In God we Trust!!!

[98valk]

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-sheriff-god-atheist-complain

An atheist group has complained about new decals on a Florida county's patrol cars that feature an American flag and the phrase "In God We Trust."

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) argues the new "patriotic" decal, suggested by a local military veteran, is "frightening and politically dubious" in a letter to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, but Sheriff Wayne Ivey isn't backing down.

”They have a better chance of me waking up thin tomorrow morning than they do of me taking that motto off our cars!" Ivey told Fox News. “I personally believe that our country is at a tipping point, and if we, as strong patriotic Americans, don’t stand for the principals of our great nation, we are going to lose the America we all know and love!"  “I can assure you that the proud men and women of our agency are forever unwavering in our support of the constitution and the principles of our amazing country,” the sheriff added.


However, First Liberty Institute argues that not only is FFRF wrong here, but the group has "no basis in law, nor tradition."

With the backing of the Supreme Court, First Liberty counsel, Keisha Russell, told Ivey to reject FFRF's request, adding the motto "should be honored and celebrated as an expression of what it means to be American."

“It is absurd to think that a Florida sheriff would be acting ‘inappropriately’ for posting the official mottos of both the United States and the State of Florida," Jeremy Dys, First Liberty special counsel for litigation and communications, told Fox News. "This attempt to scold a public servant for acknowledging one of the most cherished traditions of our country is shameful.”

[Skinhead]

Slowly Making America Great Again.  One step at a time.

[hubcapsc]

The FFRF people have enough money that they have a teevee commercial...
it came on here and the guy said who he was at which point
I gave him the insurance huckster treatment...

-Mike "muted the teevee... FFFFRF"

[Robert]

I Really wonder why the real history of the US is not taught in schools and many grownups don't even know the start of the country that they live in. For 150 years before the supposed founding of America the Mayflower compact was in effect, the rule of law and the bible the guiding documents in the US. Even the first school books taught in school was the bible. The fact that when the constitution and the form of government that we have now was instituted you could not hold a government job unless you were christian and affiliated with a church. The law up until the Supreme court changed the rules was common law more like the bible and not the rule of law we have today. America was founded as a country to be able to worship and praise the God of the Bible. Not unlike Israel, which was formed by God for the Jews so it is with the US even today Gods hand on this great country.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini;

The US to be true to its roots would have to be more like Israel in the worship and idea that their country is blessed, founded, established, and kept by God and not the god of the Muslims or any other religion.

As I get older I begin to understand the honoring the holidays, memorials and founding of the countries people live in. Because without it people lose site and direction and its the laws of the day that take control of the ruling of a country and the government.

Hugo Black a democrat, appointed by Roosevelt to be a supreme court judge, KKK member, Mason member, underhandedly gave us the supposed separation of church and state ruling we have today from a case that was a real stretch to make any ruling like he did. It was a time when the government wanted to address these topics in the courts and actively invited these type of cases into the courts to hear. Effectively by judicial authority set the direction for the US to follow and not to much different from the Judicial activism we see today.


The ruling in direct contradiction to the founding of the US set the precedence that today is the baseline for all rulings on religion in government.

I have to question why rulings like this were allowed to stand and the Congress when it had the power did not do something to avert the direction these cases were were setting the path for. The very path we see today in our schools, colleges, government and now the people.

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1310/hugo-black

[98valk]

Official motto of the USA.....

.....since 1956.....

And official motto of Florida.....

.....since 2006.....

Obviously the sort of thing the founders of this great experiment had in mind.

History of 'In God We Trust'
 

The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout persons throughout the country, urging that the United States recognize the Deity on United States coins. From Treasury Department records, it appears that the first such appeal came in a letter dated November 13, 1861. It was written to Secretary Chase by Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, and read:

    Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances.

    One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.

    You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the allseeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.

    This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.

    To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.

As a result, Secretary Chase instructed James Pollock, Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, to prepare a motto, in a letter dated November 20, 1861:

    Dear Sir: No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.

    You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.

