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Coin image omits 'In God We Trust' at School


Thiebear

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http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14628069.htm

***** The name of the school is LIBERTY Elementary ******

Insert Ironic icon here.....

partial quote

Coin image omits 'In God We Trust'By JESSAMY BROWN

STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

A Keller school district parent said political correctness has run amok at her daughter's elementary school, where the principal chose to omit the words "In God We Trust" from an oversize coin depicted on the yearbook cover.

Janet Travis, principal of Liberty Elementary School in Colleyville, wanted to avoid offending students of different religions, a district spokesman said. Students were given stickers with the words that could be affixed to the book if they so chose.

Debi Ackerman of North Richland Hills said she is offended by the omission. It's yet another example of a politically correct culture that is removing Christian references from all public places, she said.

"I think it's really ridiculous," said Ackerman, whose daughter Tawni, 10, took the book home Thursday afternoon. "Now it has come to this. ... When is it going to end?"

She likened the situation to retailers that use "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" in their displays and advertising.

"First, we can't say 'Christmas' trees. It's 'holiday' trees. Then it's 'holiday' decorations," Ackerman said. "It just doesn't make any sense to me."

Officials chose an image of an enlarged nickel for the yearbook cover because this is Liberty Elementary's first year and because the nickel has a new design this year.

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It does seem that people have gone way overboard. All of this making people feel good and its counter movements seems like so much foolishness to me. I think there's nothing wrong with saying the Pledge at school, playing tag, or acknowledging the religious underpinnings to the nation. Radically, I even don't mind if they want to honor our nation by saying the pledge in Spanish.

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The best part: Leave it on the coin and nobody notices as its part of a whole.

Cut it out and give it individually to each student: Your now ONLY promoting religion as its on its own now :). As the smartest people around you'd think they would do a project plan or something and go over it....

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Cutting it out is anti-Christian? I didn't see the part where they put "Jesus was never the son of god and anybody that believes that is a fool" onto the nickel. As a parent, are you THAT insecure that you need to have "in God we trust" on a bloody piece of currency? Or is this because you want realism... but then I did not see the parent complaining because the nickel is oversized, which is not very realistic for a nickel. It seems like another whiny ass person crying at any supposed slight against god's will.

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Don't offend anyone...Unless of course their Christian, then it's cool. :rolleyes:

I wonder if any of these anti-religion activists have ever READ the Establishment Clause. :doh:

I'm not an "anti-Religion activist" but I do see a conflict between "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a Religion" and Congress passing a law in 1954 that has kids pledging allegiance to God everytime they want to pledge allegiance to this country. The people who inserted God into our already satisfactory pledge 50 years ago intended God to mean the Christian God and only the Christian God. It was Eisenhauer's Preacher who came up with the idea. Surely, he followed the ten commandments, especially the "Thou shall hold no strange Gods before me." Therefor, Congress passing a law that intends to make Children pledge allegiance to Christianity is painfully obviously unconstitutional. When there is a threat to this country lawmakers use it to trample the constitution. For the Pledge it was the Red scare and the start of the cold war. Did you know these lawmakers put God into our pledge was in part to show a difference between us and the Soviets?

The reason kids don't say the pledge in school anymore is because the pledge is unconstitutional in it's present modified form. The schools are right. God has no place on our $$$ as well. This principal gave their students a choice if they wanted God on their money or not. Thiebear has a problem with this. He does not want people to have a choice of whether or not to recognize his God, that is the same reason people like him inserted God into the the pledge.

It's fairly obvious to me that it is your side of this debate that has not fully contemplated the meaning of the establishment clause. That is why Republicans try to discredit the famous Jefferson quote:

Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

-- Thomas Jefferson, to Danbury Baptists, 1802 (emphasis ours). This was used again by Jefferson in his letter to the Virginia Baptsits, and was several times upheld by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause: Reynolds (98 U.S. at 164, 1879); Everson (330 U.S. at 59, 1947); McCollum (333 U.S. at 232, 1948)

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Cutting it out is anti-Christian? I didn't see the part where they put "Jesus was never the son of god and anybody that believes that is a fool" onto the nickel. As a parent, are you THAT insecure that you need to have "in God we trust" on a bloody piece of currency? Or is this because you want realism... but then I did not see the parent complaining because the nickel is oversized, which is not very realistic for a nickel. It seems like another whiny ass person crying at any supposed slight against god's will.

