under God.
We don’t mean whatever you are thinking we mean. I guess you have to be here to understand.
I don’t think you mean anything bad. BUT… (here comes sthng complicated, I’ll try to summarize) the real driving force behind modern philosophies and ideologies is the original sin, their will to do as they wish, against Our (not a generic!) God; that’s why they attack religions, and favour other religions over christianity, and favour protestantism over catholicism.
Hypocrisy, propaganda and deceit were needed from the beginning, because we are talking of small we-know-better minorities trying to change the minds of the majority.
Europe had a common cultural basis for its identity and its society: Christianity.
So, for an European, it is normal to think in terms of a single culture for everyone. That’s why “progressists” organized teachings in order to depict our faith as a thing from the past, and their ideology as the future (whatever ideology they were professing: communism, liberalism, and so on). This secularist mindset controls our media now, so the typical european citizen is today used to think that religion is something he still doesn’t want to get rid completely, but it’s dwindling and losing steam in favour of the real progress, of a modern culture which is better than any religion.:crying:
They couldn’t use the same “the new culture gradually erases everything and substitutes the old one” trick in the USA, because there was no perception of a common culture (despite the founders being more homogeneous than the europeans), so none could hope to convince all the Americans as a whole to become part of some brave new world like a communist paradise, for instance; moreover, they needed to build a new country, so they couldn’t ignore or even deny the preminence of God.
So the anti-christian élite (notably freemasons, like the vast majority of the founders and presidents, many of them being also victims of a deception or self-deception) had to go a longer route, using a more complicated trick.
Desensitizing people in a more gradual way.
The basis was the fact that the protestant flavour of christianism is already a good step in the direction of demolishing the faith itself: no strong common religious ground, being vulnerable to the mainstream ideas of the time, and most important of all, giving the State the crown of being the Supreme Authority, the ultimate touchstone of what is acceptable, good, legal, true.
They built on this: a typical American is an American first of all; then he may be also a catholic, a baptist, jew, Irish, Black, baseball fan or whatever. But being part of the Nation comes first.
They also demoted the idea of God: not Jesus anymore;
just a generic God, whose role is just that of being there saying “be a good citizen” and nothing more.
The God you find on banknotes.
A God not different from the goddess Athena for the people of Athens, before Christ went for us.
Knowing of this process, we may understand why it is just coming the time when even the phrases referring to a generic useless God start to be attacked by some in the USA, as an unacceptable imposition, to be banned in order to keep “separation between church and state”.
Had you hypothetically accepted this process without reacting, in the atheists’ dream you’d end in a not so distant future being part of a nation where this obsessive allegiance to the-flag-and-the-piece-of-paper-and-the-president-and-our-sons-in-the-army and so on is still very strong and conditioning your understanding of life, but there is no more need to talk about this rhetoric “god” and everyone is fine with their atheism.
When I first heard that American children were supposed to recite a formula every morning at school, I went mad.
How can you let them do this to your sons?
It is a form of conditioning. Only prayers can get this kind of privileged status. Reciting formulas where the state or the constitution or a flag takes the place of God is being a victim or a willing accomplice of a sacrilege, and it desn’t matter if the “atheistic prayer” is not formally or explicitly attempting to attack or substitute religious values, nor it is important if such a formula refers temporarily to some generic God, while the masses are still in need to be enlightened.
Of course there are a lot of good people who don’t see this problem and try in good faith to save both the idea of the christian God and this odd religion of the State.
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gilliam
Guest
There is nothing generic about God. When we pledge we are saying our country is one nation under God. It is a reminder to all of us that we live under God. It is a good thing that we remind ourselves of this every morning.
In the US you can’t have a mandatory prayer every morning. The best you could ever hope for is 1 minute of silence. For grade school kids, that won’t work, they need the help of structure. The pledge, then is a good remindr for them that we live under God.
