There is a common prejudice among conservative Christians that morality is unthinkable outside their religious beliefs. They insist that atheists can't really be moral or can't have any reason to be moral without the Christian God. This often goes hand-in-hand with the assertion that a strong, prosperous America needs to be explicitly Christian in order to survive.

Tyler A Curtis (I assume that's the right name) writes about the Pledge of Allegiance:

After "under God" there is a comma. And then there is a one-word adjective that connects the thinking of the previous phrase. The word is "indivisible." Now I know that many atheists, with their relatively new theory that God is either dead or never existed at all, say they just want the religion taken out. But extracting the religion extracts the very principal of being unified, which is what the atheist seeks to do whether they admit it or not. Without God, The Pledge really doesn’t matter anyway because we will be divided.

Actually, people have been arguing that gods don't exist for longer than Christianity itself has existed, but I don't suppose we should let a little thing like facts get in the way of Curtis' tirade. Such an inability to acknowledge reality is, in fact, the most prominent characteristic of his entire post.

For example, his claim that the absence of the phase "under God" renders the Pledge of Allegiance meaningless ignores the fact that the phrase wasn't there for most of the Pledge's history. It is a recent addition that was put there for specifically religious reasons. And what, exactly, is it that "divides" people by not expecting them to say that the nation is "under God"? In reality it is the inclusion of the phrase that divides because it requires people to make a religious and theistic assertion they may not agree with. Conditioning a pledge of patriotism upon certain religious beliefs divides; not conditioning such a pledge on any religious beliefs does not divide.

Christianity is what America was founded on irrespective of ones choice to accept this fact or reject it. Everything we are as a society came from the principal of Christianity. Our laws are fundamental to God’s Word, no? Laws against stealing and murder and perjury. Where do you think those came from?

No, out laws are not fundamental to any god's words. Laws against murder and perjury can be found in every civilization, including those that never heard of Christianity. Modern laws about such things stem from common law which itself has roots that go back to before the Christianization of the British Isles. Yes, these laws match some Christian principles, but that doesn't mean that they are based upon Christianity.

There are many slow boats leaving the port this very moment; one of which can easily ferry you to China. Seriously, if you can’t live with the fact that the nation is under God, I encourage you to go to one that is not! You may find yourself much happier there.

Here we have the old "America: love it or leave it" canard, a right-wing fallacy that was popular during the Cold War and which continue to be trotted out by the ignorant and feeble-minded. It first ignores the possibility that one might want to change and improve America. It further makes the logical error of assuming exactly that which is at issue: whether America is "under God" or not.

Now, many Christians may sincerely believe that America has some special relationship with their god. If so, fine — I don't particularly care one way or another. I start caring, however, when they insist (like Tyler A. Curtis here) that the government of all Americans gives its endorsement to that particular belief. The American government is secular because it represents all parties — Christian and non-Christian, Christians who agree with Curtis and those who don't, theist and atheist.

Because of that, the government has no authority to take sides in religious disputes. It doesn’t have the authority to assert that any gods do or do not exist. It doesn't have the authority to assert that America does or does not have a special relationship with any god or gods. When we elect politicians, we elect them to be political representatives — not pastors or priests. Politicians in America are imbued with no religious authority whatsoever and, because of that, they had no authority to insert a religious declaration into the Pledge of Allegiance. If someone like Curtis wishes to add that phrase on their own when they say it, fine — I don't care. They must not, however, insist that the government endorse or promote this addition of theirs.

No one is advocating worshiping a state sanctioned holy cow, that’s absurd. But affirming that we are a Godly people, whatever that term "Godly" means to you, is what this country was founded on.

No, it's not. Try as hard as you might, you will find no such rationale for the creation of this nation either in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution. Here is what the Constitution does say:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Nothing there about "affirming that we are a Godly people."

If you truly believe that we are a chance happening with no founding principles, I must say I find you completely non-credible.

In other words, if you disagree with Tyler A Curtis, he won't even bother to give your views any serious consideration.

Moreover, the ungodly man has no predisposition within himself to do what is "good" or moral. Any morals or self-principles that you posses and that you think make you a "good person" you have obtained from God and, irrefutably, is traceable back to the Bible. To deny this is to now deny the only thing you have left, intellect. Taking the position this is incorrect is a simple matter of history and research.

Of course, it's easy to think that Tyler A. Curtis hasn't done a bit of research on this topic, otherwise he wouldn’t have come this conclusion. There are massive amounts of scholarship on ethics and morality that don't take his god into account — even a poor library would have examples of some of this. The existence of rules and morals in civilizations that pre-date or that developed without contact with Christianity would also be easy to learn about, should one pick up a history book. There is no evidence that morals require Curtis' god, but we must remember that facts and evidence don't meaning anything here.

It is also important to note that the Bible is much older than atheism!

What did I tell you? We can find arguments against the existence of gods dating back to the ancient Greek philosophers. It is likely that atheistic doubts and speculations occurred earlier. The Bible, however, is far more recent.

I do want the Pledge to be unreviewable. There should be no constitutional challenge to the Pledge. No court, state, federal or otherwise, should consider any matter of changing, altering or in any way reconstructing our Pledge of Allegiance.

Only those who are afraid of losing a challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance would insist that it be excluded from constitutional review. And what is Curtis afraid of? If he thought that the legal arguments were on his side, he would be willing to let a review occur — of course, if he thought he had any legal arguments on this side, he probably would have offered them. The fact that he didn't and instead chose to simply whine about how atheists can't be moral and that America is "really" founded upon Christianity (despite the lack of any evidence to support this) reveals a great deal about this person.

The above was just his second post to his journal — I think that maybe he should quit now while he is still ahead.

Read More:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Church and State News
• Pledge of Allegiance
• Secularism 101