{"id":169,"date":"2015-11-18T11:58:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T16:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.wpengine.com\/?p=169"},"modified":"2015-12-03T15:24:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T20:24:58","slug":"the-hyde-side-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=169","title":{"rendered":"The Hyde Side…"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Same Hyde<\/strong>
\nThe Profile
\nMason HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 3, News Writing
\nBylined Opinion Article<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chances are, you have been\u00a0lying lately.<\/p>\n

Yes, you have probably been\u00a0lying to yourself, your first hour\u00a0classroom, and the very nation\u00a0which you stand upon every\u00a0single morning at about\u00a07:41am.<\/p>\n

For the past couple\u00a0of years, like zombies,\u00a0we have recited the\u00a0same 31 words with\u00a0our hands over our\u00a0hearts and our eyes facing the flag.<\/p>\n

We recite, \u201c\u2026and to the Republic for which it\u00a0stands, one nation, under God\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Uh oh.<\/p>\n

Okay, maybe I falsely accused you. My mom\u00a0says I jump to conclusions too much. I realize that\u00a0not everybody participates in the daily Pledge\u00a0of Allegiance, but it seems strange that a free\u00a0nation is almost subliminally being told to accept\u00a0certain beliefs with open arms. A simple question\u00a0that needs to be asked is this: is our nation really\u00a0founded \u201cunder God\u201d?<\/p>\n

First, note that the original Pledge of Allegiance\u00a0written in 1892 did not include the phrase\u00a0\u201cunder God.\u201d It was actually added by President\u00a0Eisenhower 60 years ago during the Cold War.\u00a0Congress agreed with the President\u2019s idea that\u00a0America needed to separate itself from the\u00a0terrible, atheistic Soviet Union, and apparently\u00a0adding those two words to the Pledge was the best\u00a0way to do so.<\/p>\n

But with evidence for scientific theories such\u00a0as evolution becoming more prevalent everyday,\u00a0it does not hurt to question if America really is a\u00a0nation under God. Obviously, our nation is full\u00a0of religious diversity, and not all of these religions\u00a0include a \u2018god\u2019 of any sort.<\/p>\n

The United States of America is home to a vast\u00a0amount of secular people who are still outstanding\u00a0American\u2019s. Not every atheist in America is\u00a0burning down buildings, conspiring hate crimes,\u00a0or supporting communism.<\/p>\n

Did America\u2019s founders really intend to build a\u00a0religious nation with religion at it\u2019s core? The truth\u00a0is, we were absolutely not founded \u201cunder God,\u201dor\u00a0under any religion for that matter.<\/p>\n

In fact, the founders went out of their way to\u00a0make it obvious that our national government\u00a0should be neutral regarding religion in order to\u00a0protect religious liberty for all. It is a complete\u00a0lie to pledge that our entire country is a nation\u00a0\u201cunder god\u201d, but it is beautiful that we can still live\u00a0in ultimate, indivisible togetherness.<\/p>\n

Excuse my \u201cHigh School Musical\u201d reference,\u00a0but \u2018we\u2019re all in this together\u2019, whether you believe\u00a0in God, several gods, no god, aliens, or even that\u00a0Tupac is still alive.<\/p>\n

Please, try not to be salty with me if you\u00a0are religious and believe in a god. Instead, be\u00a0grateful that we live in a beloved country that isn\u2019t\u00a0indebted with civil wars over religious variations\u00a0and disagreements like most countries across the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

So go find the nearest atheist and give them\u00a0a warm hug. Embrace the fact that we are\u00a0individuals with our own individual beliefs, living\u00a0in one, united country.<\/p>\n

God (or not) bless America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Same Hyde The Profile Mason HS 1st Place Division 3, News Writing Bylined Opinion Article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54,4],"tags":[48,22],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-bylinedopinionarticle","category-nw","tag-48","tag-division3","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kelsey Parkinson","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=3"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-2J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}