I sometimes hear a few christians yap about how atheists shouldn't be allowed to celebrate christmas or easter, because they think they have some kind of copyright on those cultural phenomenons because it holds a different significance to them then it does to other people.

And now Zehn hints (in the "Gay marrige" thread) that marriges between atheists shouldn't really count, and neither should funerals of atheists.

I find this way of thinking to be very strange indeed.

Of course atheists, buddhists and christians value these holidays and ceremonies in different ways. But that doesn't mean that only the christians value them at all. And more importantly, why would it matter?

I think that the separation of church and state have worked great for america so far. Here in Sweden we just recently got rid of the state church, and good riddance to it! Faith and politics shouldn't mix.

Anyone here want a theocracy?
Anyone view Iran and pre-invasion Afghanistan as role model countries?
I hope not...

You're wasting your breath, Edeina.

Most of today's "christians" have little to no clue what their own religion is all about, being lost in neo-platonism as most are, so I severely doubt they lack the mental fortitude to ponder the concept of "religious" holidays for "non believers".

Now that should be enough gas to fuel this thread for the next oh, five pages.

A key point that may be overlooked would have to do with the United States history. Now many of the founding fathers of the country were from protestant England, and came over for whatever reasons. Even though we were *loosely* founded based on religious freedom and not wanting to pay taxes, we then in turn became a nation under God and pay shitloads of taxes by April 15th of every year. Now the irony is nothing new to us, especially nearly 250 years ago.

Now from analysing history itself, you find that what was said and done is looked on the appropriatness of what is correct for that time. To compare things they way they are now with the way they were then, and people as a whole and not select individuals... well quite frankly, that is a job for the tree-hugging sociologists who do nothing with their degrees.

The thing is, the nation isn't one under God, the Protestant God, it is the God, the god that one believes in, Allah, God the Father, Buddah, etc... At least that is how we interpret it today, seeing as we we tend to be such a politically correct society so much as that no one is offended and everyone has to be passive with accepting everything and not saying anything to the contrary.

Now I will agree with Kiv on the aspect that most Christians do not even have a clue what their own religion is all about... and that goes for both ends of the spectrum. See, on one hand you have the people who say they are Christian and go rape chicks and do heroine. Then you have the others that are so into God that they interpret the Bible into their own meaning and declare that as the word of God and try to be modern day prophets yet make fools of themselves, their god and condemn all those who don't follow their radical beliefs.

The term "One Nation Under God" itself is more of a traditional value than an absolutism. Over the years, the United States, as well as every other country has made many mistakes and hypocricies in their own right. The best thing to do is just move on and live your life as how it would make you happy and not to nit pick and every stupid little shit you can think of in a terrible effort of gaining more understanding and making an argument of essentially nothing.

Considering Christmas in particular has been over commercialized in the US until it barely resembles a religious holiday anymore, it's not surprising. These days its more of a cultural tradition than a religious one. Easter is slowly becoming that way too, though to a lesser extent.

Personally, I dislike anyone telling me what I can or can't celebrate. I am not a particularly religious person in the traditional sense. I do try to be ethical and tend to follow Christian morality in most things, but that is because I feel the central message is benificial and it's part of my heritage. It's not because I fear God or burning in hell when I die. I don't feel that disqualifies me from enjoying a holiday or two, and if so called true Christians have a beef with me spending Christmas with my family, they can just go sulk about it. I ain't gonna stop because it gets their underwear in a bunch.

When I celebrate Christmas, I do so more out of respect to many of the teachings of Christ rather than a blind faith that he is of divine nature. The man had some very admirable things to teach and is worthy of celebration for that fact alone. Never mind that he was likely born in the spring and not December. To me the date is not as important as what his teachings represent and what they accomplished.

I generally don't observe Easter. Since it occurs on a Sunday, no loss either way.

I have absolutely no interest in paganism, eastern religions, judaism or islam. You won't find me taking any of their holidays seriously, mainly because they are not part of my personal heritage. The only exception might be Halloween, which also has been over commercialized and bears little resemblance to the Samhain from which it sprang. Ah well, let's face it...Halloween is just plain fun.

My all time favorite is still the 4th of July. I just like to blow stuff up ..... must be a touch of pyromania in my psyche. Anyway, since it's not a religious holiday I should be safe from criticism by the religious folks for observing it.