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AleGenoa
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Don’t buy in the propaganda “after all, we all believe in the same, only God”. Every religion (including theisms, and freemason’s vision) speaks about a different God. At least all but one of them are false gods. Confusing between them serves only the purpose of the atheists. In fact it’s in the plans of some secularists, who determined the way our societies are shaped, to start by giving you an idea of a generic God, one who doesn’t influence your lives, a distant, unreachable, non-relevant Great Architect, who didn’t suffer for you, who is simply remembered as a useful tool to convince people to obey the law and to be ready to give their lives to the state, if required.
In a second time they may complete the process by removing the word “God”, for it would have become just a metaphor none cares of.
Of course they won’t prevail. But we must react.
And no, it’s not just “better than nothing”. It would be so if we were speaking of a country where there was no religious tradition. In this case it would be a start. But we are talking about people who were already christians, so this generic God is a demoted one, it’s a step backwards.
And even without taking into account this projected outcome, the attitude they spread is dangerous as well, because it shifts your priorities giving the Nation with the capital N a position it doesn’t deserve.
**You just can’t mix God with a nation! And doing so in a statement with the structure, usage and conditioning power of a prayer!
**
Can’t you see the ill effects? People attribute religious values to civil institutions, even if created by freemasons (enemies of our Church), even in this very forum:
Originally Posted by Peter_Atlanta
*the divinely inspired U.S. Constitution.
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Elaine_s_Cross
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Peter, your posts have opened my eyes on my own verbal inadequacies. Magnifico!!! Your posts have also helped explain the points of the authors I quoted in my original post starting this thread.
One of the points I was so inadequately trying to make is that this pledge, as authored by Bellamy, could inadverdently deify the state. From the opinions of many I see in this forum, Bellamy was quite correct in his theory.
One should also consider that the modern concept of public education in this country was adapted from Otto von Bismark and its chief goals were to indoctrinate citizens in order that they become obedient and pliant, even docile citizens who would be subservient to the central government.
I don’t why so many Catholics in this country are so willing to accept freemasonry concepts of government.
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Elaine_s_Cross
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Well, in south Louisiana in the 1960’s, you hear things on the streets and in the schools. Shame on those for doing so, but don’t point your finger at me. That’s a bit presumptious.
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Jesus4Me
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If you don’t feel an allegiance to our country why do you stay here? You want the benefits of being in our country, yet you don’t feel any type of allegiance to it?
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Elaine_s_Cross
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Alliegance to country, yes; government, no. I feel the pledge is a government tool to inspire feelings of false patriotism and loyalty to the central government at the expense of the states; in other words, a propoganda tool just as it was intended to be by its author.If you don’t feel an allegiance to our country why do you stay here? You want the benefits of being in our country, yet you don’t feel any type of allegiance to it?
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gilliam
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Elaine's Cross:
Sorry, your arguements against it, fall flat when the facts are examined.
The pledge of allegiance is not a pledge to a government, but to the constitutional Republic. No matter what the author intended, that is what it is now. And it reminds all of us that we are one nation under God.
Sorry, your arguements against it, fall flat when the facts are examined.
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bones_IV
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Exactly.
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bones_IV
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If you don’t like the pledge of allegiance then get out!
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cainem
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a good subsitute for the pledge for catholics of any nationality is the creed, that is the only pledge of allegiance that any catholic needs, after all we are catholic first secondly and last
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777
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Don’t forget daughters too.
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wisdom_3_5
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This is an interesting perspective. Though as a child I always knew Under God meant the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob- Jesus’ father etc.
Do you have insights into freemasonry? (people you know, ex-members etc.) Some of your writing suggests you understand more than most people.
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BillyT92679
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To me, I’ve always been patriotic, and that requires an assent to this by recitation of the Pledge. I’ve also always been a person who favors a strong central authority, from being A. A Catholic who favors a strong Papacy and B. someone who grew up in New York State and realizes that if the Federal government is bad, the State government can be much, much worse.
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