Religious references should be removed from national obligations.

Your argument about the Pledge of Allegiance being irrelevant does not follow. The term "under God" is not synonymous with the Pledge of Allegiance. In my second round of debate, I have adequately shown why an American citizen would be morally bound to say the Pledge and therefore why the Pledge fits the definition of a national obligation that I have supplied. The morality of the words "under God" is not in question, and is irrelevant to this debate. It does not follow that simply because the morality of the words "under God" is not being discussed, the Pledge does not fit the definition of national obligation. Again, "under God" is not synonymous with the Pledge of Allegiance. This fact only adds to the reasons for its removal. Much with the Pledge as a moral obligation, you have failed to argue that using the United States currency is not a legal obligation. You asked me to provide an instance where we would be required to "use specifically paper money or coinage as opposed to other forms of payment (check/debit/credit/etc.)." Check, debit, and credit are all representatives of the legal US currency when used in transactions. A credit card purchase is simply an agreement that the credit card company will pay for your purchase now and you will reimburse them later, through check, debit, or cash, so the particular example of a credit card purchase need not be discussed. Check and debit are essentially the same, as they both immediately transfer money between bank accounts, so I will treat them jointly. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation provides deposit insurance of up to $250,000 per depositor per bank. In the case of a bank's insolvency, there are two methods with which the FDIC can pay out this insurance: a) The Purchase and Assumption Method, in which all deposits are assumed by an open bank, or b) The Payout Method, in which insured deposits are paid directly to the depositor (1). In the case of an unavoidable economic crisis that causes all or most banks to become insolvent, people will cease to have bank accounts and will not be able to use check or debit as forms of payment. The FDIC will reimburse their losses of insured deposits through cash, and they will be forced to use cash as the only form of transaction. Since you have not mentioned bartering as a viable form of transaction in the United States, I assume that you agree with me on that point. Since bartering is not viable in our current society, and checks, debit, and credit are representative of paper money and insured by paper money, it follows that our economy is based on the transfer of paper money and coinage, making the United States currency a legal obligation. In response to your conclusion, the issues of the Pledge of Allegiance and currency are not meant to be all-inclusive, as I stated in the opening paragraph of my first round of debate. My proposition was made intentionally to be broad, to allow for a wide array of interpretation and limitless options for the direction of this debate. You have contested that the Pledge and currency are not national obligations, so that is predominantly the direction in which this debate went. I have sufficiently answered these contentions. However, for all of your contentions, you never suggested other interpretations of the proposition, so you have added nothing else for inclusion in this debate. We are then left with my definition of the key terms and with the issues that I suggested we debate. Taking this into consideration, the resolution is that "under God" and "In God We Trust" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and from United States currency, respectively. This resolution has been affirmed. In response to contention 2, my argument stands that Christians, and Protestants in particular, no longer have a large enough majority for references to God to be warranted in national obligations such as the Pledge and currency. They represent 78.4% and 51% of the population, respectively (2). This still leaves 16.1% or 48,507,744 people in America that are religiously unaffiliated, not even mentioning Americans who follow other religions (2,3). Many other agencies have taken steps to remove religious references from things, such as public schools and universities referring to the break around Christmas time as "Winter Break," the break around Easter as "Spring Break," and the break around Good Friday as "Spring Holiday." (This also addresses your off topic points that you brought up in your reductio ad absurdum argument, and this is all I will respond in regards to that.) The same trend should be followed with the Pledge and currency; they should be made religiously neutral by removing their religious references. In response to your supposed "Double Bind" situation, your argument does not have sound logic. The two options that you have presented based on my argument are: a) Accept that endorsing a religion won't harm others, or b) Reject that endorsing a religion won't harm others. Concerning choice a, which I do not agree with, if you accept that endorsing a religion will not harm the others that are not endorsed, then by having no religion endorsed, no religion will be harmed. Your contention 3 does remain true, as I stated that I would temporarily accept your contention 3 for the sake of the argument. Regarding choice b, which I am advocating, if you reject that endorsing a religion won't harm others, then having no religion nationally endorsed will alleviate the harm. Your contention 4 does not remain true. It would remain true if another religion were to be endorsed in its place, but by having no religion endorsed, no religion will be damaged. Finally, there is a false dilemma created by having God referenced in these national obligations (and not a false dilemma created by me). The false dilemma does not lie in the dilemma of Christianity or no religion at all, as my opponent suggests, but in the dilemma of being for Christianity or against Christianity. My argument is that if you are not Christian, being constantly reminded at the sight of our currency that you are an outcast from the nationally endorsed religion is damaging, and could limit freedom of religion by coercing these people into supporting the Christian God. By removing God from currency, this false dilemma would be alleviated and free choice of religion can occur without the coercive hand of Christianity involved. I have built an adequate case for removing religious references from the Pledge of Allegiance and United States currency. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org... (2) http://religions.pewforum.org... (3) http://www.census.gov... One last note--I am female. Be careful of your gendered language. Thank you sincerely for your time and effort in this debate.