Rofl where the hell did this crap come from? I've never heard one person even mention the thought that non believers shouldn't be able to celebrate christmas. You're a bunch of bigots.

To even suggest that there are people out there attempting to stop non believers from celebrating religious holidays is ignorant and moronic. On top of that you use the word "yap" as if they were somehow lower than you and therefore their speech is simply the noise of a dog.

Then you have Kivorn commenting about the ignorance of christians.... hello bigot.

I don't agree with everything Shew said, but hey... he made some valid points, must be drunk again.

I like to blow stuff up too.

Edeina, I think most Christians whom you hear saying something like the above would be considered wackjobs by 99% of the Christians out there.

As for Zehn, he was probably just trying to make some point by creating a greatly exaggerated example.

I've been told once that since I didn't attend "their" church, I wasn't a true Christian and had no right to "steal the celebration of Christ's birth". Needless to say the person was from a fringe cult...completely whacko to my mind. In general though, I 've never encountered problems with mainstream Christianity about Christmas.

I've had quite a number of fundamentalist Christians berate me for celebrating Halloween. Check the newspapers every year and you'll see what I mean.

No one seems to care about Easter/Passover. *shrug*

well quite frankly, that is a job for the tree-hugging sociologists who do nothing with their degrees.

On the contrary, I think it's very important for all of us to understand why this worked - to understand the importance of the separation of church and state, the importance of rule of law, and the importance of a judicial branch of government that is autonomous from the legislative/executive branches.

Rofl where the hell did this crap come from? I've never heard one person even mention the thought that non believers shouldn't be able to celebrate christmas.

Well then you're lucky. However, ya need to realize that some people really are that fanatic. I've heard it, and it really isn't that surprising.

To even suggest that there are people out there attempting to stop non believers from celebrating religious holidays is ignorant and moronic

Look into a subject before you start throwing insults, you were the ignorant one here.

Well I'm sure then that this phenomenon is well documented in the media. While I do not deny that I'm just as ignorant as the next person, I hope that I can learn something from your wealth of knowledge. Please enlighten me.

'well quite frankly, that is a job for the tree-hugging sociologists who do nothing with their degrees.'

- Hey! I resent that!
Or possibly thank you.

Funny thing... I'm trying to search for articles relating to this phenomenon and all I see are articles by christians questioning whether christians themselves should be celebrating these holidays, and articles by atheists questioning whether atheists should be celebrating these holidays, and articles by atheists whining about how these stupid christians (atheists are bigots I see) expect them to celebrate their stupid holidays. In all the internet, there must be some stray article out there dealing with this subject that has caused you all so much pain of christians attempting to deny you the basic human right to celebrate a religious holiday which you do not believe in. Surely there must.

You have a heck of a lot more ambition than I do.

My experience was with people who likely can barely write, let alone publish. We are talking honest to god snake handlers here. But I don't think there is any widespread movement by mainstream Christians to ban others from celebrating Christmas, at least in the US. Certainly the commercial establishment would take a very dim view of that. You might find some very disturbing publications on websites run by splinter sects though. I'm just too lazy to look.

You should have no difficulty finding material regarding Halloween though. Every year a hue and cry is raised about how it's devil worship and they aren't restricting their comments to the Christian community.

*edit* Forgot to ask if anyone else has seen the phenomena of "Hell Houses" run by churches during Halloween to compete with the traditional haunted houses? The ones where various horrible things are depicted happening to sinners. An interesting way to try and co-opt the holiday I think.

Heh,

Its kinda funny.. 99% of the arguements against religion address only the .01% of religious people that are fanatical.

WoooOOooOOoOoooo lets take a REALLY controversial stand..

Down With Cancer!
Im against Foul Odors!
Im not at all pleased with Hunger!

Religion is a baaaaadd thing because a very small minority have a wacked out viewpoint..
I guess that kinda fits the Liberal-Socialist mode though so I really shouldnt expect anything less.
OMG. SOMEBODY USED A SPORK IN A ROBBERY AND POKED SOMEONES EYE OUT!!!
Sporks are bad and Dangerous!
We must eliminate Sporks!
DRIVE THE SPORK MAKER OUT OF BUSINESS
Set up committees to keep you safe from Sporks!
Remember.. Its not the Spork Weilding Mad Mans (SWMM) fault.. hes a victim of his upbringing (make a note.... fix enviroment) ITS THE SPORKS FAULT.
See.. we in the government keep you safe, you arent capable of protecting yourself from Sporks and enviroments, so relax, send us more money, we know how to spend it better than you. You arent that smart, you cant even protect yourself from a spork!, so let us figure out how to spend your money.
Now just sit back and watch FOX.... Tomarrow.. back to work comrade.