It was found that the Act of Congress dated January 18, 1837, prescribed the mottoes and devices that should be placed upon the coins of the United States. This meant that the mint could make no changes without the enactment of additional legislation by the Congress. In December 1863, the Director of the Mint submitted designs for new one-cent coin, two-cent coin, and three-cent coin to Secretary Chase for approval. He proposed that upon the designs either OUR COUNTRY; OUR GOD or GOD, OUR TRUST should appear as a motto on the coins. In a letter to the Mint Director on December 9, 1863, Secretary Chase stated:

    I approve your mottoes, only suggesting that on that with the Washington obverse the motto should begin with the word OUR, so as to read OUR GOD AND OUR COUNTRY. And on that with the shield, it should be changed so as to read: IN GOD WE TRUST.

The Congress passed the Act of April 22, 1864. This legislation changed the composition of the one-cent coin and authorized the minting of the two-cent coin. The Mint Director was directed to develop the designs for these coins for final approval of the Secretary. IN GOD WE TRUST first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin.

Another Act of Congress passed on March 3, 1865. It allowed the Mint Director, with the Secretary's approval, to place the motto on all gold and silver coins that "shall admit the inscription thereon." Under the Act, the motto was placed on the gold double-eagle coin, the gold eagle coin, and the gold half-eagle coin. It was also placed on the silver dollar coin, the half-dollar coin and the quarter-dollar coin, and on the nickel three-cent coin beginning in 1866. Later, Congress passed the Coinage Act of February 12, 1873. It also said that the Secretary "may cause the motto IN GOD WE TRUST to be inscribed on such coins as shall admit of such motto."
https://www.treasury.gov/about/education/Pages/in-god-we-trust.aspx

[Serk]

Oh look, another topic to needlessly divide us instead of uniting us....

Just as our nation should have stuck to its' original motto (E pluribus unum) I should have taken the high road and ignored this thread.

[98valk]

Oh look, another topic to needlessly divide us instead of uniting us....

Just as our nation should have stuck to its' original motto () I should have taken the high road and ignored this thread.

E pluribus unum
appearing on the Great Seal along with Annuit cœptis (Latin for "he approves the undertaking)   "He" would be God Almighty.

[Black Pearl's Captain]

I Really wonder why the real history of the US is not taught in schools and many grownups don't even know the start of the country that they live in.

I wonder that too. Maybe ask an Indian for the answer. Point being, sometimes what we believe to be real truths are relative to who you are and when we are...

[baldo]

Oh look, another topic to needlessly divide us instead of uniting us....

Just as our nation should have stuck to its' original motto (E pluribus unum) I should have taken the high road and ignored this thread.

Exactly...Well said.

Today's installment of the Tinfoil Hat ...

[Robert]

Oh look, another topic to needlessly divide us instead of uniting us....

Just as our nation should have stuck to its' original motto (E pluribus unum) I should have taken the high road and ignored this thread.

I believe it is only a reflection of the controversy in this country. The difference is the fact that the US is a Christian nation cannot be changed. We cannot shy away from truth just for political correctness and if it divides us, its only something that was already there. Just because someone does not state their feelings does not mean they change their attitude it only means they are good at hiding.

It seems whoever screams the loudest is taken as truth regardless of the correctness of their statement. I am happy when the truth is talked about, rather than the difference of opinion that is what we have today. Censorship should never be a tool to enforce political correctness or we fall into Facebooks and others area of censorship.

If this topic divides it only does so to those who hold different beliefs or a desire for a different direction but it is not subjective as it is history and it has been proven out. If the truth and history of our nation falls harshly enough on some ears to want to squash this discourse, then it seems we have fallen into the time of Hitlers tactics on speaking and censorship and the avoidance of knowing our past and history. This is history not current politics and a direction that every person who calls themselves an American should be proud of.

