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Using God's Money
by Dr. David Eller
| After the recent court decision regarding "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, some people have detected an atheist agenda to rid religion from the public arena. One of many places they focus is on American money, which also bears a religious inscription, "In God We Trust"-but has only done so since the 1950s. They go as far as to argue that atheists, freethinkers, and church/state separationists are self-contradictory because we use this money. No one forces you to use God-dedicated currency, they state. |
Well, yes they do. There is no other currency that the government or the economy accepts besides this currency. I tried printing up my own bills without the God language on them, but no business would take them, and the Treasury Department was not very amused by the effort. In fact, I even put my own picture on the bills to indicate their origin, but alas, no one seemed interested. |
Of course I am kidding. But the real point is that it does not matter whether or not secularists handle and exchange paper with "God" written on it. Christians might want to note that the money also has ancient Egyptian, ancient Roman, and Masonic symbols or writing on it. Does that make them Egyptians, Romans, or Masons? Even more, although the bills do mention God, they do not specify which god they mean-maybe it is Allah, or Vishnu, or Odin. |
But even that is not the real point. The real point is that culture is a mish-mash of different historical and religious influences, none of which prove devotion to, let alone truth of, any particular belief. The word "Thursday," for instance, is named after the Norse god Thor, and "Saturday" comes from Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture. Even the Christian sabbath "Sunday" derives from the Sun god who was first worshipped on that day, which day was only subsequently appropriated by Christians since people were already observing a holiday then. Are Christians, by honoring Sunday, showing their pagan convictions? |
It gets much worse. There is no biblical foundation for celebrating December 25 as Jesus' birthday. However, that date was widely acknowledged as the birthday of rival god Mithra. So perhaps when Christians go to church on Christmas day, they are really demonstrating their latent Mithraism. |
Our very language is strewn with words and concepts borrowed from other cultures and religions. "Fury" and "muse" and "fate" all come from ancient Greek mythology and originally referred to spirit beings or goddesses. No one forces Christians to use these words, but if they do, I guess that would make them de facto ancient Greeks. All of us say things like "holy cow" without believing that bovines are actually divine. |
People easily forget the sources of their own language and customs, and they also opportunistically remember them when it is in their advantage. But if Christians seriously want to press the argument that freethinkers are closet Christians when they use American money, perhaps they should also face the fact that they themselves are closet Norse on Thursday, closet Romans on Saturday, closet sun-worshippers on Sunday, and closet Greeks every time they get "furious" with church/state separationists. Or perhaps they might want to drop that particular attack altogether and try another that is not so patently ridiculous. |
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