In general I think that's true. But that .0001% can really give the rest a bad name. Look what ole Bin Laden did for the way the majority now look at Islam in the US.

The fanatics always make a stronger impression that the majority who are, well, fairly reasonable and tolerant.

I don't know how it is in Sweden. In the US, verbal attacks on Christmas celebrations are pretty rare. Attacks on Halloween are much more frequent, primarily because of it's non-Christian roots.

In all the internet, there must be some stray article out there dealing with this subject that has caused you all so much pain of christians attempting to deny you the basic human right to celebrate a religious holiday which you do not believe in. Surely there must.

Ah, the "If Google doesn't know about it, it must not exist" argument.

Ahhh... the old I have nothing intelligent to say and I can't prove my point so I'll just be an ass argument.

kettle - black

/giggle lleauaric

Is there someone somwhere who hold ALL religious people responsible for these few morons I'm talkning about? I sure hope not. And if there is, he's obviously a silly person.

Anyway.
Anyone who have any insight into how these people think?
I would like to hear about it!
Anyone care to even defend their point of view?
Could get interesting...

:b

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>And now Zehn hints (in the "Gay marrige" thread) that marriges between atheists shouldn't really count, and neither should funerals of atheists. <hr></blockquote>

Hi, you're an idiot.

Hi pot.

Post count + 1 night eh Winter? Don't try to flex your wit, you may hurt the gerbils.

Edeina... with all due respect... unless its a swedish thing... the number of people who believe that non-believers should be prohibited from celebrating religious holidays is so incredibly small that there is no point here. As Captain Obvious pointed out, a google search is not the end all of current philosophy, but if it were a prevalent opinion at all there would be some hack website or news article with the opinion somewhere. There's enough idiocy on all sides out there without inventing something like this.

The majority of christians take Easter and Christmas only half seriously, a large minority take them very seriously, and a small minority don't celebrate them at all. I've been surrounded by christians of many different types all my life and I've never heard anyone even suggest restricting non-believers from celebrating the holidays.

Take away One Nation Under God.
Take away God Bless America.
Take away prayer before congressional sessions.
Take away Christmas, or change it to X-mas.
Take away Easter.

... and you'll still live a 7 day work week, which acknowledges God's Creation.

... and you'll still be living in the year 2004, which acknowledges the birth of Jesus Christ.

All this is nothing new though, especially to the French. They already tried to "fix" this over 200 years ago and failed miserably.

Have a good day.

Edeina... with all due respect... unless its a swedish thing...

Yeah, get to hear them yapping in the local newspaper each and every christmas. Not that it matters. They obviously exist in the US as well, and it's obviously a very small fringe phenomenon in both countries.

the number of people who believe that non-believers should be prohibited from celebrating religious holidays is so incredibly small that there is no point here.

Nah.

IF my motive would have been to paint all of christianity in a bad light, then your argument here would force me to either take it all back or to be even more idiotic by ignoring the facts. However, that was never my point.

Like I said, I'm interested in how these people think. (Which is a valid question as long as they exist, no matter how few they are.) And it would have been interesting if someone would have taken their perspective. To play the devils advocate, if nothing else.

In the case of the nutso jumping on my case, I think he was blaming "non Christians" for perverting the holiday into a commercial exercise (not that he was that eloquent in the way he put it). It was kind of hard to tell what exactly his view of a Christian was. I could tell he did not consider roman catholics to be "true Christians" for example and I certainly did not qualify either in his view.

I've never heard anyone say anything about Easter. It doesn't push the hotbuttons that Christmas does in some people.

In many cases, this stuff probably originates from people attending some church that preaches strict Bible adherence.

It's quite interesting to hear the sermons. They all boil down to picking phrases here and there to prove a point. The end result is that these people often end up believing that if you don't completely agree with them, you're wrong.

Dinosaur bones were planted by atheist's as a conspiracy to undermine the foundation of christians who believe the earth is less that 3000 years old. P

Heh..
God is a crutch for losers and idiots!
I really hope thats sarcasm.. If you believe that it would really be sweet sweet irony

The meek shall inherit the earth?

the stupid shall inherit my foot in their ass

That's some pretty kinky shit there L2.