[Gryphon Rider]

The motto on the currency:


The motto that maybe 10-25% (my best guess) of Americans can truthfully say they subscribe to, but likely far fewer prove by their words or actions:


The rest subscribe to one or more of the following mottos, or perhaps others:

[old2soon]

           In GOD we Trust is found on the back bumpers of our local squad cars here in Willow Springs Missouri. Fairly certain while someone might have whimpered about it I for one never heard it or more likely i ignored said whimper. All of our local L E Os have an American Flag prominently displayed on their uniforms.
            Far far too many people groups "religions" attempting to chip away at the Very Foundation our Country was built upon. I for one am extremely tired of this. We already have laws-we do Not need any laws imported here from another country. We also do Not Need laws imported from a questionable "religion". No specifics on the questionable "religions" as most of us here Are Aware of where the problems exist. RIDE SAFE.

[The emperor has no clothes]

The motto on the currency:


The motto that maybe 10-25% (my best guess) of Americans can truthfully say they subscribe to, but likely far fewer prove by their words or actions:

I’d say you are probably pretty close with your estimates. Although I’d guess it’s just a fraction of those who profess their fealty, who actually show it in their deeds and words. (Myself included)

[The emperor has no clothes]

Oh look, another topic to needlessly divide us instead of uniting us....

Just as our nation should have stuck to its' original motto (E pluribus unum) I should have taken the high road and ignored this thread.

I believe it is only a reflection of the controversy in this country. The difference is the fact that the US is a Christian nation cannot be changed.

The pesky little 1st Amendment would disagree completely with your statement.

[Calboy]

A perfect stranger wrote this some years ago.
Is this religion, or the cynicism of life manifesting randomly while the imaginary friends found in the Big Book of Truth watch from a distance?

"This is the slave pit. We're in the mud together. We aren't free. Rights are the carrot they dangle in front of you to keep a deluded sense of hope alive. They don't care who you marry, who you have sex with, who you pray to. They don't care who you sell cakes to. They care about one thing. keeping you calm and sedated and controlled just enough so you don't fully rebel on a mass level. They keep the illusion of control alive for you so you feel like you can control your world and change things to your liking. It's all a play on ego. It's all a play on mankind's basic narcissism. The people with the real power don't CARE. They want to keep their slave pool happy and productive. Voting. Lobbying, protesting, everything you see on the media is for YOU. It's for your distraction, entertainment, and to perpetuate the illusion that you can control the world."

[bscrive]

A perfect stranger wrote this some years ago.
Is this religion, or the cynicism of life manifesting randomly while the imaginary friends found in the Big Book of Truth watch from a distance?

"This is the slave pit. We're in the mud together. We aren't free. Rights are the carrot they dangle in front of you to keep a deluded sense of hope alive. They don't care who you marry, who you have sex with, who you pray to. They don't care who you sell cakes to. They care about one thing. keeping you calm and sedated and controlled just enough so you don't fully rebel on a mass level. They keep the illusion of control alive for you so you feel like you can control your world and change things to your liking. It's all a play on ego. It's all a play on mankind's basic narcissism. The people with the real power don't CARE. They want to keep their slave pool happy and productive. Voting. Lobbying, protesting, everything you see on the media is for YOU. It's for your distraction, entertainment, and to perpetuate the illusion that you can control the world."

I believe that it was George Carlin that said this.  Or, something like this.


Even though, I am an atheist.  I always liked the saying: "In god we trust, all others pay cash."   

[Robert]

I believe it is only a reflection of the controversy in this country. The difference is the fact that the US is a Christian nation cannot be changed.

The pesky little 1st Amendment would disagree completely with your statement.

If you can tell me how in what you read below I would be interested. Of course in the interpretation you are getting at you would have to throw away 300 years of the history of our country.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

[Moonshot_1]

Can't say I'm real impressed with the "In God We Trust" on the back of a police car.

It should read

"in God We Trust"
"You are not Him"

That would be something I'd be impressed with seeing.

