Saturday, April 21, 2012

The Pledge of Allegiance

Christian apologetics, for all its flaws, did give me an appreciation for believing things based on evidence and reason, not based on brain washing.  As a Christian after immersing myself in apologetics I found myself disturbed in church watching my kids sing "Jesus Loves Me."  Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  I saw them sing that and made clear to my wife I didn't like it and wanted to avoid that song.  Christianity is true and we know it for good reasons.  But a child doesn't know it.  And nobody should be believing it because the Bible says it.  That's not a good reason.  There are other good reasons (or so I thought at the time).

Since then I put my boy in Boy Scouts.  I know.  I'm a bad liberal sometimes.  My kids home school though and I want them plugged in to something.  My wife is still a Christian after all.  So we are in scouts.  But frankly I find the Pledge of Allegiance disturbing when stated by children in the same way I don't like the "Jesus Loves Me" song.  The Whitest Kids U Know has a skit that communicates the same thing.

1 comment:

Examinator said...

Dr. Samuel Johnson said it best "Patriotism is the last refuge of a Scoundrel"
In a wider context I interpret that he meant that if an argument can only be justified by 'Dogma' then it's nonsense and the proponent has only their own interests at heart.... not yours!
As a non-religious individual, as opposed to an anti-religious, I hold no dogmatic conception of Absolutes, be they deities or science.