/agree Zehn

One side says unless you believe me you're wrong and the other side says unless you believe me you're wrong. Isn't that kind of how it boils down?

Yes.

Hi, you're an idiot.

Actually Zhen.. Just cause I'm bored...

Marriage Not counting:

Because if not for religious or benefits reasons, why get married? To the athiest, what benefit does marriage have? You have no religion in which you're affirming to God that you bind your soul to your wife. It becomes a meaningless ceremony that's an excuse to get drunk and spend money.

You want to have a ceremony? Fine. You want to have a party? Go for it. But you're not getting married, because soem form of god is not involved.

Funerals/death:

My point is Anterak, that without God or without some higher purpose...you're a nothing. You're just a part of ye olde circle of life. You're born, you maybe breed, you die. That's it. You're a sack of meat.

You didn't come out and say it like you did with marriage, but it definetly could be taken as a "hint", since we're just worthless sacks of meat. Worthless sacks of meat don't need funerals.

So I'm very curious how Edeina is an Idiot.

I don't believe you WW. You must be wrong. ;-)

I didn't say they don't count. I said they don't matter.

....huh? When used in that manner, matter and count are synonyms.

NEIN!

You can barely seriously talk about the seperation of politics and religion when your leader is closing every single speach with "God bless america", can you?
Think about it, in most countries and especially in the US, religion is a huge aspect in politics and its always being used in speaches and discussions, religion aspects.

Besides this, I agree with Edeina in mostly all being said.

I don't think you understand the separation of church and state nor the reasoning for a separate judicial brance of government.

By your reasoning, for instance, Roe vs. Wade could never have passed if a president who disliked abortion was in power.

I think it's a huge difference between going a bit of religious talk (god bless us, say a prayer, that kind of stuff) and basing actualt political decisions on religious doctrine.

Also, there's a huge difference between believeing in Jesus (or whatever) in general, and believeing that Jesus have a fixed set of values and opinions and dogmas that he want you to obey.

You have no clue as to what seperation of Church and State means do you?
Ok... time for another History lesson.

See back when America was just a colony the center of each community was.. can you guess? A CHURCH. It was where town councils meet, people congregated, socialized.. ect ect..
Now this was all hunky dory in the beginning.. most people were of the same background who lived together anyway.
However.. This started to be a Bad thing..
Some churches required people to attend church, at least once a year. One had to belong to the church to be a citizen of the community.
This brought about segregated communites and let people who werent in the Church have less rights than people who were. Such as voting or Property rights.

This is ALL the Founding Fathers had in mind with the seperation of Church and State.
THATS IT.
A President CAN be religious, he can say >gasp< God. We ARE a nation founded on Christian Principles and ideals.
Seperation of Church and State allows people to worship, or not worship as they please.. Thats IT. thats all.

The sad Irony is that a system set up to allow people to believe freely is trying to be corrupted and perverted into a system discouraging people from believing at all.

>>"Seperation of Church and State allows people to worship, or not worship as they please.. Thats IT. thats all."

Yep.
It should be ok for the president to be a Christian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Atheist or whatever. (In theory including Scientology and demon worship, but I count on people being sane enough to not vote for such a candidate.)

>>"The sad Irony is that a system set up to allow people to believe freely is trying to be corrupted and perverted into a system discouraging people from believing at all."

Ehr...?
Being a bit overly selective today, are we?

The real problem is that some people is trying to corrupt and pervert freedom of religion into meaning that everybody else should be free to follow them but not to criticise them. Some atheists are guilty of this. And so is some christians, some moslems, and so on.

Your ignorance is showing again Taino. You should come to America and campaign for John Kerry. You share the opinion of a lot of liberal Americans that any mention of God should be banned as a violation of church and state.

Lleauaric, most of the original colonies actually had laws on the books preventing any clergy from holding public office (I think those laws still exist). They did that because a major reason for the pilgrims coming here in the first place was to escape the theocracy type environment of England.

Certainly, separation of church and state is intended to work both ways.