[Savago]

The only possible references I found was:

a) First amendment;
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

b) Constitution:
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

[Oss]

ding ding Savago exactly

You can have any religion or no religion as an individual person
but you darn well better swear or affirm to uphold the
Constitution of these United States if you are running for office or take an office if appointed

For any person, Moslem or otherwise, to say I want the religious law of my religion
to be the law of the land is to
say to the country that he or she is not to be trusted and that he or she
deserves to be called an anathema.  (ie Hitler and Stalin and Mao were each deservedly called this)
Contrast that to Huckabee who had made no such statement even tho a minister

This is one reason why I am so vehemently opposed to Sharia law becoming the law anywhere in this country
It is anti american by definition,  Newt Gingrich has called them on this for decades now

[Robert]

  These United States was formed so that man could worship the God of the bible and not have to bow down to the rules and regulations of the church, hence the First Amendment. The church of England and others before were brutal and evil and the common man could not own a bible which was heresy. Most everything they taught was about control and not about anything about the true teaching and words of the bible. Even in Jesus's time and before the corruption in the temples led to the control of the masses. So religion has been used down through the centuries to fulfill mans desires to control and not to reveal the true heart of God for His people. 


Unless you know the times and traditions that these laws, teachings and countries were established you will never understand the context of how the US was formed or even any older teaching on societies and rules.

 Its a wonder that the bible survived, and the teaching survived, I would say its a miracle. But those who really would read the bible and follow the teachings of Jesus were outcasts, rebels, persecuted and yet visionaries and had faith that we seldom see even today. Even in Jesus's day these followers were put to death and scorned. The history of the church in most cases has little to do with the true teachings of Jesus and the bible.  
 
How fortunate that we still hold the guiding principles of the bible on which our laws were formed. But as we move farther and farther away from its teachings we see more and more the moral and ethical decay in our society.

If you think that for 150 years the colonies were greatly influenced and as much as possible followed the bible for governance and the Mayflower compact its pretty amazing. Israel was formed in a similar fashion and not meant to be ruled by man but by God. But the Israelites did not like the fact that they did not have a king like other nations and asked Samuel to appoint one even though God had warned them of the consequences.  
 

This is also an interesting read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale

Tyndale was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther. A number of partial translations had been made from the seventh century onward, but the spread of Wycliffe's Bible in the late 14th century led to the death penalty for anyone found in unlicensed possession of Scripture in English, although translations were available in all other major European languages.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wycliffe%27s_Bible

These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and chief cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the distinctive teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. In the early Middle Ages, most Western Christian people encountered the Bible only in the form of oral versions of scriptures, verses and homilies in Latin (other sources were mystery plays, usually performed in the vernacular, and popular iconography). Though relatively few people could read at this time, Wycliffe's idea was to translate the Bible into the vernacular, saying "it helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ's sentence.

[98valk]

Great post Robert   

[Robert]

Great post Robert   

Thank You. 
 

In the simplest of ideas the bible is not hard to understand.

God made the earth and man to take care of the earth and formed man from the earth with his spirit from God.

Man sinned and gave this world to satan

The Jews were given laws on how to live in a fallen world and tip toe around satan

Jesus comes and gives man the power to command and remove the penalty for sin and restore some rights back to man through Jesus. Even though man still lives in a fallen world under satans control

Jesus second coming will be to cast out all the works of the enemy and restore man and the earth to their rightful positions.
 
That is the bible in a nutshell. The, US was formed by God for us to reflect His heart and Glory and to be a place to live. Its our decisions and who we listen to that make our lives and the lives of others better or worse.

[f6john]

Everyone has heard the saying, “ there are no atheist in foxholes”. I tend to believe that position but I have no way of proving it true. We live in a time where right is wrong and wrong is right to a level I never thought possible but I also realize it’s not as bad as it will become in the future.

At any rate, if in God we trust disappears, it would be a sad day for me but it won’t change my faith or  Gods plans as revealed in the Bible.

