The US has an identity crisis rooted in way too much religion
The Supreme Court has ruled many times in the spirit of "separation of church and state".
"Though not explicitly stated in the First Amendment, the clause is often interpreted to mean that the Constitution requires the separation of church and state." (Free Speech Center)
So, why in 1954 was Eisenhower allowed to add "under God" to the pledge of allegiance? Why were schools allowed to compel students to recite this IN SCHOOL, a public institution children are made, by law, to attend.
https://www.history.com/news/pledge-allegiance-under-god-schools
Then, there's our money:
https://study.com/learn/lesson/in-god-we-trust-history-purpose-money.html#:~:text=Originally%20used%20on%20coins%20during,nation%20is%20in%20God's%20hands.
Many times, I've heard pastors lament that the world would be so much better if we just brought prayers back to the school. My response?
Whose prayer should it be? From what I read, there are 5 major religions in the US and I assume many more.
Why involve school? Kids are free to pray at home, free to attend the community worship center of their choice.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...her religion historically is a religion of war. (Today, her culture is one of Colombia's so-called "cultures of resistance", where nonviolence is a lifestyle.)
Her ancestors fought the wars for America, and definitely attempted to impose their religious values on their neighbors.
You aren't missing any cows, are you?
"The devil makes me laugh" (History of Catholicism)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217619196
...it's silly for you to complain about me mentioning something that you yourself brought up.
Anyway, this is getting tedious.
Have a nice day.
The Amazon link to the book below has a "Look Inside" preview.
The preview goes to page 25, and includes the table of contents, the entire introduction, and the first few pages of chapter 1, and is well worth reading.
Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution: Reform, Revolution, and Royalism in the Northern Andes, 1780–1825 (Cambridge Latin American Studies, Series Number 102)
by Marcela Echeverri
https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Slave-Royalists-Age-Revolution/dp/1107084148
Here's a short excerpt from later in the book, with a summary of the history of my wife’s culture, about which there is very little information in English, so I was very happy when this book came out.
(pages 104 - 106)
snip-------
Slaves also sought freedom extra-legally, and flight was typical across the Pacific lowlands. Some escaped slaves traveled as far as the cities while others formed maroon communities, or palenques, along the margins of the mining region. The most important palenque that was formed within the jurisdiction of Popayán was located east of the Pacific mines, in the Patía River Valley. This palenque was significant because it evolved into a town that, as we shall see in later chapters, was central to the royalist defense of Popayán during the wars of independence. Runaways settled in a place called "El Castigo," taking advantage of the frontier area around the Patía River Valley north of Pasto and east of Barbacoas, which was not colonized by the Spanish until the 1720s. By then, when exploration of the area and land titling began to take place, the palenque was populated mostly by renegade whites and runaway slaves from the mines of Barbacoas and Iscuandé and from the haciendas in the Cauca River Valley. During this period Spanish colonial officials unsuccessfully attempted to conquer or destroy this palenque.
Yet, as occured in the neighboring palenques of Esmeraldes and Baudó, and in other runaway communities in colonial contexts, the inhabitants of El Castigo sought the presense of representatives of the church in their territory. Between 1731 and 1732, they sent three messengers to the city of Pasto to request that a Priest visit Nachao and Nalgua, two towns they had established, each of which had built a church within its boundries. This request exposed their strategy of aligning their community with the Catholic precepts that were central to social and political life in Popayán.
The Quito Audiencia tried to take advantage of the maroons' interest in the church, attempting to co-opt the palenque into establishing civil government in the area in exchange for a pardon from the state. The runaway community resisted the audencia's attempt to include them within its juristiction (reducción) but succeeded in securing a permanent priest for their settlement. Morover, the Popayán municipal council conceeded their right to name two people from the palenque to "administer justice in the name of His Magisty to all the individuals who currently are congregated in those towns," with the condition that they not admit any more runaways to the community, detaining the fugitives and informing the Popayán authorities to their presence. Thus, the maroons of Patía not only used religion for the purpose of community building; they also seem to have preferred to establish a relationship with the church rather than with the civil authorities.
In the Hispanic context, the crown promoted a corporate organization of society, and thus collective rights could be secured to a greater extent than individual rights. This constituted an incentive for enslaved and free blacks to link their legal strategies to the colonial corporate logic. Indeed, the politics of freedom and community building among free people of African descent pivoted around the struggle to gain recognition, aquire political rights, and overcome racist assumptions of the larger society. During the eighteenth century, those goals coincided with the crown's interest in integrating the maroons into society - to "reduce" the community of runaways to legitimate towns - by negociating and extending certain concessions in exchage for their professed loyalty. The integration of free blacks in to civil life reminds us that maroon communities were forged within the colonial would and not outside it.
In Popayán, free and enslaved blacks of Africal origin and descent upheld justice through their underlying pattern of engagement with imperial legal institutions. This was visible in instances when, as in Patía, maroons negociated their conditions of integration into colonial society. Yet legal freedom was not the only goal of the enslaved. As we will see next, in the Pacific mining region, garnering greater rights within the institution of slavery may have been their most realistic goal.
snip-------
...between the masters and the slaves.
A La Mina No Voy (2014) - Traditional Colombian Folksong
A portrait of Afro-Colombian life, 'A La Mina No Voy' (I am not going to the mine), is a Colombian folksong that was sung by slaves resisting work in the mines.
arrangement and violin, Aron Frank
voice, Teófilo Potes (Buenaventura, Colombia)
( voice taken from 'Afro-Hispanic Music from Western Colombia and Ecuador' // recorded and edited by Norman E. Whitten, Jr. // Folkway Records, Album No. FE4376, ©1967. )
_____________________________________________________
Manque (aunque) mi amo me mate/ Although my master would kill me
A la mina no voy/ I am not going to the mine
No quiero morir/ I don't want to die
De un canalón/ In the waterway (of gold placering)
A la mina no voy/ I am not going to the mine
Mi amo pegado, yo lo digo/ My master punishes, I say it
Con justícia y con grador/ With justice and with willingness
A la mina no voy/ I am not going to the mine
Que a lo' hombres no 'e venden/ Don't sell the men
Porque tienen corazón/ Because they have courage
A la mina no voy/ I am not going to the mine
Manque (aunque) mi amo me mate/ Although my master would kill me
A la mina no voy/ I am not going to the mine
On US bills a little bit of ink correctly changes the statement: In God We Rust!
Of course, not that I've ever altered a bill....
...before math exams and during school shootings.
...you're asking the wrong questions.