I think seperation of church and state sort of wafts in and out with the presidency's in a minor way, but surely it is becomming more distinct (i dunno about that talk they had before about putting in god we trust on public school buildings tho) a majority of americans are christian, and when they elect a leader, they probably want to be able to identify with them, and want to share values sort of. conservatives especially tend to be more christian (im sure we all know).
We supposedly started out with a seperation, but when a culture is sooo predominantly christian, its kind of difficult to avoid integrating it into our government and laws and life in general. It just got integrated into things. im sure just like when someone is in supreme court or court, they have people take an oath. Seems more like an insubstantial tradition that doesnt really prove anything, but makes people feel better or something.
these days there are a lot more ethnic backgrounds here, more holidays being introduced and observed (in my student planner we have dates set for Tu B'Shvat? and Kwanza and all this stuff) Special functions held by different religeous groups. its fun to celebrate different festivities from different religions, and christmas seems to be one of the oldest traditions in america. Its just what we are the most exposed to, and yea its fun =p Even if it means giving gifts and stuff to some people, probably some christians quietly resent that we are not honoring jesus christ like we "should be" (my step grandparents -_-), and a small percentage of extremists, which is also think might be becomming a smaller percentage every year, express this to everyone. In general tho i think most christians and other major religeons in the US are more socially accepting these days versus like 150 years ago.

Im not even going to attempt to get into this one anymore :p I very well could be wrong in some of my assumptions. everyone's view points are very interesting and hold a lot of validity (well most)

last time i tried to plant dinosaur bones to trick the christians, i grew a t-rex.. it was very difficult to explain to the authorities, so i sold it to the dudes that made jurassic park -_-

We (as Christian) actually stole these holidays from the pagans. The tree and the bunny both were implemented to a Christian holiday to aid in the recruitment process to Christianity.

Respect all and Fear none!

I sometimes hear a few christians yap about how atheists shouldn't be allowed to celebrate christmas or easter, because they think they have some kind of copyright on those cultural phenomenons because it holds a different significance to them then it does to other people.



Cultural Phenom?

HEH,it's Jesus's birthday.

As far as not ALLOWING you to celebrate it,/shrug I dun care at all,but what are you celebrating?

As far as Easter,eat all the candy eggs you can stand,but again i have to ask,what is the motivation?


This is purely out of curiosity btw,not meant to be a flame.

>>"HEH,it's Jesus's birthday."

Is it?
There's no indication in the Bible about what time of year Jesus was born. Christmas, whatever it was called back then, was a important festival in Rome. The early catholic church simply decided to claim that Jesus was born that day and that it was the "real" reason for the festival. Great way to recruit people.

Quit celebrating my holiday you heathens!!!

/shakes fist

Is it?
There's no indication in the Bible about what time of year Jesus was born. Christmas, whatever it was called back then, was a important festival in Rome. The early catholic church simply decided to claim that Jesus was born that day and that it was the "real" reason for the festival. Great way to recruit people.


I know you like argue this subject Edina,but I'm not here to defend my religion or explain why my religion is the way it is.I just simply asked "what are you celebrating"?

I'm not bashing you for celebrating it,nor do even care that you do.

Out of pure curiosity,I just wanted to know when you wake up on Dec25th and you get presents,do you guys go,"HAPPY Roman festival day",or what?

Easter too.


Please,I am really not looking for a war with you i promise.

I know you're very passionate on this subject,i just have a thirst for knowledge. :)

Christmas is christmas.
Nice traditions are their own excuse.

And I bet you reason the same way, if you think about it.
Do you celebrate birthdays?
I assume you do.
Do you believe in astrology?
I might be wrong, but I assume you don't.
So why do you uphold the astrological tradition of celebrating birthdays?

Maybe because he never knew it was an astrological decision..... or his female significant other said "get me presents, dammit."

Happy Santa Claus Day, everyone. That make you happier?

However.. This started to be a Bad thing..
Some churches required people to attend church, at least once a year. One had to belong to the church to be a citizen of the community.
Here's an example of what L2 mentions above. The "Dade Code" was written in London by Anglican bishops but was a part of the Virginia statutes during the colonial era.

