God should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.

I want to cordially correct her on her banter about the pledge of allegiance being atheistic. She starts out and then summarily closes with Christopher Hitchens saying the pledge of allegiance is ‘too words too long’. I find this bemusing! Hitchens argues consistently for a state hostile toward religion. I already affirmed that ‘No God’ would be anti-theistic. The absence of God from the pledge is obviously by definition properly atheistic, that is ‘without God’. She then, to my wonderment states such a definition means a cereal box is atheistic! Why yes, I believe that is even the mainstream philosophical argument of the day! Many notorious atheists are running around claiming anything that lacks god is atheistic. For example, the argument stands that ‘science is ‘atheistic’ because it does not need or concern itself with God to function. My opponent needed to show us why taking God out of the Pledge is better and has failed to meet her clear burden. This is compounded by the fact she has failed to deal with the clearly overwhelming GOOD reasons it should stay. We saw my first positive contention: - The pledge of allegiance’s clear purpose is to elicit the loyalty of the Majority population. - To remove this statement of Under God, would do the opposite as the majority Christian population has historically chosen God over country. This is asking for open disloyalty to remove the phrase. My second positive contention: - The pledge of allegiance meets the definition of secular by the judicial branch, was instituted by both the executive and legislative branches of the government. - No one is targeting this concept in the courts, knowing all branches of government affirm this definition of secular - This statement of Under God also meets the affirmation test by the courts as a valid historical heritage and cannot be so challenged. Given the power of these contentions my opponent needed to deliver an powerful line of argumentation that simply was not present. Complaint 1: My opponent states that no religion existed that sacrificed children?? This is in response to the clear concept that people my be equal but all ideologies are NOT equal. “There has thus far been NO documented religion condoning the sacrificing of children…. however even if your claims were legitimate, such an ideology should still possess an equal voice to that of, say, Christianity.” So my opponent here is factually erroneous and scary. Who could possibly affirm and ideology of child sacrifice or exploitation is on par with any wholesome moral ideology? The great droughts of 1450-1454 led to massive sacrifice of children to water deities. Telleriano-Remensis Codex.[1] Nothing to speak of other deities and Middle Eastern Molech and such. [2] So my opponent is just plain wrong about history and she affirms that these should be held EQUAL? That is baffling. She then proceeds to claim A) “Why should they be considered less?” Um, they butcher helpless children… B) “There is no concrete set of morals that has not been derived from religion” Again factually wrong, Ten commandments?! - [3] C) “Who should be delegated the authority to judge religions in this manner?” That was why our founding fathers setup an irreligious government run by the moral majority with checks and balances. She follows up by stating: “Who has the authority to say that pedophilia is wrong? While the majority of America would agree that this act is morally flawed, there is still a percentage that doesn’t; and that voice should be heard no matter what and considered equal to the voice of its counterparts. The same goes for religion.” I shudder. This is exactly the concern that Christians cite with the following generation that does not have a source of objective moral values. Objectivity states that such ideologies are inherently evil. Complaint 2: So my opponent now states that atheism being ‘intertwined’ with communism should not give us pause…. Really?- I cited Tortured Pastor, I cited Pope, I cite President Reagan who was not uncertain in any sense: “Atheism is not an incidental element of communism, it is not part of the package, it is the package” [4] Her attempt to justify atheism here is against the historical belief of our political leaders, who were VERY well acquainted with the ideologies that motivated the atheistic states. There are No people more acquainted with the driving ideologies than the executive and legislative branch that had entire agencies figuring out what makes them tick. Reagan himself is credited with a major defeat of atheistic Russia. His ‘Evil Empire’ speech was abundantly clear. Atheism was the driving factor for the Evil Empire. My opponent concludes this complaint with: “How do these examples do nothing to theism? The religions we are speaking of are monotheistic—a form of theism. If we’re going by this logic, then the millions of people killed by Communists you are speaking of wouldn’t have any effect on atheism either!” My opponent misunderstood my point. Even if all 'religions' show themselves inferior my opponent needs to show that mere monotheism (belief in divine creator, divine judge and objective moral source) is not obviously better than atheism (the lack of belief in a divine judge and objective moral source). She failed to do this. Complaint 3: “Should we involve the possibility of unicorns existing in the way America is governed?” This is very sad and shows my opponent ignores claims distinctions. Belief in a moral creator and divine judge: Quantity and quantity of source decide the power of a claim. Hundreds of millions of Theological scholars. An entire field of academia affirming God’s relevance and existence. Unicorns…. Not so much. Complaint 4: “I must say, it is statements such as these that truly test my patience and composure.” And “The terms “evil,” “malignant,” and “destructive” are ALL ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE.” And “pedophilia…I still care that both have an equal voice to their counterparts” Disturbing. I again affirm: “Do you care if pedophiles become disloyal and act on their predatory ideology? Do you care if a religion that sacrifices children becomes disloyal to America? Of course not!” You clearly affirm they should have an equal voice. If this is the rational that you need to affirm “Under God” should be removed, I am worried. Summary: We again have seen that Pro, has not met the burden of proof here. - She states that all ideologies are equal, yet continuously fails to show this with examples that do not detract from religion much less theism. - She also cannot affirm that atheism, the denial of divine retribution and moral incumbency, resulting in the slaughter of 100 million people in a single century, should be recognized of equal value. We have seen Pastor, Pope and President all affirm the destructive ideology that is atheism. To counter this baseless assertion: - We see the pledge is secular and irreligious already. - We see that the pledge honors our civil war history. - We see also that the war on Atheism sparked such theistic actions to combat atheistic propaganda out of the Iron Curtain. - The pledge does what it intends to do by eliciting the majority of the population to loyalty. There are so few people of multi-god faiths this ideal does not appeal to as to be irrelevant to be necessary to elicit their loyalty. Hindu’s have a God creator, Muslims, Christians, and Jews etc… My opponent has not in anyway given us reasons that meet her burden to prove her resolution. We have seen powerful reasons to negate it. Under God was placed into the Pledge to affirm our historical tradition, affirm our denial of atheism, elicit the maximum loyalty of the population and meets an irreligious definition. I again thank my opponent for this fun topic on debate. [1] http://archaeology.about.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://www.bible-knowledge.com... [4]http://www.godtheoriginalintent.com...'s%20Evil%20Empire%20Speech.pdf