[Serk]

Everyone has heard the saying, “ there are no atheist in foxholes”. I tend to believe that position but I have no way of proving it true.

http://militaryatheists.org/atheists-in-foxholes/

[98valk]

Everyone has heard the saying, “ there are no atheist in foxholes”. I tend to believe that position but I have no way of proving it true.

http://militaryatheists.org/atheists-in-foxholes/

INNATE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Knowledge of God (knowledge that there is a Supreme Being) is a knowledge that every person has. It is a knowledge that is “manifest” (evident) in every individual and knowledge that the wicked “suppress” (Rom. 1:18-19). It is a knowledge that consists of God’s invisible qualities, “His eternal power and Godhead,” and a knowledge that is so “clearly seen” that men are “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). Whether this knowledge can best be described as innate (an endowment by God of every man), or intuitive (an automatic knowledge that arises within the individual because of that which is communicated to him from around him), or a combination of the two, the point is that every individual has this knowledge. It is a knowledge that no man is without (see: Innate Knowledge and Intellectually Astute).

To be man is to have knowledge of God; the knowledge is not probable but certain, not a possibility for man but a reality for man. The reasoning and arguments of man do not destroy this knowledge, for the knowledge is an integral part of every man. And it has been there “since the creation of the world” (Rom. 1:20). Man may deny it; man may reject it; but the knowledge remains. “Knowledge of God is both inescapable and universal” (Rushdoony, Biblical Philosophy, 74). Reymond speaks of this God-knowledge as “innate theism” (A Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 143).
http://embracedbytruth.com/God/God's%20Existence/Innate%20Knowledge%20of%20God.htm

[Oss]

There is an ancient midrash which to paraphrase, as I think just a few of you may be able to read aramaic or hebrew, says the baby floating in the womb knows the Lord and the entire Torah, and is at peace, however as the baby is born an angel places her finger below the nose and above the lip of the baby. 

This is why most babies cry as they are born and see light for the first time.

The name for that little teardrop shape is philrim also called cupid's bow

Believe what you wish or not at all.   I do believe each of us is of the earth and will one day return.
What we do with our time is what defines us as much as or more than the happenstance of who we were born as.

[Robert]

Everyone has heard the saying, “ there are no atheist in foxholes”. I tend to believe that position but I have no way of proving it true.

http://militaryatheists.org/atheists-in-foxholes/

My nephew was at a cross roads in his life at the age of about 21. One day he came to me and we talked awhile and he accepted the Lord and became spirit filled. His dream was to either go into the military or become a pastor both of which he was ready to give up before he got saved. Well over the course of the next few years he became an Assemblies of God credited pastor and of course next he joined the army. Well he was an ordained pastor in the military but went on and got his Rangers badges and was trained to go with the troops. He always said how can I witness to these guys if I dont know what they are going through. Well many doors were opened to him and when in training he was called on to be a pastor to a group of guys. They became very close and one of the guys that supported him the most was an atheist. There is so much more to this story and many are today touched by the presence of the Lord in his ministry.


There is a guy called the Praying Medic on the internet and he also writes books. The experiences he has had with the Lord would make anyone take notice.  “Praying Medic” was an atheist until God spoke to him in a dream: “Pray for the sick in your ambulance.” So after 400 attempts, God begins to teach him. Through dreams. Today about 80% get healed, and he’s as good a teacher as he was a learner!

I think an atheist or anyone who is a skeptic just wants to see God move like He is talked about in the bible or have a personal experience with God. Once God shows Himself to them they are no longer atheist,  I understand this.

Guest: Dave Hayes (Praying Medic) on Sid Roths, its supernatural.
https://sidroth.org/television/tv-archives/dave-hayes-praying-medic/

 

[f6john]

Everyone has heard the saying, “ there are no atheist in foxholes”. I tend to believe that position but I have no way of proving it true.

http://militaryatheists.org/atheists-in-foxholes/

Not surprising as there seems to the the exceptions to every rule. When mortar rounds start falling and body parts are all around you it could change an atheists point of view, or not. The most significant thing about Christianity is free will, acceptance or rejection is the decision of the individual. No one can grant Gods grace and no one can take it away.