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Health & Fitness

A Kid's View: Trusting in God?

I don't really think that God is above me... and I don't think that those words should be in the Pledge of Allegiance

My interest in politics has never been foreign policy or health care, but basic human rights. Even though our Bill of Rights contains some of the most important laws in our society, they can be very controversial. The first one that comes to mind is the right to bear arms. People will fight down to every word to clarify its meaning. 

Did James Madison write the second amendment because he thought it was the only way to ensure that a militia was available? Or did he actually believe that anyone should be able to own a gun?

These arguments interest me quite a lot, but the first amendment is what really gets my attention. The amendment clearly states that everyone has a right to practice any religion, or none at all. There are two subtle pro-religion occurrences in our daily lives that have often annoyed me.

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The first is the fact that every coin in America has the words "In God we trust" on it. However, there are plenty of atheists in America who use these coins. But atheists definitely don't trust God. And I'm sure there are plenty of believers who appreciate the separation of church and state.

There is also the pledge of allegiance. In the pledge of allegiance the words "one nation, under God" clearly state that America is under God and God therefore exists.

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From kindergarten to fifth grade I had to recite the pledge of allegiance every morning. It was probably around second grade when I started to wonder why I was saying that God existed when I didn't believe that was true. Soon, I learned that we live in a country where religion has always been important to a vast majority of people.

Fast forward to fifth grade and I began to mouth "under God" because I really didn't believe it was true. So this year, while reading Time magazine, I came across an article on the We The People petitioning system. Using it, anyone can submit a petition and people can electronically sign it. If it reaches 100,000 "signatures," it receives an official response from the Obama administration.

After making sure that a petition for the same thing hadn't been written, I typed up a petition to remove the words "under God" from our Pledge of Allegiance. This would restore its wording before "under God" was added in 1954. For those of you who are interested, the petition is here. Also, if you want this petition to get a response, please spread it around. The more people who sign it the better.

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