The funny part is that the justification many provide for leaving "In God We Trust" on the coin (and in the Pledge of Allegiance) is that it's non-denominational. However, any attempts to remove these same are seen as anti-Christian.

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The funny part is that the justification many provide for leaving "In God We Trust" on the coin (and in the Pledge of Allegiance) is that it's non-denominational. However, any attempts to remove these same are seen as anti-Christian.

Heh, good observation. Still, there are so many more important things to worry about. I know I got tired of talk about this pointless crap all the time.

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Heh, good observation. Still, there are so many more important things to worry about. I know I got tired of talk about this pointless crap all the time.

Oh I know. While I believe strongly in separation of church and state, this move on the part of the school strikes me as completely unnecessary. As long as the words are on the coin they may as well be on any images of it.

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Why is it that there is people who feel the need to remove religious phrases, even if the religious symbol isn't specifically one religion or another, I mean every religion in the world beleives in some sort of god and 95% of all americans beleive in some sort of religion. Therefore 95% of all the americans beleive in some sort of god, so why should "IN GOD WE TRUST" be removed if only 5% will be offended by the saying and it happens to be on our currency anyway?

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This is not a pointless debate at all. It sets a huge precedent.

I know where you are coming from, but the precedents are already set. Let me know if they try to gain any more that is when you will hear from me, right now I think the level is fine.

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I mean every religion in the world beleives in some sort of god

This isn't true at all. It isn't even remotely true unless the term god is used extremely loosely (in which case it shouldn't be capitalized) or belief systems without a single chief diety aren't considered religions.

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I saw an adverstisement from the 60's, and it said "Happy Holidays." The use of that phrase is old and isn't necessarily always some "anti-Christian" crusade.

I think we have to be wary of hyper-sensitivity from both Christians and non-Christians. And Christianity, and faith, will exist no matter the presence of "In God We Trust" is on a coin. After all, didn't Christ say "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's?" Thus, a phrase on a piece of coinage means little in the grand scheme of things, as far as spiritualism is concerned.

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Why is it that there is people who feel the need to remove religious phrases, even if the religious symbol isn't specifically one religion or another, I mean every religion in the world beleives in some sort of god and 95% of all americans beleive in some sort of religion. Therefore 95% of all the americans beleive in some sort of god, so why should "IN GOD WE TRUST" be removed if only 5% will be offended by the saying and it happens to be on our currency anyway?

I think you are mistaken in your stats. I am reading that at least 10% of the population considers itself non-religious AND non-spiritual. They don't believe in God or god. God= the one and only Christian God. god=any other god, such as the sun gods or the golf gods. 73.5% of the population considers themselves Christian, so the words "In God We Trust" do not apply to over 1 in 4 people-not to mention the unconstitunional problem I outlined in a previous post. Then again, you dond't seem all that concerned with silly old documents as much as you are supporting tyranny of the majority.

BTW, the Christian population of this country is falling fast. Right now it's approximately 73.5%. Are you suggesting that when non-christians rise above 50% they should use the bully pulpit of majority to write their religious beliefs on our currency? What if Athiests have the majority in 200 years? Do you think it would be constitutional for them to write "There is no God" on our money and in our Court rooms and have your children recite that in public school?

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The funny part is that the justification many provide for leaving "In God We Trust" on the coin (and in the Pledge of Allegiance) is that it's non-denominational. However, any attempts to remove these same are seen as anti-Christian.

First I want you to know that only the first part is in response to you directly.

Christian isn't a denomination it is a religion. Methodist or Catholic is Christian denomination.

Jews believe in God. Christians believe in God. Muslims can refer to Allah as God. I'm sorry what religion is being established by the phrase "In God We Trust?" Oh that's right, NONE. If you would like to see the establishment of a religion by a government please turn your eyes to Saudi Arabia.

The phrase does not distinguish which religion, let alone account for the different denominations and sects of each religion that believes in God with a capital G.