The code provided the death penalty for anyone who "spoke impiously of the Trinity or one of the divine persons, or against the known articles of Christian faith." The same went for "blaspheming God's holy name." If you were new in town you had to report to the nearest Anglican priest who would put questions to you to see if you were holy enough to stay. Arguing with a clergyman could get you jail time. If you missed church without good reason on three occasions, the death penalty could be imposed. It excluded all other religions from the colony. Every person over 16 had to supply the ministers with an annual donation of ten pounds of tobacco and one bushel of corn. When the price of tobacco waned, an additional assessment was imposed: the "20th calfe, the 20th kidd of goates, and the 20th pigge."
[from John P. M. Murphy]

Those who fought agains this law included Methodists, Presbyterians, freethinkers and Baptists, who all sought to disable the grasp the Church of England had over them. Laws such as this provided significant impetus for including separation of church and state in our Constitution.

Oster is easter in german, derived from Ostara in old norse who is the goddess of spring :p it is possible that maybe this is the true meaning of easter, and the christians adopted it as when jesus died? i could be wrong its just a speculation.

You're correct, Sunahm. The name appears as Eastre, Oestre and Ostara and was a Celtic (and evidently the Norse, too!) goddess of springtime and fertility. Its quite ancient, possibly originating as Astarte (aka, Ishtar, Demeter and others). The name survives as Easter.

Edeina...

It wasnt the Church that incorperated the and melded the Holidays..

It was The Roman Emperor when he made Christianity the official religion of the Empire. It was a political compromise designed to facilitate a smooth transition.
"Ok... We are still having the big Year end Festival in December.. but its no longer the Festival of Jupiter-Ra, its now the Festival of Christ.."
And you know people.. a Party is a Party.

But its tradition, and it doesnt hurt anyone.

Is Edeina still arguing with this fictitious person who doesnt want to allow her to celebrate christmas?

We did have a post in 2002, I think, where someone argued that non-Christians shouldn't celebrate Christmas. I guess there's at least one out there...

The death and ressurection of Christ I think was originally celebreated during the passover until roughly 600 years later when it began to coincide with a pagan holiday.

Comes down to which camp you're in. If you're Christian the explanation for today's name for the holiday comes from the Christian desire to make conversion as easy as possible. If you're pagan we raped their holiday for the ressurection story.

i agree with lleauaric, as far as people are concerned a party is a party :p if everyone is already celebrating something on some day, hell why not make it a celebration for something else haha. when the roman empire was spreading in europe they did seem to take many traditions from other cultures and make them their own... and they liked to party too! (eat a lot and celebrate at least :p )
and i also agree with zhen that it probably made conversion a bit easier. maybe when the romans were going and converting poeple in europe (many were reluctant to be converted and were kind of forced) they still wanted to celebrate the same days as before (or something?) and they just kind of mixed the two.
i dont know where im going with this. hah.

i dont know where im going with this

Unlike others on this board, at least you admit it.

Do you celebrate birthdays?
I assume you do.
Do you believe in astrology?
I might be wrong, but I assume you don't.
So why do you uphold the astrological tradition of celebrating birthdays?

Apples and Oranges

This sorta goes back to Taino's comment..

Religion in america is wierd,
Yes Bush is religious (or at least claims to be), but Winterwong is right too, Roe vs Waid would never have survived if America were a religous government.

Take the American Dollar bill for instance. A total paradox.

On the back in the center it prominently states

In God We Trust

to the left of that it states in Latin

Novus Ordo Seclorum

Which translated means

New Secular Order


That contradiction is what makes America, America. We put our faith in god as individuals. But as a nation, religion does not decide our politics.

--Namie Amuro

PS, hope to see ya'll at the FanFaire in Vegas

Novus Ordo Seclorum
Which translated means
New Secular Order

Wrong.

It means:
"A new order of the ages (is born)"

And right above that, we have Annuit Coeptus, which means:
"God has favored our understakings."

During the 1950's the federal government's references to God multiplied:

The phrase "under God" was added to the otherwise secular Pledge of Allegiance.
"So help me God" was added as a suffix to the oaths of office for federal justices and judges.
American paper currency since 1957 has included the motto "In God We Trust."

Actually it says

Annuit Coeptis,

And it's correct translation is

Providence Has Favored Our Undertakings


The word providence has more then one meaning

--Namie Amuro

I suppose the Architect of the Capitol (http://www.aoc.gov/cc/cc_quotations.htm), the Treasury Department (http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/portraits.html#q3), and the US Department of Justice (http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/ls/dojseal.htm) are all wrong?

All refer to "He" (or His Providence), for bringing about many instances of divine providence in the creation of this country.

At least you now admit there's no contradiction there, in support of some seperation of church and state crap.