Dear America....

It just says God, that could mean any god. I see it as whatever religion. That's Congress, not the Constitution. In the first words and on the dollar bill. In God We Trust. Just saying. The Constitiution is the people's document therefore we get to interpret as we wish. There is no set interpetion unless the Supreme Court has already made a decision on it. Why is it we keep butting heads?

@ dru seems insane.

@ Airi.

@ butterflywings16
That wasn't on the dollar bill until the 50s.

""In God we trust " was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956 as an alternative or replacement to the unofficial motto of E pluribus unum, adopted when the Great Seal of the United States was created and adopted in 1782."

It still has in God We Trust. It hasn't been taken off, despite the attempts too. Face it, a God or higher power was written in the constitution. Not saying that it's the God I might believe it but it's wherever higher being you feels in charge.

@ butterflywings16
And for the Americans who don't believe anyone is in charge? They just aren't Americans? We are supposed to have a separate of church and state in America.

@ butterflywings16
Your original comment said that our Constitution was built on a god and that's the statement I was disputing because it's simply not true. Our nation and Constitution was built on the basis of freedom, that includes religious freedom. I don't like the "in god we trust" because I do believe it goes against freedom of religion. That's something that never should have been added and does need to be removed. But the fact still remains that we are (or at least should be) a secular country, our Constitution was not built on a god and does not support one single religion. Our laws should not be influenced by religion nor should our Constitution be.

If we didn't have religion in the government there would be no help for anyone we would go down hill quickly

@ Airi.

dru seems insane.:

@ butterflywings16
And for the Americans who don't believe anyone is in charge? They just aren't Americans? We are supposed to have a separate of church and state in America.

Evolution? Destiny? Everyone believes in something.

@ butterflywings16
What do you mean there would "be no help for anyone"?

Honestly, America has gone downhill anyway. We have become a very religious country, a lot of Americans are strong Christians and have weaseled their religion into our government over the years. But even with Christianity being a strong influence in our politics, look at the road our country has taken. We invade and attack countries, mass murdering their citizens because our president lied to us. We threaten those who don't agree with us. We teargas and beat our citizens who protests. We've taken away the rights of gay Americans. We're trying to take away the rights of women. We've already gone downhill even with a strong religious influence, religion hasn't saved America from ourselves and from going downhill. I mean, Christianity isn't to blame for our current bad position we're in, no religion is entirely to blame. Our own intolerance, stupidity, and recklessness is to blame for the position we're in but I guess that's another subject entirely.

@ butterflywings16
Evolution and destiny are not deities.

@ Airi.
That's not all Christians, though. You are electing us as a whole whereas I'm different from another. But you are right about being ignorant and such.

@ dru seems insane.
To some people, they consider it a religion. It's just what you believe in.

@ butterflywings16
And there are plenty of people who don't identify any deity or religion, like my mother and siblings and stepfather. Are they less of an American because of that? Some people have no faith, no god, no religion. That is an absolute truth.

@ dru seems insane.
They have the faith that nothing is out there. Simple, and sweet. I'm not saying there are less American. Actually how can you even define what an American is?

@ butterflywings16
Well, if the Constitution doesn't apply to them because of their faith, then I would say they are being defined as less of an American.

An American, in my opinion, is defined as an American citizen entitled to all the same rights as other citizens. That means the freedom to live in a country not ruled by religion.

@ butterflywings16
I have to agree with Airi. and Dru. Religion does seem to be a major factor in the American government and the government is backed up by many Christians. In the past there has been nothing, but war and bloodshed between America and other countries. We (universally) slaughtered many innocent people in the Middle East just to find Osama Bin Laden and when we finally found him, he was killed on the spot rather than be brought in for questioning and standing trial and when that happened, many people in my age group stood outside the white house, and put on a bad public of display of approval. They literally gathered in front of the White House and chanted "America Rules," or something along those lines in plain view of the rest of the world and that kind of action could easily have sparked up another war with Al-Qaeda, who supported the likes of Bin Laden and Hussein.

I'm not saying that America is bad as a whole, but America seems to worry about religion and the affairs of other countries rather than what's going on within its own country. Poverty, unemployment, raising taxes for those who can't even afford medical care, taking away the education of kids, etc. And I know not all Christians are to blame for the extreme religious fanatics spreading hatred among their ranks, but America isn't going to get better. It's going to continue sinking in this bottomless hole unless someone stands up and does something.