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I'm not an "anti-Religion activist" but I do see a conflict between "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of a Religion" and Congress passing a law in 1954 that has kids pledging allegiance to God everytime they want to pledge allegiance to this country. The people who inserted God into our already satisfactory pledge 50 years ago intended God to mean the Christian God and only the Christian God. It was Eisenhauer's Preacher who came up with the idea. Surely, he followed the ten commandments, especially the "Thou shall hold no strange Gods before me." Therefor, Congress passing a law that intends to make Children pledge allegiance to Christianity is painfully obviously unconstitutional. When there is a threat to this country lawmakers use it to trample the constitution. For the Pledge it was the Red scare and the start of the cold war. Did you know these lawmakers put God into our pledge was in part to show a difference between us and the Soviets?

The reason kids don't say the pledge in school anymore is because the pledge is unconstitutional in it's present modified form. The schools are right. God has no place on our $$$ as well. This principal gave their students a choice if they wanted God on their money or not. Thiebear has a problem with this. He does not want people to have a choice of whether or not to recognize his God, that is the same reason people like him inserted God into the the pledge.

It's fairly obvious to me that it is your side of this debate that has not fully contemplated the meaning of the establishment clause. That is why Republicans try to discredit the famous Jefferson quote:

First off, nowhere in the constitution does it say anything about seperation of church and state. Its a court decuision, not an amendment.

Second, in the pledge, we pledge to "one nation" under god, we do not pledge to "one god and our nation".

Third, that quote from Jefferson, was talking about the country not establishing a state mandated religion, like was in England. They didn't want to interfere with people's right to believe what they wanted to believe, or worship as they saw fit.

And if you wanna get into it being the "christian god", God as mentioned is the same god of the Jewish faith, the Muslim faith, and the Christian faith.

The problem with what they did in this case is simply that if they didn't remove the phrase from the coin on the cover of the book, nobody would have noticed or been offended, after all, its currency not a picture of someone holding the bible. The fact that its on the currency and plainly visible would only tell ppl that they wanted the picture to be accurate to scale(notice I said to scale for the guy that mentioned that "its not the same size"). They then printed stickers for the children to put on their yearbooks basicly saying that "if you don't like that we changed the currency on the cover you can fix it yourself" as a way to try and cover up the fact that they wanted to make a political statement by removing "In God We Trust" from the coinage.

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The reason kids don't say the pledge in school anymore is because the pledge is unconstitutional in it's present modified form.

We still say the pledge every morning in my public school in Fairfax County, VA.

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I am not sure if the Christian population is falling fast, especially with immigrants that are Christians coming to this nation. More so, you may be seeing a change in Christian sect population, such as more Catholics vs Protestants (due to the Latino influx of immigrants). Also, keep in mind that "God" also pertains to other monotheistic religions and not just Christianity.

I am not sure if the country is about to fall into a Godlessness. And if it does, then it is probably the End of Times, anyway. :-P

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First I want you to know that only the first part is in response to you directly.

Christian isn't a denomination it is a religion. Methodist or Catholic is Christian denomination.

Jews believe in God. Christians believe in God. Muslims can refer to Allah as God. I'm sorry what religion is being established by the phrase "In God We Trust?" Oh that's right, NONE. If you would like to see the establishment of a religion by a government please turn your eyes to Saudi Arabia.

The phrase does not distinguish which religion, let alone account for the different denominations and sects of each religion that believes in God with a capital G.

It seems you missed my point entirely. I didn't say that I personally think "God" is in reference only to Christians, or whether it includes Muslims and Jews, who I am aware worship the same entity.

What I said is that it's hypocritical for many people (you'll notice I didn't say all people in my original post) to claim it applies to multiple religions, but to view resistance to it as specifically anti-Christian.

Second, in the pledge, we pledge to "one nation" under god, we do not pledge to "one god and our nation".

Actually, we pledge to "one nation under God," which is an important distinction.

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First off, nowhere in the constitution does it say anything about seperation of church and state. Its a court decuision, not an amendment.

Inversely, no where does it say that this is purely a theological, religious based government. Theology and government merging is a bad idea, IMHO. That does not mean that religion should be removed from every facet of government, since the population that is being governed does have a large faith-based population, but we do not want theocracies such as we see in the Middle East.

It took a long time for Enlightment period ideas, often which were in reaction to the strong Church/state influence in Europe, to come into play with the idea of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness. Religious-based government has brought misery to man for years, so we need to be wary of too much religious interference with government, just like we need to be wary of government trying to interfere with worship as well.

By the way, the "One nation under God" was added at a later time, years after the Pledge was created by a Christian socialist in the 1800's.

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