Rep. Jones declines to lead House in pledge; GOP leader calls for resignation

[ShazzieB]

35. I like that a lot, and I'm not even an atheist!

You don't have to be an atheist to be able to see that phrase as 1) divisive, and 2) inconsistent with one of the founding principles of this country (the separation of church and state). I think I'll say the pledge that way from now on.

That "under God" business was a late add on, anyway:

On June 14, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill to insert the phrase “under God” into the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance that children recited every morning in school. Previously, the pledge—originally written in 1892—had contained no reference to religion.

The push to add “under God” to the pledge gained momentum during the second Red Scare, a period when U.S. politicians were keen to assert the moral superiority of U.S. capitalism over Soviet communism, which many conservatives regarded as “godless.”

And everything else aside, the way the pledge has become a quasi-sacred shibboleth in this country is ludicrous, especially when you know the whole story behind its creation and adoption: https://www.history.com/news/pledge-allegiance-under-god-schools