I personally don't see evolutionism as a religion. It's science about how humans evolved from apes (this is one theory), neanderthals, and the such. Like religion, there are lots of facts supporting it, but just as with the Big Bang theory, nothing is completely correct because of all the facts that clash with each other. People can study creationism, the Big Bang Theory, and Darwinism/evolutionism all they want, but it's really hard to believe which of these is true, and that's why many people feel that religion is oppressive because of all the people that preach on about people going to hell for being who they are.

@ Phil's Baby Hina
Some of the people who claimed to be Christians aren't. Our government is completely, and utterly corrupt because people who claim such a title in their campaign aren't what they say they are. You cannot say that Christianity is the fall of our government if honestly not even half are considered 'true christians'. So the government isn't Christian based. Its 'God' based. You also have to realize most of the people in New England were Puritans of strict faith so to say that the Constitution doesn't have God in it would be considered a lie. How else would we appease such a strict group? You can not separate religion from government, even if you tried. It's to deep in it. In my opinion, we need people who generally care about the welfare of others and have the smarts to budget. It would be a nice blend of the two and maybe that would help, if it was a blend. If we just had that we would be okay. It some of the beliefs religion carried was in the government such as charity work and everything along those lines, we would have a good country.

@ dru seems insane.
I'm not saying it does. 'God' is a vague term used for higher power. They could apply it as Evolution or whatever they wish. The Constitution is how you interpret it.

@ dru seems insane.

@ Phil's Baby Hina

I just want you to know that I don't mean to offend you. I'm just telling you what I believe and why I believe that. I just realized how I could be coming off as.

@ butterflywings16
The Constitution is pretty straight-forward when it comes to the separation of Church and State.

@ butterflywings16
I know and I know that Puritans were of strict faith and all that. I also know that the Founding Fathers were either Protestants, Christians, and all the other religions that existed within the colonies at the time they were writing down the constitution, but religion shouldn't be forced unto other people and it's not the only way for everyone to live. It's also not always the best way to go about trying to fix the problems within this country. Many of us choose not to believe in religion because we either don't fit the bill for being safeguarded by God or just can't really see any evidence that God (or whatever name he goes by in any religion) is real.

I think there are non-religious people who do carry those beliefs though because all these people who are like you or me (in terms of being an average American) run organizations to help others and i wasn't saying that Christianity is the fall of the government. I was just saying that it factors into the fall of the government because of people like Mitt Romney that works within the confines of the Government, doing everything they can to make people without the same privileges as them remain in the same state as we are now.

I renounced my faith in America as a whole because we have strayed from what America originally stood for. No one is truly following the Constitution anymore because if we were, there wouldn't be so much hatred and racism, people would be freer to pursue the right to be happy and free. One part of the constitution states that we have the right to the pursuit of happiness, but rights for many people are being denied to many of us.

The right to have an education, the right to love whoever we want, the right to believe in our own believes instead of having others do the thinking for us, the right to be healthy, etc. A lot of these things have been denied us for a long time because of the way the government is taking care of its own.

@ butterflywings16
I think you've really misunderstood what I was trying to say in that post. In no way was I blaming all Christians for the wrongdoings of this country. The point I was trying to make was that even with a strong religious influence, America has gone downhill. In the comment I replied to, you said that without religion, America would go downhill very fast. That's the claim I was disputing because if anyone looks at our country, they can see we have gone downhill even with religion having been infused with our politics. Religion isn't to blame for our country's position nor is a lack of religion to blame, things aren't that simple. There are more factors to blame for the position we're in and as humans, we all need to take a share of the blame because we have all played a part in the downfall of this country.

I'm still confused about your statement about how no one would be helped if we didn't have religion. Are you trying to say people without religion can't be kind to each other?

@ Airi.
I'm not saying they can't be, but with that influence in my opinion would. People have to have faith in something, you know?

@ Gabriel's Angel Hina
I agree with most of this but in your comment I felt like you said there was no God in the Consititution. Not this one, but a previous one. Maybe I took it the wrong way.

@ dru seems insane.
It may seem straight forward, but just like any contract, there are loopholes.

@ butterflywings16
Firstly, it's not a contract. Secondly, the world of the first Amendment, which I posted before, does not have loopholes in it. If it does, please point them out to be instead of just saying they exist.