Add Homonym Attacks! #31
Ad Hominem: Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason.
Ad Hominem Attack: An argument that focuses on a personal attack as opposed to the subject in question.
Add Homonym Attacks!: The process by which one inserts a homophone and it bites you.
(It also serves as the title to Inside Pulse Beyond the Threshold’s representative column in the world of Critical Thinking, Science and Skepticism.)
Introduction
“In God we trust.”
Something written on our money or something Yoda would say in seminary?
Let’s go find out!
IN GOD WE TRUST
Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, it’s on my money. It’s a national motto. In fact, during the threat of those filthy atheist communists sons of bitches, it became required on US currency.
In God we trust.
But it wasn’t always that way. Prior to the civil war, there was no “In God We Trust” on any of our moneys. In fact, our first coins had a different motto altogether. That motto? A nugget from Ben Franklin: Mind You Business.
Now, to me, “mind your business” is a much better motto than “in God we trust.” At the very least, following the former maxim would mitigate the number of people that came to my door during the course of the year, pimping their version of God.
Why is it that it is always one black Jehovah’s Witness and one white Jehovah’s Witness, anyway? But I digress.
In God we trust.
I guess that I should at least be glad that it doesn’t say which God. I can tick that off in the positive column. One could even take God to mean godkind, if I were to trust in Thor and the pantheon of Viking gods, for instance. Perhaps I shall lend my trust to Hades, Dis, Pluto, Hel, and various other underworld gods. (But no Underworld gods, like that Kate Beckinsale.)
In God we trust.
I look towards the founding fathers, like big George Washington. Washington belonged to an Episcopalian church, but never bothered to mention Christ in any of his known writings. Big George was actually a deist. Oxford Dictionary aside:
deism >noun belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. Compare with theism.
-DERIVATIVES deist >noun deistic >
Thomas Jefferson professed belief in God and proclaimed himself to be a Christian, but belonged to a sect of Christianity in which he was the only member. You see, Jefferson believed in an historical Jesus, but not a divine one, going so far as to create his own version of the bible editing all of Jesus’ parlor tricks. It goes by the rather obvious title of the Jefferson Bible.
Nor did Ben Franklin believe in the divinity of Christ. In fact, for a time he fancied polytheism. Didn’t mention that in the Disney cartoon.
But it isn’t so simple. Despite the claims of many smart people religion is an aspect of American history. From Shenkman’s “I love Paul Revere, Whether He Rode or Not p.30
One finds that Delaware required public officeholders to believe in Christ, that Maryland extended religious freedom only to Christians, that Pennsylvania insisted officeholders believe in God and the hereafter, and that New Jersey, Georgia, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire limited public offices to Protestants…. New Hampshire, Maryland, and Massachusetts… levied taxes to support state churches…. Only Virginia, of all the states, firmly rejected the state support of religion, and Virginia only did so after a six-year campaign by Madison and Jefferson.
You know you want to say it with me: Yes Virginia, there is an Establishment Clause.
So I guess you could say that America does have a Christian history, but not necessarily in the way that either side presents it. Such it is with many things.
But then again, does tradition breed validity? I tend to think not. America also has a history of (other) irrational beliefs. Mrs. Lincoln was known to hold seances. Mrs. Reagan would schedule President Reagan’s meetings with the help of astrology. William McKinley was known to be quite superstitious. I believe the story goes that he wore a red carnation every day as a good luck charm, until that one fateful day in Buffalo, NY when he gave the flower to a young girl and was subsequently shot dead.
In God we trust.
It raises (but doesn’t beg) the question: is this God a trustworthy fellow? This omnipotent fellow who so boldly told Abraham to kill his son. To which Abraham replied, if memory serves, “man, you must be putting me on.” To which God said, “No.” Abe said, “what?” and so on…
I would certainly doubt the trustworthiness of Yahweh, if the bible is to be believed. I mean, c’mon, God kills several million people in that book. Satan kills maybe ten, and only after God gives the go ahead.
Plus, He is a known deceiver. Take, for instance 2 Thessalonians 2:11
And if a prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet.
Or Jeremiah 20:7
O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.
So I don’t know, he doesn’t seem like a trustworthy cat. But he is probably handy to have around if you need to kill a sea monster or Leviathan or something. (Psalm 74:13-14 ) (Isaiah 27:1 )
I present two sides to every story.
Fair and Balanced.
Outro
To make up for a lack of science in this issue, I offer up this link. It will direct you to an interesting piece on modern physics, written by my friend of eight years, cityofgates (p.s. not his real name).
