I'm not sure what the hang up is.
It seems a rug manufactured specifically for the Pinellas County sheriff's office lobby, in Florida, had "in dog we trust" woven into the design instead of "In God We Trust" as was ordered
Since "God" is an entirely fictional being fabricated for pre-Iron Age story-telling purposes, and a police dog is a truth teller and crime stopper of legendary proportions, I think the substitution in this case is entirely perfect.
Not that I know for sure , but God is not necessarily a "being". God is what you need Him to be for you to accept Him. God could just be camaraderie among your fellow man, or maybe that thrill you felt in person at Yellowstone. Maybe a thousand different things for a thousand different people. You don't need to take the Bible so literally.
ReplyDeleteI don't like to mock believers. I did when I was a know-it-all child. I've grown since then. Let the people have whatever God floats their boat.
I know one thing for sure; unless you accept that Man was created by God, you are in danger of another man determining what liberties you may have. Only if God is your Creator, your unalienable rights cannot be infringed by a mere man.
So just for the sake of your own liberty you should believe there is something greater than man. If you can believe that, call it God and be happy. If you can't manage that, well then can't you just pretend, for the rest of ours sake?
Neither morality nor liberty require God. Both are about compacts and covenants between people. The declaration of independence calls on a creator, but there is no such call in the U.S. Code of law, and all the God nonsense on the money, in the pledge of allegiance, and in our logos showed up inthe 1950s when we went through an anti-communist paroxysm driven by Joe McCarthy. Our founders were not Mystics, but Masons who embraced morality and science, not religion. That's why separation of church and state is so fundamental. But I am cool with whatever folks believe or don't believe. The story of Pinnochio is a good morality tale whether the wooden boy exists or not, same as the stories of Odin and Zeuss, the Buddha and George Washington Carver. We learn and teach through story. In the beginning,man created God in his own image, as a story and teaching tool, and he saw that it was good.
ReplyDeletePat you are leaving the Nature of Man out of the discussion. One thing you can count on is Man's weakness. Governments are only made of Men. Thus they are open to corruption. It is inevitable. This is why having our liberties come from something superior to Man is so important. And it makes me feel a whole lot safer knowing some Kim Jing Ubambodinijad Dictator can't execute me for thinking what I want.
ReplyDeleteBut to the point of your post, here's an update:
The misprinted rug was auctioned off and the proceeds went to a local non-profit that helps injured and abandoned animals. Very good. And in DOGS I do trust!
http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/2015/01/22/in-dog-we-trust-rug-sells-for-9k-at-florida-auction/22150335/