A Paper Written by Our Very Own Miriam Brooks (8th Grade)

Call to Action

In our American culture today people have many different views towards religion. As our country becomes less religious, people are fighting to get references towards God removed from our lives. The motto “In God we Trust” on our currency, and “One Nation under God” in our pledge are now seen as phrases for a strictly Christian nation. Many say that our country was never meant to be a country with a specific faith. When our country was founded, seven of the fifteen groups coming from Europe settled here for religious freedoms. People who no longer believe that there is a God are arguing that He should not be used as a part of our government.

         

          As many people are saying that these key phrases in our society should be removed, there are just as many, if not more, people saying we should keep them. In 2009 the Atheist Bus Campaign was an issue across Britain, 800 buses across the state bore a sign with this slogan, “There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Although this was a relief to the non-religious in the area, it was an appalling sight to the many Christians.

          The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) in 2008 identified that the Catholic religion has the greatest population. It also stated that non-religious groups were the fastest growing ‘religious’ groups in the U.S. As Atheists now make up 15% of our nation, up from the 8.2% in 1990, the question of God being removed from America is being tested. People who believe that God should be taken out of our lives as American citizens are finding more reasons to present to the government.

The 75% of Christians in our nation are also finding reasons to deny that the U.S. wasn’t founded as a nation with a God. They are bringing up more documents written by our founding fathers that state our creator as God the Father. Many documents, including the Declaration of Independence, relate to God being the supreme authority in our nation.

Why would someone want to live a life with out God? Our country was never created with one religion, many different religious groups were the founders of our nation, but every one of them believed in God. Although they had different views of Him, he was still in their day to day lives.  I believe that if people incorporated God more fully into their talk and actions, non-religious members of our community would give religion more thought. Instead of taking references of God out of our country we should be pushing to have them placed in our entire world.

Today God is the person we can always turn to for the things we need. The mottoes “In God we Trust” and “One Nation under God” are references to the authority in our lives. Non- religious groups in our country just need the help to uncover the truth about God. We should give people the chance to see that even if they do not believe in God, He should not be taken out of our lives.