Pledge of allegiance held not to be religious observance

[Francis Beckwith]

Steve:

I have not read the Court opinion, so I could be writing this from ignorance. But if the Court deemed the pledge not a "religious exercise," then the presence or absence of the term "under God" may not be relevant. For example, if the students were required (with exemptions) to stand up and recite the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, I think it is reasonable to say that it is not a religious exercise even though it claims that our rights are endowed to us by our creator.  This is because God could serve a philosophical, non-religious function, in one's comprehensive worldview.  For example, Aristotle's unmoved mover is not an object of religious devotion, but an entity postulated to explain universal motion. That does not preclude the unmoved mover from being an object of worship, which only means that "God" is much more rich in its philosophical uses if we don't think of the concept as permanently sequestered to the realm of the subjective and non-cogniti!
 ve.

Take care,
Frank
 
On Friday, August 19, 2005, at 09:32AM, Steven Jamar <sjamar at law.howard.edu> wrote:

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